Gillian’s blog

It appears, yet again, that I’m not the best at updating up blogs. Heh, with the amount of time (probably unhealthily) I spend in front of a computer, I find I’m usually passively consuming- reading and watching, rather than interacting. Would like to fix that, but the fact is, the internet is actually a great place to procrastinate and avoid any kind of interaction or productivity. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try though. Hence this post.

When I was at university, I’d rarely go to the movie theatre, but since I’ve been home, I’ve managed to see Star Trek, Angels and Demons, Terminator: Salvation, and just last night, I saw Public Enemies. Looking at that list, a common thread that I noticed after watching them was that none of the four had a female role who was billed as ‘a lead’ in the film. The closest might be Zoe Saldana, in Star Trek, but even then, I’d argue that she’s billed below Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto. But I actually don’t want to focus on those movies’ lack of female leads in this post, or even the fact that these female roles were all supporting the male leads. Why not? It’s because it’s easy to get caught up in specifics (and make it easier for detractors to focus on specifics to argue against) and ignore the overall picture.

Ask for a certain type of female protagonist, discuss inequalities, gripe about the proliferation of poorly developed female characters, and in a flash, comments will pour in with a myriad of political catchwords like: feminist agenda, feminist rants, equality of the sexes, affirmative action, sexist conspiracy, and political correctness. These will be joined by painfully inaccurate sentiments that equate a desire for female success with wanting “every unfulfilled desire,” Hollywood bending to charity and catering to specific audiences, wanting to exclude men from film, a lack of acceptance at the equality already reached, and of course, that including strong female protagonists is somehow sacrificing or tainting good work.

This Cinematical article “Girls on Film: A Desire for Varied Female Protagonists is Not a Political Agenda” is a sometimes accurate summation of my feelings towards the majority of films and television shows that I watch. I love watching movies. I love watching televisions shows perhaps even more. That doesn’t mean that I can’t critique it, or ask for better representation. Take ‘female’, and replace it with ‘Asian’, ‘Black’, other minorities or ‘people with disabilities’ and it’s the same message. It’s not a feminist agenda, it’s simply a human desire to see ourselves reflected on the screen. And a desire not to see ourselves in the same, tired roles that don’t accurately reflect our own reality (or even our fantasy). So why is it met with such outcry when we raise these critiques?

It’s no different than minorities wanting to see positive representations of themselves in the media that surrounds them, but this isn’t about simply about equality — it’s also about preferences and desires for originality. Why is an inclination for great female protagonists any different than a desire for Hollywood to stop the neverending remakes, musical adaptations, or re-imaginings? How is hoping for Pixar to create a spunky girl lead any different than a fan wanting sequels of their favorite franchises, or a certain director to tackle a certain topic, or a specific actor to be cast in a specific role? Why is griping about the upteenth stripper movie any different than a rant about another tired cliche?

It’s not different, is what we’re trying to say. And people should stop treating it as if it is.

I was trying to convey this idea to a friend when we started discussing The Last Airbender, and the controversy over casting white actors instead of Asian ones. My friend didn’t see it as a big deal because the film is set in a fantasy world with Asian influences, but not specifically coded directly as Asian. The fact that Asians usually don’t find themselves in main roles in Hollywood movies, and that this might have been a chance to change that didn’t seem to register with them. As it doesn’t for a lot of people.

The problem of Avatar casting: can you spot it?

But maybe if people continue bringing it up, and not let it be defined as something that’s only for ‘feminists’ or for people who belong to a certain ethnic group… and it has the same legitimacy as a critique like the ‘originality argument’ does… maybe then we’ll finally get the same spectrum as we see in our own lives, whether it’s in our own world, or one of fantasy.

(Interested in learning more about the Airbender controversy? I recommend checking out www.racebending.com

This past weekend I’ve been working on getting my “professsional website” ready. The quotations are there for two reasons, one is because while it’s becoming normal practice, it still seems slightly egotistical to me to have a whole website with my name in the url (weird hang-up, I know) and two, because I don’t know what else to call it. This site uniqueghost.com, is really just a place for me to ramble on about various things that catch my interest, but this new website I’ve been putting together is something different altogether. I want it to be a showcase for my work, a place to direct potential employers or others who might be interested in my work. It’s the 21st century version of the journalism student’s carefully put together portfolio of clips. My business card, I guess.

—-> www.gilliancarr.com

And it’s a way for me to finally put a label on the kind of journalism I want to be doing. While making the site, I hesitated on what tag to put underneath my name. Plain ‘journalist’?  ‘Freelance journalist’? No, still didn’t feel quite right. But finally I went with ‘multimedia journalist’. Because it’s what I am, in the work that I’ve done in the past, in what I’ve doing now, and what kind of journalism I want to be doing in the future*. I’ll admit it - it’s a bit scary to put up there, right under my name, no longer able to hide behind the journalism student tag, but it’s pretty damn exciting too. Now I have to just have to screw my courage to the sticking place and send out those pitches I’ve been working on, and linking my shiny new website at the bottom of my signature.

It’s not completely finished, but sketched out enough that I feel comfortable enough posting the link and encouraging people to check it out. Let me know if you spot any spelling errors/broken links/broken code. And I’d love to hear comments on it - for functionability, easiness of navigation, etc… And hopefully I’ll have more to add to it soon!

I should also give credit to the Columbia journalism students at NYC24.org, as their site and their own individual linked websites gave me inspiration for design and convinced me that multimedia journalist is the right label to use. And by the way - if you’re looking for inspiration in regards to new media, the above link is a good place to check out. And for individual websites of recent graduates - I particularly liked chriskieffer.net, marielsykesclark.com and kenandavis.com. But I want to say - I had picked the Clean wordpress design for my site before I even visited the Columbia site, and the similarities between mine and Heather Grossman’s site are just that - coincidences and using the same base template.

*In a way, I’m still not choosing, as multimedia encompasses pretty much every traditional media and then some, and crunches and smushes it together to make something new. But that’s fine with me, as I really don’t have a preference and it does seems to be the way everything is moving anyway.

Liveblogging the Bachelorette Episode 2. Commentary aided by my 16 year old sister.

So, I’ve never had any inclination to watch the Bachelor. But somehow when summer rolls around, I always find time to watch 25 eligible bachelors compete for one lucky (or unlucky) lady. I could claim it’s a feminist statement, and I’m sure I could come up with 10 good reasons why the Bachelorette is a feminist show (and someone else could come up with 10 reasons why it’s not, but that’s the internet for you) but really, I’ll be honest and admit that I’m watching it for the mindless entertainment, shirtless guys and ideas about how not to find love on reality tv.

Previously on the Bachelorette: Trista and Ryan - The only couple still together from the 10 seasons of Bachelor/Bachelorette. Meredith and Ian - (*dreamy sigh*, Brazilian Ian), Deanna and Jesse – Eh. Not a fan of that season.

This season: Jillian! From Vancouver! Who is feisty! And spontaneous! And loves all things country!

(This time around there’s also that weird element of hearing my name on a reality show, mentioned about a million times an episode. Nice to know that all the guys want me Jillian. )
So, there’s really only three things you need to know about the Bachelorette to enjoy it:

1) It’s 50% part male-fantasy about finding the girl of their dreams, impressing her and knocking out all the other competition. Basically: caveman philosophy, and enjoying the Bachelorette in sexy situations that would figure into most guys’ wet dreams.

2) It’s 50% female-gaze centric: Lingering shots on the guys’ abs and shoulders, tearful declarations of love and mentions of finding soulmates, and the lengths a guy will go to prove he loves you. I am a big fan of this half.

3) 100% all around cheese
Once you’re okay with all that? You’re good to go.
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I’ve had this blog up and running since May 16. In the subsequent four days, I haven’t posted any new material in it yet.

In my head I have excuses - “oh, I’ve been figuring out my summer job situation, figuring out how this student loan application works, running errands for Mom, playing chauffer for my sixteen-year-old sister, catching up on my favourite television shows, and all the guilty-pleasure summer shows (very important, you have no idea).”

It’s not for lack of ideas either, on what to write (I have about ten potential ideas I want to write on) If I’m going to be honest - I just haven’t been able to sit down and concentrate long enough to write one.

Which is why this nymag.com article that I found tonight “In Defense of Distraction” is a very appropriate way to start off this blog.

It talks about the problems we humans have concentrating on tasks that require our attention for longer than a blink. In a world of Twitter, Youtube, wikipedia, blackberrys, and the 24 hour news cycle, it’s posits that its getting harder and harder for us to manage our time productively. “The poverty of attention” and how multitasking is really more of a myth than anything… it’s really quite a fascinating article if you can spare the ten minutes and eight page clicks it takes to read it.

I can relate to this problem of concentration, although like the author of the article, I don’t feel like it’s going to spell the end of humanity as we know it. Maybe we are losing something unique in experiencing life in the fast-paced, on-to-something-new every few seconds fashion… I can definitely see that happening with a lot of people. Too busy (or lazy!) to stop and smell the roses and all that. But I think we’ll adapt in the process, although perhaps losing a few cultural traditions as we go. I’m part of the first generation brought up on the internet (although I’m at the early-adopters end). What are we going to do with the wealth of information at our fingertips?

Who the hell knows- but I doubt we’ll bring civilization crashing to the ground from our lack of concentration.*

(Besides, I was always crap at meditation when I tried it as a kid. Too many exciting things to think about.)

* Unless you happen to carry around a briefcase fulls of launchcodes on a regular basis and one day lose track of it because you were too busy texting your friend about whether they had seen the video of Susan Boyle on Youtube. In which case - thanks a lot.

What I did to distract myself while writing this post:
- checked my email. 3 times.
- resized five photos in Photoshop.
- checked out three links on that nymag.com page.
- paged through my student loan application.
- watched one Supernatural fanvideo
- checked twitter
- looked up ethnic conflict articles on Google Scholar before remembering I have all next year to get into that
- checked out Cornell University’s vet school program (no, I don’t even know- it was some link)
- pet my dog
- contemplated going to masters swimming tonight, before deciding I was too tired and wanted to finish this post
- checked my google reader
- counted how many tabs I have open in Firefox (8, at the moment)

This morning I was looking through photos from my trip to NYC in  December, and I realized that last night was Spring Awakening’s closing night on Broadway. And I can’t but think that with the show closing, it’s signaling the end of an era for Broadway. An end that started with Rent closing last September. An era of musicals that inspired passionate, (and maybe you could call it fanatical)  fan devotion, where something in the play resonates with its audience so much so that people will go see it a hundred times.  It seems like there aren’t many musicals like that left.

I don’t think Spring Awakening ever hit the same pinnacle as Rent or captured the same zeitgeist of an era, but it did seem to be a musical that inspired a similar emotions and connection to the material, especially with younger Broadway-goers. From what I’ve seen on musical forums, and just from seeing the show in New York, I don’t know… I think it’s one of those plays that comes along only every once in a while. Rock and roll, teen angst and sexuality, controversial subjects dealt with in an honest and heartbreaking way, with a beautiful score and a talented young cast. It’s too bad that it’s closing already.

My own love of musicals is the conventional one of growing up in a small town -  Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, isn’t exactly a hotbed of musical theatre action, unless you count Anne of Green Gables: The Musical, which has been staged every year year at the Charlottetown Festival since 1965. So I’ve tended to fall in love by way of osmosis, by  listening to cast recordings - Jesus Christ Superstar on my parent’s old vinyl record player, a CD of Godspell on my old boombox, a mix tape of Rent in our van as my family drove across the country, hearing songs from Wicked on my cousin’s mp3 player… with Spring Awakening it was an AOL roundtable hosted by Rosie O’Donnell that also featured the cast of Degrassi talking about the angst of teenage life and how it hasn’t changed much in a century.

That being said, for someone who has never lived in a big theatre town, I’ve been lucky enough to see quite a few musicals in some form or another, whether it was as a high school or community theatre production, a couple touring productions in Ottawa, and then a few shows in Toronto (Rent, Lion King, Wicked), the West End (The Lord of the Rings, Avenue Q) and just recently, on Broadway.

For the characters’ confusions are ultimately not sexual but existential too. Sex is a central expression of life’s mystery, and a metaphor for it too. But the awakening really taking place in “Spring Awakening” is to something larger than the insistent needs of the flesh. Mr. Sater and Mr. Sheik’s angst-riddled teenagers are growing into a new awareness of “the bitch of living” itself. And the beauty of living too. - NY Times Review

When I decided to go to New York for a few days in December, I knew that I’d go to at least a couple shows while I was there and Spring Awakening was high on my list of musicals to see, particularly since I knew it was closing in January. So there I was- ridiculously tired from pulling an all-nighter the night before to finish a paper and having taken the bus overnight from Ottawa:   I arrived in the city around 6:30 on a Tuesday morning. Broadway tickets aren’t cheap so I decided I’d see if I could do student rush. Heh, I arrived outside the Eugene O’Neill theatre around 8 am, and after randomly ducking in and out of the wireless internet cafe I was 2nd in the rush line, and I ended up with onstage seating for the evening show. Yep, onstage - not many shows do it, but for a cheaper price of $40, I was able to see the action up, and um, pretty much all around me.  It was an amazing experience for my first Broadway show… You have to arrive early and you can’t bring anything up on stage, not even your coat. Half the cast also sits in the chairs during the show, and you feel a rush of adrenaline when they first stand up and start singing. And the stomping during ‘The Bitch of Living”… and being able to be up close and see the emotions running across the actors’ faces as they sing and say their lines. So magical.

I mean, you miss out on a couple things, since you’re sitting on the side, and the actors are often singing to the audience, and you probably appreciate the lighting better sitting in the the house, but honestly, if I had to do it again- I’d choose to sit on the stage.

SIGH.

Maybe there will be another Spring Awakening or Rent just around the corner. I hope so. I think Broadway is missing out otherwise.

I had a couple entries that I decided to save and repost from my old version of this blog, here’s one of them.

From the previous incarnation (around mid-January):

We had some established journalists do a round-table discussion on job prospects in our J-4000 class last Monday. I took some notes, and I thought they might be of interest to people applying for jobs in the Canadian media this year - there’s discussion on how to prepare for interviews, what should be in your application package, where you can break in if a company isn’t hiring (hint: you’re probably going to need a plane ticket), as well as some general commentary on the state of Canadian journalism in general in the current economic climate.

Not going to lie- the discussion was more than a little depressing, especially if you haven’t managed to get any bigger internships during your time in school (at the very least, you seem to need have done an internship with a daily newspaper) but eh, I guess that’s life in the journalism world these days.

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Now that it’s working, I guess it’s time to add some entries.