IT CITIES

It seems to me sometimes that there are certain areas of the US that seem to be popular for an extended period of time. By “Popular” I should clarify - it does not mean that everyone necessarily likes these places, but they enter the popular consciousness, or the pop-culture consciousness, at least. I think there are specifically 1 major city per decade that seems to capture the public’s imagination, and I intend to show that we are nearing the end of one city’s reign and a new one is going to start soon. I don’t know what the new city will be, but I am pretty sure it is on the way. These cities, through the virtue of mass media, develop a specific personality, which is probably not accurate but the theme will remain.

I should clarify another point. Just because one particular city is popular, it does not mean there are other cities that are not popular. It just means that one place seems to the place where everything is happening. It also means that just because one city has dropped out of popularity - it is on no longer the “IT” city - there are still things happening there. I also need to point out that I am specifically referring to US pop culture - not England, Canada, or Europe, or anything like that. I need to exclude two cities because they are always in the pop culture consciousness, but I will talk about them first.

The first city I need to exclude is New York. New York is an international city, an American city, and one of the most talked about cities in the western world. It does have it’s own multiple personalities. There is the rich powerful Manahattan New York of Sex and the City, Wall Street, and City Hall; there is the gritty New York of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Do the Right Thing; there is the Gangster New York of Godfather, Goodfellas, New Jack City. These are only some of the personalities - there is the Friends personality, the Sinatra / Jay-z New York; the Law and Order criminal New York, and so on. The point is that New York has entered the lexicon andthe public’s imagination. It ranks with London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Shanghai, Tokyo, Rio. It is also a model of the US melting pot, better or worse.

The Second City I need to exclude is Los Angeles. First, because it is where a large part of the entertainment media is centered there, it is inevitable that it would be very aware of itself. There are a few different aspects of LA as well - the NWA, Colors, gritty LA; the Rich and Powerful LA, and so on. LA is whatever people want it to be. Real, fake, both, LA is everything.

The first city that became the It city was in the 80’s. This is completely arbitrary on my part, and is no doubt due to the fact that I did some growing up in the 80’s. But I really can’t think of any particular place that was the place to be in the 70s, 60s, 50s, 40s, and so on- excluding the aforementioned excluded cities.

That first It city was Chicago in the 80’s. John Hughes deserves recognition for helping make it an It city, but he was not the only factor. Another large influence in the development of Chicago was the existence of Second City, and the actors that developed there.

The first movie that had Chicago in a starring role was made in 1980: the Blues Brothers. This was Chicago’s It childhood, it hadn’t developed a personality yet. But the Blues Brothers introduced a few key Chicago locations as well as some actors who were to use Chicago often in the future. The next movie that was more in keeping with the development of Chicago’s dominant personality was National Lampoon’s Vacation. This was the movie that started to show Chicago as a city of suburbs. From there, all the John Hughes teen movies were set in Chicago, or the suburbs of; as was Home Alone. The next two National Lampoon’s Vacation movies were set partly in Chicago. Adventures in Babysitting was set in the suburbs. Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Ordinary People. Risky Business. She’s Having a Baby. Streets of Fire. Uncle Buck. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Lucas. About Last Night.

Chicago was not defined exclusively by movies, of course. Don’t forget about TV. Family Matters was set in Chicago. Married...with Children, a satire of the suburbia was there; Punky Brewster; Webster; Life Goes on. There was some music there: Styx; Chicago; REO Speedwagon; and Cheap trick hail Chicago suburbs. And Chicago’s triumph in the 1986 Superbowl is a good illustration of Chicago’s ascendency to It status.

Chicago did not end at the 80’s, but the 80’s were the prime It time for Chicago. Wayne’s World, Never Been Kissed, The Fugitive, were all movies that continued the theme of Suburbia in Chicago. But by the 90’s, there was a new city that was becoming the It city. The transition to the new city can be represented by a movie set in both cities - effectively passing the torch from Chicago to the new city. The movie was....

That will be the next post.

Slutwalk, but not Hookerwalk

I have debated -with myself, anyway - whether I should comment on this. I had a brief discussion with a client about it; she was a university student but more importantly a client, so I kept the discussion to a minimum. I think I could probably make several posts out of this issue, and I may expand on some of the thoughts in it later. I don’t think this is really a right / wrong issue. We’ll see where it goes. I don’t want to be taken out of context, or to misstate my position.

I have read enough posts on other people’s blogs and comments on other issues to know that virtually anything can be taken out of context. That was my initial reaction to this. The police officer who made the comments was speaking at a Canadian university forum on personal safety. He is definitely an idiot for making the comment, and in full, the comment was “You know, I think we’re beating around the bush here,” the officer said, “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this, however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” (Toronto Star). However, it is worth noting that there is no transcript of the forum, and there is no additional context to the statement. Perhaps, in the full context of the forum it may have been appropriate. But I didn’t think so.

I admit that I then thought something along the lines of, “If I left my car door unlocked and the keys in the ignition, it wouldn’t be my fault if my car got stolen but I would still be an idiot.” Then I realized that was a stupid analogy. I think that may have been what the police officer was trying to say - that prevention is a good idea - but he didn’t say it like that and it is wrong headed at best.

Since then, the statement has been handed around the internet, getting taken more and more out of context and more and more misquoted. It had morphed into “women are asking to be raped if they dress like sluts”. Actually, that is also not true - I haven’t read that version anywhere. But that is not what was said; nor was it what was intended. But that is what the gist of the statement has been reimagined to be.

Moving away from that, however, gets to a more important issue. Should women expect to wear whatever they want and feel safe? Yes, of course. That is not the issue. Should men be taught not to rape? Yes, and I think they already are. That is also not the issue. What I think is missed is that the issue is that the Slutwalks have virtually no relevance or impact. Do they create discussion? Sure - I am discussing it now. Lots of blog posts, lots of letters to editors. But what do they actually accomplish? Not much.

What do I mean by that? Well, one police officer who makes a stupid statement that he acknowledges he wasn’t supposed to make does not indicate a societal problem. Protesting that has no effect, as he had been reprimanded even before the story broke. Next, all police who are properly trained will tell you that how a person dresses has no effect on sexual assault. Serial predators may target specific people, based in part on the way they dress, but changing the way you dress won’t have any effect on a serial predator. In the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases, the victim is known to the criminal and the criminal is usually a family member. Police know this, and they know that a victim’s attire is largely irrelevant. So protesting this won't change any police awareness or training either.

Next, I think it is kind of unintentionally ironic that the women who participate are making objects of them selves. Part of the protest is certainly designed, and I support, to make women less objectified. The unintended effect is that when they dress like mock sluts, they get press coverage, which loves to print or broadcast images of young women in their underwear. Effectively, the issue gets lost in the colour. A better protest would be to dress like mock sluts at their work. Simply look at some other protests that attract the same number of participants; how many of them made top of the news / front page headlines / multiple blog posts?

Important here is the term mock sluts. Real prostitutes - street prostitutes - are at risk. They do not dress like the women in these slutwalks. And it would be naive to think that these women are at risk because of the way they dress, but how they dress is part of their lifestyle and effectively part of their advertising. Because our current society does not value these women, how they dress does increase the risk that they will be victimized, at least compared to the general population. I suspect that most of the women who participate in Slutwalks not only have never met any real Sluts, they would not want to associate with any of them.

So what is my point, my position? I think that people who are participating in the Slutwalks are making themselves feel important. I don’t think that they are having any actual effect on anything. I think they are misguided; or maybe just a reflection of what passes for activism these days. It requires no real effort to dress up in a costume for an afternoon and go for a walk with friends - about as much effort as it takes to change your status in facebook to support a cause, or to wear a bracelet for a day. I think that is that is what really bothers me about the slutwalks.

Welcome to the Black Rhapsody

Oh my. It has been a horribly long time since Iposted. Fortunately, I don’t think the world is worse off because of it. What I will do, I think, is revisit a music topic. Music is easy to write about, and I am often thinking about different songs. Today, I happened to listen to “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, and it got me thinking again about the similarities to “Welcome to The Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance. So, I decided to do the compare and contrast thing for those two songs.

As in my previous essay about two songs, I will assume that everyone out there knows these two songs. I will be referring to the lyrics, mostly, but I am not going to post the lyrics here. Feel free, of course, to look them up, but I would more encourage a a listen of the songs.

Bohemian Rhapsody (BR) was a cut from the album “A Night at the Opera.” The song incorporates elements of opera in it. The lyrics themselves make reference to characters in Italian opera; the imageryassociated with the song also conjures up a classical opera; although, to be fair, it may also bring upimages of Wayne’s World in the same way that Haddaway brings up images of Will Ferrell. It is an instantly recognizable song, from the first notes to the “Mama Mia”’s and “Figaro”’s, to the fading piano notes to Freddie’s pipes. The lyrics deal with the pain a young man feels after killing someone, until he decides he can’t face hell and tries to escape.

Welcome to the Black Parade (BP) was the hit maker for My Chemical Romance, much in the same way that Bohemian Rhapsody established Queen. There is no classical imagery in the song, nor is there references to opera. It does make a reference to a Rolling Stones song, which, to a band from New Jersey, is about classical as opera. The song does tell a story; and there are images of devils, demons, and phantoms. Death is an constant theme in the song, much as it was in Bohemian Rhapsody. BP benefited by having a video released for it, which was able to expand thematically on the song while adding some strong visuals to the lyrics. While BR did have a video released for it, it was some time after the song actually came out and it’s purpose was more to put a face on the band than tell the story of the song.

The similarities are very strong. Both songs have frequent tempo changes, starting slow, increasing in speed an volume before dropping back again. Both songs rely on the power vocals of the lead singers to bring out the emotion. In either case, a weaker singer would not be able to carry the lyrics. Both songs are written in the first person; both songs incorporate different types of music in the song, not limiting the music to straight rock but expanding the definition. BP was over 5 minutes long, relatively long for a pop song. BR was over 7 minutes long, also long for a pop song.

Both songs start with the singer presenting himself as a young boy, strongly influenced by a parent. The Black Parade starts “When I was a young boy, my father took me to the city” while Bohemian Rhapsody starts with (after the intro) “I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy” and “Mama, didn’t mean to make you cry.” Black Parade notes “I won’t explain or say I’m sorry” while Bohemian Rhapsody laments “ I gotta leave you all behind and face the truth.” BR is “Just a poor boy from a poor family” while BP is

“Just a boy who had to sing this song, I’m just a man, not a hero.” BP will “Carry on, we’ll carry on” and BR is going to “Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters.”. “Nothing really matters, to me” says BR; while BP says “I Don’t care!”. BP will “Do or die, you’ll never make me, because the world will take my heart” and BR “ Has just gotta out, just gotta get right out of here.”

The two songs are not identical, of course; they both have many differences. But they do have enough similarities that it would be a safe assumption that “Welcome to the Black Parade” was at the very least inspired by “Bohemian Rhapsody” and may have even been a direct tribute to it. Personally, I like both songs, and I find I can’t listen to one without thinking of the other. Different songs for different times.

I think this should be a longer post, but for some reason it is not. I decided not to make any commitments to myself on how many posts I wanted, because I likely won’t be able to keep them. But I will try to put something up once in a while.