VMAs 2013: Media and Sexuality

On Sunday night the MTV Video Music Awards were presented, shining a spotlight on American culture. Much has been written about Miley Cyrus joining Robin Thicke onstage for the controversial summer hit "Blurred Lines". I've been busy paying attention to what's going on through social media, television, and online articles written from numerous perspectives. I want to state some things that I thought were relevant, which I'll hopefully do succinctly below.

Instead of trying to explain what happened, I'll leave you with the performance itself so that you can have an unfiltered explanation. There's a lot to take in, that's for sure. The performances were, firstly, absolutely atrocious. I found the singing and dancing to be pretty abysmal, but quality is not the primary focus, not by a longshot. The sexualised nature of the performance has drawn criticism from hundreds of millions of people.

The media reaction has been swift, and it has developed into a massive storm. Social media sites, Twitter in particular, have been inundated with posts about the VMA performance. The mainstream media has gotten in on the action, with CNN (among other guilty parties) privileging the VMA scandal over the developments in Syria where civilians were gassed. Largely, the reactions have been to the effect of slut-shaming. Twitter has been awash with statements condemning the performance and the mainstream media has joyfully jumped in, with some even going so far as to question the sanity of Cyrus. The central arguments seem to be that this was an over-sexualised act marketed to children, and that it is offensive because it is "indecent".

The feminist blogosphere, however, with sites such as Feministing and Jezebel, has countered some of the major discourses coming out of social media, print, and television. They have been quick to hit back that the performance is offensive, but not really for the reasons listed above. While the acts were sexual in nature, the problem, to many, has been the overtones and undertones or race, sexuality and gender.

We live in a society where sex is a significant part of public life. The VMAs, in my opinion, were complicit in normalising behaviour where men and women play oppositional roles and are therefore viewed through radically different lenses. Thicke's actions have not come under scrutiny thus far, and it seems likely that they will not, despite the rather expressly rapey content of his single "Blurred Lines".

I've read some great articles that also highlight the degree to which young female artists break the mould by becoming "rebels" by adopting selected parts from myriad western queer and black cultures. ThinkProgress' Alyssa Rosenberg put it nicely when she said this is common for young peformers who wanted to "demonstrate a certain kind of rebelliousness, while still remaining largely acceptable to a mass-market audience" without struggling with the loss privilege that transgressing these lines would entail.

I think that what's missing, from my perspective, is a serious discussion about agency. I won't pretend to know what's going on behind the scenes or even on stage, but I imagine there's an intricate balance between the actors we see and the actors we don't see that produces this type of stuff. Matthew Good sums it up quite well when he states that female child performers "no longer have access to the machine that made them stars, one so powerful there is almost nothing comprable in entertainment, so decisions have to be made". It's no surprise that the trajectory taken Cyrus is a well-travelled road. The larger cultural attitudes are certainly propagated by young artists, but I'd argue that they are reactions to a culture that finds it satisfying to observe and an industry that feeds off this system. Again, slut-shaming and talking about sex is more interesting to the average American than a discourse on economic inequality or human rights violations. I believe it's easy for people to have an opinion on something like this so the volume of participants is high. It helps that this is so controversial that it is no problem to sustain.

Telecommunications Breakdown

Last Friday Bell Canada published an open letter to the Canadian Government, printed in numerous national publications. The telecommunications company is appealing to the public following Verizon's attempts to jump into the Canadian mobile phone market. In the wake of this move, I'd like to make a proposition that Canadians agitate to create a more effective market, including potentially forming a co-operative to meet the needs of Canadian consumers.

Canadians have some of the most expensive cellular rates in the world. While many reasons for this are cited, it comes down to the fact that there is minimal competition in the Canadian market. For the past few decades, Canadians have had minimal choices. Bell Canada Enterprises has been the largest player in Canada, and is privileged to hold about 30 per cent of the market share for cell phones. Bell and Rogers have been competing intensely for the last decade or so. Bell being represented in blue and Rogers in red. This is commonplace branding for Canadians who encounter Bell and Rogers countless times daily.

Bell, for example, owns a substantial part of the national telephone infrastructure, the Montréal Canadians, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, and The Source. It also controls Bell Media, which includes CTV, TSN, the Comedy Network, MTV, Discovery, the Globe and Mail, and several radio stations. Not to be outdone, Rogers has similar investments in Canadian media. Shaw, which owns Global, is a third party, and Telus competes in the mobile market.

Collectively, Bell, Rogers, and Telus make up the "big three" in mobile phones. There are subsidiaries of each, but of course they do not really create more competition since they are owned and managed by the parent entities. The only independent national carriers are Wind, Public Mobile, and Mobilicity. Together these companies make up a very small share of the Canadian market (approximately 1.1 million plans or about 4 per cent). It's not by coincidence that these recent entrants to the market are small - there are two significant barriers to entry. Firstly, the CRTC regulations make it very challenging to get a license. Secondly, the capital required to run such an operation is outstandingly high.

Despite these barriers, Wind Mobile has been rather successful, taking about 2.5 per cent of the Canadian market in the past four years. However, due to unfair rules they have struggled to become true competitors. That's where Verizon comes in. An American giant, Verizon has saturated its markets and is looking for a place to expand. Verizon has massive access to capital and therefore only really needs to get past the CRTC in order to become a true competitor in the Canadian market.

If Bell was scared in 2008 with Wind attempting to join the market, this is the nightmare. The fear does not come across explicitly: the tone of the open letter is one of stirring up nationalist sentiments against encroachment from a foreign company. Bell is counting on Canadians being outraged at American money changing hands and that the public will view Bell as the little guy, which is a rather absurd proposition.

I'm not overly excited about another large multinational conglomerate coming to the market in order to increase competition. For that reason, I'd like to see something more democratic and sustainable. My hope is that Canadians could explore the feasibility of arranging a co-operative to meet the needs of wireless consumers. In the past Wireless Nomad was an internet provider arranged as a for-profit co-op and currently the Eastern Ontario co-operative Mornington Communications Ltd offers phone service. These are small companies, but are examples of the drive that Canadians have for more transparency, fairness, and sustainability in wireless communications.

I hope for more competition, but I know that meaningful changes to the market can only occur when Canadians have real options that are affordable and democratic. I support Verizon's ambitions, but I can't help but think that a co-operative is the right way to go.

Québec and the Tar Sands

Recently a train derailed in the small village of Lac Mégantic in the Eastern Townships of Québec, devastating for the local community. The details are astonishing and I'd encourage you to have a look at as many sources as possible. While it has brought to the fore some rather predictable responses, the tragedy rests precariously on some important political and economic fault lines.

Blame is currently going around, with various groups pointing to different actors and criticising their actions. Aid relief from the federal government has allegedly been slow; the provincial government has been accused of using this event as a political firestarter; firefighters, engineers, and supervisors are the subject of investigation, the role of the rail company is being scrutinised, and the regulatory systems that govern rail transportation are under attack.

Seemingly, these are all important pieces of the puzzle, and will ultimately determine the trigger for the crash as well as its larger causes. However, there seems to be minimal attention to the reason why an event like this is even taking place, and it is rather unsurprising taken in the context of larger Canadian political and economic issues.

The oil sector in Canada is a major cause of the problem. The transportation of oil by rail has increased 280 times in the past five years. While the Tar Sands are seen as a vast fountain of wealth for Canada, they are useless on their own. Oil extracted from the Tar Sands needs to be properly processed, and it is for precisely this reason that the governments of Alberta and Canada have worked so tirelessly to establish new pipeline deals. Crude oil would then be sent either to China (via the Northern Gateway Pipeline) or to the United States (via the Keystone XL Pipeline) in order to be processed.

However, there has been an incredible outpouring of support for groups that oppose these projects, namely because they oppose the Tar Sands. Where in years past people demanded that the Tar Sands be closed, the rallying cries now are that pipeline projects be stopped in their tracks. They have become significant public relations controversies given the high risks and costs, though all the while production has steadily increased in the Tar Sands. An increasing amount of oil has been sent by rail to processing plants in New Brunswick. In order to get there, oil is sent through prime agricultural land and densely populated regions of central and eastern Canada. Places like Lac Mégantic.

The Tar Sands have a massive effect on the Canadian economy, leading various governments to make decisions about fiscal issues such as taxes and services. Domestic policy in Canada is quite strikingly predicated on the Tar Sands. Decisions about whether or not scientists should be able to criticise the oil industry or whether corporations are to be held accountable and transparent are part of the grip that the Tar Sands has on Canadian society. Now rail transportation can be added to the equation.

What's perhaps most interesting is the fact that the Tar Sands were a significant part of the NDP's attack on the government after Mulcair was selected as the new leader. Mulcair argued that Canada, by virtue of having invested so heavily in the Tar Sands, had forsaken the rest of the Canadian economy. This rationale picked up serious momentum until it was pointed out that Quebec, which is the base for the NDP's support, was reliant on transfer payments from the Tar Sands.

The cries of Dutch Disease fell silent, but sadly the money that is pumped into governments across Canada from dirty oil have started people to ask a new question. Is it worth it? While financially Canada may seem to need the oil sands, the idea of externalised costs is striking. Concerns about who will pay for the rebuilding of the levelled village, how victims will be compensated, how the oil will be cleaned up, and what happens to the drinking water are now the dominant concerns of people who, for the first times in their lives, have been meaningfully affected by the Tar Sands.

It's a long distance from the advertisements that the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers have created, espousing the wondrous economic and social benefit of the Tar Sands for Québec. Presumably time will tell and people will hopefully not vote with their wallets on this pressing question for the future of Canada.

The Situation in Syria

My first post on this blog was in May of 2011, merely two months after the conflict in Syria first emerged. Despite my intense interest in the Middle East, I've shied away from commenting on it because I haven't felt that I've been able to put my thoughts into some type of coherent post. Given the rise in media attention over the past month, I thought I'd offer some brief insight.

My suspicion is that the logical starting place is around the nomenclature. It's been termed a civil war, genocide, revolution, conflict, insurgency, uprising, and numerous other labels. But what is it? To some degree it's a matter of perspective, but perhaps more importantly it's a question of not being able to characterise a movement as any one particular thing. In my opinion, it's numerous different things simultaneously, which is why I am attempting to refer to it as a conflict in order to remain rather vague about it. To frame this more historically, people are still debating whether or not the American Revolution was in fact a revolution or whether it was merely a war of independence. Historical events and processes are complicated and take on numerous labels at once.

The origins of the conflict in Syria are connected to the broader Arab Spring movement of 2011. Much unlike the other countries involved, the events in Syria were not short-lived. While other movements ended (Libya), and others have met with intermittent success (Egypt), Syria is alone in sustaining the climate of revolution and open combat. It's most certainly the most complicated of all the Arab Spring movements, and I'd argue that it's definitely the most misunderstood.

At a domestic level, the situation is difficult for Westerners to understand because the lines are not clearly drawn. While it is rather obvious who represents formal power, the enemies of the state are numerous. Some are self-fashioned Islamist groups while others are claim to be liberal secular moderates. There have been numerous attempts to unite enemies of Bashar al-Assad under a coalition, but these have failed because there are significant disagreements about what a post-Assad nation should look like.

This gets overwhelmingly complicated when the international context is added. Many of the groups fighting in Syria have received support from outside powers, while others have been labelled "terrorist organisations" by Washington and others. This has stopped countries, particularly France, Britain, and the United States, from making commitments to more participation. It is unclear how to intervene without picking allies carefully. The United States and other NATO allies have been burned badly in Iran, Afghanistan, and Libya over the past decade and are naturally hesitant to participate in another highly charged situation. From Russia's perspective, Syria has been an ally and, while Assad may not be the most likeable character, he is a safer bet that a radical pro-Western Islamic state. It's only been in the past few weeks that Moscow has changed its tone regarding Syria, though this has yet to materialise on the ground.

The fact of the matter is that the average citizens of Syria are left to deal with numerous factions fighting one another. The destruction is incomprehensible, with cities virtually destroyed, crops burned, and the innocent subjected to atrocities by all sides. The road toward a solution is complicated at best, since at this point numerous factions have been fighting for over two years. Every side has invested heavily in trying to create a Syria that is synonymous with their aspirations and values, often directly at odds with those of their enemies. It's unlikely that Syria will be at peace in the near future, and when that time does come, resentment will find other ways of manifesting itself.

Memorial Ride

Last weekend I went to Montréal for the burial of my grandmother, who passed away in March. It was a remarkable day to celebrate life and family, and it was a great experience for me to reflect on my life. I've therefore decided to write a more personal post, one that explores the grieving process.

The past six months of my life has been marked with numerous transitions, graduating from my masters, moving to Québec, and starting a career in teaching. In the midst of all those changes my grandmother went from being autonomous and healthy to her life coming to an end. During this time I battled with confusion, anger, stress, and sadness; much like anyone who experiences the loss of a loved one and time freezes. Like all the other new elements of my life, this one was simultaneously thrust upon me and painfully slow.

While the funeral offered some closure to me, I wasn't emotionally ready to handle what seemed like one in a long train of transitions. I had felt like I was able to take the changes, but given the tumultuous nature of my life at the time, it was a challenge, and one that I couldn't do while surrounded by family.

Between March and June my life has changed dramatically, and in that I have become more resilient and more focused. Heading to Montréal this time was so different. Standing in the warm sun on Mount Royal's Notre-dame-des-neiges cemetery, I realised that my life was centred and that while we all grieved the loss of an important person in our lives, we were all happy and ready to move forward as a family, which is exactly what grandma would have wanted.

That was powerful enough, but a long afternoon ride, where I joined four family members, embodied the state of my life and my grandmother's death. We rode from the West Island, out to Laval, around the Lake of Two Mountains, to Vaudreuil-Dorion, and back to Montréal. I thought about my grandmother and how her life was centred around Montréal. We had all come back to mark her death at the burial, but riding through the region allowed us to get together and celebrate her life.

I'm comforted that my grandmother's life was centred around Montréal, and while I've never lived there, my life has always revolved around it to a large degree. I'm excited about making decisions in the coming month about where I'm going to be living next, and it may very well be Montréal. My grandma would be proud.

Conservatives and the Media Bias

There have been a lot of controversies recently in Canadian politics. While the Federal Government has dealt with the prospective failure of the XL Pipeline, the potential trade deal with the European Union, and the spending scandal in the Senate. While this has been in the news every night, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has managed to surpass the Conservatives in media coverage.

It is alleged that Ford was videotaped smoking cocaine in a suburban neighbourhood of the city. The American website Gawker claims that two of its reporters saw the video and that it is "clearly" Ford, and this was picked up by the Toronto Star. The only information that the public has to go on is a picture that was provided. Attempts to secure the video have proven unsuccessful, and right now apparently the video has disappeared. The people with him were apparently involved in criminal activities and were both killed outside a nightclub earlier this year, leading many to assume that the video has been seized by police as part of the evidence in a homicide case.

Naturally, this has taken off as not only one of the top national news stories, it also briefly enjoyed exposure worldwide, much to the chagrin of Torontonians. Ford, for his part, denied the allegations about a week after they surfaced. During that period he managed to lose three members of his staff. The media storm intensified with nightly attention on The Tonight Show, The Colbert Report, and The Daily Show.

All the while, Ford's loyal supporters, who love his "don't give a fuck" attitude, have remained at his side. While he has been vilified for his inarticulateness, his malice, and his outspoken opinions, he has significant appeal for failing to waiver in the face of strong opposition. Ford's image, in fact, is based on him being rough and tumble, and smoking cocaine with criminals has not surprised many, including his supporters. Ford has had a long history of substance abuse problems, most famously getting a DUI in the United States about a decade ago.

It certainly begs the question. What's the relevance of a scandal like this? So far as I can tell, there are two significant angles. Firstly, there is no evidence against Ford. Secondly, many seem to still feel that Ford is still fit to run the city. It's worth remembering that he was fired in 2012 and managed to win his job back.

Nonetheless, Ford has hit back against the media. It's not the first time that he has attacked the press. Far from it: Ford has always claimed to be fighting against a media bias against conservatives. According to Ford, who has taken the same line as Republicans like Mitt Romney, that the "lamestream media" is run by liberals. Ford appears every Sunday on a talk radio programme where he voices his opinions directly, without the filter of any media companies.

While my first reaction is to say that of course the media is not biased against conservatives, as media often serves the dominant class, I'd argue that mass media is not necessarily partial to a party. Instead, I prefer to think of the bias as one against an ideology of public spending on programmes that resdistribute. These are usually packaged as "pro-business" which is coincidentally how conservatives tend to brand themselves.

Sadly, despite the fact that large companies in Canada such as Bell, Québecor, and Shaw control the vast majority of national media, many Canadians believe that the media is either "unbiased" or that it represents a more "liberal" agenda. This disregards the fact that, for the most part, Canadian media tend to oppose the social welfare state and take positions to uphold the status quo on important issues like women's rights, immigration, environmental protection, or employment security.

Credit and Economic Expansion

Recently there's been a wave of attention around a motto: "do you #smallenfreuden?". This craze was later revealed to be the work of Visa, supporting their cashback rewards. The basic premise is that for every dollar you spend, you get some portion (normally less than 1 per cent) back, paid to you as a dividend at the end of the year.

You can watch a commercial for it here. There are numerous versions but the idea is the same. Don't just use your credit card for large purchases, use it even to buy a doughnut or a magazine. Credit card ownership now is very high, often with people holding two or more cards in their name. With markets saturated, Visa is looking for a new way to increase its bottom line. The next logical step is getting people to use plastic for a higher proportion of their purchases.

This comes in the wake of a significant credit bubble. I've already written about the credit crisis before. Rates of consumer debt are ridiculously high in North America, and for the first time Canadians are spending more money than they make. The average family spends $1.50 for every dollar they bring in. It's not a zero-sum game, like everyone has to be breaking even all the time, but the desired balance from a sustainability standpoint is that you can't always be spending more than you make. It just doesn't last.

Credit cards have been on the defensive over the past few years. Television shows have exposed the outrageous debt loads that average middle-income North Americans have amassed. While credit companies have at most only be partially blamed, there has been more attention paid now to the fact that credit cards are at least an enabler.

Companies like Visa are fighting back, however. And it certainly makes decent sense from their perspective. The psychological imperative is pretty compelling for the average consumer. You can make 1 per cent cash back over the year, which for some people may amount to saving 100 dollars. It's no different than loyalty programmes like Air Miles, Petro Points, or any other such systems. You are rewarded for spending money in a certain way and there's a small prize in it for your sustained attention. These programmes are popular because people want to get perks. As I'm writing this I'm very aware of the fact that I have cashback on my MasterCard.

Studies show that when we feel like we're working toward a reward we tend to make poor decisions. People will spend more thinking they'll get more points, but the logical is rather nonsensical. Spend ten dollars more to get ten cents back. Often people get prizes they wouldn't otherwise want, thoguh with cash that's never a problem. Nevertheless it works, and Visa is upping the ante by suggesting that you put virtually all your purchases on your credit card.

It may be worthwhile to say that I think there's lots of merit to buying with a credit card. It allows you to review your purchases and to keep records. It's convenient and you never need to carry lots of cash. However, the downside is that you're spending money that, in many cases, you don't have. More importantly, if you don't come up with that money you can face penalties of up to 28 per cent per year compounded monthly. In case you are curious about what your card can charge you, check out the details on the back of your statement; it's mandated by law that they explain how long it'll take to pay off your balance with minimum payments.

Credit cards are tools. Inherently neither good nor bad. But knowing how to use them is simply not a skill that many people have. Many of my friends and students don't know about the basic components of debt, financing, or interest. I was myself shocked to find out that when I paid my MasterCard bill I was short about 10 per cent of the total and they are legally allowed to charge me interest on the entire value of my balance carried. Unbelievable. I know the information is readily available you go online to find it, but that's often insufficient help for people.

While the effects for individuals are rather clear, the effects for the economy at large are shrouded. The historical context is very interesting: 1929 and 2007 are remarkably similar events. Cultures that were built on credit eventually must collapse. Massive economic growth in the 1920s was rather similar to the 2000s, financed on credit and overproduction. Year-over-year the economy expanded, largely because people bought stuff with money they didn't have, meaning that the economy was growing based on debt. Another way to look at that is that the economy grew based on future contraction, and looking at the 1930s and now it's rather evident that this was in fact the case. Both 1929 and 2007 were shocks were credit bubbles burst and suddenly the debt structures, like pyramid schemes, were unveiled. The speculation in the stock market during the 1920s led to extreme overvaluation and eventually collapse. Sub-prime mortgage lending in the 2000s brought the global economy to a standstill more recently.

Fundamentally, whether we like it or not, we are bound by the realities of economics. We can not borrow against the future in the long run. The current federal stimulus package (for which the millions of dollars of advertising has been allocated) is an example of this "spend our way out of trouble" philosophy. Creating growth without equality can function in the short term, as it has since the introduction of neoliberalism in the 1980s, but once the growth is gone, the inequality is exposed with real consequences. I sincerely believe that creating a more even economic climate will be the only real sustainable way forward.