Hero

BUZZSAW To the Rescue November 2014

Raised by Disney pg.16

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News & Views

The New Thor pg.8

Youthful Disobedience pg.13

Buzzsaw presents...

EDITORS’ COMMENT

The Hero Issue

Strap on your cape and quaft your hair just right. It’s time to fly into Buzzsaw’s Hero Issue.

The hero is more than a character confined to comic panels and blockbuster Hollywood films. Heroes are the people protesting injustices, fighting wrongs and questioning society. These heroes do not always sport six packs, guns of steel or the ability to fly.

In the pages of Buzzsaw, our heroes wear the disguise of the everyday and the ordinary. Look at the people around you.

Anyone could be a hero.

In the media world, foreign correspondents risk life and limb to paint pictures of international affairs for domestic audiences.

As warzone dangers increase, outlets are turning to freelance reporters in a previously unseen capacity. These days, war reporters often aren’t embedded with U.S. forces on the front lines; they’re venturing into conflict zones in hopes of sharing the gruesome realities of modern wars (Dodging Bullets, pg. 10).

For too long, the heroes of movies and television shows have been white males. The Hollywood entertainment factory has continued to pump out production after production with white male protagonists, while the population of the United States is more than half female and around 64 percent white (White Male Protagonists, pg. 17).

Are you somebody’s hero? Ithaca College students talk about who their heroes are on campus and why these professors, friends or roommates are meaningful to them (Who Is Your Hero, Seesaw).

BUZZSAW News & Views Upfront Ministry of Cool Prose & Cons Sawdust Layout Art Website Seesaw Social Media

Copy Editors Production

Taylor Barker Jessica Corbett Katelyn Harrop Kellen Beck Robert S. Hummel Rachel Maus Chelsea Hartman Lizzie Cox David Owens Lexie Farabaugh Jennifer Jordon John Jacobson

Jodi Silberstein Alexa Salvato Aidan Quigley Michael Tkaczevski

Advisor Jeff Cohen

Founders Abby Bertumen Kelly Burdick Bryan Chambala Sam Costello Thom Denick Cole Louison James Sigman

Buzzsaw is published with support from Generation Progress / Center for American Progress (online at GenProgress.org).

Buzzsaw is also funded by the Ithaca College Student Government Association and the Park School of Communications.

BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

Vanguard Printing is our press. (Ithaca, N.Y.) Buzzsaw uses student-generated art and photography and royalty-free images.

Section dividers and Table of Contents photography by Mariah B. Boucher.

Mariah Boucher is a sophomore film, photography, and visual arts major. She often incorporates her own drawings into her work and has recently become interested in photographing architecture and landscapes. Boucher has done photography for Operation Military Camp and Ithaca College’s African Student Association, of which she is actively involved.

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Views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editorial staff or of Ithaca College.

Feedback and contributions should be sent to buzzsawmag@gmail.com.

Front and back cover and center spread art by Lizzie Cox

Write Us Our magazine exists to inspire thoughtful debate and open up the channels through which information is shared. Your comments and feedback are all a part of this process. Reach the editors by email at: buzzsawmag@gmail.com

Table of Contents Seesaw ..........................................................4 Print media is dead, check out multimedia on the web.

News & Views .................................................5 Current events, local news & quasi-educated opinions.

Upfront .......................................................9 Selected dis-education of the month.

Ministry.of.Cool ........................................15 Arts, entertainment and other things cooler than us.

Sawdust .......................................................20 Threatening the magazine’s credibility since 1856.

BUZZSAW News & Views

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Praise for Good Samaritans Small acts of kindness can go unappreciated, so Seesaw set out to honor Ithaca College’s everyday heroes by re-enacting some of their good deeds.

Who Is Your Hero?

Your name could be mentioned in this video. Seesaw staff talked to Ithaca College students to find out who they consider to be their heroes on campus.

www.buzzsawmag.org/seesaw/

Mythological Heroes Heracles

BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

buzzcuts

Known for beating the odds mutliple times and performing helpful tasks, but also having human faults.

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Jason

He regained the throne by capturing the golden fleece with the help of Medea.

ATlanta The only woman to sale with Jason to find the golden fleece and also was the first to pierce a Calydonian Boar.

Cultivating a Sustainable Culture Ithaca residents try to live greener lifestyles

TinaMarie Craven, Staff Writer

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“I like the people here,” she said. “I like their brave new ideas. The EcoVillage is full of forward thinking people … looking for new and different ways to do things.”

Walker said the community’s goal is to live more sustainably and to share that belief with others.

“Typically our mission is to create a kind of community that people can learn from,” Walker said. “Hopefully [that] will inspire others to get more involved in seeking out alternatives to the mainstream.”

The 200 EVI residents currently own two 30-home cohousing neighborhoods, and every resident owns a share in the property’s 175 acres.

Walker said a third housing development, a 40-house project is expected to be finished in the spring of 2015 at which point EVI will have 100 homes and roughly 230 residents. The EVI residents only live on 20 percent of the land allowing the remaining 80 percent to be utilized for conservational efforts.

Each housing development was designed with a different identity in mind.

The first development, FROG, was built in 1997 and has a cookie-cutter layout. All of the houses were identically built, but the residents’ varying decorative and gardening tastes bring a whole new level of charisma to the development. Bosjolie said it was designed to be similar to a 15th century village with the houses clustered close together and narrow walkways.

SONG was completed in 2006 and each resident designed his or her home. The houses there are more eclectic, reflecting the individual tastes in the village. All of the SONG buildings are larger than the FROG buildings. The TREE development is still under construction, but once again the development has a distinct appearance in that all of the houses are blue and they are larger than the FROG and SONG homes, and placed closer together than the SONG units.

Living within EVI isn’t just about recycling, the residencies have a passive solar design to conserve heat in the winters through extra insulation and window placement. Passive solar design is a sustainable building strategy that captures the sun’s energy to naturally warm a building. Residents also utilize solar panels to generate more

than half of the community’s electricity needs, Walker said.

The sustainability measures are not limited to their energy usage as the community cultivates a “culture of extensive sharing” through carpools, video and book libraries, and the internal recycling of toys, furniture, electronics and clothes, Bosjolie said.

EVI isn’t just about reusing and repurposing items for the sake of sustainability, the recycling of household goods is also rooted in the ideals of sharing. If a resident needs to borrow a footstool or a cup of flour all they have do is shoot out an email via the EVI list serve and soon enough the resident will have someone knocking on their door with that footstool in hand, Bosjolie said.

Through these green efforts, EVI has been able to shrink their ecological footprint. EVI residents’ ecological footprint is 70 percent smaller than the ecological footprint of the average American, Jesse Sherry, assistant professor of environmental studies at Eckerd College, said. Sherry spent two years researching EVI and two other ecovillages to understand their sustainable achievements.

“There’s definitely a stronger sense of community than a suburban neighborhood … the people are warm and welcoming,” Sherry said.

EVI prides itself on the role it played in launching various sustainable programs within the Ithaca area. The EcoVillage is credited with assisting in the implementation of the Ithaca CarShare, New Roots Charter High School, Sustainable Tompkins County, the Gaia Education Network International and the Ithaca College Sustainability Partnership. Currently EVI is focused on the Groundswell Center for Local Food and Farming project, which teaches people about the benefits of growing their own food in addition to planting.

“We’re learning as we go and we’re trying to share that learning with others,” Walker said. _____________________________________ TinaMarie Craven is a senior journalism and politics, international studies major who wants to live in a TREE when she grows up. You can email her at tcraven1@ithaca.edu.

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News & Views

wo miles away from the bustle of downtown Ithaca, perched atop a hill is EcoVillage Ithaca, three cohousing projects populated by middle class residents striving to live a greener life.

The Global EcoVillage Network, an international network of sustainable communities, defines ecovillages as “an intentional or traditional community using local participatory processes to holistically integrate ecological, economic, social and cultural dimensions of sustainability in order to regenerate social and natural environments.”

EVI is a nonprofit organization that promotes sustainable learning through their Learn@EcoVillage program. The village is funded through grants, donations and the profits from village tours. EVI was originally founded in 1991 and was one of the first eco villages in the United States.

Liz Walker, executive director and founder of EVI, described the village as a dynamic and bustling community, with residents constantly organizing different workshops, including yoga, pottery and martial arts for others to participate in. Habitants of EVI have community meals together a few times a week, where everyone pitches in for the cooking or meal clean up, which promotes the values of sharing within the community.

“People come because they want to live in a setting where their kids can play safely and where they can feel that sense of belonging and community spirit,” Walker said. “People come here because they really want to take part in changing the world and … be part of something bigger.”

Jim Bosjolie, EVI tour guide, was quick to point out EVI is “not a commune” and emphasized that a majority of the residents work in the area.

Bosjolie is right; children run about the village giggling and playing, a scene that could be found in most familyfriendly housing complexes. If visitors didn’t notice the solar panels or the large composting and recycling bins, the village would appear ordinary.

EVI resident Graham Ottoson said she moved to EVI from her home in Ithaca 11 years ago to expose her son to different ways of thinking about the world.

Creepy Crawlers Invade Cornell University Event educates and entertains visitors about insects

BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

Photo by Alexa Salvato

Alexa Salvato, Staff Writer

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ids swarmed through the bug origami room, bustling to get to the table to recreate their favorite insect. Patient undergraduate volunteers helped them fold the paper into place while explaining how the bugs functioned in the real world This was just one of the many fascinating and informative attractions at Cornell University’s Department of Entomology’s 11th annual Insectapalooza on Oct. 25, a fun-filled day devoted to educating the public about insects. This year, over 1,500 people of all ages and interest levels gathered to learn about how bugs and humans interact.

Laura Harrington, a medical entomologist at Cornell, set up a room with dozens of microscopes and infographics about insects that carry diseases that affect humans, a clear example of the interaction between insects and people.

“This exhibit is about disease vectors, and what we have here are mosquitoes that transmit diseases. We have ticks that are important in transmission of diseases like lyme disease,” she said. “We have lice, human body louse, we have bedbugs, and we also have some different types of ticks that you can see.”

Harrington said she is glad Insectapalooza is a time when the entomology department can interact with the public.

“Well, I think that Insectapalooza really helps people understand how important

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insects are,” she said. “Whether they’re good or bad insects, they’re very important, and culturally, humans have had a long association with insects.”

The event was just as fun as it was entertaining. Many families with young children were in attendance, and events were created to target the children specifically, including cockroach races (resembling those of hermit crabs) and “Pond-ering Insects,” where kids could use nets to pick up waterborne insects from a supervised kiddie pool. Children were thrilled to see their favorite creatures up close and personal.

Spiders were 7-year-old Matthew Smith’s favorite, he explained, “because they make webs.” His brother Jak Smith, 6, preferred butterflies, “because they don’t bite you or sting you.” Michael Smith, 4, liked ants, but when asked why, responded, “I don’t know!”

Cole Milks, 8, was excited to see a praying mantis in real life at the event. “I like them because they help plants grow,” he said. His younger brother Logan favored spiders but for a less noble (and more fun) reason. “I like them because I like to put them in jars!”

Linda Susan Rayor, another Cornell entomology professor, explained because of the over 35 exhibits, the event can appeal to people of all ages. “We’re essentially targeting 3 to 80 years olds at Insectapalooza,” she said.

But it’s more than just fun. It’s a common problem that the incredible research conducted in the science community has trouble getting to the public without being mangled by the media in the middle. For this reason, communicating science is a passion for Rayor, who was the first coordinator of Insectapalooza over a decade ago.

“The idea was that we wanted to be able to promote Cornell Entomology, and I think the real idea was that insects and other arthropods are really charismatic microfauna,” she said, grinning as a vinegaroon (a spider-like creature found in Arizona) scuttled across her hand. “These guys are so cool, and they are unquestionably the dominant animals on Earth. So we thought that we really had the possibility of sharing our information with the public.”

This gets to the root of Insectapalooza.

It’s a unique event where, for $3, anyone can come and learn about some of the smallest creatures — oftentimes with the worst reputations — that are a part of our world. Whether someone is an unabashed insect lover or can barely stomach a butterfly, it’s absolutely compelling to see so many people who are so passionate about the same thing and so eager to share that passion.

“Our idea really is to share both the allure of insects but also to communicate the science behind the work that we do, because so much of insects and other arthropods have huge effects on the economy around the world,” Rayor said. She explained this includes a direct impact on the state we live in, right in the forests of central New York.

“So you’ve got insects,” she explained, “that are pests — turns out that New York state is the epicenter of invasive insects in the U.S. and it’s really scary. There are lots and lots of invasive insects that are coming in and doing damage to our crops, waterways, everything else. But at the same time, insects are absolutely key to human food and to pollination of plants around the world. So it’s really really important to be familiar [with] and both appreciate and work against insects.” ________________________________________ Alexa Salvato is a sophomore journalism major who won’t be caught with a fly swatter anytime soon. You can email her at asalvat1@ithaca.edu.

Navigating Oktoberfest as a Non-Drinker Too much booze, not enough food

Amanda Hutchinson, Staff Writer

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rom its nationally sanctioned Ice Wars to the regionally acclaimed Applefest, Ithaca’s seemingly endless rotation of festivals provide a muchneeded break from the monotony of the school year.

Oktoberfest, now in its third year, showcases local craft beers and wines as well as German food for college students in desperate need of an afternoon free of midterms and full of booze.

Admittedly, I was more excited about the food because I’m not a beer person, but I saw Oktoberfest as a good way to sample some of the offerings of the breweries in the area without having to commit to a whole glass.

Due to the Commons construction (which is coming along but still not even close to being done), the event was squeezed into one block of Aurora Street between Seneca and Buffalo Streets with a few stragglers in front of the Ithaca Ale House and Red’s Place.

It was enough space for the vendors but definitely not for the attendees.

The ticket line bled into the crosswalk, and it got to the point where I couldn’t tell if people were in line for this vendor, that vendor or just standing in the middle of the crowd.

As for the festival itself, $15 bought 10 drink tickets, a tasting cup and five food tickets, plus you could buy more in those increments. The majority of the food was potato-based, and while the food vendors weren’t as well-advertised as the beer vendors, they had the official German names of the dishes so you could ask for “kartoffelpuffer” if you really felt like getting fancy with your potato pancakes.

The vendors also had apple strudel

and Bavarian chocolate pie for postbeer sweets, though the guy behind me in line for the hot chocolate had a point in saying that the “authentic” German hot chocolate would’ve been more realistic if the Swiss Miss packets weren’t in plain sight. (Eh, Swiss, Switzerland, close enough to Germany, right?)

With the exception of Six Mile Creek Winery, the rest of the drink vendors were local breweries offering between one and four varieties of beer that ranged from light ales to pitch-black porters. It was hard to tell whether there was a fan favorite judging by the lines alone because everyone was pretty busy and the lines all fused together, but a few offered their entire lineup for one ticket, which tended to back things up, but made customers pretty happy.

Unfortunately for me, this three-forone — specifically the Wagner Valley Brewery trio of Les Raisonniers, Hop Tropic and Coffee Porter — is what did me in. It turns out that I have a really low tolerance for alcohol, so even though I only had the equivalent of one glass of beer over the course of an hour, my brain went mushy enough that I had to call it quits. I know that craft beer tends to have a much higher alcohol content than the stuff you can buy in a 24-pack for $5 — the ones I tried were between 5 percent and 8 percent alcohol by volume — but mush brain after one beer?

I was glad that I had been smart and hadn’t used all my food tickets so I could regroup with dessert, but in retrospect, using Oktoberfest as my lunch was a horrendous idea. A teeny cup of potato leek soup, some shredded turkey and the kartoffelpuffer weren’t nearly enough to help mitigate the effects of the beer samples, and I honestly could’ve used more food at the

event even if I hadn’t fallen victim to my terrible metabolism.

My picks for the day? Our beloved kartoffelpuffer and the fantastically messy apple strudel topped the food category. The pancake was well-seasoned with just the right amount of sweet and tang from the applesauce and sour cream, and the strudel was warm and shattered into a million pieces when I bit into it, which is how it should be. If I had to pick a beer that I’d be willing to try again, I’d go with Hopshire’s Beehave Honey Blond Ale because it was light and sweet and didn’t kill me with hops, though Wagner Valley’s Hop Tropic had a neat fruitiness to it.

The real MVP of Oktoberfest, however, were the cider and hot chocolate vendors. Since I couldn’t use the rest of my drink tickets on food, and I sure wasn’t going to be trying any more beers, I used the last four on hot cider, cold cider, and two hot chocolates to get my head back on straight. The only thing that would have been better was maybe a big glass of water, but most people don’t go to a beer festival looking for water.

I probably would have enjoyed Oktoberfest a lot more if “mush brain” hadn’t happened, and most of the beers I tried weren’t even that bad. I guess this is what happens when a non-drinker tries craft beer for the first time at 21. _____________________________________ Amanda Hutchinson is a senior journalism major who has learned her limits. You can email her at ahutchi2@ ithaca.edu.

News & Views

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The New Thor

No reason for Thor not be female Kellen Beck, Ministry of Cool Editor

Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor

BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

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ainstream comics get a bad rap for their representations of women, and rightfully so.

But within Marvel’s main Thor series, a woman has assumed the mantle of the Nordic storm god. This a step in the right direction.

The superheroes that receive the most attention are males — Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man; the list goes on. Instead of trying to create a new female character or giving Thor a sex change, Thor writer Jason Aaron gave the power-granting hammer to a woman unidentified in the first issue.

Inevitably, there was a deluge of public opinions — readers, movie fans and people who aren’t really involved with comics. Some hated the change and called it a grab for attention. Some loved the idea of a woman stepping in for one of Marvel’s most popular characters. Comment sections across the internet were awash with Thor debate.

Even if this was a ploy to grab the attention of the public, which I don’t believe it is, introducing a woman with the powers of Thor in the main series is a monumental moment.

“You pick up this book and it just says ‘Thor’ on the cover, which features a new female version of Thor,” Aaron said in an interview with Comic Book Resources. “It’s pretty much telling you she’s not She-Thor or Lady Thor. She’s not Thorika. She is Thor.

This is the new Thor.”

In the same interview, Aaron said he has wanted to do a story where someone other than Thor, son of Odin, wields the hammer Mjolnir, which has happened before. He doesn’t want it to be a throwaway “what if?” situation.

The story arc establishes a new Thor and fits in with the previous Thor: God of Thunder series story that spanned 25 issues.

Oftentimes, female characters like Black Widow, Spider-Woman, Wonder Woman and Batgirl fall to the wayside

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of their male counterparts. Re-identifying a popular male hero is an important step forward for superhero comics. Too often, female characters act in supporting roles and follow overly-sexualized tropes. I don’t think Aaron’s new Thor is a ploy to show a female body with Mjolnir; it’s a representation of society and how things ought to be.

Men, especially white men, have dominated leadership roles in the U.S. since European explorers started killing off all of the indigenous people. Over time, the gap between white males and everyone else has slowly thinned. And when an incompetent man who has held power for a long time is no longer worthy of that position, he should be replaced by a more capable person, regardless of race, class or gender.

The new Thor is the modern woman.

If a male boss gets fired and a female steps up to take on his responsibilities, we don’t call her she-boss or lady boss.

She is the boss.

But this isn’t always the case. Within Thor #1 there is also return of Odin, original Thor’s father and leader of the Asgardians. In his stead, the All-Mother Freyja had ruled over Asgard, which Odin expects to take back now that he has returned. Does he deserve that position just because he had it before?

No. The more capable being deserves the position.

When seeing that his son cannot wield the hammer that he commissioned for him, Odin is quick to blame Freyja for coddling him: “This is what happens when an All-Mother is in charge of Asgard.” And yet Odin himself cannot lift the hammer with all his godly might.

The power should not go to who it “belongs” to; that idea is as archaic as the established monarchy of the United Kingdom. While they no longer hold any real power, the British monarchy still bases its importance on birth and sex. Princess Anne was the second in succession to Prince Charles after her mother Elizabeth took the crown, but after the birth of two younger brothers, nieces, nephews and a grandnephew, she is now 11th in succession.

Why does eligibility depend on the sex the person is born with? The entire

system is so sexist, it’s baffling it still exists in that form. But outside of the monarchy is a world full of sexist individuals who don’t want female bosses or just want to keep their power circle male.

Comic books represent culture, some books better than others. Aaron’s first issue of the new Thor series takes what he has built in the Thor world since 2012 and uses it to represent the role of sex in modern society.

While it may not be a depiction of how the world looks now, it’s a depiction of what should happen and what will happen.

You don’t get to wield the hammer just because that’s what everyone told you since you were born. You have to earn it and keep earning it, or else some woman who had to fight twice as hard to get where she is is going to pick it up and take your title. And that’s what should happen. _____________________________________ Kellen Beck is a junior journalism major who hopes to someday be worthy enough to wield Mjolnir. You can email him at kbeck1@ithaca.edu.

Upfront

PFRONT. UPFRONT. UPFRON

Selected dis-education of the month.9

Dodging Bullets

A look inside the dangers of contemporary war reporting

Aidan Quigley, Contributing Writer

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iles Amoore crouched behind a red gate. Loyalist snipers could be anywhere, but he just needed to cross the street to join the Libyan rebels he was reporting on as the rebels approached former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s palace, which had been their destination for months.

As Amoore paused and prepared to cross the street, Gaddafi loyalists opened fire.

He was hit.

ports that 1,081 journalists have been killed in the line of work since 1992, and 41 journalists have been killed in 2014 alone. Many correspondents, however, are willing to put themselves in danger to tell the story.

Amoore was even able to continue working the very day he was shot.

“You’re at an entirely climatic part of history and that drives you to go on,” Amoore said. “You have a front row seat, and you want to see what happens next.”

The dangers of modern wars

BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

“In conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq, one of the combatants are controlling access through embedded journalism. It restricts war reporting because you don’t see both sides. But you couldn’t wander off base and meet with the Taliban.That would get you killed.”

“One minute I was crouching, and the next, it was like a giant lassoing me,” Amoore said. “I thought, this is what is feels like to die.”

As a foreign correspondent for The (London) Sunday Times, Amoore was one of the first reporters inside Gaddafi’s palace. Hours earlier, Amoore was shot in the helmet by Libyan government gunfire.

Although Moore’s helmet stopped the bullet from doing any serious damage, the dangers that Amoore faced while doing the job of a war correspondent are not unique to his situation.

The recent beheadings of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff by ISIS brought global attention to the dangers faced by journalists in war zones. The Committee to Protect Journalists re-

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In modern wars, the already clear dangers of war reporting have been amplified.

“It’s become increasingly hard to know where relative safety may be,” Ellen Shearer, the co-director of the National Security Journalism Initiative at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, said.

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American journalists were able to “embed” with American troops, which means the reporter would join a unit of soldiers and be with them while reporting.

Tom A. Peter, a freelance war correspondent who has written for the Christian Science Monitor and Al Jazeera America, said he has spent more than two years embedded with United States’ forces. He said embedded war correspondents face the same dangers as an American soldier.

“Embedded, journalists face the same risks that American soldiers would have, which would be getting shot at and being targetted by roadside bombings,” he said.

Peter said he had been near the scene of an IED explosion at least 20 times, and was shot at many times when he was embedded.

Sarah Stillman, a current staff writer for The New Yorker who reported from Iraq as a freelance journalist, was also embedded with U.S. forces. During one of her first nights in Baghdad, there was a rocket attack, in which 26

rockets landed in the city.

“At something like 4 a.m., I was jolted from my bed by a giant explosion,” she said. “There was a series or rockets throughout that day. Luckily, I was in a really safe enclosure.”

Although embedded journalists face military risk, embedding with the U.S. or allied forces does provide a sense of protection.

However, in some modern conflicts, such as the conflicts in Libya and currently in Syria, there are no American troops to embed with. Shearer added as American journalists try to cover wars with American involvement through airstrikes but no ground troops, they are in a difficult position.

“There’s no place where one can be behind American lines or with American troops and that makes it a lot harder,” she said.

Amoore, who is a British journalist, was embedded with a rebel force in Libya the day he was shot in the head.

The group had received Western military training. Although the group did provide protection, when he was shot he expected help that did not come, as the rebels he was with ran for cover.

Amoore was able to get himself to safety.

Peter said embedding with nongovernmental groups to gain access to conflict is increasingly difficult.

“Even in 2012, you could have a reasonable assurance that if you embedded with a certain militia group they would provide protection and security for you,” he said. “But now you hear stories about people being set up by the groups you are working with and being kidnapped. There’s [a] very limited sense of security because you are not dealing with state actors.”

Amoore said embedding often led to only one side of the story being told, but during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, attempting to talk to the other side would have been very dangerous.

“In conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq, one of the combatants are controlling access through embedded journalism,” he said. “It restricts war reporting because you don’t see both sides. But you couldn’t wander off base and meet with the Taliban.That

would get you killed.”

When journalists don’t embed with a military group, the threat of being kidnapping greatly increases.

“Because of these militias and insurgent groups, which are using tactics like kidnapping and financing their organizations from [kidnappings], it’s very difficult to operate in such a way that minimizes risk to an acceptable level,” Peter said. “If you are frustrated with the U.S., journalists are targets of opportunity.”

James Rodgers, a former war correspondent and author of the book, Reporting Conflict, said journalists increasingly became targets during the wars in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.

“There was a general sense in most conflicts around the world that [journalists] were neutral observers and not doing anything else except doing their job,” he said. “In an increasingly mediated world, journalists have come to become targets because any armed group is much more concerned than they once were about media coverage.”

Rodgers added although extremist groups once needed journalists to get their viewpoints across, they can now communicate their own messages using social media and the internet.

“Groups such as ISIS have decided they don’t really need journalists in the way they once did,” he said. “You might find other groups would cultivate journalists to get their point of view across. Now, as we see from their very sophisticated use of social media they have decided to bypass that.”

there, it was completely out of control,” Peter said. “You can be in areas that were far removed from the frontlines and you would end up getting caught in an airstrike. There was very little sense of safety working in Syria.”

The CPJ says there are currently 20 missing journalists in Syria, many of whom are believed to be being held by ISIS. “It seems in Syria, certainly with ISIS, journalists are viewed as part of the strategy,” Shearer said. “They’re not considered non-combatants, there’s no protection for journalists, and there’s no sense they’re outside of the conflict.”

Shearer has more than a passing interest in the journalists in Syria. At Northwestern, she taught Foley, one of the two American journalists infamously beheaded by ISIS this year. Shearer said Foley was a great student who had both talent and passion.

“What was clear was that he had a passion, that telling the stories of the war and its toll on soldiers was something very important for journalists to do,” she said.

“It’s just so senseless,” Peter said. “I don’t know what it accomplished for anyone. It’s just hard for me to understand what those two individuals died for.”

Reporting from Syria

A media industry in transition

Both Shearer and Rodgers said Syria is one of the most dangerous places on earth for journalists because of the Syrian Civil War and the emergence of ISIS. The CPJ reported that 80 journalists have been kidnapped in Syria so far during the three-year conflict.

Peter was briefly abducted while he was reporting in Syria. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, and he was released hours later.

“Reporting Syria was much different from Iraq and Afghanistan, because

Along with the increased dangers of war zones, the increased reliance on freelancers in war zones and the lack of backing these freelancers receive is a growing issue in war coverage.

With the current uncertainty and decline in traditional media, many news organizations are eliminating staff correspondents positions. The American Journalism Review reported in 2011 that from 2003 to 2010 foreign correspondents employed by newspapers and wire services fell 24 percent,

from 307 to 234, and 20 newspapers and wire services have closed their foreign bureaus since 1998.

“It’s really scary in our current media climate that there is less and less funding for foreign correspondents,” Stillman said. “I think without making that investment of time and money, we’re not covering the stories about

“Reporting Syria was much different from Iraq and Afghanistan, because there, it was completely out of control.” the most troubling things our taxpayer dollars are going to support, particularly the suffering and trauma war can cause.”

To fill the gap in coverage, many organizations have an increased reliance on freelance writers in conflict zones.

These freelance writers often face disadvantages that staff writers do not face. While staff correspondents have institutional backing and consistent pay, freelance writers often have to pay for their own travel expenses, safety equipment, translator and fixer, a guide, while making very little money.

“It’s very expensive to pay for staff correspondents to cover wars,” Peter said. “It doesn’t mean the cost has gone away, they are now making the reporter pay.”

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Upfront

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BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

Stillman said reporters having to pay their own way shows the lack of support many freelancers face.

“More and more freelancers are reporting in combat situations where they don’t have any support,” Stillman said.

“They don’t have people who are buying their body armor. They don’t have editors they are corresponding with who know their whereabouts, and that makes it more dangerous.”

Along with the dangers of covering a war, Peter said that freelance writers face additional challenges.

“It’s very lousy working conditions,” he said. “You take really big risks for very little pay, and get extremely limited institutional support. You find yourself target not just by indirect action but you have people directly targeting and executing you.”

Stillman did say being a freelancer gave her some advantages, such as being able to cover stories that mattered to her, and the increased reliance on freelancers has allowed for more diverse coverage.

“I think there are more opportunities than ever before because outlets are hungry for insights from people out there in the field,” Stillman said.

Amoore said the benefits of being a paid staff writer were clear.

“As a staff correspondent, I have insurance, which is also a massive psychological advantage,” he said. “If something happens to me in a war zone, my company will get me out, or try to get me out, which is very expensive. I get financial support, medical support and security.”

Shearer said although all freelance agreements are different, Foley’s primary freelance employer, GlobalPost, worked “tirelessly” to try to get him home safely.

News organizations are facing the moral question of whether or not they will accept work from freelance writers in war zones as that work could cause risk.

“If a freelancer goes off and gets some fantastically strong material, but puts him or herself in danger while doing so, where does responsibility lie?” Rodgers said. “Should news organizations buy this material? Some have said they are no longer prepared to do so, because in a sense they are creating a market to take risks.”

After the death of their famous war correspondent Marie Colvin in Syria in 2012, Amoore’s paper, The Sunday Times stopped accepting freelance work from Syria.

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Amoore said he had mixed feelings on the paper’s position, and said the paper believed accepting work from freelancers encourages them to take risks that may put them in dangerous positions.

“I started out as a freelancer, and I would be very discouraged if a major news organization wouldn’t even listen to my ideas,” he said. “As a person who doesn’t want journalists killed, it may be a good thing. I’m not sure where I stand.”

The question of how dangerous is too dangerous to cover is one that plagues the journalism world. Without journalists, the world does not know what is going on in areas of conflict and have to rely on official government statements, which are often very biased.

Amoore said that governments take advantage of the lack of coverage.

“Governments can use vacuums and voids in coverage to get away with things without credible witnesses on the ground,” he said.

Rodgers said that ISIS’s rise may not have been so sudden if their were more reporters covering the area.

“One wonders if the very sudden rise and military success of this group earlier this year came as such a surprise precisely because no one was covering the area,” he said.

The role of war reporters With all the dangers and extremely poor working conditions, why do war correspondents risk their lives to cover war?

“You are at the center of these major world events, and you’re sort of on the frontiers of human society, watching these people being placed in very extreme, difficult circumstances,” Peter said. “It’s very fulfilling to talk to them and help people understand why the world should care about what’s happening in Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan.”

Rodgers said the war reporter is able to be an outlet to the outside world for people living in areas of conflict.

“It’s important because they see things that other people don’t see,” Rodgers said. “They have a connection to the outside world that no one else has there. You are getting insights from these people, which you need as citizens and as members of the electorate which we are not getting from our governments.”.

Amoore said war correspondents are necessary as storytellers for the people living in areas of conflict.

“Without foreign correspondents, there are no storytellers there to tell stories about the events they are involved in,” Amoore said. “Journalism is the first rough draft of history, and not to have it is a great shame.”

Shearer said war reporters often serve as a watchdog of the American government.

“Americans are investing the lives of their soldiers and the treasure of our budgets…what our posture should be in the world is profoundly important, and it is a story that’s told from where its happening, because its very complicated,” Shearer said. “Finding the truth without being on the scene is very difficult.”

Even though being in conflict areas is extremely dangerous, many reporters risk their lives to cover wars.

Rodgers said coverage of the conflicts in Syria, Gaza and the Ukraine show the importance of war reporting in the modern world.

“Given the dangerous these days, especially given those dangers, reporting on armed conflict is more important then ever. We live in a very rapidly changing and uncertain world,” Rodgers said. “More than ever, I think it’s really important to have journalists there watching everything, bearing witness and reporting on it.” ____________________________________ Aidan Quigley is a freshman journalism major who reports with a pen, notebook and a nose for investigation.

Email him at aquigley@ithaca.edu.

Jefferson County Students Protest

Colorado high school caught up in AP history curriculum controversy

Alexa Salvato, Staff Writer

“The committee’s initial projects will be a review of the AP U.S. History curriculum and elementary health curriculum.

Review criteria shall include the following: instructional materials should present the most current factual information accurately and objectively. … Materials should promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights. Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law. Instructional materials should present positive aspects of the United States and its heritage.”

— minutes from the Jefferson County, CO Board Committee for Curriculum Review

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gyback onto the already-public issue of teacher compensation. Students protested because they cared about the quality of their educations.

Nic Garcia, a staff writer for Chalkbeat Colorado who covers education, has addressed this issue in his recent coverage of the controversies.

“Was this something that was led by the teachers?” he said. “I haven’t seen any proof of that. Obviously, there was some concurrent actions by the teachers with their sick-outs at a couple of the high schools, but I don’t necessarily know how related they are.”

Regardless, he said he has truly seen students taking the initiative to challenge the proposal.

“I think that the question about reviewing APUSH really ignited a fire in a lot of students that hadn’t been really paying attention,” Garcia said. “It was sort of the first time that a decision by this board, which was elected in November of last year, that would have directly impacted them … I think as they became involved they became aware of some of the other issues.”

How could they not? Despite cries about the apathy of this generation, protests from those regarding police brutality in Ferguson to the People’s Climate March in New York City have been garnering national attention — and young people have been heavily involved in all of them. Students know exactly what this board is trying to minimize. To create social change in America, sometimes you have to break rules.

Like it says on many a history classroom wall, if we don’t learn from our country’s mistakes, how are we going to improve as a nation? Lenchner explained it best.

“If only the positive aspects of American history was taught in schools, many aspects of current American culture would never be explained to me as a student,” she said. “What has happened in the past is uncontrollable, but that definitely does not mean it is unimportant.” And it most certainly should not be ignored. _______________________________________ Alexa Salvato is a sophomore journalism major who is revoking her 5 on the APUSH test as a form of civil disobedience. Email her at asalvat1@ithaca.edu.

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Upfront

part of a proposition spearheaded by Jefferson County school board member Julie Williams, these words sparked protests from students, faculty and parents in the Colorado district.

The above text is the first project of a new curriculum review committee, which was approved by the board of education on Oct. 2. Although students and parents will be included on the committee, many were unhappy with the decision, considering it to be censorship.

Williams disagreed. She said, “I hope that this was a defining moment for this board, that there is not one member up here that would support censorship.”

Other students noted the irony of the board’s effort to discourage civil disobedience. FOX31 Denver reported live: “Let me say to Ms. Williams, thank you for your lesson in civil disobedience,” student Eric Temple said at the meeting. “What I have learned from you is there is a time and place for civil disobedience and that time is right now.”

The board’s proposal stemmed from changes that were made to the Advanced Placement United States History curriculum in the past year. These changes, as explained in a fact sheet released by the College Board, include being “more transparent, balanced, flexible and local.”

The issue drew media attention from across the county and the College Board released an official statement in support of Jefferson County student protests on Sept. 26: “These students recognize that the social order can — and sometimes must — be disrupted in the pursuit of liberty and justice. Civil disorder and social strife are at the patriotic heart of American history — from the Boston Tea Party to the American Revolution to the Civil Rights Movement. And these events and ideas are essential within the study of a college-level, AP U.S. History course.”

Tova Lenchner, a junior at North Salem Middle/High School in North Salem, New York, who is currently enrolled in APUSH, expressed agreement with the College Board’s analysis of the issue.

“I believe that these proposed changes are completely contradictory of the objective of not just APUSH, but any AP history class,” she said. “We are being trained to become historians, to analyze events and make conclusions without the influence of our own bias.

By insisting that ‘Materials should promote citizenship [and] patriotism’ bias is basically forced upon us.”

Her words echoed those of the hundreds of students and teachers who walked out of school to protest after Williams’ idea was initially pitched in late September.

Protesting the curriculum review wasn’t the only reason people in the county were angry. At the same board meeting where this committee was proposed, there was another proposal that affected teacher compensation, which led to teachers organizing to call in sick. The Denver Channel reported so many teachers were absent that two Jefferson County schools were forced to close, but they reopened the following Monday.

The issues became connected: teachers thought their students deserved better, students thought their teachers deserved better and the school board was the cause of both spikes in concern.

But these protests weren’t just a result of mob enthusiasm. The anger about curriculum review wasn’t a pig-

Ability-based Heroism

Emphasizing humanity as a common experience

Sabina Leybold, Staff Writer

BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

“

You’re an inspiration to me” is a phrase that is supportive and encouraging on the surface. For people with disabilities, however, it’s problematic. Turning people with disabilities into heroes for performing everyday activities sets them apart from a society in which they may already feel excluded.

“I think the hero is someone who makes sacrifices for others and goes out of his or her way to do good,” Rose B. Fischer, a blogger and fiction writer who often writes about disability issues, said. “When we heroize people for just living their lives, we devalue real heroism, and we send the message that people with disabilities are somehow a ‘different class’ of human being.”

Paul Feuerstein is the founder, president and CEO of Barrier Free Living, an agency in New York City that works with people with disabilities who are homeless and/or victims of domestic violence. He said he also sees the alienation that heroizing causes.

“Heroes by definition are set aside,” he said. “There’s still a lot of objectification language, and heroizing is very much a reflection of that.”

Heroizing people who have disabilities is reductive, Fischer said, “because it focuses on one small aspect of who we are and doesn’t allow us to be people first.”

“It also reinforces the social constructs of disability as always something that is negative,” she said, “rather than allowing disability to simply be a characteristic of an individual’s life and part of that person’s experience of the world.”

Isolating disability as just one part of a person’s identity is important, which is why appropriate terminology is important.

“Wheelchair users are no more wheelchair-bound than I am subwaybound or bus-bound,” Feuerstein said.

“It’s a means of transportation.”

In the past, discrimination against people with disabilities took the form of inaccessible transportation and unemployment. The Americans with Disabilities Act improved that — buildings are now required to have ramps and automatic doors, for example — but

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objectifying and degrading attitudes are still barriers that often come along with disability.

“We, as people with disabilities, can’t just be living our lives,” Fischer said.

“Society wants us to be heroic and inspirational, ‘overcoming our limitations’ all the time.”

This heroizing has turned individuals into symbols for people with disabilities as a whole, a group that ranges from bipolar disorder to cerebral palsy to dyslexia. The range of experiences that people with disabilities have is extremely diverse; assuming that all people with a certain disability encounter the same struggles is both inaccurate and offensive to many.

“We need to de-emphasize disability and emphasize humanity and common experience,” Fischer said, suggesting an attitudinal shift of focusing on similarities rather than differences.

One common experience is dependency. People with disabilities may depend on mobility devices or educational accommodations, but people without disabilities also rely on others to perform activities of daily living.

“Nobody is truly independent, we’re all interdependent,” Feuerstein said.

“I depend on the dry cleaner, the bus schedule, my wife. We’re all spreading our dependencies.”

Seeing these similarities is part of seeing the humanity of people with disabilities. Another vital part is terminology, since negative societal attitudes toward disability are often rooted in language.

“Words are powerful,” Joanie Groome, coordinator of Recreation Support Services at the Ithaca Youth Bureau, said. “Language both reflects and creates feelings and attitudes. Any word that starts with ‘without,’ ‘less than,’ or ‘reduced’ will be construed as negative.”

Language that implies suffering, affliction or confinement also has a negative connotation and is offensive to many people with disabilities. The New York State Department of Health now encourages people to use person-first language, such as “person with a disability” instead of “disabled.” This shift suggests society is starting to move away from seeing people with disabili-

ties as lesser, weak or defined by their capabilities. But the opposite reaction to disability — namely, putting people with disabilities on a pedestal — can be equally reductive.

“People are well-intended and they want to praise others, but they just don’t know,” Groome said. “They can’t imagine doing those day-to-day tasks with the same barriers.”

Recognizing and admiring greater efforts is possible “without turning someone into an inspirational paragon,” Fischer said, but activities of daily living are just as necessary for people with disabilities as people without them. Completing a task in a nonstandard way doesn’t warrant congratulating someone or elevating them to hero status.

“When I was younger, I mostly felt baffled. I couldn’t figure out why people thought I was doing anything so remarkable,” Fischer said. “I mean, what was my other option? Stay home and not get my education or my grocery shopping done or whatever it was I went out to do? Not see my friends and family?”

For someone without a disability, completing everyday tasks is unexceptional, and the same should be true for people who have additional barriers.

“If you’re doing everyday tasks, you’re not a hero,” Groome said. “If you do something that’s out of the ordinary for anybody, then you might be a hero. What makes someone a hero shouldn’t be whether they have a disability; it should be what barriers they overcome regardless of disability.” _____________________________________ Sabina Leybold is sophomore speechlanguage pathology major who doesn’t choose her heroes based on ability.

Email her at sleybol1@ithaca.edu.

Ministry of Cool

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Arts, entertainment and other things cooler than us. 15

Raised by Disney

The skewed depictions of good versus evil in children’s movies

Maddison Murnane, Contributing Writer

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isney is and has been the epitome of childhood imaginations and learning since its birth in 1923. The company consistently creates encapturing graphics and touching storylines full of princesses, fairy tales and villains to create a movie that is captivating to the audience. This audience happens to consist mostly of naive young children who through many studies have been proven to be just as affected by the portrayal of good against evil in these movies as they are by their elementary education.

BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

Perfect Isn’t Easy In 2010, Doris Bazzini, a psychology professor at Appalachian State University, looked to uncover the “what is beautiful is good” theory expressed in many movies and how it affected the psyche’s of children. After analyzing more than 100 popular Disney movies, the results were no surprise. Bazzini and her team found that attractive characters in the movies were almost always positively correlated with goodness, friendliness, romantic relationships and socioeconomic status.

Although the study’s conclusions are obvious, there are actually negative effects on children and their developmental learning associated with these findings.

The perfect characteristics depicted in these movies can lead children to believe that is what they have to achieve to be successful in life. A second test done by the same team showed results that children prefer to associate with attractive characters over unattractive characters from Disney movies. How can this be bad? This idea instilled in children at such a young age makes them closeminded and judgemental. It’s almost as if the notion of ugliness is immoral and not accepted. These stereotypical ideas that corrupt their childhood can stick with them into adulthood.

Poor Unfortunate Souls What could be better than being a Disney princess for an occupation? Most young girls would agree that the answer

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to this question is nothing. However, princesses seem to have a different affect on young girls than heroes do on the whole child population. Like heroes, princesses are associated with the characteristics of the ideal person. Unlike heroes, princesses expose girls to power and individuality at a very young age.

According to Kennedy Bailey’s article “Disney Princesses Have Mixed Effects on Children” in The Digital Universe, Brigham Young University’s newspaper, young girls engrossed in these movies have shown signs of less aggression as well as a higher prosocial behavior.

But with everything that kids are exposed to today, there are also negative effects. Young girls have also shown that they are affected by body image and gender stereotypes due to the movies.

Young girls feel as though they have to embody the female characters that they look up to. Additionally, Disney princesses leave many girls with the feeling that they are not the ones in power, a notion perpetuated by society where males are left to do the “hard” work. This idea leads to the lack of self confidence and individuality growing within girls.

The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind In addition to being forever ugly, villains are often associated with racial stereotypes in Disney movies. This condition is prevalent through the 1941 movie, Dumbo. A fan favorite, the movie seems to be harmless and ends in happily ever after; however, there is an underlying, hard-to-pick-out theme of African-American racism present. First of all, the villains of the movie happen to be black crows all voiced by AfricanAmerican actors. Secondly, the leader of the pack is named Jim Crow, referencing the historical Jim Crow laws illustrating segregation between blacks and whites in the United States. Thirdly, how could Disney do this? Dumbo was released at a time when racial discrimination was a much hotter issue in the United States and they included this in children’s movies. Characterizing these crows in such a way would lead children to discriminate against other races even further.

Let it Go Ithaca father Thomas Pfaff said he believes the solution to the negative impacts on children produced by Disney is simple: don’t expose them to the movies in the first place. Ever since his children were young, he decided that the best way to keep them from being influenced by these negative connotations involved with Disney movies was to not expose them to the movies in the first place.

Actually, he barely exposed them to television at all. Instead of spending time in front of the television rotting brain cells he would, “throw them outside and make them get away from the screen.” His four boys were allowed to watch some TV, but the commercials had to be muted.

By avoiding these, he hoped that his children would be less influenced by the consumerism world and “not succomb to fads.”

This would be a difficult task because of children’s constant involvement with their classmates as well as the prominence of Disney movies. Perhaps a better method to this problem would be to not distance children from the movies altogether, but talk over the prevalent themes in each movie and discuss the good and bad characters. Something as simple as this could keep children from forming judgemental thoughts and even prevent judgemental actions. Or maybe there is nothing wrong, and parents need to keep investing in the ever-growing Disney market. Besides, isn’t Disney World where dreams come true?

Hakuna Matata Although these movies are proven to have negative effects on the psychology of young kids, they aren’t only a source of negativity. For years, Disney has been one of the leading contributors to children’s incredible imaginations.

Similarly, movies such as Pixar’s Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc. promote the ideals of friendship and equality. Besides, who doesn’t want to live happily ever after? _____________________________________ Maddison Murnane is a freshman journalism major who wants to be more than just a damsel in distress. Email her at mmurnane@ithaca.edu

The White Male Protagonist

Dissecting the lack of diversity in lead roles Michele Hau, Contributing Writer

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diversity. There are dozens of shows that feature nonwhite males that highlight the talents of other, traditionally underrepresented artists. Stalker, Black-ish and Gotham all feature a variety of diverse leads and co-leads, as well as a diverse team of writers and creators behind the screen.

Regardless of their emerging presence in media, it is nevertheless important to realize that before entertainers are “that Asian guy in that one show” or “the badass Indian girl” in the other, they are entertainers. Even though many minority entertainers can easily be hailed as pioneers of American entertainment and looked up to by society, choosing to embrace the “otherness” about their identity is detrimental. It allows for entertainers to become easily distracted by their own “otherness,” but more importantly audiences start to see them as representative of the binaries they are a part of, and thus fail to appreciate their hard work as a person independent from their minority status.

However, as more diverse writers, directors and producers emerge in the entertainment industry and justifiably gain recognition, new “progressive” shows that portray more diverse protagonists are evoking mixed reactions from the public. While some shows, such as Commander in Chief and Veronica Mars have failed and were eventually canceled due to declining viewership, other shows such as Girls, Orange is the New Black, Scandal, Parks and Recreation and The Mindy Project are widely popular and thrive under the new boom of diverse protagonists.

The fact that a more equitable female presence in entertainment is considered by many as “controversial” speaks to the inherent gender biases we hold as a collective society. The restating of the “good guy” protagonist has evoked a cultural renaissance in which those who are historically underrepresented now have the opportunity to reinvent themselves, securing their voice for the future.

When asked about the political nature and social ramifications of her hit HBO show Girls by COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, creator Lena Dun-

ham replied honestly: “I just wanted to tell stories that felt real to me, I wanted to depict my friends and my family who were characters who I feel I haven’t seen before… These incredibly complicated women who have come of age in a time of social media that are scared to drink but will take tons of Adderall… I didn’t realize telling the truth about the women around me would be an inherent political action.”

And indeed, communicating the truth about the real world should not be something that is condemned but rather something that should be celebrated. More shows portraying women in a realistic, human light are not an attack on white males, but rather an expansion of media representation, one that includes diverse, creative and imaginative perspectives. It symbolizes the death of traditional ideals and the repurposing of our horribly skewed perceptions of entertainment and media. _____________________________________ Michele Hau is a freshman culture and communication major who doesn’t want production without representation. Email her at mhau@ithaca.edu

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Ministry of Cool

love watching the “good guy” on TV; he’s always an idol in some way. He reliably does the righteous and just thing, and he is always a hero, the person who we wish we could to turn to in times of trouble. However, there are equally awe-inspiring people of the opposite sex, admirable people of differing ethnicities, and praiseworthy people who speak in accents. They are usually not the good guys. They are the people cut out of the lead roles they deserve.

In media culture today, it is quite obvious that most mainstream media institutions do not accurately reflect American society. Although America is hailed as a “melting pot” rich with cultural and ethnic diversity, the America portrayed through television is a bland cup of soup in comparison. And the worst part is audience members love it, so much so that it is consumed blindly.

Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother: What do all of these shows have in common? They have good guys. And not only is the good guy white, male and successful, he makes the show. Their storylines are easy to follow and the characters are complex, human and lovable. Without Walt, Don, Phil, Sheldon and Ted, what would these shows be? Or rather, what could they be?

According to the Geena Davis Institute, women are only about 37 percent of primetime TV characters. Meaning males make up about 63 percent of characters portrayed. Additionally, for every one female speaking character in a primetime comedy, there are more than two speaking male characters.

This gender imbalance in the media is only one representation of gender bias in our society. Even though women make up 51 percent of the U.S. population, they continue to be underrepresented in the media and entertainment industry. In essence, the entertainment is and has been failing women, not to mention everybody who is not a privileged white male.

Interestingly enough, this fall 2014 primetime TV season has established itself as a season categorized by ethnic

RAW SAW

Tusk

FROM THE

Film Review Jon Roberts

BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

Contributing Writer

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Kevin Smith’s latest film, Tusk, begins a trilogy into the backwoods of beloved Canada. The film stars Justin Long as Wallace Bryton, a podcaster in search of a great story for his podcast. After leaving both his co-host and his girlfriend behind (played by Haley Joel Osment and Genesis Rodriguez), he goes missing in the backwoods of Manitoba. From here this little comedy turns into a full blown gore porn horror flick and the podcaster goes full walrus.

Like falling down a rabbit hole, there’s no going back, and just like that the film is flipped on it’s head. I was so horrified of the images that are now burned into my head, but the experience is something beyond memorable. By the time Long’s character is being transformed, there’s no going back and there’s no unseeing what’s on the screen.

The film based on a podcast based on a fake advertisement has the same feel as almost all of Smith’s films, the dialogue is quickwitted and it is easy to get lost in Howard Howe’s life stories. Howe, played by Michael Parks, is a crazy combination between Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill. Parks shines in the film as he retells his horrific stories of his past, and at first the old man is relatable, but he becomes more and more sadistic. Bryton’s transformation into the walrus is quick and cringeworthy, and the walrus suit is a throwback to classic B-level horror films but is somehow realistic as it shows Bryton’s eyes. As Bryton begins his transformation, more about his backstory and his relationship with his girlfriend is

revealed. Rodriguez’s performance stands out with her powerful monologue as the camera slowly dollies in. While Bryton is going full walrus, his lover and best friend are on the hunt to find him, but the viewer knows what they are searching for and this only adds to the horrific images throughout the film.

Smith has become one of the largest names in the podcasting world and has built a little audience for himself over the past few years. His main podcast, SModcast, was what started this journey. Last summer, Smith and Scott Mosier published an episode named “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” In it, the duo spent 30 minutes making themselves giggle over an ad posted on Gumtree. It read that a man was looking for someone to live in his home for free with the only exception that they must dress like a walrus once a day. Smith was fascinated by the idea and his wheels spun as he broke down this horror film about a man being surgically morphed into a walrus.

What is hard to explain is how this odd horror flick packs such an emotional punch but will still make you laugh and cringe. As a warning, this film is not for everyone; in fact after first leaving the theatre, I said I never wanted to see the film again. As a bonus, Smith kept secret the fact that Johnny Depp is in the film, and his character Guy Lapointe is perfect for him. In a way there’s a film or genre for everyone inside Tusk, you just have to be willing to see what a human walrus looks like — and that ladies and gentlemen, will change you.

Flying Lotus

You’re Dead!

Album Review Tyler Macri

Jukebox the Ghost

Contributing Writer

Jukebox the Ghost Album Review Alexa Salvato Staff Writer

the world of a disillusioned pill-popping addict.

Listeners will feel as though they are being swept through the lyricist’s mind, which soars wildly from place to place, like a schizophrenic airplane pilot.

Thundercat’s drum samples are prominent throughout the album — his frenzied bass melts tracks together by bringing a certain consistency to each song. Thundercat (and contributing jazz legend Herbie Hancock) can be heard most clearly in tracks like “Moment of Hesitation,” a dreamy instrumental piece that surrounds the listener with rattling cymbals, frantic strings and distant horns.

The album clocks in at just 38 minutes, a fact that becomes blaringly apparent by the length of each track. The longest song featured in You’re Dead! is just 3 minutes and 54 seconds long, the average track being around a minute and a half. While these vibrant morsels of musical eccentricity might seem too short individually, they meld together to create a satisfyingly holistic album.

You’re Dead! is an exciting new step in Flying Lotus’ career. The album is engagingly fast-paced and delivers a satisfying electronic experience through ambience and masterfully crafted jazz instrumentals. The album defies structural criticism by achieving a vibrantly amorphous quality, which is arguably the pinnacle of Ellison’s evolution as a musician.

“So let go/ Of the world, you know/ There’s something waiting for you/ In the Great Unknown.”

think it’s very appropriate. Jukebox’s apparent awkwardness around serious emotions might be exactly what has led them to such acclaim from the teen and 20-something crowd; we’re the same way. We’re often no more articulate, fumbling with cliches and familiar melodies, in expressing love or not-love or fear of oblivion.

And sometimes, we do get it right. The last few songs aren’t as radio-friendly, but are slower and softer. The transition was marked by the first few lines of “Postcard”: “I don’t want you to feel broken/ I just want you to feel good/ Let’s put away all those past indiscretions/ Let it go, do you think you could?” With these oddly familiar lines, they’re saying something we may have wished to say to someone else, but maybe haven’t had the chance to. It’s wonderful to hear them out loud.

“Undeniable Love,” the penultimate song, shows what can happen when the band experiments a bit more musically. The album opens with compelling drums and is peppered with harmonies, but is dominated by fairly standard piano pop. “Undeniable Love,” however, is composed of gospel-type harmonies and sparse accompaniment. I hope for more risky songs like this in the future; the band is talented enough to move far beyond convention.

The last song, “Show Me Where It Hurts,” is a soft, sweet ballad. It’s far different from the pop the album started with, demonstrating the full scope of Jukebox’s abilities, and full hope for all that they could attempt in the future.

After they’d already been growing in popularity for a while, this tongue-in-cheek chorus of their newest single put Jukebox the Ghost on the list of indie-pop bands to watch this summer. The message of “The Great Unknown” is little worrisome — What exactly is waiting for you? — but ultimately freeing.

And how much stress can it induce when the lyrics are accompanied by such a catchy beat?

This is a trend of Jukebox the Ghost’s eponymous new album, released on Oct. 21. It’s full of sing-along refrains that, when you hear them back, you realize are also life lessons. This is one of Jukebox’s lyrical strengths. It’s tough to balance life lessons with cliche, but somehow, Jukebox continues to pull it off.

Some critics disagree, claiming it’s a lot more trite, and I see where they’re coming from. For example, in “The One,” the morose, “I don’t think I can take it/ Another heart breaking/ Another whole world crumbling in two” is followed by poppy synth beats. The juxtaposition feels contrived. This criticism is valid; there’s been a hell of a lot of songs called “Girl,” sung by some boy about some, well, girl, and it comes across as a bit too vague.

Jukebox’s poppier vibe on this album could be considered an over-simplification by some, a masquerade of their discomfort, but I

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Ministry of Cool

Flying Lotus’s You’re Dead! is as excessively goofy and cheeky as the album’s title would imply. You’re Dead! is the fifth album from Steven Ellison (Flying Lotus’s real name), and is perhaps the most boisterous yet — Ellison creates an electronic jazz-fusion experience that takes the listener on a wild chase through a comically morbid world that serves to scrutinize the implications of our mortality through hilariously over-thetop lyrics.

FlyLo fans will find that You’re Dead! is refreshingly fast-paced in comparison to his last album, Until the Quiet Comes, which was a much slower, ambient experience. You’re Dead! signifies a return to the techniques explored in Cosmogramma, an album that also made use of jazz-fusion techniques to create a more vibrant record.

You’re Dead! features a series of notable collaborators who all make vocals a major part of the album. Listeners can expect to hear from the likes of Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Thundercat and Steven Ellison’s alter ego, Captain Murphy. Kendrick Lamar, featured in the track “Never Catch Me,” raps swiftly to a rhythmically dense beat featuring jazzy strings and moody keyboards. The track featuring Ellison himself (as Captain Murphy) embodies the soul of the album; “The Boys Who Died in Their Sleep” explores

WDUST. SAWDUST. SAWD BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

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Threatening the magazine’s credibility since 1856.

The Hero Ithaca Deserves But maybe not the one it needs Emma Taubenfeld, Contributing Writer

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om Rochon to the rescue!

Ithaca College president, Tom Rochon, soars over the beautiful, gray skies of Ithaca, New York fighting crime and ready to save the day. Sources say that Rochon has been seen sporting a black leotard and cape underneath his suit and tie in order to hide his secret identity as Batman. He’s been spending his hours when not in the office battling dangerous villains such as the Joker and the neighboring president of Cornell University, David Skorton, but he spends most of his time at the college saving the students.

Ithaca College senior Anthony Stark witnessed Rochon in Terrace dining hall observing the long line of students waiting for ice cream. “He was just silently standing there watching,” Bruce said. “The student employee couldn’t figure out how to work the soft-serve machine which was the last straw for Rochon. He lept over the counter and began filling cones at lightning speed,

eliminating the ice cream line completely — something never before seen in Ithaca College history.”

We spoke to another Ithaca College student, Kent Clarky, who witnessed Rochon saving the life of another student. “I was sitting in the quad one day holding my breath, watching the guy balancing on the tightrope,” Clarky said. “He had almost made it completely across the thin rope when he all of a sudden lost his balance. Everyone gasped, but as he was about to hit the ground, Tom Rochon swung out of the tree and caught the guy, safely placing him on the ground.”

One monumental day in particular occurred recently on a rainy Saturday afternoon as the Park School bus stop was overflowing with students trying to make their way over to Wegman’s or The Commons. The T-Cat was more than an hour late, as per usual, when Rochon surprised the students as he circled over the local area and found the bus, lifted it, and carried it on his back as he lept

over the Park School, so the students could load the bus.

Buzzsaw tracked down mogul Bruce Wayne, to get his opinion on Rochon taking over his role. “Who is Tom Rochon?” Wayne asked. “Someone is pretending to be Batman and isn’t me?

I want this man charged with identity theft!” Buzzsaw left the awkward encounter with Wayne as he was mumbling about how he would destroy Rochon. I guess Mr. Bat-President has another villain to watch out for.

Rochon’s incredible efforts of making sure everything is running smoothly have been extremely beneficial for Ithaca as his heroic powers have kept out the evil forces and bad spirits. He may even try to bring capes back into style as he dives into his Bat Mobile ready to go out and save the day. _______________________________________ Emma Taubenfeld is a freshman art major who hopes maybe Bruce Wayne can fork over some cash to get free printing back at IC. Email her at etaubenfeld@ithaca. edu.

The Most Useless Superpower

Local hero claims to be able to find Waldo every time Elena Haskins, Contributing Writer

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as a restaurant inspector. He said, “I was hoping that I could use my powers to find things quickly to locate violations in restaurants, but I guess it only works for Waldo!”

Many people with superpowers go undetected, living secret lives incognito for in fear of special treatment, judgement and unwanted attention.

The Finder has lived under the radar as William Warner for more than 15 years, until now. When asked why he chose to unveil his identity now, he said, “You can’t be ‘you’ if others don’t even know who you are. You’re just lying to yourself and the rest of the world. I wanted to teach the public that you can still live a normal life even with supernatural powers! I’m tired of being afraid of judgement and special treatment.”

Warner has been using his superpowers to help children at local libraries find Waldo. He said: “When I first started volunteering at the library,

I watched hundreds of children discover Waldo and his friends. It warmed my heart to see so many people connecting through the book series. But as I looked closer, I realized that younger children struggled and even began crying because they couldn’t locate the famous red and white scarf.”

That’s when Warner knew something had to be done. The Founder became Warner’s alter ego, and he began helping children all over public libraries find Waldo.

Dressed like his favorite characters, The Finder can be spotted in red and white stripes, helping distressed citizens searching for the hidden character. _____________________________________ Elena Haskins is a freshman film, photography & visual arts major whose superpower is going through an entire Costco-sized box of mac ‘n’ cheese in one semester. Email her at ehaskins@ithaca. edu

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Sawdust

veryone knows that pesky yet alluring hideand-seek picture game covered in red and white.

Where’s Waldo has kept Americans baffled for up to five minutes and now one superhero has the ability to conquer the puzzle.

Some stop planes; some run faster than cars can drive. But only one can solve a Where’s Waldo puzzle in under a millisecond. The Finder discovered his ability when he was only 10 years old.

“A talent is being really good at something. I’m not just really good at Where’s Waldo, I mastered it in a matter of seconds, that’s not just a talent, that’s a super power. A superpower is an ability that someone has that nobody else has.

Many people have musical talent or are really good at soccer or dancing. But did they instantly master it without any practice or prior knowledge?” The Finder said. He currently lives in Manhattan,

Confession From a Chin

Popular comic book hero feels left out

BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

Image by Lizzie Cox

Lizzy Rosenberg, Staff Writer

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ear Diary, This week has, without a doubt, been the hardest seven days of my life. With Halloween rolling around, I go to Party City just for kicks, just to see that all of the Superman, Batman and Iron Man costumes are sold out. Tears roll along through my endless facial crevices when I see that I’m not even a costume option.

As I exit the store in a dramatically reflective manner, Michelle Branch blares through my head, and I stomp to my car. As I climb into the front seat of the Chin-Mobile, I resume a classic fetal position. Empty feelings of nothingness consume my thoughts.

I am a “nobody,” with an inexplicably

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buff chin and a red jumpsuit.

I presume my loss of fame is directly correlated to Timmy’s downhill spiral, since he had played a role on my hit television show. Everybody stopped paying attention to Timmy once he started bumming around with other washed-up child actors like Macaulay Culkin and the entire cast of Full House. I guess everyone assumed that I went with him to this ambiguously meth-filled “dark side.” I, however, am no Jodie Sweetin. I am an Olsen twin: though I am often lost and forgotten in an oversized fur coat made for three homeless men, I am still somehow alive and kicking.

The most unbelievable part of all of this is that nobody realizes that to this

day, my chin is still constantly saving cats from trees and fighting crime.

It obviously isn’t Jay Leno using his giant chin to save the world; he’s too busy laughing at crying children and eating puppies for lunch. My chin runs circles around his. It isn’t Sarah Jessica Parker, either. She’s too busy getting laughed at by Perez Hilton and making horrific sequels to Sex and the City. The truth is, the world would be in turmoil without my giant chin. My talents simply go unnoticed.

On another note, who even cares about Superman? He is a fullgrown man prancing around in blue tights and red panties. Or Batman?

Same deal, wearing black and yellow, and wings. And Iron Man? I heard he orders Pumpkin Spice Lattes at Starbucks. And that’s just super lame, who does that?

Anyways, after a week full of brooding and Avril Lavigne (Let Go era), I have decided that I am officially retiring the chin’s talent. That’s right.

Society won’t like it when I’m gone. I, however, have bought a full-time home in Honolulu, with a backyard pool just for my chin. What will society do when their cats get stuck in a tree? (I am really not at all sure as to how cartoon cats get stuck in trees so often?)

Anyways, everybody will be sorry.

They will all miss the chin; the chin’s wrath doesn’t shine until it’s GONE. And I won’t miss anybody at all. I will be drinking coconut water and rum out of a martini glass with a small, novelty-drink umbrella. My chin will have it’s own novelty- drink umbrella as well.

Everyone shall prepare for utter, chinless chaos. Ta-ta for now.

-The (now retired) Crimson Chin _____________________________________ Lizzy Rosenberg is a junior integrated marketing communications major who awaits the return of Adam West’s Catman. Email her at erosenb3@ithaca. edu

14 Percent Approval of Awesome!

New reports suggest Congress has some use Jodi Silberstein, Staff Writer

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he accusations about the American government never getting anything done are weightless and entirely unresearched.

Most people arrive at these conclusions based on polls broadcast on the nightly news. But who took these polls? Government haters and girls from Quinnipiac wearing their dumb Uggs and polos, that’s who.

be compared to that maniac dog on the Beggin’ Strips commercial. (You know exactly what I’m talking about.)

Below is just a short list of all that was accomplished by various Senators and House members that week.

Whether it was smoking a cigar while thinking about gun control laws or ordering a new phone case on Amazon while watching Homeland, this senator, an accurate representation of all other senators, is the purest definition of productivity.

Well if there’s anything I remember from Intro to Journalism, it’s that journalists serve as the fourth estate to the government and should never ever be biased. (Thanks, Mead Loop.)

That said, I think it is time we put these accusations to rest and not be afraid to discuss the opposing argument — that we actually have an incredibly productive government, one whose members get up every single morning with a smile their faces, pride in their hearts, a shit ton of money in their pockets, and a mindset that says nothing but ‘cease the day.’

I reached out to one of my congressional representatives with a request to follow him around for a week to prove just how productive our government is and how much can be accomplished in seven days alone.

Not only did the senator personally answer my phone call, but he agreed to my week of shadowing with an impressive enthusiasm that can only

The most impressive thing to note here is his ability to multi-task. For those of you who thought millennials were the ultimate multi-taskers, you thought wrong. Whether it was smoking a cigar while thinking about gun control laws or ordering a new phone case on Amazon while watching Homeland, this senator, an accurate representation of all other senators, is the purest definition of productivity, constantly thinking about things and delegating other people to do things.

So next time you go about judging the government for never getting anything done, remember to specifically define what that means exactly and always, always, always realize that when it comes down to it, it’s the thought that counts. _____________________________________ Jodi Silberstein is a senior journalism major who is running her own congressional bid on the “dinosaurs are cool” platform. Email her at jsilber1@ ithaca.edu.

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Sawdust

1. Makes coffee, doesn’t burn it 2. Takes dog for a walk, picks up poop in eco-friendly bag 3. Contemplates legislation for Ebola protocols while simultaneously driving to the office 4. Tells intern to add pics to campaign page of the hand shaking that took place last weekend 5. Reminisces on Credit Suisse’s glory days 6. A n s w e r s phone call from fellow senator, plans golf outing 7. Googles own name 8. Gets lunch with fellow senator, complains about other party’s opinions about climate change 9. Does 25 push ups 10. Photoshops Barack’s face on Michelle’s body 11. Gives bullet points about minimum wage stance to speech writer for that thing in lowincome neighborhood 12.

Yells nonsense at campaign manager after watching opponents negative advertisement 13. Supports local businesses, eats dinner at diner 14. Skypes with grandchild, reconsiders stance on charter schools 15. Opens Buzzfeed app, falls asleep reading 16. Finally called the cable guy like he promised 17. Opens a beer with his eyelids 18. Opens a beer with her

cleavage 19. Explains to daughter where babies come from 20. Watches Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, contemplates that African Americans might be people 21. Upgrades home theater to BluRay 22. Learns where Israel is 23. Votes on amendment to make Grumpy Cat America’s #2 mascot 24. Finishes Parks and Rec, writes to Amy Pohler asking for a season 7 cameo 25. Downloads 1989 by Taylor Swift

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BUZZSAW: The Hero Issue

Sawdust

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