CULTURE
March 11, 2015
Page 11
The Fordham Ram
Spring Concerts to Satisfy All Music Fans From Ariana Grande to Sufjan Stevens, the Best Performances this Season By SARAH HARTNETT CONTRIBUTING WRITER
As we spring forward with Daylight Saving Time, we patiently wait for festival season. There are still a ton of spring concerts spanning various genres going on in the tri-state area. While many face-value tickets have already been sold, you always can check StubHub or TicketsNow for resale. Especially as the concert day approaches, some people will need to sell tickets last-minute. If you are an Elliot Smith fan, you may enjoy “An Evening with Seth and Jessica Lea Mayfield,” who will be paying tribute to this wonderful musician on Thursday March 12 at Town hall Theatre for $50.00. The small, intimate theatre will give the concert a homey feel. Seth Avett, who is part of the Avett Brothers, always knows how to put on a fabulous show, so it would be exciting to see him in a new setting. On Thursday, March 12, the unique sounding and incredibly talented Alabama Shakes will be hitting New York City. They will be rocking the house at the Beacon Theatre, with tickets starting at $70. If you are all about that bass,
Meghan Trainor has two shows at Irving Plaza in New York City on Friday, March 13 and Sunday, March 15. Tickets for both are being sold for $90. This show is general admission, so you are bound to be dancing the night away to her bubbly pop music. For all electric dance music fans who are waiting for EDC and Electric Zoo: Steve Aoki will be the main attraction at Hammerstein Ballroom on Friday, March 13. If you are in need of a night of dope bass drops and dancing, you should head over to StubHub to order some tickets; they are going for $89. Ariana Grande, who has had a noteworthy year, will be playing the esteemed Madison Square Garden on March 20 and March 21 with the band Rixton as her opener. While tickets are costly, starting at $140, this is a show not to miss. The one and only Billy Joel also will be hitting the Garden for multiple nights throughout the spring and summer. He has a show on April 3, which is the only show being played during our spring semester, and tickets start at $70. Do not miss a once-in- a-lifetime opportunity to see one of the
FRANK FRANKLIN II/AP
Fordham students can see some of this past year’s most buzzed about acts, like Ariana Grande, or find less expensive options.
most influential musicians of all time. Sufjan Stevens also has four New York shows. This incredible singer-songwriter will be playing two shows in Brooklyn at the Kings Theatre on May 1 and 2. He is also playing a show on April 11 at the Beacon Theatre, with tickets starting at $65 for both shows. Rap and hip-hop fans may want to check out Grammys’ Best New Artist nominee Iggy Azalea’s shows at the Barclays Center and Prudential Center in Newark, NJ on May 7 and May 8, respectively. Jonas Brothers fans will be delighted to see Nick Jonas as her
opening act. Tickets start at $50, so if you are interested you can spring for better seats. In addition, Kid Ink will be appearing at the intimate, general admission Irving Plaza near Union Square, NYC on April 20. Tickets start at $40 but may increase in price as more are sold closer to the date. For comedy fans and people looking for another form of entertainment, Jay Leno will be doing stand- up on Friday, March 13 at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury — tickets are going for $63. If you miss seeing his face on late night television, be sure to get down there. In addition, whether you
enjoy Wanda Sykes’ stand-up or acting roles, you can see her at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ. There are a limited amount of tickets available, starting at $60. While we are all ready for the school year to be over and are excited for festivals and summer concerts, there are many shows you can go to in the upcoming months. In addition to comedy shows, there are also a ton of Broadway shows you can attend, as well as Rangers, Knicks and Nets games. I have found if you wait until the day of the event, you can get the best seats for the cheapest price.
Terrorist Humor: Funny or Too Far? By MEGAN BRONNER STAFF WRITER
Two weekends ago, “Saturday Night Live” did a skit parodying a Toyota commercial in which a father is dropping his daughter off at the airport as she goes off to join the US military. The SNL version of the commercial portrays a father, Taran Killam, dropping his daughter, 50 Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson, off at the airport to join ISIS, an Islamic extremist group known in the recent news for beheading and killing innocent people. The SNL “join ISIS” ad is satirizing the young girls who have fled to Syria to become a part of this extremist organization. The skit has left some people believing that it was done in poor taste and that people, even SNL, should not mock the deaths of innocent people and that the skit could potentially offend the families of the young girls who have died at the hands of ISIS. Others believe that there is no reason to not mock this terrible and horrific Islamic extremist organization, including this idealization that appeals to some young girls, and the people who willingly join it. Why should the worst of the worst be
AP/EVAN AGOSTINI
SNL’s Taran Killam is featured in the controversial ISIS skit as a proud, emotional dad.
spared from SNL’s jokes and ridicule? The outrage over this particular SNL skit begs the question, why the outrage now, if SNL has never shied away from this sort of in-your-face, did-that-just-happen comedy. Part of the outrage seems to be from the seriousness of the
subject that they are mocking. Even though SNL is known for using current events to create their comical skits, on occasion, they do not leave all people laughing, especially after this ISIS skit. In the past, SNL has produced terrorist-related skits that did not face such negative backlash. For
example, in 2003 Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz performed a skit in which they parodied terrorists, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, respectively. This skit makes fun of these two terrorists by depicting a prank phone call on Bin Laden. The skit is humorous because of the American slang and the casually funny relationship these horrible people have in the skit. This skit is different than the ISIS one, because it only mocks the terrorists rather than their victims as well. Supporters of the skit argue that the media has blown up this apparent backlash, because much of the outrage stems publicized by traditional media outlets. It is not exactly clear how many people are upset by this skit, but producers and actors on the show stand by the skit and how it portrayed the topic is was making fun of, and seem to think that the number of people criticizing the skit is smaller than the media is portraying. During the skit, it is clear that there are people laughing in the audience. Seeing as SNL typically pokes fun at current events, this is not the first time that there has been a disagreement amongst the public as to whether or not SNL took the skit too far. The main
case against the ISIS skit is that it is offensive to the families of the young girls who joined ISIS and were subsequently killed by extremist members, and to people who have been beheaded by ISIS. Some claim that ISIS is not an appropriate subject to make fun of, or that it is “too soon” for it to be a subject of a skit. However, this is not the first time that SNL has made a skit about ISIS in particular, in November of 2014, Chris Rock and SNL cast members, who mocked the TV show “Shark Tank, “ portrayed hopeful jihadis who were pitching their ideas for ISIS to judges. In addition, there was backlash from Chris Rock’s opening monologue when he said that he would never go into the Freedom Towers and people should call it “target.” So what exactly qualifies an SNL skit to be deemed “tasteless” and “vile” is up to the public and always will be, meanwhile I expect SNL to continue to toe the line. SNL often pushes the boundary between funny and distasteful. This ISIS skit begs the question: Are people overreacting to SNL’s comedy, or do they have a right to be upset at SNL for overstepping this line?