The Strand | Volume 60, Issue 2

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STRAND VICTORIA UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER VOLUME 60, ISSUE 2 | 19 SEPTEMBER 2017

THE HOUSING ISSUE

The Toronto housing crisis is a student issue

StudentDwellTO seeks to solve lack of affordable student housing

The Strand reviews the Toronto International Film Festival

EDITORIAL | MOLLY KAY

NEWS | AINSLEY DOELL

ARTS AND CULTURE | VARIOUS

02 NEWS

EDITOR | AINSLEY DOELL NEWS@THESTRAND.CA

Ontarians voice concerns over new marijuana regulation plan Accessibility concerns and the impact on small businesses present themselves as obstacles within the new regulation proposal ashley meehan staff writer

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On September 8th, 2017, the government of Ontario released its newly outlined regulation plan for legalized cannabis, leaving some citizens concerned about accessibility and the future of small businesses.

The legalization of marijuana is a federal government decision, but provincial governments will decide how to control the substance within their regions. Ontario is the first province to release a detailed plan.

This proposed plan specifies the legal purchasing age of 19, as well as the areas where cannabis can be consumed, and details the process of shutting down local dispensaries. The Ontario government plans to sell cannabis through stores run by the LCBO, and aims to have 40 stores open by summer 2018, including an online store.

Some Ontarians have expressed concern about not only the degradation of mari-

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juana quality, but also the harmful effects this plan will have on local businesses.

Easton Sierra, a concerned student who uses marijuana for medical purposes, says: “Based on the plan, I will probably still buy illegally; I’d rather support a single person making a living than funding an industry that’s going to negatively impact the small businesses that have been actively fighting for weed legalization for years.”

Many users have commented on how the illegal market will thrive under this plan, citing the closing of dispensaries and the small number of legal stores as potentially discouraging to users from buying legally.

For Dave, a medical marijuana user, accessibility is the main concern. He believes that “no one is going to give up a good, convenient, local drug dealer to buy from the government.”

UTSU VP University Affairs resigns Student union to fill in new member by appointment uma kalkar associate news editor

On September 3rd, Vice-President (VP) University Affairs Carina Zhang resigned from the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) Board of Directors.

In an email to The Strand, UTSU President Mathias Memmel stated that Zhang’s resignation was due to personal reasons and asked that her

a liaison between UofT students and administration to foster a better academic, personal, and social experience for students.

Zhang’s platform focused on eradicating exam deferral and re-mark fees, introducing free feminine hygiene products in UofT washrooms, and campaigning for Ontario Health Insurance

AS PER UTSU BYLAWS, BOARD MEMBERS ARE ONLY ELECTED DURING THE FALL AND SPRING ELECTION DATES; ZHANG’S SEAT WILL BE FILLED BY APPOINTMENT. privacy be respected on the matter.

In the UTSU 2017 spring election, the Demand Better slate won the majority of seats.

Zhang was the only elected representative from the We the Students slate, and won the position with 3,447 votes.

The Vice-President University Affairs acts as

to apply to international students.

As per UTSU bylaws, board members are only elected during the fall and spring election dates; Zhang’s seat will be filled by appointment. There has been no announcement yet of who will be the new Vice-President University Affairs.

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NEWS 03

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 19 SEPTEMBER 2017

Pro-life display at UTSU’s Street Fest sparks counterprotest

What’s happening around campus this week?

“UofT Feminist Strong” banner held in opposition to pro-lifers ainsley doell news editor

On September 12th, a display by University of Toronto Students for Life on the outskirts of the UTSU’s Street Fest was met with an ad hoc gathering of counter-protesters.

After being purportedly blocked from entering the boundaries of the Street Fest, the assembly of pro-life activists chose to set up a display on the Southeast corner of Harbord and St. George, with a large banner featuring a graphic image of an aborted fetus.

The display was met by impromptu groups of counter-protesters who brought with them a large banner reading “UofT Feminist Strong,” which they held up to cover much of the anti-abortion images. Alisha Krishna, one of the students involved in the counter-demonstration, provided information that this banner was repurposed from an action last fall, held in solidarity with Sociology and Women and Gender Studies students following threats made against them.

Ellie Ade Kur, founder of UofT’s chapter of Silence is Violence, could be heard through a megaphone: “There is no shame in having an

abortion, but there is shame in what these people are out here doing.” She continued, “There is no place for this on our campus.”

A barrier was created around the counterdemonstration by members of the police force.

Krishna wrote in an email to The Strand that “there was a shared feeling that we were doing more than advocating for basic, necessary and life-saving medical rights. We were all motivated by intense compassion for those who are regularly shamed, traumatized and humiliated for something so incredibly private and already emotionally charged.” “ Issues raised by counter-demo protesters not only included our right as students to be safe from traumatizing images, but also calls to end the financial relationship between ULife, St. Michael’s College and these anti-abortion activists,” says Krishna.

Krishna directs any students interested in “collective mobilizing around reproductive rights” to the “Silence is Violence – University of Toronto” Facebook page.

The Strand’s Open House September 21, 6-8 PM Goldring Student Centre, Room 153 Interested in getting involved with Victoria College’s student newspaper? Come get information about writing, copyediting, design, video editing, and more for Volume 60 of The Strand!

Free pizza will be provided.

LGBTOUT’s Meet N’ Greet September 25, 7-10 PM Debates Room, Hart House A social to kick off Queer Orientation, an annual week of LGBTQ-focused programming across the UofT campuses.

LGBTOUT’s Meet N’ Greet is a safe and inclusive space to make connections and socialise with fellow students. Snacks will be provided, and it is free to attend.

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UofT, Ryerson, York, and OCADU team up to explore solutions to student housing dilemma ainsley doell news editor

UofT, Ryerson, York, and OCAD University are working collaboratively on “StudentDwellTO”: a research project scheduled to take place over the next two years, with the aim of investigating and generating solutions to the lack of affordable housing for students in Toronto.

This initiative will involve close to 100 students and faculty members across campuses. From UofT, that includes students and faculty members from the Daniels Faculty of Architecture.

Each university involved will be responsible for hosting programming within the community, large focus groups to generate data of lived experiences, and interactive digital tools. All four universities will incorporate this research venture into experiential learning courses, which will research and test the solutions being generated. They will also be responsible for hosting public charrettes, in order to capture a wide range of input and responses.

This project will be approaching housing across a range of disciplines, including, but not limited to architecture, engineering, education, environmental studies, psychology, and urban development and planning.

Hidden Figures: Exploring the Role of Women in STEM September 20, 5:30-8:30 PM Mechanical Engineering Building, Room 252 As part of Science Literacy Week, WISE UofT (Women in Science and Engineering), and the Engineering and Computer Science Library are hosting a screening of Hidden Figures, followed by a panel discussion on “exploring the experience of women in technical fields.” Tickets are free and can be reserved online by following the link on the “Hidden Figures: Exploring the Role of Women in STEM” Facebook page.

VUSAC Town Hall September 28, 5 PM Cat’s Eye Hear from VUSAC elections candidates and ask them questions to inform your voting decisions!

StudentDwellTO seeks to solve lack of affordable student housing photo

VicXposure First General Meeting + Workshop September 20, 6:30 PM Cat’s Eye An opportunity to learn about the VicXposure photography club and what they do at UofT, as well as a workshop on camera basics. Photography experts and novices welcome. There will be rental cameras available for use at the workshop.

Shauna Brail, Presidential Adviser on Urban Engagement and Director of the Urban Studies program at UofT, highlights in a release from the Daniels Faculty that “[StudentDwellTO] is another example of how the impact of our collective efforts can be far greater than the sum of individual contributions.”

This initiative is working in conjunction with its predecessor, StudentMoveTO: a research project also organized by the four universities, which launched in 2015. StudentMoveTO focused on transportation concerns that affect commuter students across campuses.

The preliminary study results for StudentMoveTO released in spring of 2016 identified “cost of housing” as the most prominent consideration for a student when they are moving. The study results also indicate that students who have a further commute are less likely travel to school, leading to less engagement in campus life.

In a release about StudentDwellTO from OCADU, Assistant Professor Min Sook Lee says, “we don’t just need research on student housing, we need to mobilize it.”

26TH ANNUAL

VIC BOOK SALE 2017 Schedule

NEW OPENING DAY HOURS: Thursday September 21: 2pm – 8pm* Friday, September 22: 10am – 8pm Saturday, September 23: 11am – 6pm Sunday, September 24: 11am – 6pm Monday, September 25: 10am – 8pm in Old Vic 91 Charles Street West (Museum Subway Exit) *(First Day Only: Admission $5, Students FREE with I.D.) For more information call 416-585-4585 www.vicbooksale.utoronto.ca vic.booksale@utoronto.ca Proceeds to Victoria University Library

04 NEWS

EDITOR | AINSLEY DOELL NEWS@THESTRAND.CA

Getting involved with VUSAC Fall elections are here

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VUSAC is hosting its fall elections in order to fill eight councillor positions, as well as the positions left outstanding from the spring election period; Sustainability Commissioner and Vice President Student Organizations (VPSO).

Councillor (8 positions available): Councillors assist with the planning and execution of a variety of VUSAC directives and events. They are also voting members on VUSAC. Two of the eight positions are reserved for first-year students.

Sustainability Commissioner (1 position available): The Sustainability Commissioner is responsible for providing the campus community with educational programs, services, and events concerned with promoting environmental sustainability. They are the chair of the sustainability commission, as well as a voting member on VUSAC. Vice President Student Organizations (1 position available): The VPSO liaises between VUSAC and clubs/levies, assisting with their administration, promotion, budgeting, and scheduling. They are a voting member on VUSAC, as well as on its executive.

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Important dates to remember: September 7: Nominations opened September 12, 14, 20: Election information sessions, location, and time to be announced September 21: Nominations close at 5:00 PM September 28, 5 PM: Town Hall—get to know the candidates and what they stand for September 29, 12:01 AM - October 2, 11:59 PM: Voting period Not interested in holding a position on your student government? Stay involved in the election process by getting to know the candidates: join the “VUSAC ELECTIONS FORUM 2017-2018” Facebook group, and attend the Town Hall on September 28th, at 5:00 PM. Nomination packages and further information can be found at the VUSAC office or online at www.vuscac.ca/elections-and-hiring.

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STRAND VICTORIA UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER VOLUME 60 | 2017-18

We’re looking for Editorial Associates!

Interested in helping publish a student newspaper? The Strand is hiring Editorial Associates to assist the editors with everything from content writing to design and web!

Visit us at thestrand.ca/hiring to fill out an application, or visit our Facebook page for more info!

Application deadline: Sunday, September, 24 at 11:59 PM.

EDITORIAL 05

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF | MOLLY KAY AND ELENA SENECHAL-BECKER EDITOR@THESTRAND.CA

The Toronto housing crisis is a student issue

the strand v o l u m e

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But who’s to blame? molly kay editor-in-chief

editors-in-chief

editor@thestrand.ca

molly kay elena senechal-becker

business manager

mishail adeel

business@thestrand.ca news

ainsley doell

news@thestrand.ca opinions

kathleen chen

opinions@thestrand.ca features

erin calhoun

features@thestrand.ca science

science@thestrand.ca

tanuj ashwin kumar nadine ramadan

arts and culture

sabrina papas

artsandculture@thestrand.ca illustration

| jill lee

stranded

rebecca gao

stranded@thestrand.ca

When it comes to the housing market, it seems just about everyone has something to say. And for the most part, we all agree that the state of housing in Toronto is nothing short of dismal.

As usual, Baby Boomers have been pretty quick to pin this issue on Millennials, with the most recent development in this discourse being that Millennials are single-handedly destroying the housing market by eating too much avocado toast.

Millennials—and the rest of us in the cohort that comes after them—retaliated by highlighting the disproportionate increase in property pricing, rental costs, and tuition fees facing our generation. Given the current economic climate, the majority of us can’t afford to save money, let alone even think about purchasing a house. It’s for this same reason that most of us who don’t live at home choose to rent and, even then, renting isn’t something that most of us can afford to do comfortably.

“Ideally, students in Toronto should be able to afford to live a reasonable distance from their schools. But that’s nearly impossible because rent is astronomically high for mediocre apartments in the downtown core,” says Olivia Tharme, a third-year undergraduate student at Ryerson University. “I constantly encounter students who are paying upwards of $800 monthly to rent a small bedroom. It just doesn’t make sense.”

With such a high demand for student housing in cities with institutions for higher education, we often see pockets that reflect a dense student population. This is a notion globally recognized as “studentification.”

Studentification is a word that accounts for all of the social, economic, and cultural changes that occur when large populations of students reside within particular areas of a city. This typically means an inflation in property rental fees that allow landlords to charge students disproportionate amounts of rent through the lease of individual floors of houses. In some cases, student houses accommodate upwards of 10 tenants, all of whom pay for their own rooms.

The increasing trend of private renting through student housing complexes alters the dynamic of the neighbourhoods in which it takes place. As such, studentification is the direct cause of the displacement of long-time residents and families of an area in favour of the younger and more transient student demographic. In Toronto, we see the effects of this phenomenon in neighbourhoods like the Annex, Baldwin Village, and Kensington Market.

The gentrifying nature of studentification poses a lot of issues for the impacted communities, but it’s difficult to determine just how much we—as students contributing to this problem— are to blame for this. For many of us, renting out overpriced rooms in a house occupied by students like ourselves is the only way we can afford to live near our schools. We are then exploited by the expensive nature of the Toronto housing market, which forces us to pay high rents for subpar accommodations. The fact remains that the cost of living in downtown Toronto, even as a student, exceeds what is reasonable given our financial situations.

Students coming from low-income households or lacking in familial support are especially vulnerable.

On affording to live in downtown Toronto, first-year graduate student at Ryerson University, Rhianna Jackson-Kelso, says, “The only way to do it without financial help from relatives is to incur ten of thousands of dollars in debt through student loans.

I’ve always compared notes with my student friends and relatives who live in other cities. People demonstrably pay much more for much worse accommodations in Toronto than they do in most other Canadian cities.”

For some students, living downtown for the entirety of their studies just isn’t financially feasible. “Not only is housing in downtown Toronto less affordable than in other cities, it’s even more difficult to find accommodations within your price range from a distance away, or while living outside of the city for the summer,” says Nickolas Shyshkin, third-year student at the University of Toronto. “Under such circumstances, I’ve had to resort to commuting from my parents’ home in Oakville in order to save money, so that I can start searching again at the end of the semester.”

Oftentimes students are forced to choose between settling on accommodations that are out of their price range, or on properties that are within their budget, but are perhaps unsafe and even harmful. Not only can this be detrimental to their academic performance—it also threatens to decrease their general quality of life.

“Last year I became cut off from my family’s financial assistance because of my gender identity,” says Meera Ulysses, a second-year student at UofT. “I had to rush to find housing affordable to me at that time. I ended up only finding a small room far out in North York above a grungy bar. Living above the bar proved unsafe for me, and I was frequently harassed by the patrons—and later, the owners—for being a trans woman.

My mail was stolen and on several different occasions, I found weapons and drugs stashed in my mailbox.”

“Because I quickly jumped on the room for being relatively cheap—$500 a month plus utilities and heat—I didn’t worry about not knowing the other two people staying there, save for having a mutual acquaintance with one of them,” continues Ulysses. “It turned out eventually that one of my roommates began to steal cash from my pockets when I left my belongings in common areas, as well as from my partner’s when she stayed over.” The continued offences and general disregard for her wellbeing perpetrated by her roommates made Ulysses feel extremely uncomfortable in her own home. As a result, she was forced to move out and find new accommodations in what she describes as the “far-beaches-almost-Scarborough” area.

A housing market that benefits those coming from a highincome bracket, while putting virtually everyone else at a blatant disadvantage, is inherently problematic. As students, we are victims of this, sure, but that doesn’t completely absolve us from the gentrifying forces at work. To quote Twitter user @tali_uh, “being ‘college broke’ isn’t the same thing as actually coming from a low-income background.” Although most of us are busting our asses to make ends meet, it’s crucial to recognize that being able to live in downtown Toronto while attending one of our many postsecondary institutions is a privilege that not everyone is able to afford. This doesn’t make the insanely high cost of living okay; it’s just a reality that demands to be acknowledged.

In the meantime, while the future of the housing market is still unclear, the only thing I remain certain about is that there is no way in hell that I or anyone I know will be able to afford a house in the near future—but, I have a feeling that, somehow, we may just be alright.

copy editing

copy@thestrand.ca design

tristan mcgrath-waugh

amy jiao

design@thestrand.ca photo

hana nikcevic

photo@thestrand.ca art

yilin zhu

art@thestrand.ca web

web@thestrand.ca video

tyler biswurm amr sharaf

video@thestrand.ca

annika hocieniec sonya roma

podcast

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strandcast@thestrand.ca editorial assistants

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contributors sumeeta farrukh, clara geddes, maia kachan, uma

kalkar, grace king, arin klein, ashley meehan, leo

morgenstern, leora nash, annie truuvert, harrison wade copy editors alyssa dibattista, lauren lacey, julia wyganowski design team amy jiao, molly kay illustrations emily fu, jill lee, yilin zhu photos grace king, nasa goddard space flight centre, hana

nikcevic, tiff, victoria university archives cover photo hana nikcevic

The Strand has been the newspaper of record for Victoria University since 1953. It is published 12 times a year with a circulation of 1200 and is distributed in Victoria University buildings and across the University of Toronto’s St. George campus.

The Strand flagrantly enjoys its editorial autonomy and is committed to acting as an agent of constructive social change. As such, we will not publish material deemed to exhibit racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, or other oppressive language.

The Strand is a proud member of the Canadian University Press (CUP).

Our offices are located at 150 Charles St. W., Toronto, ON, M5S 1K9. Please direct enquiries by email to editor@thestrand.ca. Submissions are welcome and may be edited for taste, brevity, and legality.

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06 OPINIONS

EDITOR | KATHLEEN CHEN OPINIONS@THESTRAND.CA

Toronto Nationalist Rally shows that intolerance is not un-Canadian How should we define ourselves against a message we don’t condone? kathleen chen opinions editor

Canadians tend to be pretty smug about our reputation of having a welcoming and inclusive culture. We buy into the myth that, because a large percentage of us are immigrants or the children of immigrants, we are better at accepting cultures that are not our own. When acts of bigotry and racial violence occur on the other side of the border, we are quick to assume that those kinds of events and attitudes would not happen here.

The Facebook event calling for a Nationalist Rally on the UofT campus shows that we are facing the same issues of bigotry and intolerance here and now, in Canada.

The rally was created by an organization that calls itself the Canadian National Party, and the event’s stated purpose is to “discuss the nationalist movement in Canada and the future of our country.” After the violence in Charlottesville, it seems naïve and imprudent to give organizations that describe themselves as “nationalist” and “traditionalist” the benefit of the doubt, especially when we consider that the Facebook event for this rally was published just a few days after those events.

Seeing the Facebook event pop up was alarming, but it should not have been surprising. This past year, UofT has been the site of heated debates on the issue of “free speech,” even bearing witness to physical altercations between protestors during the “Rally for Free Speech” held last October.

In a video on the Canadian Nationalist Party’s Facebook page, party leader Travis Patron states that the party’s main objective is to “reclaim” and “revive” Canadian national identity. Like much of the alt-right, Patron is against what he calls “liberal extremism,” claiming that this mentality has somehow decreased Canadians’ standard of living and has contributed to economic inefficiencies.

The party’s 25-point platform expresses things more explicitly. The CNP views immigration as “a social engineering experiment designed to change Canada’s demographic foundation.” Patron blames immigrants for Canada’s economic woes, and goes further to say that their presence has degraded Canadian culture.

Patron’s belief that Canada’s socio-economic problems could be solved simply by returning Canadian identity to a more glorious past is a simplistic way of thinking, which ignores the fact that national, and especially, foundational narratives tend to be told from a biased perspective that exaggerates accomplishments and underplays violence. In addition, Patron’s main grievances are economic—yet, Canada has experienced a trend of economic growth from 1870 to today.

We are better off today compared to our ancestors, and in fact, these advances would not have been possible without the manpower and ingenuity of Canadian immigrants.

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President Meric Gertler affirmed that “the academic community must continue to condemn acts of violence, intimidation, and the fostering of hate.” As an academic institution, UofT does need to tread carefully around the issue of freedom of speech. However, the right to freedom of speech comes with the responsibility to push back against bigoted and unfounded ideas, and giving a platform to hateful ideas just for the sake of discussion dismisses the wellbeing of the students who are the targets of this hatred.

Though UofT denied the Nationalist Rally such a platform on our campus, the university’s overall response was lukewarm and insufficient.

UofT’s initial reaction was to issue a statement that they were not in contact with the CNP, and to contact Facebook to remove the school as the location of the event. When asked

THESE ATTITUDES DON’T DEVELOP OVERNIGHT: BIGOTRY HAS ALWAYS EXISTED IN CANADA, BUT PERHAPS IN THE PAST, IT WAS A MORE UNSPOKEN AND IMPLICIT BIGOTRY, SURFACING THROUGH MICROAGGRESSIONS MORE OFTEN THAN THROUGH RALLIES; SUPPRESSED BUT STILL EXISTING. In addition to calling for a temporary halt on all immigration, and for the amendment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to remove support of multiculturalism, the CNP wants to create a citizen-run militia “specifically for the purposes of self-defence,” and advocates for the “mutiny of current authority by all police enforcement/military personnel.” This combination of exclusionary and militaristic rhetoric would, very understandably, make many students feel unsafe, particularly if they do not fit into Patron’s idea of a Canadian.

In his statement on the Charlottesville attacks, UofT

whether the university would allow such a protest, director of media relations, Althea Blackburn-Evans was unable to give a definite answer; responding that “[she] can’t speculate on how we might respond to a booking request [...] We consider any space bookings on a case-by-case basis.” Later, the university contacted the CNP to tell them that they were not permitted to hold the rally on campus. However, some parts of the campus, such as roads and sidewalks, are public spaces, the use of which does not require the university’s permission.

It is not enough to look at these incidents on a case-bycase basis, and to ignore the trend of the alt-right becoming

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more emboldened and more vocal. By continuing to take a case-by-case approach, the university only responds to these incidents as and when they occur, potentially endangering students, as they did, when they failed to prevent the altercations of the October 2016 rally. The University of Toronto Graduate Student Union (UTGSU) has started a petition urging the university to “do more than issue a press release,” and rather, to take a more proactive and preventative approach by implementing concrete security measures.

Furthermore, we need to stop acting surprised that intolerance and racism also exist in Canada. These attitudes don’t develop overnight; bigotry has always existed in Canada, but perhaps in the past, it was a more unspoken and implicit bigotry, surfacing through microaggressions more often than through rallies—suppressed but still existing.

Failing to question our assumption of harmonious Canadian multiculturalism is problematic not only because we are not as accepting as we would like to think, but also because the uncritical view of multiculturalism that maintains that “we are all immigrants,” tends to present immigration in a cheerful light, underplaying the fact that the first European immigrants were colonizers.

We cannot remain complacent. However, the actions of a few are not reflective of the attitudes of all Canadians. It is our responsibility to refute voices that espouse hate, and to demonstrate that they really are a minority. The day before the Nationalist Rally Facebook event was deleted, 61 people said that they would be attending. At that time, the counter-protest event “Unity Rally to End White Supremacy in Toronto” had more than 4,200 people signalling their attendance on Facebook, and has since grown to more than 62,000 listed as going.

We do need to re-examine Canadian national identity, but not in the way Patron suggests. Many Canadians are proud to be known for being inclusive, polite, and just downright nice people. Let’s consider Canadian multiculturalism and acceptance as an ideal to live up to, instead of taking it as a given. Canadian multiculturalism doesn’t have to be a myth if we work on reconciliation and meaningful engagement across different groups, and strive to be better instead of resting on our laurels.

OPINIONS 07

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 19 SEPTEMBER 2017

Re-examining the ‘good guys’ of history: lessons learned from Charlottesville Perhaps statues are not the most effective way to teach balanced and critical history. annie truuvert contributor illustration

On August 12th, 2017, anti-racist protesters marched through Charlottesville, Virginia. They asked for the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, the leader of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. White supremacist groups clashed with the protestors and James Alex Fields was charged with second-degree murder, after forcing his car through the crowd and killing a thirty-two-year-old woman named Heather Heyer.

Courts ordered for the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue on September 6th. The removal was brought to a halt after a federal judge placed a temporary restraining order.

However, this lawsuit was dismissed. The action will proceed as of September 7th.

The Charlottesville anti-racist protest, although resulting in tragedy and terror, was an important physical reminder of how rarely we learn about the immoral legacies the “good guys” of history left behind. A quick Google search of Robert E. Lee names him as a General of the American Civil War, and a brief look at his Wikipedia page or biography on the Civil War Trust website—which “seeks to inform the public about the vital role [America’s battlegrounds] played in determining the course of [the] nation’s history”—tells readers that his contribution is one of “military greatness.”

Ten days after the Charlottesville tragedy, I visited University College London as part of my Summer Abroad program, where I studied their Francis Galton collection. As a psychology student, I knew Galton as a trailblazer in genetic advancements and the pioneer of important mathematical concepts such as linear regression and correlation. To my surprise, the collection’s curator focused on Galton’s contributions to the eugenics movement and Nazi ideology.

Various artifacts lay at the front of the room. In one glance, I could see an original case of Galton’s pea plant seeds—which led to his breakthroughs in statistics and genetics—as well as a measurement device for his practice of craniology (the pseudoscientific ranking of races by intelligence).

I felt a wave of resentment rise up within me. How was

it that I had spent my entire final year of high school in AP Biology learning about Galton’s contributions to genetics— and in Data Management learning about correlation and regression—without learning that Galton’s elegant numbers led to the systemic discrimination and enforced sterilization of minority groups?

The way we teach, talk, and write about history will always be biased. History is a narrative created and written by people, and writing requires choices of what words to use, who to include, and what to say about them. Every choice defines how the next generation will see the world, who they will trust, and how they will act going forward.

So how should we write, talk about, and commemorate historical figures, when “good guys” are rarely all-good?

How do we decide whom to commemorate? How do we educate people about powerful legacies that also resulted in great acts of immorality?

Taking down the Robert E. Lee statue opens up opportunities for a more complex narrative to be written in its place—one that is not reduced to one version of history founded on white supremacy, but one that includes the voices that the statues silenced. I do not argue that such controversial figures should be left out of history, but rather more carefully examined.

Should we take down all monuments that depict someone or something that has both positive and negative connotations? Not necessarily. Monuments can stand for tragedy or respect. History lessons, exhibitions, and museum collections can open up discussions for alternative explanations and criticism. Statues that depict individuals, on the other hand, fail to tell a full story by themselves, and instead showcase a snapshot of someone who is assumed to be a historical hero and ideal.

History must be simplified into lessons, which entails limited time and wording. It is, however, more important to do the past, future, and current populations justice in the way history gets told. The Canadian general education curriculum commits a tremendous act of violence with its era-

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sure of Indigenous narratives. This lack of understanding of our own history gives way to the continued oversights and continued acts of oppression and colonization toward Indigenous populations. Historical truths come from considering multiple perspectives—not from erecting a statue that asks for admiration and offers little opportunity to question the legacy behind it, or simplifying Canadian history into figureheads on a textbook page without a truly nuanced discussion.

Let the legacy of the Charlottesville protest be one not of fear and failure, but one that reminds us to take criticism seriously when it comes to how we edit past narratives, as well as how we will write our own.

Tips should not replace salary Debate arises following Ontario Liberals’ vote to maintain lower minimum wage for liquor servers clara geddes contributor

At first glance, the provincial Liberals’ new legislation seems like a win for the labour movement. With policies from equal pay for part-time employees, to the creation of a 17-week leave for victims of sexual assault, to a $15 minimum wage in 2019, it can be easy to overlook one glaring flaw in Ontario’s labour regulation: in May, a governmentcommissioned report recommended the elimination of the minimum wage exemption for liquor servers, who generally make most of their income in tips. When the NDP proposed the creation of this amendment in August, the Liberal majority voted against it.

IN 1938, THE FIRST MINIMUM WAGE FOR TIPPED WORKERS IN AMERICA WAS $0.

Liquor servers in both Ontario and British Columbia are paid a lower minimum wage. In Quebec, there is a separate, and lower, minimum wage for all tipped employees. In light of this policy change, now is the time to discuss why gratuities should not replace salary.

The size of a gratuity is supposed to reflect a server’s ability and effort, but Professor Michael Lynn of Cornell University would argue otherwise. Having broken down the factors that determine the size of a tip, he found that only four percent of the average gratuity depends on the actual quality of service. He found many meaningless

reasons people subconsciously tip higher amounts. This can include a server touching a customer on the shoulder, drawing a smiley-face on the bill, or even providing cheap afterdinner candies.

With an arbitrary sum of money, such as a tip, it is natural that people are influenced by internal biases. Lynn found that people tend to tip more to the opposite gender.

However, while the attractiveness of a waitress determines the amount she is tipped, Lynn did not find that that the same applied to men. Women’s tips are higher if they are blonde, slim, around 30 years old, and have a high bust-tobody-size ratio.

In Canada, about 80 percent of servers in the food and beverage industry are women, a demographic much more likely to experience sexual harassment in the workplace. In B.C, Professor Kaitlyn Matulewicz published a paper in the Canadian Journal of Law based on case studies of female servers in drinking establishments. She argues that the lower minimum wage leaves these bartenders reliant on tips and less likely to report harassment. The American-based Restaurant Opportunities Sector writes that about 37 percent of all sexual harassment complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission come from the restaurant industry, but that this number is almost always less in regions where all employees are entitled to the same minimum wage.

The history of tipping in the food service industry is messy, at best. According to Saru Jayaraman, writer of Forked: A New Standard for American Dining, while the concept of tipping was brought to this continent by wealthy Americans who travelled to Europe in the 19th century,

there is a specific reason why tipping is most common in restaurants. During the Industrial Revolution, more factory jobs had opened in cities, and the farmers who moved to fill those jobs needed to eat at restaurants. Fast food restaurants sprung up, hiring the only group poorer than these new urban employees: recently freed African-American slaves.

Resentful of having to pay them anything at all, restaurantowners, resisting the anti-tipping movement of the turn of the century, argued that gratuities could replace salaries. As a result, in 1938, the first minimum wage for tipped workers in America was $0.

Race continues to influence the practice of tipping. An analysis of the tips received by cab drivers in Connecticut revealed that there is a substantial difference in the tips received by black drivers. What’s more, both black and white customers tipped black drivers less. Michael Lynn replicated these experiments in restaurants. In these studies, he tested for other variables, and found that the quality of service in no way accounts for this difference in gratuities.

Neither attractiveness, efficiency, personality, nor helpfulness could explain why both races tip African-American servers less than their white counterparts. All of this suggests that internalized racism accounts for this difference.

This money, doled out in arbitrary amounts, is crucial to people’s livelihoods. One Ontario waitress describes that the amount tipped from a $50 bill will determine whether she can take a cab home. Consider this: if an employer wanted to pay workers less based on their race or gender, we would be up-in-arms. Yet, the fact that we give ordinary people the chance to do it on a day-to-day basis isn’t even news.

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08 FEATURES

EDITOR | ERIN CALHOUN FEATURES@THESTRAND.CA

grace king associate photo editor

Understanding the nation-brand

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The idea of the “nation-brand” in this context is a relatively new one. Because social media has given individuals a platform to craft a public identity, the products we promote— whether explicitly or indirectly—become blow-horns. Wearing a Canada 150 shirt or a Canada Goose branded vest is no longer an act merely to dress yourself; wearing these items advertises the featured brand as soon as you post a picture to Instagram, take a Snapchat story, or are photographed at a public event. The way that technologies have disrupted the communal model of society, too, has increased the need for nation-branding— in place of communal activities, we can simulate the same sense of neighbourhood by representing the same wearable, washable nation-brand.

In Canada, we have ten provinces and three territories, each with its own distinct identity.. Although we do not think first and foremost of Canada by its vertical orientation, it is indeed as wide from its northernmost point to its southernmost border as it is from east to west coast. This vastness and relative lack of shared experience or background across the Canadian landmass amounts to a unique identity crisis.

Well-known Victoria College alumni have, in fact, identified this challenge. When Northrop Frye explained that Canada “has always been a cool climate for heroes,” he was highlighting the difficulty for strong symbolic systems to take root within Canada. With few canonic icons or legends to

uring a trip to Indigo Chapters in January, the first thing I saw upon entering the store was a display table bearing a sign that said “Read The North.” Walking around the table, I saw that the other side was dedicated to “Read The North For Kids.” The use of the “North” in this context seemed to suggest that the “North” was a definite, sellable element—as if the “North” was an item, and it could be “read” just as easily as it could be eaten or worn. At the time, I did not realize that the Indigo Chapters merchandising of “Read The North” was a clever nod to the Toronto Raptors’ notorious slogan, “We The North.” Now, it seems that the “We The North” campaign has become an inescapable part of the Canadian symbolic canon. I pass people on the subway wearing this slogan on their hats and on their shirts. I see “Read The North” emblazoned on tote bags and hoodies from Indigo Chapters. Walking down College Street recently, I even spotted a dispensary called “Weed The North.” It seems that all of Toronto and much of greater Canada has jumped to reclaim the North as part of the Canadian identity—but what is the “North,” in the first place?

As I noticed further instances of the “North” and similar “Northern” images in advertising, I began to understand this idea of the “North” to represent what we can call Canada’s “nation-brand.”

provide Canada with a strong symbolic network, we look towards other symbolic systems to give our nation its glue.

That symbolic system appears in advertising campaigns like “We The North.” This is not to say that such “Northern” branding was innovated by the Toronto Raptors—the Raptors simply drew new attention to an old theme. Canada’s selfprojected image as the “North” can be traced back through multiple campaigns of franchising and merchandising; it can arguably be traced back to the very arrival of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada.

A commercial for the HBC that premiered during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics begins with: “we arrived 340 years ago to the land of rock, ice, and snow.” Here, these elements of wilderness and adventure, of cold weather and durability, form the foundation of Canada’s national identity. Not only that, but they inspire the character of the Canadian individual: “we didn’t just survive the elements,” but “together, we thrived in them,” the ad claims.

While this brand may be an effective tool for connecting some Canadians, it also represses many of Canada’s Indigenous narratives. That is, not only corporations benefit from the appropriation of the “Northern” identity—there are specific demographics within Canada that benefit just as largely.

If we can assume the identity of the “North” for our own patriotic use as Canadians, we maintain a comfortable measure of distance from the alternative ideas of the “North” that can arise. We embrace the “North” as ours, in order to avoid the

WHO THE NORTH?

Reconsidering the influence of “Northern” branding in Toronto and Canada

FEATURES 09

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 19 SEPTEMBER 2017

confession that the term historically cannot be entirely ours; the peoples who have lived in the true geographical “North” for so long are the same peoples that European settlers have marginalized.

This issue is exemplified on scales both large and small, and even through merely the negligence for historical responsibility in the HBC advertisement for the Vancouver Olympics. The “Northern” branding enables continual ignorance among Western consumers towards the Indigenous peoples who do live in the North—who were living in the North long before the European settlers like those of the HBC advertisement arrived to that barren land of “rock, ice, and snow.”

“The North Vs. Everyone” Returning to the “Read The North” sign in Indigo Chapters, I had been so surprised at its implied message because my job experience at Students on Ice has taught me an entirely different orientation of what is “North” and what is “South.”

Despite its name, the SOI organization has little to do with figure skating; rather, it has a lot to do with Arctic expeditions.

Each year, SOI leads an Arctic expedition that unites Inuit students from the Canadian Arctic and Greenland together with southern Canadian and international students. These students, which number nearly 120 per expedition, are placed on a ship with 90-something educators from across all fields for ten days, during which they traverse the coastline of northern

Canada and western Greenland.

At Students on Ice, someone is referred to as “Southern” if they come from anywhere below Nunavut. Conversely, someone is “Northern” if they come from anywhere within or along the Arctic Circle. This perspective is concealed if the “North” is considered to apply to the entirety of Canada.

The question then remains: how did this large gap arise in our common understanding of the North-South orientation within Canada? Even the ways in which we look at our world map can provide some answer. The most popular orientation of our world derives from a rectangular map organized by the equator. According to this map, North America is in closest focus, and Canada appears evidently “North”—more specifically, north of the United States. However, by shifting our world map, we could just as easily orient the map by the poles rather than by the equator. When we re-organize the map using the poles as our standpoint, it becomes nearly impossible to accurately describe Canada as the “North.” The only parts of Canada that could be considered Northern in this case are those areas which fall within the Arctic Circle.

Where do we go now?

Of the 118 students brought together for this summer’s SOI Arctic expedition, perspectives spanned from Malaysia, to the Micronesian islands of the Pacific, to a community of 89 on the southwestern shore of the Northwest Territories in photo

| grace king

Canada (this population was confirmed by a student from the community, who had counted all 89 people herself by making a list of names in her notebook: John, Sam, Jon, GF, Baby Lorainna…).

The stories of the people of the North, from the big stories to the small stories, are at risk of going unheard when excluded from the conversation on “Northern-ness” by nation-brand schemes like “We The North.” When we buy into “Northern” branding like that which characterizes HBC advertisements and Raptors merchandise, we are at risk of skipping over these stories of the peoples who have indeed been “thriving” in the geographical North, within the Arctic circle. Creating spaces for North-South dialogue is an important next step; SOI expeditions are one example of an opportunity for that NorthSouth dialogue which is not only valuable, but critical, for decolonizing education. These dialogues between Northern and Southern students are necessary, and they can occur as simply as when students from Newfoundland, Alaska, Greenland, Palau of the Micronesian Islands, and the United States all sit down at a dinner table and start talking about what they do or do not hunt back at home. As my job at SOI continually shows me, it is crucial that our nation not be too consumed by fulfilling a “Northern” brand, and to leave room for narratives of Indigenous peoples who live in the North.

I am not aiming to glorify Students on Ice, as I do not see them as a reliable model for opening the majority of the population to the North-South dialogue that is so critical today and will continue to be critical into the future. Of course, I am proud of the organization for which I work; not only do SOI’s annual Arctic expeditions accomplish the reconciliation of perspectives between humans from all walks of life, but the

WHILE THIS BRAND MAY BE AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR CONNECTING SOME CANADIANS, IT ALSO REPRESSES MANY OF CANADA’S INDIGENOUS NARRATIVES. program also brings students directly to their classroom—the Arctic—so that they can see its biodiversity, its richness, and its resilience firsthand. However, participating in an SOI Arctic expedition costs a cool $13,000 per student—a cost for which only so many scholarships can be made available. Although it sounds reasonable that almost 100 students receive scholarships each year to participate in SOI, in comparison to the University of Toronto population those 100 students make for roughly 0.001 percent of the student body. In the case that a student is not selected as a scholarship recipient but wishes to pursue the program as an individual funder, it is inherent that they come from a background of stability, with much wider access to opportunities than the average citizen (and often, this means, too, that they are benefitting from colonial structures like so many of us do).

Albeit difficult to access, the SOI program can offer inspiration to us within UofT and Toronto as a whole to re-evaluate our symbolic systems. I sincerely hope that more pressure can be placed on the major actors at UofT to initiate a conversation about the ways that we identify as Canadians, and whether those ways exclude Indigenous narratives (whether intentionally or unintentionally).

Who the North: Looking ahead The questions of how we identify as a nation and for what reasons we form that nation are debates that haunt the Canadian narrative. Although we might believe we are distinctive and that our identity differs by some crucial factor from the identity of other Western nations, we are not entirely certain as to what that factor might be and why it makes us distinctive. We are left to grasp onto whatever we can—the most convenient trait and element being that of the Northern wilderness, the same rugged and barren sort of legend that was ingrained by the Group of Seven and has been reiterated countless times since in literature, film, and all products of the popular imagination. Although it is not to be assumed that Indigenous peoples do not identify with the same branding of the “North” that southern Canadians maintain, it can be argued that so long as the “North” remains a nation-brand for much of southern Canada, the steps necessary for reconciliation dialogues and decolonized education will face barriers.

10 SCIENCE

EDITORS | TANUJ ASHWIN KUMAR AND NADINE RAMADAN SCIENCE@THESTRAND.CA

Did climate change cause these hurricanes?

Tropical cyclones, climatology, and capitalism tanuj kumar science editor

In the past few weeks, the damage resulting from Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma have been dominating headlines.

Harvey was the first, moving along the south Caribbean before taking a turn by the Yucatan Peninsula and then becoming a Category 4 before making landfall in southern Texas. It was the first hurricane to do so since Wilma in 2005. What came after was the absolute decimation compounded by what is best described as solidarity interlaced with a deep lack of empathy. As record-breaking levels of hurricane rains flooded Houston, local residents and helpers from around the country and other nations came by to mobilize whatever assistance they could. At the same time, some of the ugliest parts of an intensely individualistic, colonialist, and capitalist society reared its head, as basic goods like water and non-perishable foods were heavily marked-up in price to generate a profit from this disaster. Poor and racialized people were largely left to fend for themselves; the government intentionally took action to keep undocumented people from escaping the area, large churches refused to open their doors as shelter, and survivors—especially people of colour—who were attempting to gather supplies were branded as “looters” by people who had comfortably escaped. Harvey’s overall damage is thought to be somewhere between $70 to $200 billion, with around $35 billion alone in flooding damages. To top it all off, the Associated Press reports that the majority of these ghastly prices are to be footed by uninsured homeowners who have no actual ways

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to pay.

Irma came next, a powerful Category 5 hurricane that formed through tropical waves by Cape Verde, a type of hurricane known to be particularly damaging if it doesn’t prematurely die out. While Florida was spared from the same level of damage that Houston and southern Texas faced with Harvey, Irma’s destruction came with its effects on the Caribbean nations and colonies, Antigua and Barbuda.

Barbuda was essentially almost wiped off the map, with 95 percent of its buildings and infrastructure completely destroyed. The islands of Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy experienced a similar level of extreme destruction, and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands were decimated. Waves by Puerto Rico reached about 9 meters in height. Irma hit Cuba as a Category 5 storm and even with the quick mobilization against the hurricane a week prior, about $2 billion in damages have been reported. The Florida Keys and south Florida were hit heavily, with massive infrastructure damages, but by the time the storm reached Tampa it had been downgraded to a Category 1 storm. At 929 millibars of landfall pressure, Irma quickly gained a reputation as one of the strongest hurricanes in this part of the Atlantic.

Two powerful hurricanes essentially a week apart—this seems unprecedented.

This is— notwithstanding the wildfires blazing across parts of the west, and the far more brutally destructive South Asian floods happening concurrently that have killed upwards of 1200 people. What is going on here? The quickest logical conclusion would be to connect this with climate change. So, how far does the causal relationship between climate change and these destructive events go?

To attempt to forge a connection between climate change and hurricanes, we need to first understand how exactly hurricanes develop and work. Hurricanes are a subset of the generalized term “tropical cyclones,” which also includes typhoons, and the word “hurricane” explicitly refers to a type of tropical cycle that is formed around the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific just directly west of Central America.

The name gives a hint about their origins; these cyclones form around the warm tropical water by the equator. These parts of the ocean produce warm, humid air; westerly winds from Africa help evaporate warm ocean surface water, and let the resulting hot air rise until it cools down into colder water droplets, producing large cumulonimbus “storm clouds.” Large groups of these typically give rise to the well-

known rainy activity at the tropics.

From here, climate scientists classify a four-step cyclone progression. A “tropical disturbance” is just an especially large patch of sustained thunderstorm activity over the ocean that keeps itself intact over a day. These disturbances typically begin to move westward, forming “tropical waves.” Next is a “tropical depression” where we see the first signs of cyclonic activity; if the water is warm enough and the winds are just right, the rising-falling air cycles can give rise to low-pressure centers in the cumulonimbus cloud column, causing strong winds and the mass to start rotating. A “tropical storm” is when the climatologists start ringing their alarm bells for possible hurricane activity. They describe these as cases when the central air pressure drops enough to allow well-defined cyclic activity with very fast wind speeds within the storm. Finally, if this tropical storm passes over a nice patch of warm water, things really get intense as the central pressure drops even further, forming the characteristic “eye” and rounded shape of a hurricane. As we can see, warmth plays a particularly important part in this cascade.

So then what can conclusively be said about hurricanes and climate change?

Did climate change cause these hurricanes, or merely intensify them? Can we blame climate change as the principal causal action? Firstly, climate change “causing” any particular effect is a misnomer. At best, it can influence existing disasters. However, climate scientist Michael Mann explains how climate change has intensified

SOME OF THE UGLIEST PARTS OF AN INTENSELY INDIVIDUALISTIC, COLONIALIST, AND CAPITALIST SOCIETY REARED ITS HEAD, AS BASIC GOODS LIKE WATER AND NON-PERISHABLE FOODS WERE HEAVILY MARKED-UP IN PRICE TO GENERATE A PROFIT FROM THIS DISASTER. the destruction caused by these hurricanes. The rise in sea levels by about 15cm notably made storm surges—and subsequent flooding—much worse. Warmer sea temperatures caused by climate change directly influenced the greater moisture content of the air, thus intensifying rainfall and the overall ferocity of the hurricane. Finally, based on Mann’s personal speculations, Houston faced a particularly terrible onslaught because Harvey “stalled” by the coast for a bit. This was due to generally weak prevailing winds, which is an occurrence known to be influenced by anthropogenic climate change. But will climate change actually increase the frequency of these hurricanes? Unfortunately the research on this is mixed, so the jury is still out on this particular question. However, what we do know is that any future hurricanes we get will be very destructive.

The reality is that climate change is part of a bigger causal picture, a lumbering beast behind the scenes that prods at these events and intensifies them. But, by squarely placing the blame on climate change, we can’t forget the agency that we as humans have in making our own protection and adaptation decisions. Mitigation of the effects of hurricanes, of natural disasters in general, and of climate change rest on safeguarded policy and collective action, particularly against an unsustainable capitalist system. Some of the worst-hit victims of climate change influenced disasters will be the poorest, most colonized, and racialized populations that are also heavily exploited by capitalism. The ultimate desire for profit and an abstract sense of growth at the expense of the environment and collective solidarity is precisely the same mentality that has led to policy decisions in the most powerful nation on the planet that deliberately gut climate research and lead astray public opinion for the purposes of personal gain. Our responses to hurricanes are dependent on the need to move beyond this. While Cuba’s local committees quickly and successfully mobilized evacuations and shelters and later had enough medical personnel on hand to tend to other island nations destroyed by Irma, undocumented people in Houston were uncertain of whether or not shelters would even accept them without asking to look at their papers.

It’s time to understand that our responses to hurricanes must be hand-in-hand with our responses to climate change, and these must be responses that ultimately re-center the environment and the people who live in it.

ARTS AND CULTURE 11

EDITOR | SABRINA PAPAS ARTSANDCULTURE@THESTRAND.CA

TIFF review: Lady Bird A nuanced directorial debut that shows Greta Gerwig as more than an indie-darling sabrina papas arts and culture editor illustration

Everyone has their own coming-of-age tale, maybe even one they feel compelled to share. A recurring problem within this genre of film, however, is finding a fresh spin without falling into the tropes that many coming-of-age flicks have set forth. In Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut and screenplay, she masters the genre—a mastery that is tied to her understanding and representation of home.

Set in Sacramento, California, the film follows 17-year-old Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), preferred name Lady Bird, in her final year of high school. Loosely based on Gerwig’s own upbringing in Northern California, Sacramento is home for Gerwig as well as for Lady Bird. She represents Sacramento as a familiar place—one that Lady Bird thinks she knows—just like we as viewers think we know the seemingly stock characters and plot Gerwig presents.

There’s the overbearing mother (Laurie Metcalf ), the gay first-boyfriend, Danny (Lucas Hedges), and the

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unpopular best friend, Julie (Beanie Feldstein), among others. The issues Lady Bird has with these three characters could potentially create a formulaic plot, however, the manner in which Gerwig has her characters deal with these issues feels fresh and nuanced.

With the mother, it’s a disagreement about university. Lady Bird dreams of leaving Sacramento and, despite her mother’s objections, applies and is accepted into east coast universities—leading to a mother-daughter falling out. As Lady Bird prepares to leave home, Gerwig cuts between her packing up her childhood bedroom and her mother’s many failed attempts at writing a letter—implying the pair will make amends. But this never happens. Her mother drops her off at the airport, refusing to walk her to the gate, and drives away. Immediately, with this distance from Lady Bird, her mother regrets her decision. She turns back to the airport, but Lady Bird has already left and there is no heartfelt mother-daughter reconciliation that the

viewer would expect—we are left solely with the painful stubbornness and inevitable regret that the mother experiences, as she is not able to take her words back, and say how she truly feels.

At the beginning of the film, Lady Bird meets Danny, a classmate who later becomes the ideal boyfriend. Everything works out perfectly—girl from the “wrong side of the tracks” falls for a boy from the wealthier side of town—until she finds Danny kissing another boy. The next scene shows Lady Bird and Julie crying and listening to the radio, and we’re initially incentivised to resent Danny for what he’s done. He’s not mentioned until the latter half of the film, when he shows up to the local café where Lady Bird works.

Instead of being angry or making it about herself, she understands Danny’s actions and the need to conceal his sexuality from his stifling Catholic family, allowing the viewer to empathise and see Danny as more than an archetype.

Perhaps the most formulaic element is the falling out that Lady Bird has with her best friend, Julie. After Danny, Lady Bird moves onto the aloof and pretentious Kyle (Timothée Chalamet), a friend of the popular Jenna Walton (Odeya Rush). The progression away from Julie and towards Jenna, though a trope in many coming-of-age stories, feels natural, showing that friends do drift apart and there doesn’t always need to be a reason. Lady Bird, however, realizes she preferred what she had with Julie and they eventually reunite— the distance allows them to re-evaluate.

Gerwig mirrors this ability to change one’s mind with the conclusion of the film. With distance from one another, her characters are able to step away and rethink. Lady Bird leaves home and finds that there was more to Sacramento than she realized, and shifts her perspective on home.

A slightly different direction would alter the film, but Gerwig manages to turn archetypes into multifaceted characters, creating a debut that is so uniquely Greta.

TIFF review: On Chesil Beach sonya roma video editor

Having read Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, it would be hard to imagine how the unsettling subject matter of the novel could be accurately adapted into film. It is fair to say, however, that director Dominic Cooke beautifully translated what may have been perceived as a story of two shallow teenagers into an ode to thwarted desire.

Set in 1962, the film follows Edward (Billy Howle) and Florence (Saorsie Ronan) in the first hours of their honeymoon on the seaside. Florence is a disciplined violinist, the product of a strict middle-class upbringing.

Throughout the film, flashbacks show a rigid household run by her mother crushing all impulse with propriety.

Edward offers Florence freedom. The two arrive at the beach house seemingly in love and eager to begin their life together, but desperately ill equipped for their first night. They perform the social rituals of dinner and polite conversation until there is no recourse left—evident that they do not know what to do next. On Chesil Beach reaches its climax through failed consummation.

In the last half hour, the film falls into a series of revelations regarding unspoken expectations, unreasonable anxieties, and impossible requests that hint at the consequences of parental control. During the postscreening Q&A at the TIFF premiere, Ian McEwan addressed just how far the couple had fallen into their own narratives. Because of their drastically opposing yet similarly repressive mothers, the couple shapes two radically different narratives of what the purpose of

marriage really is. For Florence, a woman must marry so she can be free to do what she wants without ridicule. For Edward, you must marry to have sex. As they confront the truth on the cloudy English beach, these narratives are challenged as they realize there’s more to their marriage than idealisation. Six hours into their marriage and one failed attempt at sex later, the pair see no other option but to go their separate ways.

Yet, as the film pans out into a shot of Edward gazing after Florence’s retreating figure, there is a definite feeling of dissatisfaction. A happy ending is not in sight, but it is hard to pin down the film’s true meaning.

As a novel, the story makes sense as the reader decides whether this is a story of regret or a mere consequence of a formulaic love story. However, the film added two unrealistic epilogues set decades later. The purpose of these shots seems to be to tell the audience that the pair regrets their actions and knows where it all went wrong. However, these shots make the feelings of the characters too revealing, and eliminate the deep and tragic questioning which made McEwan’s novel so unique.

As a cinematic experience, the movie was captivating and gripped the audience with an unsettling yet realistic reflection of a repressive time period. As well, it posed the question of whether or not love can really save a couple that is doomed from the start, simply because of the age they live in. What the film does extraordinarily well is allow the audience to feel tension between the couple, without placing the blame on either of them, as they work themselves into a volcanic state, fumbling to express their true feelings. The audience feels extreme pity for what may have been a beautiful love story, if only it were set in modern day. On Chesil Beach, although failing to present a strong case for lost-love and regret, manages to leave a residing appreciation for our generation. photo

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12 ARTS AND CULTURE

EDITOR | SABRINA PAPAS ARTSANDCULTURE@THESTRAND.CA

The literary evolution of Acta Victoriana A history of the oldest continuous university publication in Canada maia kachan associate arts and culture editor

“The students of Victoria College have decided to publish a monthly paper in the interest of the College Societies, to be known as ACTA VICTORIANA. It will contain: short literary articles by College men; local items of interest to the Students and their friends; general College and Educational news; and Editorials upon Educational questions—especially upon questions of interest to the Alumni and friends of Victoria University.” (Acta Victoriana 1:1, Prospectus) Vic has long been considered one of the premier places for young writers, bibliophiles, and humanityfocused academics in Canada, with an illustrious history of writers such as Margaret Atwood, E.J. Pratt, Richard Outram, and Jay Macpherson. Founded in 1877, Acta Victoriana is the oldest university student-run publication in Canada. Providing an early career forum for authors, Acta’s diverse history provides insight into the way that Vic has developed as an institution based in excellence, diversity, and creativity.

Thomas W. Campbell, Acta’s founder, stated the purpose of the journal as “a record of the ‘doings at Victoria’...racy, entertaining and amusing as well as instructive.” For most of the journal’s history, Acta’s content looked vastly different from the poetry and prose that are now published. Content like sports and travel columns, gossip, humour, and science were all seen in the earlier years of the journal. Tracing the development of such a publication in the history of Victoria College is valuable in looking at how our community has grown and shifted through time.

Vic becoming a part of the University of Toronto in 1892 saw the content and distribution of the journal broaden—focus was placed on impacting the larger UofT and Toronto communities.

A note of significance is what can be learned about Vic’s situation in broader cultural, political, and social events from different time periods, through Acta. In the October 1914 edition, Victoria College president, Richard Pinch Bowles remarked on the ongoing First World War: “events of deepest significance to the Empire and to the world have with bewildering suddenness come to pass—ours is not a cloistered world. We seek no splendid isolation. We are in and of the national life a sensi-

tive and very vital part.” Even as far back as 1914, Vic’s engagement in and commitment to the broader world, both socially and academically, is clear. Another piece in the same issue is titled “The Causes of the Great War” and goes into detail about events leading up to WWI.

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Northrop Frye, the prominent Canadian literary theorist, was Acta Victoriana’s Editor-in-Chief in 1932 and was significant in his inclusion of literary criticism.

This tradition can be seen as recently as last year, with criticism and reviews by editorial board members. Frye would go on to become the Principal and Chancellor of Victoria College, a visiting professor at Harvard University, and a Companion of the Order of Canada.

It wasn’t until the 1950s that Acta developed into a format similar to the one that exists now, publishing new poetry and prose along with some literary criticism.

Acta maintains a blind selection process in order to provide equal and unbiased opportunity for all writers.

In more recent years, Acta has included work by a variety of queer and trans people, people of colour, and newcomers. That being said, the idea of inclusivity has held together their editorial board for a long time. Acta’s first female Editor was Mary Sutherland in 1894.

On continuing the tradition of literary citizenship at Vic, current Co-Editor-in-Chief Carl Christian Abrahamsen said: “Eleanor [my Co-Editor] and I are contractually obliged to mention that Acta is the oldest literary journal in Canada to anybody who passes within five

feet of us. In that sense, we are indebted to it. With no offence to our beloved patron saint, I try to talk about Margaret Atwood as little as I can. Acta in 2017 is focused on the genius of the writers we publish now, not those we published 50 years ago.” A writer himself, Abrahamsen’s writing was included in an issue of Acta in his first year. One thing that makes Acta unique is both its high caliber of writing and its inclusion of high profile Canadian writers, while still creating opportunities for students at Victoria College to publish their work.

Acta also gives students the opportunity to learn about the production and editing processes of putting together a literary journal through being entirely student led. The editorial board consists of one or two Editor(s)in-Chief, up to ten associate editors, and a design editor. These students make all publication decisions themselves, meeting as a board to review every submission.

Acta receives funding from Victoria University to print the journal at Coach House Press. On the agency of being a student editor, Abrahamsen remarked: “I have always preferred writing that is flawed but has moments of genius, the type that at least in some sentences transcends text, to what I would call Good Writing—the type that will always get an A in a creative writing class but will never bring anybody to tears. Of course, there are other important aspects to running Acta, but the most important part is publishing good writing, especially good writing that would otherwise be forgotten.”

Victoria College continues to uphold traditions of creative writing by hosting the Creative Expression and Society program which sponsors creative writing seminars with authors like Albert Moritz, David Gilmour, and Camilla Gibb. The development and success of newer literary publications, such as The Goose, exemplify the appreciation and market for creativity within the Vic community.

All past issues of Acta Victoriana are available as a special collection at E.J. Pratt Library, in a project undertaken in 1985 to preserve Victoria’s literary history.

Acta is looking to hire an Editorial Board for the upcoming year and applications are due on September 22nd. More information can be found at www.actavictoriana.ca

TIFF review: PROTOTYPE A confounding 3D experiment about loss and the way we look at images harrison wade associate arts and culture editor

To talk about PROTOTYPE—one of the most visceral and intriguing movies I’ve seen this year—it’s important to mention what PROTOTYPE is not. There are no characters or dialogue, and little plot to hold onto.

Eventually, even the images give way to abstraction and become unrecognizable. Why, then, see the movie? Because PROTOTYPE plays with vision in new and exciting ways. Because the emotions it wades through are poignant and timely, drawn from the aftermath of an environmental disaster—and because the movie is a fantastic trip.

PROTOTYPE is a 3D experiment about the aftermath of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, seen through a light science fiction frame. The movie opens with found images of the hurricane’s destruction. They’re static, yet they float away from the screen. The originals are stereograms themselves—early 3D images which were apparently a turn of the century bourgeois amusement.

However, the movie hurries away from these documents. Conventional shots in colour serve as a bridge between the past and an exploration of what could have been the future. Water fills the screen as the camera descends alongside a flat curve of waves, which at first glance seems to be a waterfall. But, the curve never ends and the water comes out of the frame and hangs

over the audience. This kind of 3D is new; a technique that moves beyond the ornamental use of contemporary blockbusters, towards something moving and surprising.

It feels like a slow-motion free-fall.

PROTOTYPE knows when to transition, and cuts from the water to a static shot of television screens. There are five of them, each with an empty blue frame that is either smaller or larger, depending on where they are placed within the screen. The sets show mundane videos and are obscure rather than evocative. But when PROTOTYPE cuts, the sets are re-arranged so that some images are half-visible while others push out into the audience. This static movement becomes a kind of dance.

The television sets evoke a sense of surveillance, yet also feel like creations—there is nothing besides them in the empty space.

The final segment nears complete abstraction as image-negatives are slowed and plastered, making indecipherable shapes flicker in all three dimensions. It feels the least cognitive, but the most physiologically reactive; I was lost in the rhythm of the cuts, never feeling the need to exactly decipher these shapes. As the waves of the first segment return, now under the blanket of television flicker, they bring PROTOTYPE back to reality.

There’s plenty to be unpacked, even as the movie

opens to individual experience. I can speak to the recurring interest in how we—as cultural and biological beings—see, specifically in the context of a disaster. There are a couple reminders throughout the movie of how a stereoscopic image works; a few shots change colour if you close one of your eyes. The abundance of surfaces— waves, screens, and layers—end up highlighting the artificiality of the projected images themselves. If the development towards abstractions seems strange, it also comes at the emotional climax of the film, allowing a sense of loss in the wake of the hurricane to move about freely.

There’s a natural balance between this conclusion and the static photographs that began the movie.

Now that TIFF’s over, it may be more difficult to see PROTOTYPE. However, we’re lucky that the director, Blake Williams, is a Toronto local—hopefully there will be more screenings in the near future. To those that might have tuned out as soon as they read “experiment,” don’t be intimidated; PROTOTYPE is a striking piece of art, but still approachable. Treat it like a trip and let yourself get lost. There’s no need to feel guilty about your wavering focus, since everyone checks out for a minute—or ten. As Williams said before the TIFF premiere: give it patience.

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 19 SEPTEMBER 2017

ARTS AND CULTURE 13

Photography for the people The annual AIMIA Photography Prize exhibition opens at the AGO hana nikcevic photo editor

The AIMIA Photography Prize is an annual competition that rewards one contemporary photographer on the basis of their last five years of work. Though it is a Canadian award, an initial long list is formed through nominations by international curators, critics, and artists. A three-person jury—including an AGO curator—then narrows this selection down to a shortlist of four individuals whose work is shown in the annual group exhibition at the AGO. Upon visiting the exhibition, the public is invited to vote for the winner—this is, notably, the first major art award to determine its recipient by public vote. The significance of this prize, however, lies not only in its prestige or its testament of public appreciation; the winner receives $50,000.

Such a small shortlist from a worldwide selection makes voting a difficult matter, as each photographer is uniquely talented. In advance of the show’s official opening, the AGO invited the four finalists to participate in a panel discussion. This offered the audience deeper insight into the work and, inherently, more factors to consider when voting.

This year’s finalists are Hank Willis Thomas (American), Taisuke Koyama (Japanese), Raymond Boisjoly (Haida, Quebecois), and Liz Johnson Artur (Russian-Ghanian). Their backgrounds are diverse and their work exhibits wide-ranging subject matter, technique, and degrees of abstraction. The exhibition layout is tailored to showcase each artist individually. AGO Curator of Photography Sophie Hackett notes that the artists are fully involved in the exhibition design process.

Hank Willis Thomas’s installations in particular invite audience engagement and movement. As the viewer passes in front of a large lenticular screen, for example, its block letters declare first that “history is present” but quickly shimmer and shift into “past is past,” with illusionistic overlaps in between—for a second, “past is present.”

Form and message are comically well-integrated. Two sculptural works in bronze (Raise Up and Die dompas moet brand!/The Dompas must burn!, both 2013) reference historic photographs and events. In the same vein as History is Past, Past is Present they enliven otherwise immobile, inaccessible documents by bringing them into the multi-dimensional and allowing them to interact almost physically with the audience.

Intentionally Left Blanc (2012), Thomas’s last piece in the exhibit, also relies on audience participation to achieve its full effect—vinyl sheets with white retro-reflective printing, like on street signs, hint at latent images that are revealed when a light is placed near the viewer’s eyes and trained on the prints. Thomas likens this process to developing in a darkroom and seeing an image come to life. He speaks of photo | hana nikcevic the necessity of seeing latent images, of images we’ve “buried in overconsumption.”

The past, he states, is present, and through photography we need to give it new life stead stated that her work is about presence, about capturing moments—her images and meaning. are products of real-life instances that are in no way hidden or “fugitive.” She takes Taisuke Koyoma likewise seeks to showcase the unseen in his series Rainbow an archivist, documentary-like approach to photography in her ongoing series, the Variations, which features macro images of advertisements on Tokyo vending ma- Black Balloon Archive. The project has seen her documenting moments in the lives of chines. The photos are magnifications to the extent that no recognizable shapes are black people for years, and the intimacy and immediacy that she ascribes to her work discernable—only gradients and fields of brilliant colour are visible, occasionally is underscored by their presentation: glossy prints affixed to the wall with magnets, marked with reminders of reality: scratches, advertisement printing errors, or the the bottom corners curling up. The prints may be behind glass, but they are anything water droplets of condensation. Printing on high-gloss paper emphasizes the intense, but inaccessible, precious objects—they are unpretending moments of life. literally larger-than-life nature of the Since the AIMIA prize defers to images. Meanwhile, the purely digithe public’s judgment, it was to be tal nature of a still-further-magnified expected that the panel discussion offshoot series, Pico, is underscored would involve an audience member by being shown in rotation on wallquestioning the seemingly concepmounted screens. tual and “artistic” nature of the work SINCE THE AIMIA PRIZE DEFERS TO THE Raymond Boisjoly similarly shown. “Is photography aspiring to PUBLIC’S JUDGMENT, IT WAS TO BE EXPECTED makes use of layers of technology be classified as fine art?” they queto produce the images shown in his THAT THE PANEL DISCUSSION WOULD INVOLVE ried. “Photography has traditionally section of the exhibition. Printed on been an accessible medium, but as it AN AUDIENCE MEMBER QUESTIONING THE vinyl and adhered directly onto the becomes more intellectualised, does SEEMINGLY CONCEPTUAL AND “ARTISTIC” gallery walls are his digital scans of it become more remote and inaccesan iPad upon which plays a short sible?” Thomas addressed the issue: NATURE OF THE WORK SHOWN. “IS film. They depict ghostly, distorted “I think we all want as many people PHOTOGRAPHY ASPIRING TO BE CLASSIFIED faces and fragmented rainbows that to like our work as possible. I used seem to surface from a black void to go to museums and be like, I don’t AS FINE ART?” THEY QUERIED. “PHOTOGRAPHY and are described by Boisjoly as “fuget it. And someone told me to not HAS TRADITIONALLY BEEN AN ACCESSIBLE gitive images.” The scans are shown put the pressure on myself to get it, alongside blocks of text, a typical to just experience it. That’s the joy of MEDIUM, BUT AS IT BECOMES MORE feature of Boisjoly’s work; he is init—we do it all differently.” Therein, INTELLECTUALISED, DOES IT BECOME MORE terested in exploring the different really, lies the merit of the AIMIA ways in which both text and image exhibition. The focus on audience REMOTE AND INACCESSIBLE?” can produce a narrative in galleries, engagement and validation of audinoting that “text can be an authority ence opinion takes fine art off of its in such spaces. The speaker can be marble pedestal and re-situates it as ambiguous.” Specifically, he questions the “discursive aspect of images.” a common human experience to which everyone has a right and which everyone can During the artist talk, an audience member noted Boisjoly’s repeated use of the understand. term “fugitive image” to describe his work, and suggested that the revealing of such a fugitive image might be a common denominator amongst all of the artists’ works, The exhibition is on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario until January 14th. An online and one can see how this could hold true for Koyama’s magnifications and Thomas’s version of the exhibition is available at AIMIA’s website and voting is available until latent images. Liz Johnson Artur, however, refuses to be categorized thus, and in- November 5th both at the AGO and online at www.aimiaagophotographyprize.com.

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EDITOR | REBECCA GAO STRANDED@THESTRAND.CA

Aspiring Singer-Songwriters Everywhere Hate Her See how Birdy got famous with this one simple trick arin klein contributor

I can’t stand Birdy. All she did to become famous was steal other artists’ songs by covering them and making them better known under her own name.

Though I had long been deceived that “Skinny Love” was an original song by Birdy, I have since become aware of the truth. After each time I play “Skinny Love: Original” by Bon Iver, in the style of Birdy, I clutch my Bon Iver records and swear to the indie gods that I know the song’s true creator.

But Birdy didn’t stop there. She also fooled me into thinking “Terrible Love” by The National was her original. I should have known. Who else is so skilled at deceiving the music world into thinking they have their own songwriting talent? I mean, name ONE original song by Birdy. “Skinny Love”?

Already ruled that one out. “People Help the People”? That was originally by the band Cherry Ghost.

Birdy’s first album consisted almost exclusively of covers. Ironically, her most recent album (of originals) is entitled Beautiful Lies, which I actually think encapsulates the spirit of her first album, Birdy, and just generally what she’s about.

She also has literally four first names to choose from. Her full name is Jasmine Lucilla Elizabeth Jennifer van den Bogaerde, and she goes by BIRDY. And even that’s not original—she ripped off birds!.

You might say: “good for her, her cover was so successful that it became better known under her name than the original artist’s.” Well I say, “fuck that.” As my roommate adeptly put it, her “clanking on the keys” in the place of the original’s guitar is hardly worthy of a whole section on the “Skinny Love” Wikipedia article, let alone a number one position on the charts in the Netherlands and Australia.

Her songs may seem “beautiful,” but they are just as much “lies.” Don’t give her the benefit of profiting from others’ talent. Go give Bon Iver and The National some love (whether skinny or terrible).

SEE: THE DRESS THAT’S DIVIDING THE INTERNET What colours do you see? sumeeta farrukh contributor

Folks—this is crazy. Take a look at the dress below. Is it black and blue, or is it white and gold?

What started off as a simple argument between a couple of friends has triggered a heated worldwide debate: just what colour is this darned dress? The photo has quickly gone viral on social media and news outlets have been quick to pick the story up. It seems that everywhere you go, people just can’t come to an agreement about “The Dress.”

People are dying. People are literally dying. They’re dying.

The scientists and scholars of the world are sure to come to our aid soon and explain the mystery that’s rocking the world. In the meantime, ask your friends what they see and you might be shocked at what you find! MIND = BLOWN.

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@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 19 SEPTEMBER 2017

Real estate find!

Lucky Vic student nabs literal hole in the wall apartment rebecca gao stranded editor

illustration

Everyone knows that finding housing in Toronto can be hard. Whether it’s lack of resources (financial or otherwise), difficulty finding something close to campus, or curating the perfect collection of roommates, the housing situation is absolutely dire. However, sometimes fortune smiles upon the dire. Jenny Huang, a third year student a Vic, recently struck gold when she found her literal hole in the wall of an apartment right before school started!

For just a measly $800/ month, Huang gets to live in a literal hole in the wall on Baldwin—how trendy! Her landlord, a literal rat with many investment properties around downtown Toronto, comes around once every now and then to chew around the opening to the hole, expanding the space. Talk about great maintenance work!

“You know, I think I really lucked out with this space,” Huang told The Strand in an exclusive. “It’s like, kinda... sorta affordable, if I work three parttime jobs over the summer and try to hold down a sketchy twelve-hours-a-week job during the year.

There are definitely worse ways to be!”

Luckily for Huang, utilities AND WIFI are included in the rent.

“I shocked myself on that exposed wire in the kitchen the other day,” Huang said, holding up her hand. “Guess it’s the price you pay when you don’t pay for electricity, haha. But like, honestly, it’s still cheaper and better than res”.

We here at The Strand are delighted to know that great rental units are still available out there on a student’s budget!

| emily fu

It’s a miracle!!!1!11 Lost boy emerges from Robarts stacks as jaded poli-sci student leora nash contributor

Students, faculty, and staff alike were shocked late Thursday night when a young man reported missing three years ago emerged from the twelfth floor of Robarts Library unharmed and in good physical health. Mark Green, who was reported missing by his high school guidance counsellor after a campus tour gone awry in October 2014, was found in-between the seventeenth to eighteenth-century philosophy volumes, reading and furiously scribbling on sheets of scrap paper.

Not to be confused with Jessica Goldman, who resurfaced from the Sidney

Smith basement earlier this year as an exhausted PhD candidate, Green has yet to complete his undergraduate degree. In 2014, after a tiresome three-hour search, campus police officers labelled the boy “gone, but not forgotten” and pledged to work continuously to protect others from the same fate.

What doctors are calling a “medical miracle,” Green was able to sustain himself by licking the melted chocolate off discarded candy bar wrappers and consuming stale Starbucks Blonde Roast Coffee; quenching all but his everlasting thirst for knowledge.

In his high school studies, Green cited interests in chemistry, anthropology, and biology and planned on attending Western University to study psychology; at the time believing that UofT was, “too hard and overrated.”

However, his time in the Robarts stacks deeply affected Green, changing his views on UofT and his own life purpose. Deep in the stacks, Green set out on a journey of self-discovery, reading thousands of volumes that expanded his views and left him hankering for what he refers to as “the distinction and promise of a University of Toronto Bachelor of Arts education.” Green took particular interest in scholarly publications that discussed the postmodern concept and consumer reality, in addition to his in-depth discussion of political theory and Marxism. “The more I read the more I found myself questioning all I’ve ever learned. Although I lived in isolation, the real isolation was my ignorance.”

Green hopes to continue his studies as an officially enrolled student specializing in political science, but plans to petition the university to forgo the first year of his undergraduate degree as he believes his three years of independent study have provided more than the foundation level courses can offer.

When asked what he plans to do outside of his studies Green said: “Well, I really want to visit a Canadian Target, I hear those are great. Oh, and finally get to my ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.”

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@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 19 SEPTEMBER 2017

Fifth Harmony vs. Little Mix A very serious debate rebecca gao and leo morgenstern frenemies

Here’s why Fifth Harmony rules and other knock-off girl groups (like Little Mix) drool.

Here’s why I have complete respect for Fifth Harmony and the work that they do, but I still prefer Little Mix.

Fifth Harmony is an exquisite, multi-faceted, and beautiful girl group who formed during season two of the X Factor. Despite what some may say, I believe that the girls of Fifth Harmony are the current and forever reigning queens of pop music and I challenge anyone to rebut it. My office hours are Wednesdays 12-2 PM in the Goldring Student Centre.

1. They lost a member but kept going. They’ve overcome so much!

2. They were originally called the Lylas (an acronym for “Love You Like A Sister”) but that name was already taken by FOUR of Bruno Mars’ sisters!

Clearly, they are ON TREND and know what the kids are thinking!

3. Normani Kordei is really pretty.

4. Their song “Work From Home” is a modern masterpiece. Their urging to their partners to “work from home” is clearly an anarchist call to arms. They want all of us to quit our jobs and free ourselves from the shackles of capitalism.

Work From Home is a fantastic song. The girls from Fifth Harmony are all talented performers and feminist icons. I cannot argue with that. However, there is another girl group that will always reign supreme in my heart.

1. Little Mix was formed in 2011. Fifth Harmony was formed in 2012. So sorry, which one of them is the knock-off again?

2. Fifth Harmony formed during the X-Factor. Little Mix won the X Factor.

3. Perrie Edwards is very pretty.

4. None of the members of Little Mix want to quit.

5. Jesy, Leigh-Anne, Perrie, and Jade actually wrote their hit song “Shout Out to My Ex,” while Normani, Ally, Lauren, Camilla, and Dinah didn’t put any work into their hit song, be it from home or the studio.

CAST YOUR VOTE BELOW Please slip your votes under The Strand office doors, room 153 in the Goldring Student Centre.

We will be conducting a very scientific and very real study from these results.

Thank you, science will surely benefit from your response. cut here

Fifth Harmony Little Mix