11 minute read
Comment pages 10 to
from 16 March 2022
by Milan Lukes
Women need better representation in politics
International Women’s Day should not be a holiday we overlook
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COMMENT
Ivan Nuñez Gamez, staff From an early age, I questioned the inequality in my very conservative and machista home country, Honduras — which, until November of last year, had never elected a woman as president. Both of my grandmas were single moms who strove to provide their children with the best education possible while continuing to pursue their own goals. My mom is a successful industrial engineer who leads one of Honduras’s first hydroelectric companies. Their examples and strength showed me the positive influence that women have in our world, helping me embrace women’s importance to society. As I reflect on this year’s International Women’s Day, I wonder if Canada and the world are doing enough to promote women’s success in the political arena.
staff Dallin Chicoine / graphic /
Canada has a long history of suppressing the voices of women. Many nations have had prominent female political leaders — for example, the United Kingdom had Margaret Thatcher and the United States currently has Vice President Kamala Harris — but women in Canada still haven’t felt that satisfaction.
Despite having had 23 prime ministers in its 155-year political history, the federal Parliament has only had one female prime minister — Kim Campbell — whose tenure is one of the shortest in Canadian history, having served in the position for less than six months.
Progress was made following Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party’s election. Trudeau succeeded in creating a “gender-equal” cabinet. Beyond appointing equal numbers of men and women to the cabinet, he also appointed a number of women to meaningful and senior-level cabinet positions like the ministries of finance, foreign affairs and national defence. However, more must be done for women, especially women of colour, who are still attempting to break the glass ceiling.
Women in provincial politics face similar challenges, yet resilience prevails. The U of M’s Jelynn Dela Cruz is a positive example for women pursuing careers in politics.
From her early days as director of social programming in the Arts Student Body Council to being the president of the University of Manitoba Students’ Union for the 2020-21 academic term, Dela Cruz is taking the next step in her political career and vying for the provincial New Democratic Party Radisson nomination.
Dela Cruz has experienced success in a field that has primarily been dominated by men, but her success has not come cheap. She has faced discrimination from male co-workers and government partners in her political career and many of her successes have been overtly sexualized by her critics, which she attributes to their “internalized insecurities.”
Though the path to a successful career in politics is not the same for all — especially for women, who face additional gender-based barriers — it is important that we encourage strong women who are active community leaders to pursue their ambitions. Though progress is slow, we need to start and continue breaking the constructs that have oppressed women. Let this be a reminder that International Women’s Day is not a meaningless reason to congratulate the female figures in your life. Rather, let’s make it a daily goal to empower
women and offer our authentic support for them so that they can achieve their vision of a more equitable world.
A tasteful fusion of culture and comedy
Egyptian-Canadian comedian Salma Hindy releases debut album
ARTS & CULTURE
Zoë LeBrun, staff March 25 will see the release of Salma Hindy’s debut stand-up album Born On 9/11. Recorded live in Toronto, Ont., the album will be released through Comedy Records, Canada’s first record label dedicated to comedy albums.
A graduate of the stand-up comedy program at the Second City Training Centre in Toronto, Hindy is a first-generation Egyptian-Canadian comedian who tackles a variety of topics in the 13 tracks that make up Born On 9/11.
A prominent, ever-present theme throughout the album is Hindy’s culture, wherein her personal experience of living as “a Muslim woman who just happened to be born on [Sept. 11] in a post-9/11 world” is embedded. Witty and authentic, Hindy shares her stories and jokes with an air of lightness and enthusiasm you can’t help but love, introducing you to her life, family and Muslim culture along the way.
Through Hindy’s animated storytelling, her audience gets to laugh alongside her as she discusses her relationship with her overprotective Muslim parents, her opinions on polygamy, bidets and hijabs, navigating holidays like Halloween and, of course, the universal struggle of dating in the 21st century.
A highlight from Born On 9/11 is track number three, which is simply titled “Growing Up.” Within it, Hindy discusses Halloween — in particular, her father’s reaction to the holiday — and her gradual loss of innocence over the years, from unsolicited direct messages on Instagram to sketchy torrent websites.
Another favourite moment from Born On 9/11 is a story Hindy tells about going on a blind date in the presence of her father, who had set her up with a mystery suitor. Full of twists and turns and on-point comedic timing, this playful anecdote encapsulates everything that is so fantastic about Hindy’s album as well as what makes her so enjoyable to listen to.
There is a very likeable and relatable factor to Hindy’s album, which is rooted in her ability to know exactly how much information to give us when setting up her jokes. She knows where to pause and let you fill in the blanks as an audience, and she is able to cleverly introduce more specific aspects of Muslim culture and religion in a way that allows you to understand her experiences in a fuller and more nuanced sense without taking away from her comedic timing.
On top of this, it’s clear even via recording that Hindy has excellent stage presence — throughout Born On 9/11, she is able to communicate and interact with the audience attending her show in a way that keeps them invested in her show and yet doesn’t exclude the audience who may be
provided
/ Comedy Records image / listening through their headphones.
Salma Hindy’s debut comedy album Born On 9/11 will be available March 25 via Spotify, Google Play, Apple Music and more.
arts@themanitoban.com
A duo of digital theatre productions
Prairie Theatre Exchange explores different modes of storytelling
ARTS & CULTURE
Shaylyn Maharaj-Poliah, staff
After the live production of Bad Parent by Ins Choi was cancelled, Prairie Theatre Exchange (PTE) is presenting a duo of digital theatre shows to run throughout the month of March and the beginning of April. The projects are available to view for free on the company’s website.
PTE’s artistic director Thomas Morgan Jones maintains that although the physical theatre space is closed, the company is still thriving despite these unprecedented times.
“While our live theatre is quiet for a little while longer, we wanted to offer these two stories and voices to our community,” Jones said in a recent press release.
The first presentation, Places We Go by Hazel Venzon and David Oro, takes the form of an animated live-action film. Told in both English and Tagalog, the story follows a young girl named Grace who lives in Manila while her mother is working in Canada, specifically in Winnipeg. The film was incrementally released over the first week or so of March but is currently available in its entirety on the PTE website. Running only 30 minutes long and perfect for all ages, you can’t go wrong with this innovative piece of theatre.
The film is a unique blend of drawn animation and live theatre. Hazel Venzon plays Grace — as well as every other role in the film — highlighted only by her silhouette as she inhabits and interacts with a cartoon world through green-screen technology. The audience joins her on an adventure to buy her mother the perfect birthday present — a plane ticket home so they can be together again. Accompanied by twinkling, dreamlike music created by Venzon and Edgardo Esteban and exploring the themes of loneliness, the relationship between mothers and daughters and the lengths we go to for the people we care about, Places We Go will move you to tears one moment and warm your heart the next.
While Places We Go is sweet and uplifting, A Dance to the End of the World is its tonal opposite. An audio drama written by Jones, the story takes place during a deadly plague in the distant past. The 60-minute production follows a desperate father, his young daughter and the dangerous deals they make just to survive. This gripping cautionary tale is accompanied by a digital collection of illustrations depicting each scene — created by local Indigenous tattoo artist Josh Murdock — to be enjoyed during the listening experience or on its own.
image / Prairie Theatre Exchange / provided
On the duo of digital presentations, Jones said, “Both of these productions speak urgently to the time we’re living in and through […] It’s never been more important to tell stories, and we’re thrilled these two plays can reach audiences directly in their homes or on their phones, here in Manitoba or anywhere in the world.”
Prairie Theatre Exchange’s free digital productions of Places We Go and A Dance to the End of the World will run until March 31 and April 10 respectively. For more information, please visit pte. mb.ca.
arts@themanitoban.com
All hail ‘the Queen of Basketball’
Oscar-nominated doc explores Lucy Harris’s historic career
ARTS & CULTURE
Grace Paizen, staff Representation matters. In fact, on the heels of some calling for the cancellation of women’s hockey in the Olympics because the scores are lopsided toward the North American women’s programs, an Oscar-nominated short documentary inadvertently showcases the ongoing struggle for women’s representation in sport while celebrating one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
The Queen of Basketball by Canadian filmmaker Ben Proudfoot is the inspiring story of Lusia “Lucy” Harris from her childhood in Minter City, Miss. to her induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The documentary is a clinic in how to pack important information into such a short timeframe. In fact, the short format creates a captivating atmosphere where Harris’s history-making career stats come rapidly one after another.
Though teased as a child about her height — “long and tall, and that’s all” — Harris learned to love her six-footthree frame through basketball.
Being the only family in her community with a basketball hoop, Harris was a basketball superfan from her childhood, staying up late on school nights to watch NBA games — especially her favourite player, Oscar Robertson. Deciding to go to a university that had a women’s basketball program, Harris and company went on to win three consecutive national championships.
Harris became the star of the team, accumulating swaths of points every game, her height becoming her ultimate weapon for rebounding.
In another Canadian connection, apart from the director himself, Harris made history when women’s basketball was first implemented in the Olympics in the 1976 Summer Olympic Games in Montreal, Que.
Not only did Harris bring home a silver medal, she made the first basket ever in women’s Olympic basketball.
Harris was also the first and only woman officially drafted in the NBA. Though Denise Long was a draft pick of the then-San Francisco Warriors in 1969, then-NBA commissioner Walter Kennedy blocked the draft, making Harris the first official draft pick in 1977.
The then-New Orleans Jazz drafted Harris seventh overall. However, Harris believed her draft was “a publicity stunt” and decided against playing for the team.
Harris claimed she didn’t “regret not going” to the NBA, “not even a little bit.” However, the fact that there wasn’t a Women’s National Basketball Association clearly lingered for her.
This is the point that athletic associations still seem to struggle to understand: inequality is as simple as not creating opportunities for those underrepresented in sports.
As Harris said herself, the National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s basketball stars of her time that went on to become NBA stars were millionaires.
“I certainly would have had money,” Harris jokingly said.
These moments in the film are so important, such a short documentary speaking so loudly of the inequalities in athletics — from Harris having to choose a different university to attend simply to pursue basketball, to her basketball career ending because there were no opportunities for women in basketball outside of PR stunts.
In this way, The Queen of Basketball speaks to the importance of seeing someone who looks like you succeeding and being granted the same opportunities to pursue an goal to those already privileged enough to have them.
As for the film itself, the editing is superb. The pictures, old footage and newspaper clippings are a collage of an inspiring career.
provided
/ Breakwater Studios / image The music is also perfectly synced with the action on screen — particularly the use of Vivaldi’s “Gloria” mass music during footage of Harris’s Delta State University team playing its first national final championship game against the Catholic Immaculata University three-time champs whose superfans were nuns.
Sadly, Harris passed in January of this year and won’t see if the film about her illustrious, record-shattering career will win the highest achievement in cinema.
Up for best documentary short at the Oscars on March 27, with Harris’s winning record, Proudfoot and company have the “Queen of Basketball” on their side.
