ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT•
SEPTEMBER 18, 2015 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM
FILM The new traile for “The Hunger Games: MockingjayPart 2 was released on Wednesday, September 16. The trailer features a clip of Katniss Everdeen dressed in her black, leather Mockingjay outfit as emotional scenes of her past play over her. The trailer demonstrates the determination Katniss now feels because she is remembering what she fights for. The film premieres on November 20.
TELEVISION On Monday September 14, the popular television show “Dancing With the Stars” began its 21st season. First place was a tie between celebrities Nick Carter and Bindi Irwin with their dance partners Sharna Burgess and Derek Hough. The contestants that went home were Kim ZolciakBiermann and partner Tony Dovolani.
AE 11
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Top celebrity smackdowns of the decade (so far)
BY PAIGE PEREZ
A&E WRITER
Let’s get one thing straight: anyone who says they don’t follow pop culture drama is lying. I don’t care if you wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room as a rerun of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” or have never opened People magazine in your life — it is a universal constant that, deep down, everyone secretly loves a bit of drama, and our favorite stars are the perfect medium for satisfying this guilty pleasure. There’s nothing like a good celebrity feud to make you feel justified in your own boring life. Sure,
they may be rich and famous, but at least they still say embarrassing things in public for you to laugh at while you accumulate student debt! In honor of the latest and greatest, here are some of the most iconic celebrity smackdowns ever to bless our lives. Taylor Swift vs. Kanye West Very few celebrity feuds have sparked public outrage like this one. If you live under a rock, here’s a recap: the year is 2009; the stage is the MTV Music Awards. Taylor Swift had yet to go through her bad girl transformation, and was still the adorable country underdog of the industry. Just as she’s about to accept her award for best music video, Kanye interrupts and reminds the world that Beyoncé had one of the best music videos of all time. As a result, millions of Americans went and got their ears checked because what happened was so rude that we
couldn’t believe we’d actually heard it. While at the time the interruption felt obscene, in retrospect T-Swizzle probably should have thanked him, as after the incident she immediately became a household name. Of course, a few haters who hate hate hate rushed to Kanye’s defense and agreed that Beyoncé did have the better video. My response is, “Duh.” No one does anything better than Beyoncé. If we only gave awards to people better than Beyoncé, no one but Beyonce would have awards. Miley Cyrus vs. Nicki Minaj You already know. While this one just happened a couple of weeks ago, it’s already become an iconic moment of the 2010s. There’s no need to recap this event, as Cyrus’ shocked face is still fresh in the mind of anyone who watched the 2015 VMAs. While Cyrus stuttered through a sloppy response to
Minaj’s worldwide confrontation, it was clear that in her mind, all she was seeing was a long white tunnel with the death of her career at the end. The best part of it all? The thousands of comments on Cyrus’ instagram feed afterward, all saying those three little words. MILEY, WHAT’S GOOD?! Taylor Swift vs. Joe Jonas A short year before the Kanye incident, Ms. Swift had another celebrity fallout, this one concerning matters of the heart. While Teezy Sweezy has always been notorious for writing songs about her breakups, Joe Jonas was actually the first celebrity boyfriend who made his way onto one of her albums in song form. When interviewed about the breakup, T-Swiz remarked, “When I find that person that is right for me and he’ll be wonderful and I’ll look at that person,I’m not even gonna be able to remember the boy who broke up with me over the
phone in 25 seconds when I was 18.” Hey girl, burning your ex on television sounds like the ideal breakup to me. It’s okay Tay. He was the least hot Jonas brother anyway. Britney Spears vs. The World 2007 was a time of angst for many. I channeled this frustration into fringe bangs. Britney Spears took it a step farther by shaving her entire head. (Looking back at the photos of myself from this “emo” phase, it would have been an improvement if I had done the same.) In an attempt to turn over a new leaf, the shaving took place only a few hours after Spears had exited a drug rehab facility, when the barber of the shop refused to help the fallen star. It must have done the trick. A few months later, her divorce was finalized and Spears began her slow climb back to the top, becoming the highestpaid female musician of 2012. Who needs hair when you have that honor?
created fan art. The cons are an important place for fans to express their fandom in different ways, be it dressing up in elaborate (or not so fancy) costumes or finding likeminded folks to talk to about that one anime that no one you know has heard of. When talking about comic conventions, it can be confusing to create a real image of one, as each convention is very different from the others. Luckily, I managed to catch up with Trinity superstar alums John Mendiola and Monica Clifford, who both were heavily involved in TigerTV and Trinitonian shenanigans. They went to the Alamo City Comic-Con this weekend at the Henry B. Gonzales Convention Center here in San Antonio, and they had a few words to spare to answer my questions about their time at the convention. Costumes are a big deal at these conventions, right? What were your favorites that you saw?
John: Well, it was hard to tell if some people were in costume or not. Monica: Yeah, we tried to figure out who was in a costume and who was an actual cop. We did see a Bert Mackland, which was pretty cool. John: Yeah, but he was just like a doughy white guy with facial hair, so I guess that’s why we thought it was so good. Monica: So that was probably our favorite. John: It’s really about whether the person in costume knows what signifiers tell you right away who they are trying to look like. Superman has the big S, SpiderMan looks … like a spider. Monica: Yeah, John couldn’t tell that this guy was dressing up as Daredevil even though he was OBVIOUSLY dressed as Daredevil. John: He was wearing a suit! And dark glasses! He could have just been a blind guy! Monica: ...He also had a cane? After more debating, I moved the discussion away from the subject
of blind people and back to convention-friendly topics. Lots of superhero movies have come out recently, with characters pulled from comic book culture. Did you feel like there were a lot of fans present who love the movies but not necessarily the comics themselves? Monica: I think it’s made comic book culture into something so much bigger than it was before. I enjoy reading comics and I enjoy the movies, but I think now there exists to some degree a section of people who watch the movies and a section of people who read the comics. Then of course I’m sure there’s crossover, but the movies have made it so people can enjoy the characters without actually reading their stories. So it created an audience of people who don’t read the comic books but know the same characters? Monica: Right, which to some
degree as a “nerd purist” grates on me a tad, I don’t think I have any right to be territorial over these characters. I [do] think there’s a bit of an odd hypocrisy when people purely enjoy the movies and don’t at least … go out and say “I’m interested now in the source material of the comics!” Interesting. Did you see anyone cool at the panels? Monica: Well, we saw Stan Lee there, actually. John: I’m not the biggest fan of Stan Lee because of his shady practices in Marvel, but going to his panel made me like him. He’s a super charismatic 92 year old guy. It’s really hard not to like him in person. Thanks so much for answering my questions today, guys! John: I hate you. Well, there you have it. From merchandise to mermaid costumes, any genre of fandom worth a salt can be found at comic conventions. Huzzah!
What really happened at Alamo City Comic-con BY DYLAN WAGNER
A&E WRITER
The concept of a comic convention is a fascinating one. Ostensibly focused more on actual comics and graphic novels in the past, the conventions nowadays are more of a mixed bag, supporting fanbases from a wide variety of interests and subcultures. Notably, they are a place for genre celebrities, artists and writers of various mediums to sit on panels and talk about their respective fields, usually with a questionand-answer with eager fans. Conventions also provide real estate for events like competitive Magic: The Gathering and video game tournaments as well as to merchants of every stripe and trade, selling everything from custom polyhedral dice to professionally