Category: pop culture

Asking For It?

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TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE

Most people that know me can agree that I’m an outspoken feminist. They know that I stand up for women’s rights, try to be politically correct, the list goes on. They know that I love to write or that my favorite color is yellow. They know my face, the way I smile or laugh. To most people, I’m just an average teenage girl. Thank God that’s all I am. What most people don’t know is that this image could completely disappear, tarnished forever in a matter of minutes.

How?

Rape. Already I can sense one of two reactions: fear, a freezing shiver down a spine or bile pushing to the surface, or exasperation, a sigh because this post is going to be one of those posts.

When I think about sexual harassment, I think about the horrifying statistics. One in six girls will be raped in their lives. That means that out of the girls in my grade, at least three of us will get assaulted. One in 33 boys will be assaulted. That’s at least one boy in each grade. Yes, these are just statistics and all, but most of the times that’s all we think about.

Over the summer, I read Louise O’Neill’s Asking For It, a story of a girl named Emma who was gang raped by four boys. At first, Emma is portrayed as self-centered, egotistic, and promiscuous. She is mean to her friends, constantly degrading them.

Photo Credit: cornflakegirlmusings.com

It frustrated me how rude she was, but as the story went on, the rudeness was actually unmasked as something else, self-degradation. Her entire life she was called pretty, fawned on by boys and envied by girls. She was constantly making sure to cover up, but simultaneously show off. Her mother would always tell her to put on a jacket or a longer pants, while her friends surrounded her with shorter and shorter skirts. She internalized something most girls have to.

Nowadays, the Internet is filled with selfies, pool pics, and photoshoots. Sleek hair and tanned, toned legs become a requirement before sending out an image on Instagram and Facebook. Emma’s world was filled with those kinds of pictures. She went to parties just to say she did, trying to keep up this delicate image of a girl who was respectable but still had fun.

However, that image was tattered when she was raped. She showed up to the party in a too-short dress, drank dozens of tequila shots, and tried a drug a boy gave her. Common ingredients in the recipe titled: She was asking for it.

It’s interesting to think that someone could be assaulted and instantly presume it was the victims fault. Even if she was wearing nothing, her body doesn’t become something to claim, to take advantage of. It’s sad that rape becomes so black and white, either the girl did something wrong or the boy made a “childish” mistake. No one ever gets into the nitty gritty. It’s always “She was asking for it” instead of “She was raped.”

Modern society has a fear around the word rape. People want to mask what that word means, mask the disgusting feelings around it. People hide behind anonymous names, jeering at victims, trying to make it less real. If she wanted to, then how can it be bad?

Louise O’Neill and many other have taken a stab at this ever-present issue, trying to raise awareness. I condemn these brave souls, as talking about rape is so taboo. Rape is an international issue, as this book addresses, and is not just some “feminist issue.” Rapists are let out of prison within weeks, while the victims are left with a lifetime of shame and painful memories.

Rape needs to become an outrage. Homicides are treated with heightened media attention, the deceased becoming a saint in the eyes of the public. Where is that same sadness for victims of rape? Yes, they didn’t die, but a part of them was lost when they were raped. Many are left chained to a life of stolen glances and hushed conversations.

It’s hard for people to talk about rape because they’re misinformed or it simply makes them uncomfortable. Personally, I agree. I would like nothing more than to talk about the weather report or to compliment my friend’s shirt, but sometimes I’m left fearing about out of my friends and me, who’s going to get hurt next? That’s why we need to talk about rape culture. We need to make rape not okay, make rapists see the wrong in their actions, as not to encourage repeated offenses. We need to make rape as scary as being killed, so that young girls and boys can go about their lives with one less thing to worry about.

“Beautiful”

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While it may sound vain, despite being relatively confident, comfortable, and even sometimes feeling rather pretty, I don’t think I’ve ever felt fully represented as “beautiful”. It frustrates me that so much of my already fragile confidence could be tied to media, movies and t.v shows but it kind of is.

Part of me feels like the culture I grew up in does not believe me to be “beautiful”. I’m not western enough, in fact in personal experience when I see an East Asian in a show or movie, while my heart does glow, they are usually mixed race or distinctly more western looking than I or many other East Asians look, so in a way I guess I’m used to feeling sidelined for a more western standard. Which is probably why I’ve never felt that en masse the American.

I often wonder: have I have been conditioned from childhood to see myself as too East Asian to be considered en masse “beautiful”? I have this fear that there will always be that “for an Asian” tacked onto compliments about my appearance or just the “oh she’s Asian” exclamation. I’m not sure when this would/has befall/en me but it’s still become a very real insecurity.

Photo Credit: Martin Taylor Home Page

The older I’ve gotten the more I seem to notice that I’m not sure where I fit, there’s always a twinge when someone asks if I’m an exchange student or to translate something for them, that’s in Korean *cringe*, but hey perhaps understandable transgressions, but still, really?

I don’t see myself reflected back when I see “beautiful” people on the t.v or in books or in American pop culture. When people make lists East Asian are woefully lacking, the part of me that is fed off of pure media is constantly being told that people who look like me aren’t really that beautiful.

I’ve talked about white washing before, but this year I was hit with a whole new wave with the twitter #expressiveasians.

An unnamed casting director is cited in Nancy Wang Yuen’s book Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism, as having said, “Asians are a challenge to cast because most casting directors feel as though they’re not very expressive.” As much as this statement kind of makes me want to laugh, because who even says sh*t like this? The more I sat and thought about it the more it shocked and … hurt.

Photo Credit: Twitter

I’ve always been slightly insecure about my smile, how small my eyes get when I laugh, I mean just my face in general, but this comment, despite the amazing retaliation from many proud Asians on the internet, just hit hard and not even where it was necessarily directed.

It hit me in a way that I can only liken to feeling like taking a photo with friends looking at it and going, “Oh god why do I look different, why do they all look good while I look so ugly?” It’s just the feeling of being the odd one out, in the case of Expressive Asians it’s being the perpetually non-expressive race.

It’s a kind of reminder that says even if you feel the same you definitely don’t look like it!

While I am in fact Chinese-American I’m not mixed race, I am full blooded Chinese, but I’ve grown up in America with Caucasian parents, in relative white privilege, so I’ve always been stuck between two worlds. I think and act like an American but I realize that people don’t see me as American until I open my mouth and even then sometimes they don’t. It leaves me to wonder about how I feel about myself, how does America as a culture feel about me?

Is it too much for me to want to see myself reflected back from the screen without the aid of cartooning? Is it too much for me to see someone like me be considered “beautiful” in American pop culture?

 

Quiet is violent

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“I am not as fine as I seem, pardon.” – Twenty One Pilots

Damn right you’re not perfect! Why else would you make us wait for your new album for THREE YEARS! You have this huge fanbase that follows you on every social media platform there is, analyzes every single one of your interviews, trying to find hints and clues as to what your ingenious minds are working on. And that’s the thanks we get! You let us sit in the dark, staring at your blank Twitter profiles hoping for a new blurried face post or even a like on someone else’s but no! You’ve been quiet for over three months now and your dear skeleton clique is slowly but surely going insane!

Three months ago, you last posted on Twitter. THREE MONTHS AGO! You posted a picture of an eye, with lyrics in it, written backwards, and every day you’d post another one, every day the eye would close a little further. Seriously, you guys are so extra. And all the last picture said was “and now I just sit in silence “.

Photo Credit: bradheaton.com

Uhm… no you don’t, we do! Because we don’t have any new god damn music to listen to. And remember when you promised us a new album in 2017? Well it’s October now, you better hurry the hell up!

 

Okay, but to be honest, even though I hate you guys for torturing us like that, you two are amazing. You’re just these two boys from Columbus, Ohio, without a plan B, who set everything they had on their music career, working as hard as they possibly could, to play another set at another festival, drive another seven hours to perform in front of another seven people. And now, six years and three albums later, here you are, touring together as best friends, in sold out venues like the famous Madison Square Garden. You even won a Grammy. And just like you said in the speech you gave when you received it, “anyone from anywhere can do anything.” So with that said, even you guys should be able to drop your god damn album.

The Return of Twaimz

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On August 30th, 2017, a Youtube legend and internet icon known as Issa Twaimz made his return back to youtube.

After being gone for a year, stuck rewatching the same beautiful videos over and over again, Twaimz finally started hinting at his return. At first I thought it was just another rumor. Maybe it’d get all our hopes up like that time My Chemical Romance posted a “Welcome to the Black Parade” teaser on their Youtube channel for the first time in years – sending us all back into our emo selves – but it wasn’t.

It was real.

And it was amazing.

At the beginning of August, Twaimz started dropping hints that had all his fans leaning off the edge of their seats. From little video snippets on Instagram, to suggestive tweets and hilarious Snapchat stories, the return of everyone’s favorite Youtuber would soon fall upon us.

And thus, The Return of Twaimz was born.

He said that a small surprise would be coming, but it was anything but small.

It was huge. It was nineteen minutes worth of terrifying, hilarious content that was absolutely beautifully constructed. Please note, that I had stayed up until one in the morning to watch this video due to technical difficulties, and the lack of sleep I had was worth it. With nothing but the light of my telephone screen, the video starts off with a sweet tribute to all his old videos. From the crush song, to the videos of “what to do as a Christmas tree”, the first couple minutes were nostalgic until the video took a dark turn when he began getting haunted by his younger self.

Though I do not want to spoil the whole video, let’s just say it was memorable. It mostly consisted of plastic horses, Donald Trump, and Twaimz ability to master the art of rapping Nicki Minaj without messing up.

I could not have imagined a better return to Youtube than this. It was creative, spooky, and hilarious. Since his return, he has released the bloopers to his new video, an “ask Issa”, and a couple other videos. But most importantly, on October 1st at midnight, Twaimz released a new song to put everyone in the Halloween spirit.

The return of Twaimz was the best way to start off my junior year, and I am already more eager to see more of his new videos. So, if you need some comic relief in your life, or need a motivational theme song to walk into battle with, I suggest you start watching his videos right away.

Photo Credit: Tumblr.com

Music and TV Shows: Always and Forever

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Photo Credit: vampire diaries.wikia.com

Everyone has their favorite things in life. Sometimes they’re people’s favorite bands or singers. Sometimes people put their hearts and minds into their favorite tv shows or books. They become a topic of conversation over a dinner table, where those part of the conversation are imagining alternate endings to the season’s finales, or ranting about the ships we want but the writers won’t give. Maybe, the viewers begin to feel a part of the story the more they get into it. Those are just a couple things, but it’s these interests that make life a little more enjoyable for some people.

As I entered my junior year of high school, I told myself not to get invested into a new tv show. Thanks to Netflix, from the moment my parents started our subscription in sixth grade, I’ve gotten into many different tv shows. I’ve had too many to count. My favorites have always been “The Vampire Diaries” and “The 100”, or “Riverdale” which just premiered at the beginning of 2017 with season two coming out in less than a month. But now my favorite tv show is “The Originals”.

In October 2013, “The Originals” aired just after the season 5 premiere of “The Vampire Diaries”, and is a spin off of the famous vampire tv show. It is about the family of the first five original vampires, starring Joseph Morgan, who plays a character named Niklaus Mikaelson, and is a hybrid between a vampire and a werewolf. He returns to New Orleans with his brother and sister, Elijah and Rebekah, to regain control of the city he had lost over a century ago.

This is just the beginning of season 1. Now just starting season 2, I can assure that this series has been a series of twists and turns I never expected. This show never ends with the drama, the emotions, a mixture of feeling sadness and anger towards a show, the feeling of yelling at the characters though they can’t hear you, and that’s just how I felt in the first season. I still have 3 more seasons to go, and the next one aired will be their last.

Despite the constant conflict between the family in the show, Elijah always describes the loyalty between them to be “always and forever”. Maybe decades from now I won’t remember every detail of the shows I watched in high school, or all the facts of my favorite band members, but I’ll remember these little things being big parts of my life. And I’ll remember that, as cheesy as it sounds, always and forever.

Fire walk with me

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Photo Credit: Wikimedia

During the summer there was only one question on my mind: “who killed Laura Palmer?” The answer to that question can be found in episode 7 of the second season of my favorite TV show of all time, which is the surreal, mesmerizing and fever nightmare “Twin Peaks”. For those unfamiliar with the show -“Twin Peaks” is the brainchild of Mark Frost and David Lynch and it is possibly one of the best mystery drama series on television, and to prove that point, “Twin Peaks” received fourteen nominations at the 42nd Emmy Awards. When it first came out it dared to challenge boundaries of standard television, it had the eeriness of the “Twilight Zone”, the stylishness of “Miami Vice” and “Santa Barbara” relationship drama. The premise of the show is simple: an FBI investigation lead by Agent Dale Cooper is trying to unravel the mystery behind Twin Peaks’ homecoming queen Laura Palmer’s murder. The show isn’t solely one genre, it has elements of crime drama, supernatural elements and is also very campy. Drawing parallels from other works of Lynch, “Twin Peaks” is famous for surreal imagery, offbeat humor, and has a constant feel of violence that swallows you.

I can’t recommend this show enough, so if you have any free time on your hands please do yourself a favor and dive into the minds of Lynch and Frost and the haunting world of Twin Peaks.

Fire walk with me.

Twin Peaks IMDB

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romeo lost

mariethearistocat1 Comment

poets only write about love and love lost,

but what about the time afterward?

what about the times when i see you my heart breaks,

not because i miss you,

but i miss the feeling of you.

the feeling of you on my neck,

the feeling of you in my arms,

the feeling of you on the other end of the line.

you weren’t a classic romeo.

you were one with trails of cigarette smoke and a bright red motorcycle,

instead of shiny, chain-link armor and a glistening white horse.

Photo Credit: buzzfeed.com

your eyes hold the past.

the past hour-long laughing fits,

the past midnight ice cream runs,

the past nights we slept under the stars.

i wish i could kiss you one more time,

not because i like you,

but because i liked the void you filled.

what about when i see her for the first time, this new me.

Photo Credit: buzzfeed.com

she’s beautiful, blonde, bubbly.

everything that i wasn’t, she is.

she’s willing to go all in. i guess i wasn’t.

i guess i couldn’t stand up when you walked away.

i guess i couldn’t hold you the right way,

because now i’m holding empty space.

my bed is empty to my left because i can’t bear to roll over in case you’ll come back.

because sometimes i open old, dusty copy of shakespeare’s sonnets,

and imagine you in every one.

i wish he wrote about how to pick up the pieces when you’re broken,

because i keep cutting myself on broken glass.

THE DARK TOWER IS ALMOST HERE

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2017 IS SET TO SEE STEPHEN KING’S THE GUNSLINGER COME TO FILM. Additionally, with a gorgeous, gun-toting Idris Elba at the front and center.

Set to release in August, The Gunslinger is a source of great excitement and anxiety. Like any other book-to-movie transition, fans are left to wonder how much is going to be cut out and how much is the studio going to eff with something we love?

But in King’s own words, “I feel more wrapped up in this one because the books took so long to write and the fan base is so dedicated. I’m 100 percent behind it — which doesn’t mean it necessarily will work, just that it’s a good way to try and to get into these stories.”

King even approves of the casting. “It was great to see Idris Elba as Roland. He has terrific focus and tremendous energy as Roland. Mathew McConaughey is very scary and very intense as Walter. I love that right away you set up the tension between the two of them.”

Another mark in favor of this movie is, according to Entertainment Weekly, “co-writer Nikolaj Arcel, a Danish filmmaker who says he learned English as a teen just so he could read King’s books in their native language.”

The novel sees Roland, the gunslinger, and Jake, the boy crossing the desert in search of the Man in Black, Walter. Filled with dark subplots and set in a world possibly just adjacent to ours, The Gunslinger movie will have at its fingertips a uniquely open plot to fiddle with.

The first book, for which the movie is named, leaves many questions unanswered and is essentially 300 pages of set up for the rest of the epic series. That being said, the movie will have a lot of room to fill in details and separate non-book plots. In fact, it seems to be bringing in elements from later books like The Wolves of Calla and is possibly missing characters like Susannah and Eddie, but whether the movie adaptations will continue may alter their M.I.A status.

But whether or not one looks on with trepidation or excitement, from the looks of the trailer, the world building is incredibly detailed and all the hardcore gunslinging dreams of fans are front and center.

Nicki the Fairy Godmother

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On Saturday night, Nicki Minaj took to Twitter to do a little gift giving for some of her followers. On May 5, Minaj released the “Regret In Your Tears” music video, which is from her upcoming album. The day after, she challenged her fans to make Musically’s to her song, and the person with the best submission would get to fly out to LA to listen to some of the unreleased album. After getting flooded by submissions, @cjbydesign asked Minaj to pay for her college tuition instead of flying her to LA. The response she got was quite a surprise.

“Show me straight A’s that I can verify w/ ur school and I’ll pay it. Who wants to join THAT  contest?!?! Shld I set it up?” Minaj tweeted back.

Almost like wildfire, fans started tweeting at her to pay for various school fees, some for tuition, summer programs, student loans, and even their bills! After a dozen or so responses, Minaj loosened up on the requirements. She started giving hundreds to people who just needed the money.  At the end of the night, she had helped nearly 30 people pay for various educational expenses.

Like anyone, Minaj had to stop the contest at some point, as she can’t pay for every request. She didn’t want to leave her fans hanging though, and promised to do another spree in a few months.

As seen by the many tweets, Minaj spent at least $30,000, not to mention the various costs she discussed privately with some fans. This just goes to show that it really does pay off to get good grades in school.

J.K. Rowling, You’ve Given Me an Identity Crisis

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I have spent most of my years wondering what Hogwarts house I would belong in. And when I say that, I mean I’ve spent way too many hours obsessively tapping my fingers in introspection.

For about half of those many years I have been told time and time again that I am unquestionably, undoubtably a Ravenclaw. So when Pottermore launched, part of me was just itching to go and check, but something stopped me. I did not go to Pottermore, in fact I waited approximately seven years before I visited.

I now know that I was terrified, as dorky and riddikulus as it sounds, yes I was terrified. What if I ended up in a house I didn’t feel like I was part of? Part of me had always held onto this idea that I, like the trio, was part of Gryffindor, but I knew that I was probably Ravenclaw.

Photo Credit: Pinterest

I have spent years avoiding my inevitable sorting, but I finally caved. I’m not sure how I feel now that I have. I took every other quiz I could before this one, including an Ilvermorny house quiz, which I was surprised to find I am not a Horned Serpent, I am a Wampus, known to be the body of a wizard and the warrior. So maybe that should’ve been my first warning flag.

When I finally took the sorting quiz, I came out Slytherin. I understand to a degree, but I wanted a second opinion. So I did something taboo, I cheated the system, which, thinking about it now, may make me more Slytherin than I thought. But still, I made another account. It never hurts to get a second opinion.

This time Ilvermorny was not a Horned Serpent, instead a Thunderbird, known for spirit and adventure. Both for Ilvermorny and Hogwarts I tried to answer very similarly to the first sorting and as true to myself as I felt I could be.

For Hogwarts, this time I came out Gryffindor. I should be ecstatic, the secret hope has been partially confirmed. But something still doesn’t sit right.

I feel the most closely linked to Ravenclaw and the Horned Serpent, the houses of the wise, studious, and intellectuals. How could my results say traits, that yes, I do have and pride myself on, outweigh what I believe to actually be my strongest characteristics?

I have spent so many years of my life wondering about this… to the point where I am just straight up confused now.

Understandably, the houses together form one complete concept – everybody has a bit of every house. The point of the sorting is to identify the strongest of those traits, so why do I feel that the traits identified by a J.K. Rowling-approved computer algorithm as my strongest are wrong?

Photo Credit: The Odyssey Online

Maybe because that’s just it. Despite my unerring geekiness and absolute worshipping of J.K. Rowling, I am not going to trust a computer to tell me what house I’m supposed to be for Ilvermorny or Hogwarts. The decision is for the Sorting Hat and the Carvings alone to make, and it is widely recognized that the Sorting Hat takes your belief into consideration and it is a personal belief that the carvings of Ilvermorny do too.

I, to give Pottermore some credit, as I stated before have an unerring belief in almost anything J.K. Rowling approves. That being said, I believe that this was partially correct both times and partially wrong both times.

The readers are what bring the story to life, and believe me, I am a reader and Harry Potter is definitely very much real life to me. So shouldn’t what I believe to be true mean something?

I feel that I have the ambition, resourcefulness, and many other characteristics of a Slytherin, but I also feel that I have the boldness, daring, and countless other traits of a Gryffindor, and equal to both of the previous I feel that I have the curiosity, drive for wisdom, and basically everything else that Ravenclaw treasures. My feelings on the Ilvermorny houses mirror my feelings on the Hogwarts houses – I value adventure, strength, and wisdom.

Simply put, I will continue to stand by my allegiance to all: Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Gryffindor, Wampus, Thunderbird, and Horned Serpent.

But those of the steadfast Pottermore belief will have to forgive me for my terrible sin: I am going to take Pottermore as suggestion.

I will continue to believe that I am a Ravenclaw/Horned Serpent who has very strong tendencies toward the many other houses, like the well-rounded person, with an inclination toward intellect, I believe myself to be.