Month: August 2013

Ruby Sparks: A Refreshingly Quirky Film about the Cliche “Quirky Girl”

/ Lauren / 1 Comment

rubysparksYou all know the story: Intelligent Boy-Man has talent but no direction. Intelligent Boy-Man has either no relationship or meaningless ones. Along comes the Quirky Girl. She’s Different. She’s an Individual (you can tell by her blunt bangs/blunt manners). She’s Damaged, but that’s okay, because she Just Might Be What His Life Needs, either indefinitely (a la Sam in Garden State) or just until Boy-Man learns what he needs to learn to become a full-fledged Man (a la Summer in (500) Days of Summer). The Quirky Girl throws Boy-Man a curve ball, spins his world around, and goes swimming in her clothes. And once a Boy-Man meets a Quirky Girl, his life will never be the same.

Ew. Gag me with a spoon.

There was a time (read: before I had any normal adult relationships) when I too found this kind of story appealing. I’m kind of a quirky girl, I thought to myself, I’m no femme fatale but I’m interesting and honest and loving and according to the movies, guys really dig that! In fact, it was once a commonly expressed opinion that the kind of girl worthwhile guys were really looking for was a girl like Natalie Portman’s character Sam from the Zach Braff film Garden State. I used to think it was because she was unpretentious and down to earth, but I noticed that this verbally expressed desire for an authentic lady in hoodies and sneakers didn’t really play out in real life, and these sorts of “Quirky Girl” portrayals have bothered me ever since.

In fact, it wasn’t until watching the 2012 film Ruby Sparks that I was really able to put my finger on why the Quirky Girl motif is so off-putting: it’s just another male fantasy (albeit a less large-breasted one), and Ruby Sparks writer and actress Zoe Kazan not only reveals this Quirky Girl fantasy for what it is, but makes the issue of the Quirky Girl as a male tool/accessory the focal point of the film.

The plot of Ruby Sparks revolves around Intelligent Boy-Man Calvin Weir-Fields (deftly portrayed by Paul Dano, who you might recognize as the silent brother from Little Miss Sunshine). Ten years after penning a best-selling novel at the age of 19, Calvin is stuck. His only major relationship ended in heartache, he has no friends, and has not been able to write anything significant since his breakout success. He’s crushed by others’ perception of his genius, and is terrified of social interaction. In a fit of inspiration, he begins to write a story about a girl he saw in a dream, a Quirky Girl named Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan) who opens up his world and loves him just as he is. The more he writes, the more he falls in love with his creation and the more he wants to spend time with her. One morning, Ruby strolls out of his kitchen and Calvin realizes that he has somehow made a real-life woman materialize from his mind; what’s more, so long as he continues writing his story he has the power to change her whenever he doesn’t like the person he has created. The ethics and responsibilities surrounding this kind of fantastical relationship are explored with significant and often uncomfortable implications.

What I find so effective about Kazan’s script is the way that she doesn’t need to go out of her way to point out that the Quirky Girl motif is a male fantasy–her Quirky Girl is a fantasy, pure and simple. What is interesting is how this fantasy plays out in “real life”, and how the male creators of this fantasy react when their ideal begins to examine her partner critically and attempt to make decisions about her life apart from him.

After watching Ruby Sparks, it is interesting to go back to those popular Quirky Girl films and take another look. Is the Quirky Girl really as independent as she appears? Whose interests does her existence in the story serve? Is she really a brand new kind of “strong” female character, or is she just another tired old female trope in bright new tights?

Though the film Garden State will always occupy a special place in my heart as a bildungsroman and a labour of love (two kinds of art I always enjoy) with a pretty wicked soundtrack, it must be said that the oh-so-special female character Sam is not really as strongly written as Zach Braff had probably hoped. Far from being a flesh-and-blood girl that could really exist in real life, Sam is merely a collection of odd-ball character traits wrapped in a super-cute face and body. Her character is a tool to facilitate the growth of the film’s hero, the emotionally-stunted Andrew Largeman (Braff), and she loves him without question, and without any goals of her own.

Zooey Deschanel’s character Summer in (500) Days of Summer is the dark side of the Quirky Girl. Far from being readily available to Tom (played by the always lovely Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Summer is aloof and abrasive, but no more human than the acquiescent Sam. Her character’s disconnect from her family means she is in a better position to focus the majority of her emotional energy on her romantic relationship, if only Tom can convince her he is worth it. When he does not win, Tom is forced to undergo major changes towards a more fulfilling life, and Summer is able to retain her status for him as the One That Got Away, imperfect perhaps but still idealized as well.

So on the one side we have Sam, celebrated because she’s a great sidekick, a cute and feisty little thing who channels everything that she has and is into loving the male hero and facilitating his growth. On the other side we have Summer, celebrated because she is aloof and unattainable–she gives nothing of herself except what is required to force the male hero to struggle and so facilitates his growth. These Quirky Girls are presented in very different packages, but deep down they are two sides of the same coin (heads Always Available, tails Forever Unattainable), and that coin is firmly and forever in the pocket of male fantasy.

Ruby Sparks comes right up the middle and ironically, though she is Calvin’s fantasy, she is, in the end, the most human. Once Calvin decides it is acceptable to control her (because she’s his, he made her), you realize how flawed the male fantasy of the Quirky Girl really is–whimsy and joie de vivre is all well in good if it’s directed towards being sexy-cute and taking your Boy-Man on quirky adventures, but what about what you want outside of your relationship? Is is important? Is it valued as equal to the desires of the Boy-Man, or are your interests/passions/loves only acceptable if they facilitate the improvement of his life in some way?  Though Kazan’s script is kind and offers Calvin an opportunity for redemption, his intense conceit and selfishness is first exposed and his true feelings and impulses surrounding the girl he “loves” are scrutinized.

It would be refreshing, I think, for future Quirky Girl films to examine their motives in a similar fashion, because I’m fairly tired of watching Boy-Men chase Quirky Girls that can’t possibly exist. I’d rather watch them chase unicorns; at least I’d find it less insulting.

Exploring the Past at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village

/ Lauren / 1 Comment
Photo credit: Daina Zilans

Photo credit: Daina Zilans

My (Ukrainian) dad had always wanted to visit the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village just outside of Edmonton, Alberta, and this week he got his wish–we were passing through that part of the province with just enough time to get a good look at the place before it closed for the evening, and I’m so glad we did.

For anyone with Ukrainian-Canadian roots (or anyone interested in pioneer Prairie communities), this heritage village (interpreted for the period between 1900 and 1930) is an absolute gem. Costumed role-players “inhabit” the buildings, welcoming visitors into their homes and businesses and making informative conversation in (nearly) flawless Ukrainian accents, and the buildings and farmsteads are authentic down to the last mud puddle and runaway chicken.

My dad and I check out a 1918 granary. Photo credit: Daina Zilans

My dad and I check out a 1918 granary. Photo credit: Daina Zilans

As I child of the Saskatchewan, I am not unfamiliar with heritage villages (the Western Development Museum in North Battleford is not too far from where I grew up, and the Prairies are dotted with old churches, schoolhouses, and railway stations preserved as small-town museums) and I’ve always enjoyed them, but the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village is something truly special. Unlike many heritage villages I’ve seen, the buildings at the Ukrainian Village were not cluttered with antiques, instead furnished only with those tools and dishes the families actually would have used and owned. The costumed interpreters, rather than launching into a set “spiel” every time a visitor entered their “zone”, simply welcomed us into their home or business and then made pleasant conversation, providing historical/cultural information only when asked (and always as if they were truly the owner of their home and never from the perspective of a person living after the time period of the building). The interpreters were so thorough I felt uncomfortable wandering into their bedrooms and back porches, feeling as though I was actually trespassing in somebody’s house.

The most impressive details, of course, are always the really basic ones, and ones that other heritage museums often miss in their efforts to keep their sites prim and tidy. For example, many of the farmsteads smelled–there were pigs in the pen and piles of horseshit in the barn and actual slop pails in the houses (sour milk and all–I pity the poor interpreters who sat in hot stinky kitchens all day). The large grassy expanses between the farmsteads were either obviously cut by hand, or not at all, and the roads between the “rural” zones of the heritage village and the town site showed only the narrow wheel tracks of horse-drawn carts and antique trucks. In sights, sounds, and smells, visiting the Ukrainian Village is an incredibly immersive experience, and one my father said brought him back not only to his own childhood farmhouse, but to the farmsteads of his aunts and uncles as well.

My only complaint about the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village is that we had only given ourselves an hour to see it, and it is a place I could easily spend the better part of a day.

The "villagers" gather at the end of their work day. Photo credit: Daina Zilans

The “villagers” gather at the end of their work day. Photo credit: Daina Zilans

A Story about a Story about Vancouver

/ Lauren / Leave a comment
Swing set in the old 'hood.

Swing set in the old ‘hood.

The other night I visited an old friend I hadn’t seen in a little while (no particular reason for this gap in our social calls, just busy summers for the both of us), and after doing that thing where you say “Whelp, time to go” but then you stand and talk in the porch for fifteen more minutes, I stepped out of her house into a warm August evening. I reached the main drag just as my 7 Nanaimo Station bus zipped past the stop on the other side of the street, but the weather was fine and I realized that all was not lost: sure, I could wait half an hour for the bus to come again, or I could take the other bus, the 7 Dunbar, and reach home via a circuitous route that would take me through my old neighbourhood.

I chose the latter, and as I watched the familiar landmarks glide past my window, my little bus trip became a journey (internally at least), and that journey became a story, and that story became about Vancouver, and when I got home I wrote some of it down, and as I did that I discovered the story was more important to me than I had expected, and then it became apparent that I could not write this particular story about Vancouver this week. Probably not next week either. Because I realized that the story I want to write about Vancouver is one that deserves more attention than my mind can give it right now. It deserves more crafting and more subtlety than what I can do in the week between blog posts. At the moment, it exists in my mind purely as potential, with images and lovely turns of phrase gravitating towards it. Careless handling will collapse the whole enterprise, and I don’t want to do that with this one.

So this is not that story. This is a story about the story. Pointless? you ask. No, I answer, because although this is not the story, this is also a story that is important to me. A story about the way that inspiration sometimes finds you. A story about how we leave our mark in every place we go, and how those pieces of ourselves that we sloughed off (thinking we’d grown, thinking we were “past that”)  still loiter in the streets of our old haunts, waiting for a circumstance of municipal transit to carry us back.

It’s a story about realizing the value of something, even if it’s just personal value, and being aware enough to understand that it deserves more than the usual effort, that it requires being patient. It’s a story about how, in a culture in which so much is shared (especially by personal bloggers such as myself), sometimes it is important to keep some things close, if even for a little while, and consider them carefully before shoving them into the world.

It’s a story about how exciting it can feel to have a story you’re itching to write, and how precious and perfect that electric moment before creation can be.

Canada Must Boycott the 2014 Sochi Olympics

/ Lauren / 3 Comments

Gay_Canada_flag

I was pleased today to read that Star Trek actor George Takei has endorsed a petition to relocate the 2014 Winter Games to Vancouver, while lauded British actor Stephen Fry has written a heartfelt open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron and the International Olympic Committee, urging them to boycott/ban the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. I know there are much more intelligent, much more celebrated, and much more influential voices than mine already speaking out about this, but I feel an obligation, as a human being with the political and financial freedom to express herself, to use the small platform this blog has given me to add my voice now and say, unequivocally, that Canada must not participate in the 2014 Sochi Olympics as long as Russia’s horrific violations against its LGBT citizens (and LGBT tourists, or anyone who supports equal rights for non-heterosexual people) continue in law and in practice.

As Fry so eloquently pointed out, the IOC had a choice in 1936–and they chose to move ahead with the Berlin Olympics, even as Adolf Hitler stripped Jewish citizens of their rights, refused to protect them from violence and humiliation, and declared Jewish people to be a threat to decency and to the country. When the world turned up to compete in 1936, it was, in effect, saying that it did not care what Germany did to its Jews. By allowing Adolf Hitler and his government the honour of hosting the Olympic Games (and it should be an honour), the world was giving Nazi Germany its tacit approval to do whatever it liked to its Jewish citizens–after all, the Games are “about sports”, not politics, right?

Wrong. Before the IOC grants a city (and a country) the privilege of hosting the Olympic Games, the bidding process is a highly political one (involving campaigning, lobbyists, etc.), and the advantages won by the host country (prestige, global publicity, tourism, economic stimulus associated with venue construction) are political advantages, benefiting whichever world leader is lucky enough to preside over them. It is unconscionable for a body like the IOC, whose charter states that “Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender, or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement”, to grant these political advantages to Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party.

And it is unconscionable for Canada to participate in an Olympic Games that grants these political advantages to Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party. Putin already has enough help from corruption, intimidation and political chicanery–he doesn’t need our endorsement. As Canadian athletes act as representatives for our country when they compete, I am making this plea to them:

Canadian Olympians–please, PLEASE do not represent me in Sochi. Do not let it be our hand patting Putin on the back.

When gay Russians can be brutally assaulted and tortured on video, with no steps taken by authorities to bring the attackers to justice, there is something wrong. When that videotape can be shared on the internet, and it is the victim that must fear for their job (because they’ve now been outed as gay), there is something wrong. How much more obvious does this need to be? When comparisons between Putin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany are not hyperbole but are, in fact, completely apt, this is a big red flag telling you that something is wrong.

I can no longer ignore the brutality already occurring and say that things aren’t really that bad. I can no longer believe that participating in the Sochi Olympics (even by watching them on TV) wouldn’t be the equivalent of lending my support to the 1936 Berlin Games. I cannot excuse this by saying “Well, we went to China and weren’t they just as bad?” (two, or rather three, human rights wrongs don’t make a right). I cannot pretend that “sport” occurs in some airy-fairy magical world that exists outside of politics and apart from the suffering these politics are inflicting on innocent people.

So here’s my voice–if we value human rights, not just human dignity but the right of a human being to simply exist in their country without fear they will be beaten to death while their government does nothing to protect them, we must boycott the Sochi Olympics. If the world made the wrong choice in Berlin in 1936, we have the chance to try to atone for it now. Unlike our predecessors, we no longer have the excuse of not knowing what horrors are possible when a minority group is stripped of their rights and made a scapegoat for their country’s ills. We all studied this infamous period of European history in school. We know what will happen if we are complicit, if we give these atrocities our seal of approval. History has taught us that “appeasement” of hate-mongering power-crazed dictators doesn’t work–we will not stave off political conflict, we will only appear to lack conviction.

If Canada is truly the great nation we say it is, we must stand behind our convictions. We must stand behind our principles of equality and safety for all, regardless of sexual orientation. We must hold the International Olympic Committee to the principles set out in its charter, and in keeping with that we must boycott the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi Russia. I honestly can’t see any other way.

University is not for everyone (and that’s perfectly okay)

/ Lauren / Leave a comment
Oh, my bright shiny graduating face.

June 2009 – oh, my bright shiny graduating face.

I realized this week that come September, I will have been involved in higher education for nine years. As in, I have been going to a university nearly every weekday for nine years, sometimes to study, sometimes to work. Nine years of higher education is enough to put most people well into a PhD, but all I have to show for it is one BFA degree (achieved four years ago), a whole lot of books, and an amazingly generous student bus pass. My job is pretty good, as desk jobs go, but the job I have has nothing to do with the bachelors degree I completed in 2009, or the one I’m haphazardly declared in now.

And you know what? I’m okay with that. I have long known what many unfortunate undergrads and their parents are still not not grasping: a university education ≠ a job. And we need to be okay with this.

Over the course of my nine years immersed in post-secondary education, I have encountered many angry students and parents who feel cheated because their (or their child’s) university degree is not yielding the immediate economic benefits they had hoped for (I’m not sure why everyone is so surprised; a university, after all, is not a vocational college). Despite this, many students and parents erroneously believe future success and happiness depends solely on university performance, placing absurd amounts of pressure on themselves and/or their children for high grades, a pressure that borders on hysteria even at the high school level (i.e. “You have to get an A in English 12 because if you don’t get an A you won’t get into a good university and if you don’t get into a good university you won’t get a good job and if you don’t get a good job you’ll end up homeless and a prostitute and addicted to crack cocaine!”, etc.) To cite a personal example of this kind of pressure in action, in first year, a student I lived with in residence who flunked out of his second semester had to be put on suicide watch because he was so afraid of his parents’ disappointment and anger–it’s obvious to me this young man wasn’t ready for university and was only there to please his parents, so why had he been pushed into it in the first place?

The harmful effects of this misguided emphasis on university performance include, but are not limited to: an explosion in incidences of student cheating and plagiarism (they’d rather cheat to get the grade than learn anything from the course they’re paying for), students pursuing degrees they hate because their parents insist (usually incorrectly) that this particular degree will lead to job success, parents of high school children paying independent “credit mills” to boost grades in core subjects and improve university applications (which of course leads to incredible anxiety down the road when the student can’t be successful in university courses because they weren’t academically prepared for them in the first place), students “negotiating” their grades with their professors (as in “I know I don’t understand any of the required concepts but I worked really hard!“), and countless lecture halls and tutorial rooms stuffed with students who aren’t interested and couldn’t care less and whose contribution to the learning environment is the bare minimum required to obtain their “participation grade”. I keep encountering university students who are miserable being here, and their shitty attitude is making learning miserable for poor souls like me who actually consider three-hour seminars with an expert in their field a privilege.

When I went back to school a few summers ago to study writing and English literature, it was with the understanding that I would be older (and dare I say more mature?) than many of my classmates, and I expected to encounter the issues listed above at the 100 and 200-level. When you’re in your first couple of years of university, you’re still feeling your way through academia, taking your breadth requirements, figuring out what your strengths and interests are, etc., so I can’t hold it against you if you’re not on your A-game in Introduction to Early Modern Literature. What I had not expected was to be participating in seminars or online discussions for upper division courses where nearly a third of the students were admitting they hadn’t actually read the book we were studying (with one student bragging he hadn’t read a single book we’d been assigned all term), or reading online discussion posts for a 400-level course written at a high school level of literacy and comprehension and an even lower level of interest.

You know what? If you’re going to be routinely hungover or stoned in lecture, and you aren’t going to do the readings, and you aren’t going to attempt to think and communicate at a university level, and you aren’t interested in the material, and you don’t like scholarship, and you consider every class you take to be just another hoop you have to jump through on your way to a job that doesn’t suck, you shouldn’t be in university.

Let’s be honest: university is not for everyone. This isn’t an elitist statement–this has nothing to do with intellect or class. This is simply an acknowledgement that not everyone has the temperament or the drive or the interest to make good use of a university education. So there’s no need for people to be pushed or pressured into getting one, okay?

I have very intelligent peers who did not go to university–some of them took apprenticeships or completed vocational training, and some went right into the workplace. Virtually all of them now have jobs that allow them to live enjoyable lives. Unburdened by the bitterness and gargantuan student debt that usually follow the completion of a “useless” university degree, these peers of mine have been free to move ahead with their lives: advancing their careers, buying their first homes, and starting families. I also have very intelligent peers who went back to complete vocational training after completing a university degree. They are less debt-free and less far ahead, but hey, at least one of their qualifications got them a job. :S

This is not to say that people shouldn’t give university a try. My (nearly nine) years in university education broadened my horizons, honed my writing and critical thinking skills, and fostered rewarding friendships. Universities are places of ideas and possibilities (though nothing kills this potential faster than an emphasis on results), and some people love academia so much they stick around for masters and doctoral degrees (though some people stick around because they, again mistakenly, think it will get them a job…sigh). If you aren’t sure what you want to do with yourself in life I absolutely recommend signing up for a variety of university courses and seeing if something sticks. Just don’t expect what you learn in university to be a direct link to the job market, and be prepared to have lost out on some money if you don’t like it.

There are a few careers for which it is absolutely vital to have a university degree (teaching, law, scientific research, and medicine for example), but for the rest of us, university studies are just that–study. Study for the sake of learning. Scholarship is a wonderful thing and I feel I’ve benefited immensely from it, but spending that kind of money and time just to rub shoulders with great thinkers and new ideas isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. And that’s just fine.

So if you hate what you’re studying–switch majors or take a break to figure out what you really want. If your kid doesn’t appear to be university-bound, let them be (if they really want a university education they can always go back to school when they’re ready). Stop cheating and half-assing your way through your courses (ever wonder if you’re the reason bachelors degrees don’t mean anything nowadays?) and free up your seat for someone who really wants to learn. There’s a whole wide world just waiting for you to encounter it, and university is only a part of it. Before you sign up for a university education, make sure it’s a part you’re actually interested in.