THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2012
PAGE 5
opinion
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My class has 65 girls and 7 guys.
Don't worry ladies, I'm built for
endurance.
My professor just told us she used to be a bartender at Louise's.
I'd call you a tool but even they serve a purpose.
The KU campaigners are speaking in my class. You can't escape!
To the cute redhead waiting for the Wescoe bathroom: sorry I took so long, I swear I wasn't pooping.
That awkward moment when you think the water bottles are filled with water, but your roommate filled them with vodka. Surprise!
Silly girl, rhinestones never made anyone's butt look smaller.
I do not care who wins the election, they are still going to draw a salary and increase my student fees for stupid crap.
Totally just got fooled by the penny glued to the ground in front of budig right after reading about the other victim that got fooled by the quarter. Thought I was getting lucky today.
Hygenic people unite!
I wasn't trying to pick my nose, it just itched inside and I had to go for it and it happened to be a booger. No shame.
I'd like to think of my egg as a basket, my birth control as Jeff Withey, and sperm as tiny basketballs. You get the metaphor.
I go to KwikShop to buy my groceries so I can use beak em bucks.
My boyfriend told me to check myself before I wrecked myself. Without missing a beat I told him he'd be the one wrecking me. Bad choice of words.
That awkward moment when you check out a guy running and you almost run into a wall. Whoops!
Oh gosh, KUnited reps are covering both sides of Jayhawk Boulevard. There's no avoiding them.
I don't cheat on tests. I Photoshop my transcripts.
Just got attacked and followed by a candidate! When they say active tabling they mean it!
I hate talking to my lab mates and realizing that I don't know any of their names, even after a whole semester.
The ringtone on the construction worker's phone was Alicia Keys. Do not be ashamed, mister sir!
To the blonde who works at the math office. You are sweet, beautiful and you're the reason I turn homework in early on Tuesdays.
Disney trivializes women's struggles
FILM
This Summer, Pixar is releasing their latest animated film, "Brave." Though the film is being praised by critics for featuring Pixar's first female protagonist, the film might not be as progressive as you think.
Pixar and its parent company, Disney, have struggled to come up with a likeable, strong female character and "Brave" does not look poised to remedy that.
Brave tells the story of Princess Merida, the daughter of a king who rebels against her parents' wishes when they try to marry her off. The trailer shows a litany of unworty suitors being paraded in front of the young princess only to have her roll her eyes and ignore them. When an archery contest is held to see who can win the princess's hand, Merida takes to the field, announcing that she'll be competing to win her own hand. She nails three bulls-eyes in a row before turning to glare at her mother.
The main mistake that Brave seems to be making, one that Disney and countless other studios have made, is that they think having a female protagonist means the story has to be about them being a woman and the oppression that
women face. Disney tried a similar tactic with Jasmine in "Aladdin" and Ariel in "The Little Mermaid."
It would be one thing if these movies were really groundbreaking looks into the struggles facing women in today's world, but they really come off like half-assed attempts to make the company look progressive. Jasmine is an especially eerrible example of this.
Disney attempted to make Jasmine a so-called "Strong Female Character" by having her complain about her father's attempts to marry her off at every given opportunity. While the message might be progressive (though not that progressive; I'm fairly certain everyone believes a woman should get to choose her husband already), the character comes off as shrewish and annoying.
If I had to rank my favorite characters from "Aladdin", she would come in eighth behind the evil Jafar, her incompetent father, and a decorative rug that has zero dialogue.
Many people like to say the abundance of unlikeable, but objectively "good" female characters like Jasmine or Marge Simpson is because men can't write good roles for women. While there is certainly a troubling lack of female writers in Hollywood, I think this is too easy of an answer.
I would say that the most feminist filmmaker currently working is Quentin Tarantino. Five of his seven movies feature female protagonists and three of those ("Death Proof" and the two "Kill Bill" movies) go even further and feature women almost exclusively.
However, what makes these movies feminist is not the number of female characters as how they are presented. In "Kill Bill vol. 1" and "Kill Bill vol. 2", Uma Thurman plays an assassin who hunts down the members of the primarily female "Deadly Viper Assassination Squad".
In a normal action movie, there might be a scene where she gets cornered by bad guys who
ILLUSTRATED BY RYAN BENEDICK
laugh at her because they think a woman can't be dangerous, showing off how progressive it is to have a woman in the lead role. But Tarantino at no point makes a big deal that she and her former colleagues are women. He acts like that's a perfectly normal way for things to be.
Similarly, "Inglourious Basterds" [sic] does not make a big deal out of having a woman, Shosanna, get as much screen-time as the title characters in World War II movie. It's just the way it is.
While Pixar and other studios
try to seem progressive by showing off the few female protagonists they have, filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Joss Whedon (whom I unfortunately didn't have enough room to discuss), create films and TV shows where the genders are balanced and then expect everyone else to follow suit.
As "Brave" and other movies like it get released, remember that constantly tells you how progressive it is isn't always that.
Schumaker is a senior in Film and Media Studies from Overland Park.
CELEBRITY
Ryan Gosling's heroic actions unappreciated by the media
An open letter to actor Ryan Gosling:
Dear Mr. Gosling.
Last week I heard about how you saved a real-life woman (again) from almost certain peril! I was really impressed, having shied away from doing the same thing on multiple occasions and, indeed, been saved by women in like manner. I'm a really big fan of your acting, and you seem like a gennine stand-up guy. I'd like to buy you several beers and a couple of shots while we discuss how I can win the heart of the inexpressibly lovely and talented Michelle Williams.
By Daniel Obermeier
dobermeier@kansan.com
I expected that the damsel whom you saved (an ostensibly left-wing journalist named Laurie Penny) would react like any fairytale princess (or me for that matter) and swoon in profuse thanks over your selflessness and winsome personality. Because I'm greedy, I'd also ask you what your favorite part working on "Blue Valentine" was.
But did she really say, "I don't believe that the fact that A-list celebrities occasionally act like human beings is in itself news — it might have been slightly newsworthy had Mr. Gosling simply floated by on a cloud of his own cultural significance whilst a young woman got gumed into the tarmac,
but lucky for me, even the most chiseled-jawed of us are usually boringly dependable in times of minor peril."? That was a rhetorical question- she said that and much more via the Internet. Apparently getting saved by you is-the perfect opportunity to teach everyone else how meaningless it is to be saved at all.
Well Mr. Gosling (may I call you Ryan?), we all make mistakes about the people we save. We all might save some self-righteous journalist who was too busy thinking about "the importance of reproductive freedom to women's rights" to look both ways. Unless I misinterpret Ms. Penny's sentiments, she would rather be smeared on the tarmac than have people think well of you.
I was amused by the New York Magazine website's description of Ms. Penny as, "one of those leftie-types who is so sanctimonious they make you want to vote Republican out of sheer spite." Ain't it the truth?
Ryan. I know you do a lot of charity work and that's fantastic, but I've always had this instinctual distaste for people so busy volunteering for humanity they've forgotten how to be civil to their fellow man. You, my excellent actor friend, do a marvelous job of doing the right thing while not rubbing it in everyone's face.
As a member of the world, I have no desire to be saved by Laurie Penny or her busy work causes. I have enough trouble actually living in the ordinary way which you so excellently portray in "Drive," "The Notebook," "The Believer," and "The Ides of March."
In summation, it was her luck (and our misfortune) to be so heroically rescued. Really, Ryan, I'd hope that if I was saved by you or anyone, I would have the graciousness to thank you publicly then continue doing things that hardly anybody cares about. The things you do will stand as great monuments to what an unbelievably goodhearted person you are.
As much love as I'm legally allowed to send,
Daniel Obermeier
-Daniel Overmeyer
P.S. As a personal favor to me,
would you please portray Malcolm
X in a movie?
Obermeier is a junior in history from Olathe.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
fifty one years ago, on April 12, 1961, history
April 12, 1961, history was written when Yuri Gagarin became the first man to go to space. He walked through the door leading to the cosmos for the rest of mankind to follow him. Every year on this day people around the world remind themselves of the advances in space exploration since the first bold leap of Gagarin. So I decided to at least write about his flight today to mark the 51st anniversary of the first manned space flight and how the world celebrates humanity's spaceflight as Yuri's Night.
Out of more than 3000 applicants to the first cosmonaut program, only 200 were short listed. Out of these, 20 were selected after extensive tests. Only 6 of them were named to be the first cosmonauts to go to space. Out of those, 6 it was announced that the first two would be Gagarin, with Titov serving as the backup cosmonaut. The rocket carrying a Vostok 3KA capsule with Yuri Gagarin strapped inside blasted off the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:07 UTC on April 12, 1961. Russia made an official announcement of Gagarin's flight only when his capsule had reached a stable orbit 25 minutes after the launch. The whole flight lasted 108 minutes, during which he completed one orbit around the Earth.
The Vostok capsule was not designed to land with a cosmonaut onboard because of a high,
unsafe landing speed, since it did not have retro rockets to slow it down. According to the mission plan, the cosmonaut had to eject at an altitude of 4 miles and descend with his parachute. On the morning of the launch, only a handful of people knew about Yuri Gagarin, but that night he became a world celebrity.
You might ask what you are going do about it. You can start by celebrating tonight! Gagarin's first flight has been celebrated every year since 1961, but in the year 2001, Yuri's Night—a global celebration of humanity's past, present, and future in space—was started. This party is in memory of Gagarin's first spaceflight and also the first space shuttle launch on April 12, 1981 (the dates are just coincidence and were not planned since the Shuttle launch was postponed by two days).
Last year, which marked the 50th anniversary of first manned spaceflight, over 100,000 people attended 567 officially-recognized events in 75 countries to celebrate Yuri's Night. The nearest officially recognized Yuri's Night celebration is in Wichita. Since it is too late to contact the host in Wichita, I say go and celebrate tonight. Have an all night techno, go stargazing, or gather with your friends at a bar.
Dhaval Mysore Krishna is a masters student in aerospace engineering from Mysore, India
POLITICS
Santorum's exit changes Romney's focus
As Rick Santorum finally suspended his Presidential campaign on April 10, I must raise my hand and admit my foolishness. If you'll recall, which I doubt you will, I wrote about Santorum's prospects on this very page immediately following the South Carolina primary. I said, "If Santorum is around by Super Tuesday (March 6), I'll be highly surprised." Who knew that hod stick around for as long as he did?
Let's do a quick Santorum caucus/primary win recap. The man I said wouldn't resonate with voters won in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Colorado, Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. He won 285 delegates, which is a far cry from the 1,144 necessary to become the Republican Presidential nominee but is second only to Mitt Romney. Mr. Santorum clearly ran a campaign that mattered to the rural and religious communities and was very popular
By Billy McCroy bmccroy@kansan.com
with Midwestern voters.
While the immediate reasons for his suspension are commendable; his three year old daughter has been in the hospital for a week. There are many within the GOP sphere that think Santorum's dropout timing was due to the fact that he wanted to spare himself the humiliation of losing the Pennsylvania primary, his home state, in hopes of running in 2016 or 2020. In a Washington Post opinion piece, Ralph Reed, a longtime social conservative activist said, "He [Santorum]...[is] the most...inurgent conservative candidate since [Ronald] Reagan in
1976. My guess is we haven't heard the last from Rick Santorum." No matter the real reasons, it was about time that he dropped out of the Republican race for the good of the party in November.
Traditionally, Presidential nomination campaigns have been decided by the late spring. Ultimately, the GOP must remind themselves that the real goal is winning in November and infighting will only hurt whomever comes out of Tampa with the nomination.
The strongest Republican nominee throughout the process has been Romney. However, it is clear that voters attempted to find someone else. The nomination process has been a carousel of potential Romney opponents; Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and finally Rick Santorum. All have had their chance to seriously challenge Romney yet none of them have been able to sustain that challenge. It was Romney's nomination to lose and he has buoyed himself
against polarizing himself against any potential voters in a move that shows great foresight. In the last weeks, Romney has shifted his targeting away from his fellow Republican nominee candidates and focused on attacking the President directly.
directly.
For all practical purposes, the Republican Presidential nomination race is over, Mitt Romney is the clear victor. It is a joke that Newt Gingrich thinks he still adds anything to the discussion. Gingrich was billed as just the right sort of conservative candidate that Southern conservatives would flock to, arguably the strongest wing within the GOP. But Gingrich hasn't carried a significant number of counties outside of South Carolina, Florida and Georgia, his home state. Gingrich has been deeply ensconced in third place for quite some time and likely won't surpass Santorum's number of delegates. Ron Paul would argue with a wall, if given the chance, so it's no surprise
As the clear nominee for President from the Republican party, Mitt Romney must now focus on relating with voters. While his popularity amongst the center of the Republican party and Northeastern voters, he has a lot to do in the South and Midwest. He'll have to either distance himself with the Massachusetts healthcare system he put in place or do a better job of explaining why it isn't the same as Obamacare. And while his financial background should help him with American business owners, both big and small, his image thus far has been that of the elitist, Northeastern "one-percenter". But what do I know? My bet for Santorum was a month and 285 delegates short.
he hasn't dropped out. He receives the benefit of at least having a small share of the GOP race spotlight before he inevitably becomes the Libertarian candidate.
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McCroy is a senior in economics from Des Moines, Iowa.
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