// Category Archive for: Oh No You Didn’t

More Unspeakable Confessions of Zodiac Mindwarp

By Emily Carney

If you’re interested in the twee, unchallenging sounds of Arcade Fire and Belle and Sebastian, you may want to stop reading this article now.

The story of Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction really starts with Mark Manning, who was a graphic designer working for the UK music magazine Flexipop in the mid-1980s. Manning can best be described as looking like Ché Guevara if Ché decided to wear bandannas, Ray Bans, and join the Hell’s Angels. His look was all about leather, spandex, sunglasses, goatees, and long, dyed-black, heavy metal locks.
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Bringin’ the Crazy, Part II: In Which John Cale Beheaded a Chicken

By Emily Carney

It’s no secret that John Cale may have had some slight mental health issues during the mid-1970s. During this period in his esteemed career, Cale was suffering from a nasty cocaine and alcohol addiction. In 1975, he went through a particularly acrimonious divorce from his second wife, ex-GTO Cindy Wells, who infamously slept with dopey ex-Soft Machine singer Kevin Ayers during their tumultuous-at-best marriage.
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Except Rap And Country

By Lisa Anderson

Johnny Cash

“Oh, I like all kinds of music, except rap and country.”

How many times have you heard someone say this? If your life is like mine, you’ve heard it a lot. This will usually be said during small talk, by someone you’ve just met at a party or other gathering, or on a first date. I’ve heard it so often that I’m sure I’ve said it myself. In the last few years though, I’ve realized that it’s not true for me. Now I no longer say it, and I get annoyed when I hear it.
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Suffering, Defeat, and Justice: Why You Should Care About Pro Wrestling

By Paul Casey

Professional wrestling reached the high water mark of its popular and critical acceptance in the late 1990s. Since then, the Internet has bypassed the crude elitism of the dirt sheets and allowed fans the world over to step inside the shoes of a failed sports journalist with a disregard for both style and skill. When Vince McMahon admitted the pre-arranged nature of professional wrestling, he hit upon a unique way to market his World Wrestling Federation. “Sports Entertainment” is an athletic display, a “male” soap opera, a comedy showcase, and supposedly has more in common with Saturday Night Live than it does with Greg “the Hammer” Valentine vs. Roddy Piper in a Dog Collar Match.

Lou Albano, Cyndi Lauper

This was probably true in the 1980s, when Cyndi Lauper was palling around with Lou Albano and Mr. T was teaming with Hulk Hogan. It was probably true in the late ‘90s when The Rock and Steve Austin were at the top of their game. We’re a living cartoon. We’re real life super heroes. We’re a magic show. The successful marketing term of “Sports Entertainment” was an obvious, calculated attempt to redefine a business which had fallen between the cracks of popular culture. “Do they really expect us to believe this is real?” Although people can appreciate the commitment of magicians such as Penn & Teller and David Blaine in maintaining the illusion, the confusion over what wrestling actually is led to a long period where the public liked to believe that they were simply too sharp to be fooled.

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Your Pretty Face Is Going To Sell: Iggy Pop’s Marketing K.O.

By Cait Brennan

In the twenty-first century, commercial endorsements are everywhere. For the right price, for the right product, every indie band would wrestle an angry bear for the chance to front an ad campaign, disregarding what was once the cardinal rule of rock and roll: Doing commercials isn’t cool. Even Hollywood stars know it, which is why in the pre-YouTube era, big shot showbiz weasels would don “Fargo North, Decoder” trench coats, phony accents, and Archie McPhee mustaches and skulk off to Thailand to bank a cool million for appearing in a 30-second carbonated hemorrhoid cream ad, knowing it would never see the light of day on American TV.
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I Hate You Like Family: Sibling Rivalry In Pop Culture

By Aila Slisco

When the often-quoted W.C. Fields famously said “never work with children or animals,” he might have done well to add “or siblings.” Anyone with a sibling knows that there is an often thin line between love and hate when it comes to relations between brothers and sisters. Sibling rivalry has probably been around as long as siblings have, although it rarely reaches the Biblical proportions of Cain murdering Abel. When it happens in pop culture, even comparatively mild disagreements are amplified and the drama is put on display for all to see.
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Fabulously Frustrating: Gay Stereotypes On TV

By Maureen

It’s 2012. Many states, including my home state of New York, have legalized same-sex marriage. So why does it seem like every portrayal of a gay person or a gay relationship on TV right now seems to fit into one of two main stereotypes? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills every time a major movement in the field of equal rights happens, and no one seems to tell the television universe.
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Scandal In The 21st Century: The Different Faces Of Irene Adler

By Lisa Anderson

To Sherlock Holmes, she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It’s not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one in particular, were abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind . . . He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer . . . And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
—”A Scandal in Bohemia,” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

In recent years, two new versions of the stories of Sherlock Holmes have captivated viewing audiences. One is the film version starring Robert Downey, Jr. The other is the BBC Television version with Benedict Cumberbatch as the lead. Both versions make good use of characters that have either been portrayed very differently or not used as extensively in other incarnations of Holmes stories. For example, both Jude Law and Martin Freeman portray John Watson as a much better sidekick than did Nigel Bruce and others. Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s smarter older brother, gets screen time and importance in both the movies and the television show. However, none of Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters has seen their stock increase more in these retellings than Irene Adler. SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUT!
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Pierre Trudeau: Do the Fuddle Duddle!

By Emily Carney

In December 2011, Canadian Liberal MP Justin Trudeau threw some cusses in the House of Commons, calling Environment Minister Peter Kent “a piece of shit.” This prompted some Conservative MPs to yell back at Trudeau in protest.

Personally, I have no idea if Mr. Kent is a piece of shit; to Trudeau’s credit, he did apologize for his gaffe and for using unparliamentary language. I also have zero perspective about the ins and outs of Canada’s House of Commons, not living in or being from Canada. I had no idea that the Canadian House of Commons was this insane, given Canada’s stateside reputation as being a nation made of kittens, poutine, and toques.
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Catfish: Beyond Real And Beyond Fake

By Less Lee Moore

Living on the Internet means that you often have to dodge spoilers. Luckily, the Internet is also so crammed with information there are enough things with which to distract yourself.

Such was the case with Catfish, a 2010 documentary that caught my attention via its unsettling trailer, which seemed like a faux documentary horror movie along the lines of The Blair Witch Project or the Paranormal Activity series. It was clear that an appreciation of the film was a case of “less is more,” so I added it to my DVD queue and successfully avoided spoilers for almost two years.

When I finally watched Catfish earlier this week, my stomach was in knots for at least 45 minutes until the movie completely . . . I’ll stop here because if you haven’t seen Catfish, you should watch it, and you should watch it not knowing any more than I did.

Catfish is a remarkable film and one that is thrilling, upsetting, disturbing, and moving. It makes incredible use of technology in its presentation of the Internet persona through GPS, Google, YouTube, Facebook, and all the other forms of social and searchable media we use every day. Such technology is so easily accessible and so widely used that it becomes a part of our lives that we take for granted, even though we assign it so much importance. We take all the veracity it reveals to us on faith.

As far as Internet personas, it’s common knowledge that we want to show everyone the best of ourselves, even if that means we make ourselves seem better than we are. But there is always a gap between our “real” selves and our Internet selves.

The width of this gap will likely determine how you treat your Internet friends. Do you treat them the same as your “real life” friends? Better? Worse? Do you subscribe to the “It’s just the Internet” theory to make yourself feel better about what you see and read there? The width of this gap will also determine how much Internet interactions affect you when you’re not on the Internet.

These were the ideas swirling around in my head right after I watched Catfish and right before I started looking up reviews online. Then, much like the film itself, everything changed. SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUT!

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