You know you're not cool when...

On the breezy evening walk to Jamez's house, you see a bunch of white movie trucks parked along the street. Awesome, you think. I like movies.

There are a gaggle of young girls clutching their cameras, whispering excitedly. You mosey over to see what all the commotion is about.

Suddenly the girls erupt in an explosion of flashes and gasps. The security guards huddle closer.

Around one figure. The centre of attention.

What's going on? You eventually ask.

The middle-aged mother of one flashing, gasping girl offers sympathetically, It's Robert Pattinson.

Oh! You say. Followed by, Which one is he?

She does a double take that's motivated either by pity or awe. It's impossible to tell which.

In the white shirt, she responds curtly.

There's too many people in white shirts. You momentarily catch sight of a highlighted yet manly head of hair. That must be him.

Oh right...with the hair, you manage to remark to the unimpressed mother. Maybe you need glasses.

So I can't walk this way then?

NO.

Jamez is waiting on his front steps with a cigarette.

Dude! You say. Robert Pattinson is shooting a movie just down the block!

Woah! He exclaims, and appears genuinely in the know. A slight pause. He flicks the butt of his cigarette.

I've been meaning to get into True Blood, you say.

Another double take. You're stirring shit up tonight.

Ummm, ha ha, no no. He's in Twilight, Jules. Jamez at least pats you on the shoulder.

Right. I knew that. That's what I meant. I just mean I've been meaning to get into vampires in general lately. You know.

A couple hours pass, and you're reporting the incident on your blog. Aptly titled Cultural Wha?

JULIA

Ideologies of Green Lantern

10,000 BC? I'll top that.

I recently spent a similar smoke-filled several hours with a wise male friend, though the protagonist of the film we watched was not a posh club-wielder but rather Ryan Reynolds in a computer-generated unitard.

The formulaic movie scoots along at a predictable pace, so to make things more exciting, we sought outlandish ideologies within its mechanics. These are our findings.

I. Military Propaganda

First off the bat, the Green Lanterns are members of an elite intergalactic police force called the Green Lantern Corps. You can read them as sort of super-cops, but more obviously as soldiers. When our pal Ryan, AKA Hal Jordan, is first assigned his post as a Green Lantern by a "dying purple alien," he is told that this is a great honour and a noble pursuit in life. In the earlier parts of the movie we see screw-up Jordan bumbling around with slutty girls and fighter jets, lacking a direction in life but with chutzpah to spare. Along come the Green Lanterns and though he may not be cut from the cloth they desire, his new position in the Corps gives his life meaning and determination. Of course, you never see him huddled in a ball suffering from PTSD after battling Parallax (the amorphous, tentacled villian), much less suffering from survivor's guilt after all those people get their souls sucked from their bodies when Parallax hits the downtown core in the climax. But he does use his Green Lantern powers--using the power of will to create forms from energy--to imagine into being cool machine guns, roadsters, more fighter jets and at the very height of tension, a giant green fist!

Now that's willpower. The object of the game in Green Lantern is to conquer fear--it is said that only truly fearless individuals are chosen to be Green Lanterns. Parallax was created when a wise elder tried to harness the power of fear, and it overtook him. The connections to the culture of fear present in America with its simultaneous WARS on drugs and terrorism are glaring to me personally. Parallax gets ya if you let even the tiniest iota of fear take precedence over your will, and then the soul-slurping begins and he gets bigger and more powerful. It's earnest that Jordan's epiphany turns out to be the whole courage-means-admitting-you're-afraid-and-doing-it-anyway-we-all-get-scared-sometimes-but-don't-let-it-beat-you! He literally punches fear in the face, which is kind of awesome. Sub in terror for fear in these instances, and you get a really good feeling about the direction of all this Arab War stuff.

II. Anti-Intellectualism

Ok, so Parallax = bad guy. But the mortal villain in this tale is Hector Hammond, a dweeby scientist with a disappointed senator dad. He examines the purple alien and is infected by the residue of the blast from Parallax that killed him. We're aware that the senator dad is a dick, but his assertion that the world needs more doers, not thinkers, is likely close to home for nerdy types. Hector is only allowed to examine the alien because of his father's connections, implying perhaps that he is a second-rate scientist, but perhaps that good thoughts alone are not enough to secure a prestigious government position. You need to be proactive, and you gotta be hooked up. Evil is planted within Hector upon his first truly radical scientific achievement, and I can't help but notice that each time his transformation worsens, he is twiddling a microscope or swiveling amongst banks of computer screens, as if the more he studies himself, the worse his condition. One of the symptoms is that he is able to read thoughts, and gets some pretty lousy telepathic feedback. The sniveling academic can only resent his intuitiveness.

And as we have seen in many other blockbusters, giving ultimate power to a scientist, really any intellectual at all, can only mean bad news.

III. Conservative Sexuality

My favourite. The one I came up with all on my own. Sadly, I have yet to receive sincere support for this notion.

One of my first thoughts when Jordan donned that green energy imagination suit was, "Sweet! You could put on condoms with your MIND!" Not to mention ascribe to these telepathic prophylactics your precise preferred measurements and thinness. The suit does seem to act like a sort of protective agent, allowing him to penetrate the outer reaches of space, taking him to unknown worlds. Of course, to say it fits like a glove is an understatement. He is supposed to "protect" the universe.

Then there's that ring! Which is bound up in all sorts of oaths and promises involving duty, responsibility and virtue. I won't even spell that one out.

So in this framework Parallax is ascribed the characteristics of STDs: many-limbed, confusing, harmful, scary, contagious. He gets uglier and bigger the longer he goes untreated. He must be obliterated.

In the end, Jordan is able to beat Parallax using willpower and resistance. But that's not enough. At the climax of their power struggle, it is the vocalization of the promise that Jordan has made which secures his victory.

Of course, afterwards he's limp and beaten and a stylish dude yanks him in with ropes.

AMY

Oh, Toronto

Quit trying to be New York.

Love,

AMY

This Isn't The Post I Promised

But I have a new idea for a summer job.

Watching the 2000 movie Life-Size starring Lindsay Lohan and my favourite, Tyra Banks, puts me in mind of the former's current house arrest. I hear she's planning to spend her quality time with herself painting before her "July 2 sober birthday bash".

One day that shock of natural red is emerging from an unlikely football helmet, the next it's bleached blond streaked with acrylic. It's gotta be tough being exposed to so much so soon. I know I suffered due to the high number of "novelty ID" outlets situated in the Yonge-Dundas area of Toronto. So this is what I propose:

Lindsay, let's hang. You've got tons of cash, and I've got hair-dying tips. Probably not as good as the frosted ones on your hairstylist of the constantly shifting sexuality, but trust me, I can make up for it with witty jokes, trashy movies (none of them starring you or Ms. Banks, if you prefer) and virgin caesars. Let's make a deal.

AMY

I believe in you, Jimmy.

What’s with punctuation being named after things in the body?

Like a period. I don’t know what it is about a tiny black dot that resembles a woman shedding her uterine lining. Maybe it’s symbolic of the ovum that will never be fertilized. Maybe I just shouldn’t go there.

Then there’s the colon: what’s the deal? A couple of specks versus… that thing? I guess most people don’t really know how to use either one, what with colon cancer rising and university education increasingly being wasted on idiots that can’t grasp proper punctuation.

Perhaps we have just found the common link. Are both punctuation and body parts meant to be grasped? That would make sense, if it weren’t for the contradictory evidence of little Jimmy getting a D on his Shakespeare exam after having dedicated the previous night entirely to grasping his own dick. The aspiring young academic tried his best to contest the grade, but to no avail.

“C’mon prof, I was gonna comma in my pants!”

“If you are suggesting what I think you are suggesting—“

“No, no, uh, I mean I had my period.”

“What?”

“(.)(.)”

“Put those away!”

“I’m just trying to punctuate my point!”

“JIMMY you’re…suffocating me…”

Shakespeare would have approved, especially with regard to the young man’s gender bending efforts. So why not the Shakespeare professor? Major Cultural Wha alert.

These people clearly get my drift:

One Less Lonely Girl

So I started my morning, as most do, with a glass of chocolate soy milk and a look at the video for the aforementioned Bieb's (Biebs'? Biebs's?) "One Less Lonely Girl".

I'll spare you an easily look-upable link since it's the usual pre-teen pop video: nearly impossible to get through. Predictably replete with guitar-playing in that lovable "look ma! no hands!" style for easy editing, grand romantic gestures, and awkward shorter boy-taller girl slow dancing. Justin make such promises as, "I'll shower you with kisses" (i.e. cum when he gets too excited and doesn't know which goes where due to his Catholic school's faulty sex ed program).

It's all in the spirit of good-natured ribbing. What I was really looking for were the lyrics. I decided to re-post on Bieber because I recently asked the aforementioned Michael's mom (1957-) and two eighteenish-year-old girls what this whole "Lonely Girl" business was about, since they seemed quite enthused about it. They told me what I had assumed, that the song is basically about being rescued by your knight in shining armour. And it is, but in that weird way where the lyrics essentially tell little girls that they've already taped up too many photographs, let too many tears hit the floor, let too many men treat them wrongly, as if ten-year-olds had been involved in all the scandal of your average Sex and the City episode. The only problem I have with this is that it places all the value (for me as a little girl anyway) on being jaded, and none on being innocent. It doesn't have to be equated with virginity, but no one can say that both innocence and virginity don't possess a special beauty of their own. The silver lining to these lyrics is the promise that Biebs will "Show you what you're worth/I'm gonna put you first"--which would be kind of a sweet sentiment if I felt any men anywhere felt worthy of emulating the all-powerful Biebs.

But let's move on to what these three stunning women were able to illuminate about this particular pop tune. In addition to spinning heart-stage (and I told you Julia, Bieber would never stoop to using a headset mic!), during the live performance of "One Less Lonely Girl" one girl is always chosen to come up on stage, sit on a stool, and be sung to by Justin Bieber personally. The shocking use of girl as prop is enough, but the eighteenish girls also informed me that one must not only have exquisitely perfected the art of sitting, but also be wearing shorts, lest a twelve-year-old crotch shot occur in front of thousands of fans. In the video below, Selena Gomez wears a sparkly dress and tights, but is careful to always keep her legs elegantly crossed.

I know that it's every girl's dream to be sung to by their favourite pop star, but let's face it: if we look at what this video is depicting and leave all the pop culture stuff out, it's all sorta kinda wrong. I'd probably feel kinda empty after leaving that stage if I was chosen to sit on the Lonely Girl Stool (hey, maybe we can equate this stuff with early sexual experiences), since Justin is careful to somehow sing right to Selena, graze her arms with his fingertips, but somehow also direct his gaze outward to everyone else, giving his eyes a kind of scared, darty look. So we're left with darty Justin and resplendent Selena, already looking every inch the legal drinker. It's a scientific fact that girls mature faster than boys, so why are these sexy, cheekboned, high-heeled, smart, charismatic, energetic girls left snapping their fingers and bobbing their heads in total silence, waiting for their tap on the shoulder so they may rise and dance with short, baby-faced, awkward little boys?

The matriarch of the group gave me an answer. Every generation has had their teen pop idol, and all have faded. It's pretty clear she didn't end up with a Monkee for a husband. In my view, any girl who would like to be rescued by Justin Bieber need only look in the mirror for a more than adequate substitute. But maybe mom is always right, and the sands of time will only sift and re-sift the endless grains of boy pop stars, eventually blowing them all far away.

Fuck A.D.

I'm talkin about B.C. motherfuckers. Or whatever, "B.C.E." if you insist on pretending we live in a politically correct modern era. It's like calling Christmas Break "Winter Break." Sure, buddy, whatever. While I'm on the rant about religious happenings, apparently Harold Camping was actually pretty close to predicting the end of the world! At least, as far as he's concerned. (The authors of that article suggest divine intervention as the cause for Camping's misfortune, however, I prefer Michael's theory on this whole business: the Rapture did indeed occur as predicted by Camping, but all of us hell-bound citizens just didn't notice the sudden absence of the good guys.)

Nah, B.C. is where it's at. 10,000 BC to be exact. Sure, being a cultural studies student (wha?), I could write pages and pages about my love of Cronenberg and Body Horror. But Cultural Wha? doesn't need any of that fancy bullshit. What it needs is a night in with Bo, a couple j's and CAVE MEN. Problematic racial implications aside, (why do they all have dreadlocks?) 10,000 BC is great because of its many mishaps - or as I prefer, adventures - in continuity! I particularly enjoyed that man has not yet invented the bow and arrow but the protagonists speak flawlessly in their pseudo-british accents. The low budget Lord of the Rings aesthetic was also a bonus.

5 stars.

JULIA

Fanny Pack Attack

There were many titles in consideration for this second-ever post: "Fanny Pack Alert." "Revenge of the Fanny Pack." But this one won out for being better than "Attack of the Fanny Pack," and also reminding me of Art Attack. (In searching for an appropriate "Art Attack" link or at least one better than the flash-drenched official version, Google Chrome informed me that Angry Birds was now in the Google Chrome Store and encouraged me to Get Angry Birds Now. How is that good advertising to anyone? Do people click that? Do they Want Angry Birds Now? Also, apparently they replaced The Head! Cultural Wha? alert!)

Anyway, walking down the street today directly in front of me emerges a man in a purple t-shirt and an obviously more freshly adorned fanny pack from his front door, stepping in front of me. Honestly, those things look bad even from the back. And that's not even where the main business of the fanny pack lies. That's not even like, the main attraction. A fanny pack from the back is like, Mount Rushmore from the back.

I began to wonder what could possible be necessary about widespread fanny pack usage, aside from adding to our long list of fashion rapes and kills in the name of imitating nature. We pad our feet and slick our skin, not to mention of course stick our lipsticks inside theirs. But really, is the marsupial advantage really the one that should be so lustily imitated by those in need of a hands free fix for their personal items? Firstly, think about it. You're supposed to keep babies in there. If we were supposed to put coupons in our uterus, the universe would have also figured out a natural reason why coupons are necessary. It's creepy. Get a backpack. They're a lot sexier.

Of course, I must add that when worn by a member of the hipster generation, fanny packs are very cool, acceptable, and even good-looking or "original." Everything is cooler when young people think of it.

AMY

Boo Biebs

If anyone's the kidnap victim of pop culture, it's Justin Bieber. Every couple of weeks we received bits of him in the mail, sleek locks of hair, dark eyelashes, sexy brown eyeballs. I don't really know who Justin is, the man, I mean. Inside. But I know his outer appearance, and that his ranking in society falls somewhere in the category of..."pop star".

I am amazed yet know not why. Well, for one thing, he has a following of lesbian look-alikes. I want that. He's also from Stratford, Ontario.

He's even made it into my university lectures. My Religious Ethics and the Environment class to be exact. My professor - a broad-shouldered, questionably gay 30-year-old whom I love dearly - told the class of 300 students about his night at the Justin Bieber concert. He had promised his sister that he would take his two nephews to the show. Unfortunately the night immediately took a down-turn for the two young boys when they realized that, indeed, only little girls were to worship the Biebs. As the young pop legend emerged prophetically on a large, heart-shaped stage that floated out into the audience, the thousands of screaming girls could not contain themselves any longer. Justin only provoked them further. He asked into his microphone, "Are you feeling...lonely tonight?" At this point my professor had had enough, and turned to the little girl who was screaming next to him. He scolded, "NO. You are NOT lonely." Who then began to cry. He proceeded to wave his finger and cover his ears for the rest of the night. "It was horrible." (In finding this illuminating photograph, we noted that there was PORNO on the side of the web page. We just as quickly noted that this is how the internet comes: with porn on the side.)

I stated that it seemed creepy that Justin Bieber had been displayed so overtly as nothing other than every little girl's most cherished fantasy. We could only imagine how the staff of Justin Bieber managed to extract the exact details of this fantasy from said every little girl's brain. Maybe it went something like this:

"Little girl, what is your most cherished fantasy?"

"I want Justin Bieber on a heart-shaped stage...spinning towards me."

"I see. And what would be the dimensions of this rotating heart stage?"

I now could not help but see all of Justin Bieber's various worker bees hovering around a giant conference room with the little girl seated in a huge wheely chair...surveyors are taking down notes and fiddling with weird measuring equipment, construction workers twiddling levels, CEOs chatting into cell phones and every one basically looks really nervous, while King Biebs himself sits atop a throne eating ice cream.

What kind of bees make milk?

Boobies.

So the next time you think of our homeboy Justin Bieber, just think, Boo Biebs.

AMY + JULIA