Category Archives for Canada

WLR: Men in media

Photo by Tamara Abdul-Hadi.

UnVilifying the Arab Man: A Portrait Series
Via Schema Magazine:

Abdul-Hadi’s project aims to break these stereotypical images that often misrepresent Arab men in the media. She wants to redefine the dominant narrative to shift from hyper-masculine, angry, terrorist to more realistic images. Her formula to achieve this is simple—she’s literally taking images of real Arab men to juxtapose the erroneous characters in popular media that honestly, reflect no one.

Uploaded: The Asian American Movement

This documentary aims to uncover the extent to which Asian Americans have utilized new media such as YouTube to infiltrate American popular culture and where this momentum will lead. The documentary will focus on the current struggles and successes of important Asian Americans in entertainment, from both online celebrities and industry professionals.

Is it just me, or does this trailer foreground the experiences of Asian American men a little too much? I haven’t seen the film, but come on, where are the Asian American women YouTube stars in this?

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“We fed that to the pigs!”: Asian immigrants and Western nutrition

Pork belly stewed with preserved mustard greens (梅菜扣肉), something my grandmother might make once a year. It's not terribly photogenic but it is heart-stoppingly good. Photo: Alpha (Flickr/Creative Commons)

Over the weekend I went to the warehouse store with my mother to pick up some groceries. She doesn’t read English very well, and pointed to a tub of sour cream, thinking it was Greek yogurt. “Your aunt tells me this stuff is really good for you and will help you lose weight. She says it tastes awful but you can mix some stuff in it and you won’t even notice!”

Thankfully, she didn’t show any further interest in sour cream or Greek yogurt. My family’s attempts at trying yogurt over the years have always ended after the first few spoonfuls. “Yuck, how do white people eat this stuff?” I’d usually have to finish off the rest of the tub.

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Prison Dancer: The Musical

If you haven’t watched the first episode of Prison Dancer: The Musical yet, do it!

This new interactive web musical features some amazing Filipino Canadian performers, including Mikey Bustos (Christian) and Jeigh Madjus (Lola). The plot is inspired by the videos of dancing inmates from Cebu that went viral several years ago:

Prison Dancer is the story of 6 Filipino prisoners whose lives are forever changed by the dancing rehabilitation program that became a worldwide viral sensation on Youtube. Using surveillance footage, interviews with inmates inside the prison, and good old fashioned investigative journalism, pop culture journalist Matt Wells uncovers the personal, poignant, hilarious and universal stories of 6 prison dancers whose group dancing turned a maximum security jailhouse into a world stage.

Behind the prison walls, we meet inmates Ruperto Poblador aka LOLA (who along with his gay minions OO OO and NANA, choreographs the first prison dance routines), HOOKAPS, (the prison hustler), SHAKESPEARE (the prison’s resident poet) and CHRISTIAN, (the prison’s newest inmate) and discovers a tale of life, death, dreams, fears and ultimately, redemption.