COCKS, CONDOMS & COCKROACHES

Last year a Trinidadian musician was kind enough to help me out with my final Master’s journalism project, so when a year later he contacted me asking for help on his website, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

I did, however, hesitate when he insisted on us doing “something fun” alongside our website discussions.

Granted, my recent life since I became a working stiff had gotten fairly boring, but I was still a bit skeptical about attending the event he suggested, which a friend of his was throwing: ladies’ night with male strippers.

I had no idea male stripping was legal in Trinidad. Or female stripping for that matter.

Regardless, I wound up at the event — and my escort, the musician, wasn’t even allowed to sit in the audience since it was ladies’ night.

He hovered somewhere behind with the other males, while I sat in the audience losing whatever smidgen of innocence I might have had left.

But hold up. I’m getting ahead of myself.

Condoms and cockroaches

My first inclination that the night would be interesting was upon entry, when I dutifully collected my free drink from the effeminate (and gorgeous) twink waiter-boy wearing a beaded necklace and gold glitter spandex pants with a huge bulge in the front, and picked up a couple of free condoms (both male and female, mind you!) by the bar.

My escort introduced me to his friends as “a journalist”, though I was already well aware that I would be journalisting nothing tonight.

I made my way over to the rickety chairs surrounding the stage, to sit amidst a thick fog of insect repellant — the purpose of which soon became evident when a few dozen cockroaches scuttled by .

The MC for the night was a man wearing a tube top as a skirt, with a brown cold-weather parka (in 35-degree Trini weather!) and hair in tiny plaits scattered over his head. His makeup was appalling, but not even a fraction as imposing as the lewd suggestive remarks to the crowd.

The first performer was Chi-wa, a slender-bodied Trinidadian graphic artist of Chinese descent. He wore ample tattoos and piercings, and proceeded to draw on himself with a black marker.

His long body contorted rhythmically to the music as he writhed on a chair and peeled off his clothing, until he finally pulled at his underwear suggestively before hiding the goods from the audience that screamed “TAKE IT OFF!”

Erotic art, perhaps?

Well, it was meant to be. It was certainly the most artistic piece.

The night soon descended into gross decadence.

Cutters and Candyman

There was “Cutters” – a teenage boy with a pair of scissors that managed to go on for at least half an hour cutting strips of cloth from his animal-print boxers but still managing to hide the goods — until an audience member finally snatched it away as he walked through the crowd when he left the stage.

He kept looking at the audience with something that surely was meant to be seduction but sadly came off as merely bewildered exhibitionism.

There was “Candyman” – who took off a sweater, a forest-green vest, black roomy pants, and then allowed an audience member to disrobe him from the multicoloured net shorts with underwear that unraveled at the pull of a string.

He proceeded to jump atop my lap despite my insistent shoves and pleads to get the hell away.

Congo and Cunt

There was “Oompawoompa” – whose silhouette scampered across a white sheet as he masturbated and beat his flaccid penis on the back of a chair.

The Mighty Sparrow’s “Congo Man” (tsk tsk, if the Birdie only knew about this usage of his song!) played on and on and on repeatedly as the audience grew restless.

A huge round of applause exploded when he finally pulled back on his yellow-and-red thong and ran off the stage in a Carnival mask.

There was “Office Boy” – a good-looking sex-god with dreadlocks, crawling around on the stage to “You Spin Me Right Round Baby Right Round” as he quivered his pectoral muscles and peeled off his shirt, jacket, “Cunt my anti-drug” t-shirt, knee-length shorts, grey vest, grey brief shorts, and thong under that (wayyyy too much wrapping to get to the present).

Why couldn’t he be the one who insisted on humping me, instead of Candyman? (But I digress….)

Cocktails and cock

Showerman took the cake, though.

While every other performer flirted with nudity but held back that vital shred of cloth, Showerman went all out under the hose and bucket as he rocked back and forth on the steps, exposing full frontal (and well-endowed) nudity, to the rampant cheers of the ecstatic audience.

But the real performer — who was called back repeatedly by request — was Barman, who shook it up and stirred it up to the female delight, removing his jeans behind the apron to expose tight black-and-red briefs and a six-pack washboard stomach, to the tune of “Blame It On The Alcohol” (what else?)

There were a few more that, thankfully, I missed when I ran off to use the bathroom after someone dumped some beer on my legs…

At the end the boys/men all lined up for a final dance-off, and then many of them humped a few ladies in the audience (thankfully this time no one came near me for humping purposes).

One did, however, come up to extend his hand on my way out.

“I’m Martin,” he said politely.

I shook his hand and said my name before I hightailed it out of there.

Journalisting…

As anticipated, no journalisting got done that night — it took me a full week and a half to process the night to even bang out this blog review.

What journalisting should I have done, now that I think of it?

What do you ask a young Trini man who is beating his penis against the back of a chair for a ladies’ night extravagazna?

“So… how did you get into stripping?”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Does it pay well?”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” (…Or boyfriend, for that matter?… I’m open-minded)

“So, like… does your body (read: penis) have to be a particular dimension to qualify to enter this event?”

“…Little boy, WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS?”

Hmmm….

But the night was memorable and at times even enjoyable, journalisting or no journalisting.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me, ever the world-weary trekker to all corners of the globe, methinks: London, oh sweet pedagogue of so much, London my love… YOU DID NOT PREPARE ME FOR THIS.

But, I suppose, it was good to know there are many corners of Trinidad I have yet to experience.

……………………………..It wasn’t until I was in the car on the way home that I realised the last thing Martin touched before he touched my hand… was most likely his penis.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A TRINI TALE…

Argh… the long silences.

By the time I remember I mean to be writing regularly on this blog, a month or two have flashed by.

By the time I think to comment further on what’s gone by – politics, for example – it’s already stale.

By the time I sit to write, everything I want to say has left my head.

Something must be done about this!

Indeed.

…But what?

Finding time to find time

Where do we manufacture time, where do we fabricate industrious vocabularies and magnificent splendour in literary etchings on the Web?

I don’t know.

But forget the normal blog rules about needing tags and categories and links to other sites, and all that.

I don’t have time to find time to have time to come up with wonderful ideas for blogging anymore!

From now on I will just write.

Today I thought I would share something.

Those who know me will be well aware of the very few times I will make a nice comment on my country.

So here’s one for the books (and in Trini slang, screw the Grammar Nazism rules!):

A Trini tale

Rainy season hit. You know we don’t get rain all the time so when it rain it rain plenty plenty.

So me on meh way home ah day, I sit down in a maxi-taxi, rain pounding de window and de roof and all kinda ting.

A woman, few seat in fronta me, she start frantically searching thru she bag.

Like she eh find wat she lookin for so she tun round and ask a nex woman, “Aye excuseee… you have a plastic bag I cud borrow?”

The next woman give she a plastic bag. Then she tun to a next fella and ask for piece of the papers he reading. So she get that too – he give she the front and last page leaf, coz that not important: “same shit different day, only politics and crime,” he say as he hand she.

So Miss Lady now, she proceed to start folding up the piece of newspaper into a funny shape.

Then she wrap the funny shape round her hair like a turban, and put the plastic bag on top of that.

She find some clip in her bag to hold the whole contraption to her head.

Then bout two minutes after she finish, she press the bell to stop the maxi.

And if you see meh girl, walking out high and proud, crossing road, cool and calm, getting soaking wet… but the hair covered.

Nobody in the maxi bat an eyelash.

The woman who did give her the plastic bag smile as she look out the window at Miss Lady.

She know the feeling, yuhknow… who care bout rain, as long as you don’t waste your trip to the hairdresser!

Only in Trinidad.

Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes… you just got to love it.

THE SINGLE STORY

I was sent this link by a friend from Spain, who I attended university with in London.

I’ve been to Spain three times. I’ve also studied Spanish for 8 years of my life.

But what do I really know about the country? — a vague sense of its historical background, its music, its culture, its language.

And what do I really know about the classmate who sent it to me? We had mutual friends, and probably knew a lot ABOUT each other — both good and bad.

At least, in both cases, despite the lack of a comprehensive whole understanding or appreciation, there were different stories.

I did not judge the country by one place I visited or one thing I’d seen on TV; and though I never knew him personally, I did not judge my classmate by the country he came from, or by one thing I’d overheard from a friend.

Single stories

I find Chimamanda Adichie‘s piece riveting.

To my memory and knowledge, I have not yet read a single Nigerian text. Yes, perhaps, this flaunts my ignorance, but I did not grow up with Nigerian texts.

I have never seen a Nigerian film. I’ve seen glimpses or previews through friends and clips online, but I’ve never traipsed out to the cinema to see one. I can’t remember ever seeing one showing at a nearby cinema.

What I know of Nigeria comes from television, and from friends I met (which introduces a scary idea: what if I’d never met these friends? Would I, then, have a “single story” — Hollywood’s sad solitary portrayal?).

At university, we would laugh at how Africa was portrayed by the West, how Hollywood films like Mean Girls talked about Africa like it was wilderness, and — even worse — that Africa was one country… despite the fact that it was a continent contained of several different cultures and governed accordingly.

Trinidadian writing

I suppose I experienced a similar childhood to this prolific Nigerian writer.

My father loved literature and would give me books by Naipaul like “Miguel Street” and “A House For Mr Biswas”.

They seemed foreign to me.

The books I was borrowing from the library (on my sister’s card, since I was too young to join!) were from Enid Blyton and Judy Blume.

Parents hugged children and said “I love you”, things were always resolved. There was no abuse, no abject poverty, no cringing shame of one’s existence beyond tepid teenage angst.

It was a nicer world that what Trinidadian literature had to offer me.

A Caribbean tale

And so, when I wrote (and I wrote a LOT as a child), I wrote for a US or UK audience. I wrote things I liked to read.

Teachers were thrilled I wrote. They didn’t care what. Most children could not string a sentence together, and there I was, producing stories and naive novels at the age of eight.

Then, secondary/high school began.

“The Secret Garden” (UK) was the Form 1 book.

Form Two was “The Pearl” (US).

Only in Form 3, when students were able to choose whether or not they wanted to continue doing Literature as a subject, did a Caribbean book appear: “Annie John” (Antigua).

I did not like Annie John. It was too stark, too familiar, not foreign enough. It made me uncomfortable.

Reproducing the cycle

I suppose, that is the fate of the contrasting sides of the coin – a displacement of self.

I’ve discussed it with a couple of amazing Trinidadian writers, Roslyn Carrington and Lisa Allen-Agostini (which I wrote about in an article you can read here), and discovered that I’m not alone in that feeling.

If they identify with that internal war, what does the future hold for generations to come, with more and more foreign media influences?

I don’t write Trinidadian or Caribbean stories. And now that I am older, the world is no longer content just that I write but now it’s become an issue of what I write.

I have to represent Trinidad, I have to represent the Caribbean, I have to represent the developing world.

My writing has halted entirely.

I have no idea where to begin to write a “Trinidadian” novel.

Interestingly, I’ve found that my writings tend to leave out “place” entirely…

Here, kitty-kitty! – the symbol of the cat

My dad recently sent me this link from an article in the Trinidad Express (http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article?id=161460750), which got me to thinking about cats as symbols, scientific and historical creatures.

There is a somewhat negative association when you say that someone is a “cat person”, not to mention the saying that someone “will die alone except for his/her cats”.

While I’m sure that more people have been seriously injured from dogs or other domesticated animals, it seems to me that more people fear or dislike cats. Where does this come from?

What is it about the crafty feline that unnerves us so, when — for all intents and purposes — cats are more similar to humans than most other creatures.  

While it is widely believed — and scientifically proven — that apes and monkeys are closer to human DNA, I’m inclined to think that cats are actually more human-like than any other living creature.

Of course, I could be biased because around 30 cats have passed through my household in the 20-odd years of my life so far.

(At present, my cats at home fight for my dad’s attention, and the one we’ve had for 9 years seems to believe she is married to him and can’t seem to understand why my mother is around all the time trespassing on her territory.)

The science of cats

It has, however, been proven that the X and Y chromosomes of cats and humans are remarkably alike, reports Genome News Network.

The two species, however, haven’t shared a common ancestor for around 90 million years when the human race was linked to goats, sheeps and cows.

This discovery may help scientists to better understand male infertility and human genetics – as well as helping to preserve endangered cat species.

Apart from science, the aura surrounding felines has a long presence in ancient history.

Worship the kitty

Though originally a wild species useful mainly for controlling vermin and snake populations in ancient Egypt, cats became domesticated over time and even became the core focus of a religion centred around the worship of animals.

The goddess Mafdet – deification of justic and execution – was a lion-headed goddess, eventually replaced by the cat goddess Bastet, whose image softened over time to become the deity that represents protection, fertility and motherhood. (You can read more about it here and here.)

The religious issue surrounding cats is so strong that there is even a debate that true Christians should not be associated with cats because they are elements of pagan beliefs.

Though, to the best of my knowledge, no one in the modern world still worships cats, I’ve been around enough cats to know that as a race, they still expect to be worshipped. And there is something indescribably mysterious — and possibly holy — about the cat.

Something about the way they move, slinking so easily… pouncing on their prey (whether another animal or a piece of fluff floating in the air)… the wide eyes glowering and swallowing you in its darkness. Something eerie. Something devilish.

The era of Scotty

I once had a cat that was just pure evil. Scotch — Scotty — lived for only two years before succumbing to the fatal decision to eat a poisoned rat, but his memory lives on.

When we first got him, he was so violent. He also urinated and defecated EVERYWHERE – each time picking a different spot because he saw how that aggravated my mother.

We tried to lock him out of the house. He squeezed in through the bricks to lay a load of a present in the middle of my parents’ bed.

If you didn’t feed him on Monday, he would lie in wait on Friday to leap out from behind a chair to attack you, all twenty claws out as he leapt and scraped down the length of your body.

If you spoke ill of him, his ears flicked and his eyes narrowed. He knew.

He laughed at us, foolish humans succumbing to his every wish.

We loved him, yes, but a part of each of us was afraid that one day we would wake up to see him on top our stomachs, one wicked lip curled as he prepared to pounce. 

Is evil hereditary?

He eventually ‘married’ and moved his ‘wife’ (a stray) into our house, soon accompanied by 6 and then 5 kittens in another litter.

We were afraid to let him get near his own children lest he eat them, for pure fun.

The day he was dying — a slow, painful death that he seemed to prolong just so that he could die on my fifteenth birthday — was the first day that the kittens could freely roam the house.

His daughter, the 9-year-old who we kept from the first litter, still thinks she owns our house — not to mention my father.

Though the sweetest, most loving and nurturing creature imaginable, sometimes we still see the glimmer of Scotty in her eye……….

Plugged in: enroll me to Second Life

 

We are still far away from Matrix-style ‘uploading’ directly into our brains, but virtual reality in the form of Second Life may soon replace the classroom.

Ofsted’s recent survey shows that Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) for schools have been slower to take off than expected, failing to “enthuse” students, reports the BBC.

VLEs were found to be a “dumping ground” for rarely-used files, rather than an interactive forum to enhance teaching in a classroom.

But what if we didn’t need classrooms? What if we rolled out of bed, unbrushed and unshowered, and logged in to class?

Far-fetched, perhaps, but that’s the modus operandi of Second Life.

From Virtual Learning Environment to Social Virtual World

Dr. Li Jin, Course Leader of MSc Computer Animation at Westminster University, thinks virtual worlds are a powerful teaching medium.

Her research examines how Social Virtual Worlds (SVWs) transform the nature of learning as social practice, and aims to design an innovative platform which combines SVWs with conventional VLEs.

She says: “With increasingly pervasive high-speed networking connections and the technological evolution of Internet technology, SVWs have emerged to facilitate social interaction, combining efficient visual communication, integration of rich media, and the share of user-generated content in a collaborative environment.

“They have expanded and challenged ideas of the next generation of virtual learning environment.”

Second Life art

SVW Second Life (SL), a downloadable client program inspired by the cyperpunk movement, enables ‘residents’ to interact with each other through motional avatars in the ‘metaverse’.

Though akin to social networks like Facebook, it is differentiated by its rich graphics platform that fosters an immersive 3D environment.

SL residents can sell avatar designs, display ‘real art’ and also create ‘virtual art’ with the 3D modeling tool, which may be impossible to create in the real world due to physical constraints or high costs.

Countries including Sweden and The Maldives have virtual ’embassies’, ‘live’ concerts and rallies take place, and Second Life has even hosted a virtual Inaugural Ball for US President Obama.

Second Life: the new distance-learning

SL, which offers discounted rates to educators to purchase campus land, has a large education community including leading universities Harvard, Iowa State, Stanford and The Open University.

SL is also a valuable medium for organisations such as the NMC, which fosters shared learning among educators by running inworld seminars and conferences related to virtual worlds.

Though distance learning has existed for decades, Second Life – with over 2 million users worldwide – opens a wealth of new possibilities.

Reincarnating themselves in an avatar, teleporting to different worlds, flying, hopping on a unicorn to gallop up to a tall building hovering over a glimmering city to get to class…

In a fantasy world where the laws of physics don’t necessarily apply, Second Life is certainly more interesting than the regular educational droll. But this does not mean that it is all fun and games.

Vassar College constructed a virtual Sistine Chapel to explore how SL could be used for art classes, University of California-Davis created a place to train emergency aid workers, and students at Texas University’s Genome Island in SL can perform virtual experiments.

Second Life setbacks

Second Life is not conducive to traditional lecturing, as streaming real-time audio is difficult. But as its supporters point out, this is not necessarily a disadvantage – classes are less professor-centred.

Also, the non-linear fashion of discussion that emerges from many people being able to type in real-time simultaneously (as opposed to the din that would emerge if they all spoke at the same time) can be productive for the development of ideas.

As Science Daily quotes Bill Ditto, chairman of Florida University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering: “Second Life will make you think about the real world rules and possibilities a little differently.”

Child abuse: stopped at delivery room

 

He was stabbed in the stomach, smashed against a mirror, forced to eat his own vomit, and had his face smeared in his brother’s dirty diaper.

These were only some of the ordeals Dave Pelzer faced under the domineering thumb of his alcoholic mother, in one of the worst cases of child abuse that California has ever seen.

With the release (24/03/09) of the research findings in Child Abuse and Neglect, and the recent controversy over newborn ‘Baby D’, child abuse is once more at the forefront of news media, just as it was over a decade ago with Pelzer’s autobiographical book “A Child Called It“.

‘Baby D’ has been seized from the arms of his parents within seconds of his birth, in an unprecedented high court ruling that dictated that the parents should not be informed about this decision beforehand.

This was believed to be in the best interest of the child’s safety, though under the Human Rights Act, prospective parents have a right to private and family life and should therefore have been informed.

Role of child protection services

The mother, who is in prison for threatening her young daughter with a knife, had previously told a social worker that her children would be “better off dead than in the council’s care”, reports the Guardian.

This case has demonstrated the “root and branch shake up” of child protection services that Children’s Secretary Ed Balls has admitted is necessary to protect children in the wake of the Baby P scandal.

The devastating end to Baby P’s life, and the media controversy surrounding it, has raised awareness of the issue of child abuse.

Dave Pelzer’s story, “A Child Called It: one child’s struggle to survive”, had a similar impact in the US in the mid-90’s.

‘A Child Called It’

“A Child Called It” chronicles one of the most severe child abuse cases in California’s history.

The first part of his autobiographical trilogy tells the story of Dave’s childhood. The abuse escalated at the tender age of seven, and continued until his ‘rescue’ at the age of 12.

Pelzer was burnt on a stove, had ammonia forced down his throat, put to lie in a bathtub full of freezing water for hours, and made to sit in the ‘prisoner of war’ position.

He was also excluded from family vacations, forced to live in the basement, denied human contact, and starved as punishment.

Child as object

The most powerful part of Pelzer’s story is the point that translates through every story, whether real or fictional, of child abuse: the objectification of the child.

No longer a son, and treated even worse than a slave, Dave’s mother referred to him as “The Boy”, and eventually simply “It”.

Another similar point between Dave’s story and Baby P’s is the involvement of social services: in Dave’s case it took years of suspicion and investigation to result in his ‘rescue’.

Baby P, unfortunately, was never rescued.

Had he survived, at the rate of abuse he had been subjected to, his file would have grown to exceed Pelzer’s in the number of incidents in which his life was threatened by parental abuse.

Abused as abuser or activist

Pelzer has turned his abuse into something positive – unlike in many cases where the abused becomes the abuser, as depicted in the film The Cell, and in the role of T-Bag in the drama series Prison Break.

Dave has won awards for his writing and has accumulated presidential commendations for his work as a motivational speaker.

The world will never know what Baby P could have become.

Has the case of ‘Baby D’ shown a new direction in the role of child services that will change the future of child abuse cases?

Was their decision too drastic a measure… or can this ‘pre-emptive strike’ save a child’s life?

99 problems with racism in Hollywood

 

“Son do you know why I’m stoppin’ you for?”

Cause I’m young and I’m black and my hat’s real low?

“Licence and registration and step out of the car”

“Are you carryin’ a weapon on you? I know a lot of you are”

“We’ll see how smart you are when the K9 come”

Jay-Z, “99 Problems”, The Black Album

 

 

The pending outcome of the Race and Faith inquiry has rekindled the matter of racism in the Metropolitan Police in the national news agenda.

Duwayne Brooks, who witnessed the violent death of friend Stephen Lawrence, insists that racism still dominates the Met’s actions.

If we analyse the issue through film, we find several telltale documentaries, such as The Secret Policeman (BBC, 2003) which resulted in the disciplining and the resignation of several officers.

However one of the “99 problems”, to evoke Jay-Z’s terminology, is that institutional racism is not limited to documentary. Fiction also upholds white supremacy.

Mindless escapism or racist text on ‘passing’?

Historically, Hollywood participated in the theatrical practice of ‘blackface‘. Instead of employing ‘coloured’ actors, they hired white actors who darkened their skin to avoid visual ambiguity onscreen, such as in Birth Of A Nation (1915).

‘Passing’ still takes place today, but of a different kind – many ‘non-white’ actors shift between portraying characters of different races.

“As a TV extra in L.A., I have played Armenian, Hispanic, and white characters,” says Rachel, 23, who is of Bolivian and Jewish ancestry. “Once you look ‘ethnic’, they’ll make it work.”

Tokenism: minority of ‘minority’ writers

‘Tokenism’ is also a concern within the entertainment industry. As APF reporter Watkins points out, writers use material from their own experiences, which obscures persons of colour because they are imagining “experiences they can’t conceivably know about.”

Ten years ago, The Hollywood Reporter found that, of the writers employed on primetime dramas and sitcoms on the major television networks the US, only 6.6% were black, 1.3% were Latino, 0.3% were Asian, and there were no native Americans.

In spite of significant advances being made since then, particularly after the merge of The WB with UPN, white writers still remain the majority in Hollywood.

Crash: racism in the police force

Though Hollywood typically suppresses racial discord, Oscar award-winning Crash (2004) looks at the complexities of racial conflict.

Officer Hanson does not intervene when his partner Officer Ryan molests a black woman Christine in an unwarranted ‘stop-and-search’; instead he requests to switch partners.

His Lieutenant, who is black, says, “You don’t mind that there is a racist prick on the force, you just don’t want him to ride in your car.”

This Hollywood line precisely reflects what Duwayne Brooks refers to by his words: “The problems are with senior management. Nobody really wants to change how the Met does things.

“If they really wanted to change, we wouldn’t have the MacPherson report… there would be a natural change because the public would be unhappy about the way they’re being treated.”

A fine line between news and entertainment

The entertainment industry mirrors the real world through news media representations.

In response to allegations that the police did not give a ‘proportional response to all murders, Metropolitan Police Sir Ian Blair replied: “The media is guilty of institutional racism.

“The death of the young lawyer was terrible, but an Asian man was dragged to his death, a woman was chopped up in Lewisham, a chap shot in the head in a Trident murder – they got a paragraph on page 97,” he told the BBC.

Though this comment was made three years ago, we may wonder whether or not anything has changed. Can we say with surety that either the entertainment industry or media gatekeepers have been innocent and neutral when it comes to representing race and racism?

 

 

The script on teenage pregnancy

 

For the first time in five years, the number of teenage pregnancies in England and Wales has risen, prompting the UK government to pump an extra £20m into schemes to help teenagers get better access to contraception and information.

But it’s already too late for Alfie Patten, the 13-year-old daddy who has become a branded symbol of the nation’s shame – of Broken Britain.

His story, coupled with the recently-released statistics, has reignited the political debate about sex education in schools, parental responsibility, and the media’s influence.

In Hollywood, teen pregnancy is sometimes given the ‘feel-good’ comedy treatment, as in Oscar award-winning Juno (2007).

But has laughter overshadowed reality?

Granted, Juno never pretends to be an accurate depiction of teenage life.

But it is a pregnant teen’s fantasy… supportive parents, a successful adoption, and a happy ending with her boyfriend.

Abstinence-only Hollywood

To be fair, some movies have presented harsher realities of young parenthood, like the autobiographical Riding In Cars With Boys(2001), Where The Heart Is (2000), and the made-for-television film Fifteen And Pregnant (1998).

Where Hollywood falls short, however, is in making movies children can view: the duality of the situation makes it hard to produce “family-friendly” teen-pregnancy films.

This is particularly problematic because of the predominantly abstinence-only education in the US and other countries.

While Juno managed to get nods from both pro-life and pro-choice groups, most films and television shows never quite make it clear whether a condom was involved.

As Newsweek quotes Jane Brown, professor at the University of North Carolina, “What’s missing in the media’s sexual script is what happens before and after.”

Small-screen teen pregnancy

However, notably, in the teen drama One Tree Hill, Nathan is adamant about using birth control, but still gets Hayley pregnant.

And when Peyton and Lucas are finally about to have sex, she murmurs: “You have protection, right?”

Lucas, whose dad fathered both him and Nathan at 17 with two 17-year-old girls, replies: “Have you met my father?”

So Hollywood may be getting somewhere. Maybe.

Statistically speaking

With an estimated 750,000 teenage pregnancies a year (44 per 1000 women), in the US, according to the Guttmacher Institute, it is about time that Hollywood begins to tackle the issue.

Though far behind the US, the UK leads Western Europe in the rate of teenage pregnancy, with twice as many teen births as both Germany and France, the BBC reports.

The media’s approach in UK has been mainly in soaps and documentaries such as Kizzy: Mum at 14 (2007, BBC3).

Bollywood, famous for producing films with virtually no physical contact between lovers, is now tackling the subject in films like Tere Sang (With You).

In Tere Sang, the pregnant 15-year-old girlfriend pregnant refuses to abort the baby – echoing a real-life situation when a 13-year-old girl in Italy was forced to have an abortion in February 2007.

The lovemaking scenes in Tere Sang follow the same trend as in Hong Kong, where the film 2 Young (2005) merely implied the sexual act responsible for the teenage pregnancy.

Art imitating life or vice versa?

Many blame Hollywood for high rates of teenage pregnancies.

But regarding the fact that Alfie’s and Chantelle’s families are cashing in on their story, we can say that reality also encourages such behaviour.

So where does responsibility begin and end? How much blame do we put on the teenagers, their parents… or that omnipotent media monster we all love to hate?

Review: “The Secret Life of Bees”

 

“The Secret Life Of Bees” has the misfortune of emerging precisely when people expect more from a film that addresses racism.

Based on the best-selling novel by Sue Monk Kidd and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, it is set in 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina.

The film immediately plunges into the nightmare that lives in the heart of 14-year-old Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning).

She bears the burden of an unforgivable act: “I killed my mother when I was four. That’s what I knew about myself. She was all I wanted and I took her away. That’s all that mattered.”

She tries to find out about her mother, only to learn from her abusive father T-Ray (Paul Bettany) that her mother had abandoned her long before the fatal accident.

In search of the truth about her mother

When her black housekeeper Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson) is beaten and imprisoned for offending three racists, Lily rescues her and they both run off to find out the truth about her mother.

“They’re so cultured. I never met coloured women like them before.” — Lily

They are led to the Boatwright house, where three black women live in a privileged position in society, running a honey-making business.

Full of sage anecdotes, beatific patience and maternal kindness, August (Queen Latifah) is the metaphorical Queen Bee that takes Lily under her wing.

She says on Lily’s first day of working in the hives, “The world is really just one big bee-yard, the same rules work in both places… send the bees love, every little thing wants to be loved.”

Star-studded cast — perhaps too many stars

As the overly-empathic, child-like sister May Boatwright, Sophie Okonedo’s talent is slightly underused, but she still manages to put in a solid performance.

Alicia Keys executes her role as defiant June Boatwright with regal beauty and grace. But we never understand why she is so afraid to fall in love with her beau, and the triumphant moment where she finally gives in to him fails to resonate fully.

Bettany’s portrayal of the unhinged T-Ray is fascinating in its paradoxes, often leading us to sympathise with him even when he attacks Lily after tracking her to the Boatwright house.

“Sometimes not feeling is the only way you can survive.” — May

Something sweet amidst racial tension

The intricacies of the beehive are reflected in the complexity of the racial tension in the society, which is still able to produce something sweet: the honey of the budding romance between Lily and Zach (Tristan Wilds), a black teenager who works for the Boatwrights in the beehives.

By the time the film rolls around to this culmination point when they risk his life so they can watch a film together, the audience has almost forgotten that interracial coupling is a big no-no.

And they have to keep reminding us – because at times the race issue almost seems thrown in for good effect: the story of a girl in search of the truth about her mother may have worked just as well without the subplot of racism.

Film doesn’t measure up to novel

The seductive and passionate writing of Kidd’s novel falls flat as the metaphors leap out at you mercilessly and much too soon on the screen.

Yet there is something redeeming and magical in the muted action that unfolds in the slow, hazy days around the honey-house.

We see the web that interweaves the personal and the political of the Civil Rights Movement, the brutality and love of a parent, and the danger and euphoria of first love.

As a feel-good coming-of-age story, it works well enough – but the cohesion with the racism around them and the buzzing life-force of the apiary is stilted at best.

Though it lacks the sensuality of the novel, the same message remains, best encapsulated by June’s snide comment: “It’s ironic how white people hate us so much when so many of them have been raised by black women.”

 

SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT

 

There has been over a month-long silence on this little blog of mine, while it was assessed for my coursework [MA International Journalism at the University of Westminster, London]… while I battened down the hatches to survive another Christmas far away from the warmth of my homeland… while, in truth and in fact, there was nothing much to say.

Today we rushed through our first Online class, speeding through the rudiments of web design, so that we could wrap up in time to see the inauguration.

We were in News Room 2 which has a big projector screen and four other screens, and people from all over the department, students and staff alike, trickled in to catch a glimpse.

We could hear the echo from the room beside us — another screen was up next door. 

We were only a few of the millions that gathered to watch.

“You’ve got a good-looking president there,” I said to my American friend who was sitting beside me.

Her good-looking president represents love, change, and hope for the whole world — dang, he’s got a lot to live up to!

There’s been million of articles written about Obama’s inauguration, but I’ve decided to focus my blog not on the content of the journalism about it, but about the journalism itself:

 

Obama inauguration trumps THA elections 

• In Trinidad & Tobago, we have 3 daily newspapers — The Trinidad Guardian, The Trinidad Express, and the Trinidad & Tobago Newsday. 

 
Newsday’s front page was concerned with THA (Tobago House of Assembly) Elections, with a note to turn to a page inside to see the Obama inauguration story. 
 
Express’ front cover had it half-and-half with their two photos — half about THA and half about Obama. 
 
Guardian was the newspaper that went all out Obama, with just a sprinkle of THA at the bottom:

I found it really interesting because it was not just a humdrum news day in the little island. Elections — huge news appeal! 

But Guardian decided (and, I agree with them) that Obama was bigger news that elections in our own country.

This shows precisely how news values work, how the connection with the US is so pertinent to our little country.

…And on top of that, what a photo! What a caption! OBAMA IN CHARGE… of our little island? Or the world?…

 

Wikipedia information battle about Obama article 

• The other thing I found interesting was Wikipedia. 

There were loads of corrections made that day, and around 5:00p.m. there was a flurry of them, if you want to have a look: go here. 

Can you imagine, how many people around the world, were on Wikipedia that day, just waiting? 

People were so anxious to change his information that someone changed it back with the note: 
16:26, 20 January 2009 Inigmatus (Talk | contribs) (138,453 bytes) (not yet president. please wait until after 12 noon EST.)
  

Journalists poised to press the publish button

• Mere seconds after he was sworn in, up popped news articles online — in past tense, of course — about the swearing in ceremony, many of them “colour pieces”, describing the mood of the ceremony, how his head was bent down, and so on.

Wow. This is history in the making — at the speed of light.

These articles had to have been written ages before, with just those “colour” words thrown in right before it was published: imagine the millions of journalists around the world, just waiting for the second hand of the clock!

 

The bots prove it: something to talk about

Those were just a few newsworthy aspects of the inauguration from a slightly different angle…

Beyond the millions of spectators, beyond the thousands upon thousands of security personnel, beyond his little gaffe about “execution” during the swearing-in, beyond all of it… the numbers prove it, the little bots squirreling around in cyberspace prove what no mere words can fully encapsulate:

Obama is something to talk about. The world over, he is something to talk about.

Congratulations Mr. President 🙂