2020’s Most Annoying Controversy (That Has Nothing to do With Trump. I Promise).

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No Doubt About It: 2020 Sucks!

This year has been a wild ride from start to finish. Nobody can deny that. We’ve had: celebrities dying from fatal accidents, established celebrities with careers spanning decades dying of old age or illness, worldwide attention being brought to black people being hunted for sport by police in the United States, protests across the globe, natural disasters, the impeachment of outgoing President Donald Trump, the American election, countless celebrities being exposed for past misconduct and subsequently cancelled, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and of course, COVID-19. Even with all of that, there’s certainly dozens of other things that I’m not remembering or not even aware of.

There is, however, one controversy that sticks out to me: Mulan.

While many of the events in 2020 were tragic, heartbreaking and world changing; Mulan was just dumb. No, I have not seen the new Mulan. I probably wont ever watch it and I’m going to comment on it anyways. So here we go.

Flawed From the Ground Up

Let’s start with the changes to the narrative. When I heard that they were removing Mushu from the live action version, I was skeptical. Mushu is a huge part of the plot in the original, as well as serving as a very effective comic relief, in large thanks to Eddie Murphy’s energetic performance and good comedic timing. Removing Mushu from the movie felt like taking away what made 1998 version of Mulan so refreshing, but maybe it could work. It could be easy to write around a character that is largely unseen by the majority of the characters in the movie. But then I hear that they split Li Shang in to two separate captains because of the #MeToo movement!? NOPE. NOPE NOPE NOPE. NOOOOOOOPE!

Next, let’s talk about a lack of diversity in the production team. Mulan is supposed to be a movie set in China during the Han Dynasty. There are many Asian actors in this movie, but not many Asian people behind the camera. For example, the director of this movie, Niki Caro, is a white woman. I’m not opposed to a white person telling an Asian story, so long as they tell that story with the same respect and cultural knowledge that an actual Asian person would - although it’s not likely. What I am opposed to is a race of people who could use their knowledge of Chinese culture to bring a sense of legitimacy and historical accuracy to the narrative and the characters being overlooked by Disney. Note that I don’t say entirely overlooked because the powers that be at Disney at least had enough sense in their skulls to cast Asian actors to portray Asian characters in a movie set in an Asian country. Congratulations, you’ve learned something since the bygone era of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Let’s Not Forget…

This movie caused quite a bit of political drama, as well. Yifei Lui, who plays the film’s titular character, made comments in support of Hong Kong police during the Hong Kong riots. This led many to believe that Yifei Lui was in support of police brutality. I can’t say for sure if she does support police brutality just because she supports the police. However, in 2020, it’s a very bad look.

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Next up: filming locations. Mulan was criticized for filming in Xinjiang province in China, where internment camps containing roughly one million Turkic citizens are located. Something doesn’t really feel right about a movie that has a heroine fighting for her country’s freedom in her father’s stead being filmed on land where hundreds of thousands of people have no freedom at all. This led to a majority of the movie being filmed in New Zealand, which I feel is also not the right answer. I’d love to know if filming in another location within China was ever considered.

I think the most ridiculous part of this entire controversy lies in how this movie was released. Due to COVID-19, Disney didn’t get to release Mulan in theatres and make it’s money back. So Disney thought that charging $30 on a streaming service that you already pay for, that has the original, animated version of Mulan, during a time where people are losing their jobs left, right and centre would be an excellent idea. I’m not going to cry for Disney’s lost money, and neither should you.

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Garrett Forsyth

Garrett considers himself to be an average Joe who writes, plays video games, is an avid lover of The Golden Girls, and sleeps way too much. He also watches anime, and aspires to become a cat lady before the next apocalypse. He hates people who are misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and trans-phobic, people who wake him up too early, and things that smell bad.

Losing with Dignity

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Facing the Music

Can any non-Trump supporter really say that they are surprised that Trump would not concede the 2020 election to Joe Biden? This is a man who cries “fake news” every time a story that paints him in an unfavourable light is published. This is a man who calls members of the media “a disgrace” when they ask him a question that he’s not prepared to answer or doesn’t want to answer. It’s no surprise that this is a man who refuses to lose with dignity, or concede to losing an election that was a little too close for comfort.

So of course the election must be rigged because Trump didn’t win. That’s the only possible explanation for everything that’s going on in America right now. Trump lost and he’ll have to face the music for the catastrophic damage he’s done over the past four years, and he doesn’t want to. I wouldn’t want to deal with the consequences either. The thing that gets me is this: he knows that there will be consequences. That’s why he’s fighting so aggressively and creating so many lawsuits out of thin air to keep the Presidency. He knows he’s screwed without it. But if he knew that there would be consequences for his actions, then he must have known that his actions were wrong.

Transition of Power

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With Trump’s refusal to concede, he is also barring a smooth transition of power. Note that a smooth transition was established by Barack Obama so Donald Trump could transition into the White House smoothly, and Joe Biden himself made sure there was a smooth transition process so Mike Pence could take his place. All of my sources say that this has been the norm for decades. That is, until Trump took office. Once again, Donald Trump has shown the world that he is fine with going against tradition to get his way. If he does get his way - he won’t - then there would be no end to his gloating and celebrating just to remind us all that he’s not going anywhere.

This is probably not going to be the outcome. The votes have been counted, and the fact that Trump actually wanted votes to continue in some states while he wanted the voting to be stopped in others with no evidence tells me that he’s grasping at straws at this point. Even Trump himself must know on some level that you cannot pick and choose which states get to have their votes counted and which ones don’t. Elections have never worked like this in America before. Proper Democracy has never worked like that before.

A New Beginning

Whether or not Trump wants to keep any shred of dignity he has left and concede that he lost the vote with grace, he is no longer the President after January 20th. This is when America can truly begin to heal. Even if Democrats don’t win the Senate in the runoff election in January, they still have the House and the Presidency.

But even if the dark clouds are clearing, scars from this time of America’s history will always remain. The Senate has a 6-3 majority, with the overwhelmingly unfair nomination that was Amy Coney Barrett, who is now sitting on the Supreme Court; America’s relationships with other countries are forever altered at best and completely destroyed at worst and America will be the butt of the joke for years thanks to Trump’s total disregard for everything except himself. By not conceding, Trump is only further establishing his legacy of having no integrity, no dignity, and will always be known for his cheap, underhanded way of getting things “done”.

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Garrett Forsyth

Garrett considers himself to be an average Joe who writes, plays video games, is an avid lover of The Golden Girls, and sleeps way too much. He also watches anime, and aspires to become a cat lady before the next apocalypse. He hates people who are misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and trans-phobic, people who wake him up too early, and things that smell bad.

Amy Coney Barrett

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I am not a conservative person. I’m the farthest thing from one, in fact. I would consider myself maybe even more far left than a liberal would consider themselves by today’s standards. So I guess that would make me a socialist. I believe in equality and fairness for all, I believe in a universal basic income and I believe that Trudeau has more bark than bite. He’s not willing to actually solve racism, as evidenced by his almost non-existent response to the Mi’kmaq lobster war, in which the Mi’kmaq people have treaty rights to hunt and provide for their families.

So I suppose this would put me in direct opposition of the recently confirmed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. There is much speculation that this woman will single-handedly set American progress back 50 or so years - along with a 6-3 conservative majority - with her stance on abortion, her referencing sexual identities as sexual preferences, and her position on the second amendment to name a few of her political alignments. She proclaims herself as an originalist, meaning that the American constitution should be upheld the way it was written in the 18th century. American liberals are right in being concerned, as societal values and perceptions have changed in the 233 years since the constitution was written and signed. I won’t be the first in saying that if the constitution had received no amendments since it was originally written, Justice Coney Barrett would not be sitting on the high court today.

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Even the founding fathers knew that societal views would change over time, and used language in the constitution to reflect that. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson quite brilliantly said, “we might as well ask a man to wear a coat that fitted him when he was a boy.” The Founding Fathers themselves never expected future generations to live under the same rules and regulations as they did.

So why am I talking about a country that I don’t live in? Well, like I said, I believe in equality and fairness for all. When you really get down to it, it really only is an invisible line that separates us from the same laws and practices of our American counterparts. I shudder to think about how my life could have turned out if I wasn’t given certain protections and freedoms as I have here in Canada. I count my blessings every day that I was not born in America. Might I also say that while Canada is not perfect, and we have a long way to go before each and every one of us is truly seen as equal in the eyes of government and the eyes of the law, we are living proof that what America is trying to do right now simply doesn’t work.

It’s no surprise to me that Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed. The Republican Party has proven time and time again that they will play dirty to get their way. From my understanding, the process to swear in a Supreme Court Justice takes around 70 days on average. It has been roughly a month and a half since RBG passed away. This is an injustice to the American people, who are rightly calling out the hypocrisy in filling a vacant seat in an election year. In 2016, when Antonin Scalia passed away, Moscow Mitch McConnell sat on his thumbs for 11 months to replace him. Now, from the time that Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed to the election date, he had a little over two months.

This form of “leadership” from any conservative party is why I could never vote for them, no matter how much financial responsibility they promise. The lies, the cheating, the corruption, the hypocrisy, the hatred, the propaganda and the scare mongering to get people to keep voting for them. I’m simply amazed that these people have any followers left. They no longer represent what the majority of the American people want. They will go down on the wrong side of history. All they have left is to cling to the few threads of power that are remaining. They’re going down fast, but unfortunately, there are going to be setbacks. Amy Coney Barrett is one of them.

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Garrett Forsyth

Garrett considers himself to be an average Joe who writes, plays video games, is an avid lover of The Golden Girls, and sleeps way too much. He also watches anime, and aspires to become a cat lady before the next apocalypse. He hates people who are misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and trans-phobic, people who wake him up too early, and things that smell bad.

To Mask or Not to Mask

Image BY Jeremy Hogan / SOPA Images/Sipa USA from theconversation.com

Wearing a mask during the Covid-19 pandemic has surprisingly become a very controversial issue as of late. Everybody seems to have an opinion about why they wear one, and why they don’t. People who wear them argue that it’s a social responsibility, that the science says that wearing them reduces the spread of Covid drastically, and, honestly, some people just like not having their faces visible.

People on the other side of the aisle seem to have much weaker arguments, like they can’t breathe (they can), that they have a special little card that gives them a medical reason why they don’t need to wear one (most of them have no such medical condition), and some people even spout nonsense about it being against the law to be forced to wear a mask at all (our country, at least, can take drastic measures such as forcing citizens to wear masks inside in the interest of public safety). These issues seem mostly in the United States, as Canada seems to be much more socially responsible, but watching our neighbours to the south has influenced not just us, but people all over the world to act outright dangerously and disregard the safety of others.

As COVID cases are on the rise again in Canada, and this pandemic shows no signs of slowing down, it’s a good time to discuss why the masks are life saving. While the masks are important to everyday life for the foreseeable future, I personally believe that there is a downside to overusing the masks as well.

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While people who are conscious about other people’s safety by wearing the masks is commendable, I also fear that we are weakening our own immune systems in the long run by wearing the masks too often or for extended periods of time. Doctors and nurses wear masks all the time, to protect themselves against thousands of possibly deadly bacteria in a well ventilated hospital. We are wearing masks just as often, in many different types of temperatures and climates, to protect ourselves (and others) from one deadly virus. In some ways, the two don’t really stack up against each other all that well.

Overall, I’m in favour of masks. I’ve mentioned they are life saving, and while they are inexpensive (if you get reusable cloth masks) they also seem to be harmful to the environment due to people losing them or simply throwing them away wherever there seems to be a free piece of terrain. The least you can do is pick up after yourselves. Wasn’t there a huge environmental issue pretty recently before COVID was even a thing? Did we all just forget?

I don’t want to get too carried away here, so I’ll leave you with this: masks are life saving during this pandemic (something that apparently can not be said enough times), but what will the negative effects of wearing them too often and then throwing them away be in the long run?

For more information on masks and how to wear them, visit https://www.ontario.ca/page/face-coverings-and-face-masks

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Garrett considers himself to be an average Joe who writes, plays video games, is an avid lover of The Golden Girls, and sleeps way too much. He also watches anime, and aspires to become a cat lady before the next apocalypse. He hates people who are misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and trans-phobic, people who wake him up too early, and things that smell bad.