NOT EASY BEING A HUNK peace Pieces for
It’s the age of ‘Man-jectification’ Thirteen Strings delivers a cross-cultural message
You could think of Saturday night’s concert by Ottawa’s Thirteen Strings as chamber music with a mission, and a lofty one at that.
The evening at Dominion-Chalmers United Church has been billed as a “concert for peace,” and in addition to well-known works by Mozart, Vaughan Williams and Samuel Barber, there will be music composed especially for the occasion, with a clear cross-cultural message that should resonate in particular with the many Syrian refugees in the audience.
Composed by the five-person Iranian-Canadian Composers of Toronto collective, the new work, Recall the Eden, will feature Ottawa-raised soprano Miriam Khalil singing in English, French, Farsi and Arabic.
The new work is rooted in an almost 800-year-old poem called Children of Adam by the Persian medieval poet Saadi. When translated, the poem includes the lines:
Human beings are members of a whole In creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain Other members uneasy will remain. If you have no sympathy for human pain The name of human you cannot retain.
“I love that. That’s the way we want to live, right? That’s the basis of this concert,” says the chamber orchestra’s director, Kevin Mallon.
He came up with the concert’s theme and the initiative to commission new music because, in recent months, as many as 200 Syrian refugees have attended concerts by Thirteen Strings.
The refugees are fully subsidized by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. Through the grant, Thirteen Strings has $6,000 worth of tickets to offer to refugees, and the council reimburses the orchestra.
Among the refugees who have seen Thirteen Strings perform are Rehab Alibrahim and her husband, Ilyas Farah.
Last February, the two Syrians from Homs landed in Ottawa with their three children, supported by sponsors at St. Patrick’s Parish Fallowfield in Nepean. Last month, the refugee couple saw Thirteen Strings perform The Messiah.
Alibrahim says that, in Syria, she only saw musical performances on TV.
“I love (to) see this, music,” Farah says. “For me, big event. Fantastic.”
The work by the Iranian-Canadian composers is also supported by a grant, in this case $15,000, from the Community Foundation of Ottawa.
“It’s great that we have leadership that makes an effort to open up our hearts,” Mallon says.
Composer Maziar Heidari says he and his Iranian-Canadian colleagues in the collective are honoured and thankful to be able to apply their abilities to such a positive message.
“We can be instrumental in communicating the idea of peace, especially in the day and age where the tumultuous global political and social scene is offering very little to move forward and onward with restoring humanity its much deserved freedom and dignity,” Heidari says.
In addition to Thirteen Strings and Khalil, the piece will also feature a multilingual narrator and two Middle Eastern instruments — the tombak, a hand drum; and the tar, a stringed instrument. Heidari says the piece blends elements of traditional Iranian music with modern classical materials that could bring Bartok or Stravinsky to mind.
The mix of languages and musical traditions symbolizes “unity beyond any race, gender, religion and nationality,” Heidari says.
Soprano Khalil says that, for her, taking part in the project is “a huge privilege” and she’s passionate about “breaking down barriers and uniting different cultures.
“We are all wanting and looking for ways to connect with each other. Sharing language and each other’s traditions through art is one of the most authentic, natural and beautiful ways to do so.”
Mallon is pleased to debut the Iranian-Canadian composers’ work, along with three iconic works of western classical music — Barber’s Adagio For Strings, Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik and Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.
It doesn’t escape Mallon that his concert for peace seems to run counter to the thrust of U.S. politics prevailing under Donald Trump.
“There’s no attempt there to be inclusive. If anything, his behaviour is just fuelling exclusion, making the divides bigger. It’s horrible,” Mallon says.
He wishes his concert was less political.
“It shouldn’t be a political statement. It should a humanitarian statement.”
Mallon says at one level, being a musician is just a matter or doing one’s best with the notes on the page. “You could just play the music and make it beautiful,” he says.
But he’s glad with this concert, Thirteen Strings can take a stand about society with its music.
It’s not easy being a hot piece of beautiful man these days.
While you may rather be known for your business prowess, theatrical artistry or philanthropic spirit, women — being the animalistic, sex-crazed creatures they are — just can’t help but stare at your abs and swoon over your lush mane of pretty-boy hair.
Take poor Ryan Gosling, for instance. The actor will forever be haunted by viral photos of his chiselled six-pack in Crazy, Stupid, Love. And then there’s Channing Tatum. The Magic Mike star may never recover from the degradation he experienced playing a drool-worthy stripper in not just one, but two films.
Game of Thrones heartthrob Kit Harington knows the pain. In a recent interview with Page Six, he declared enough was enough: “To always be put on a pedestal as a hunk is slightly demeaning,” he complained. “It’s not just men that can be inappropriate sexually; women can as well. I’m in a successful TV show in a kind of leading-man way, and it can sometimes feel like your art is being put to one side for your sex appeal. And I don’t like that.”
Actors are increasingly expected to pose topless, get ripped in the gym to secure much-coveted superhero roles and stand idly by while women ruthlessly compile Tumblr accounts documenting the bulge in their pants. After photos of Jon Hamm walking around Manhattan in tight slacks were gawked at online, the renowned keeper of the bulge responded to the attention his package garnered by saying, “I’m wearing pants, for f---’s sake. Lay off.”
The objectification of male stars is so severe that Time magazine used all of its creative energy to coin a term for it: Man-jectification.
All the while, female objectification has become increasingly taboo. Don’t you dare comment on Jennifer Lawrence’s appearance or her wardrobe or even her posture unless you want to face the wrath of social media.
For many, it seems like a terribly sexist double standard. Yet, objectification is a time-honoured Hollywood tradition that has affected both men and women over the years. Film is a visual medium, after all. The emphasis on strikingly good-looking stars dates back to the 1920s, when such matinée idols as Harold Lockwood and Wallace Reid were adored for their handsome looks. Matinée idols were almost exclusively male, and usually played romantic leading roles.
Today, the difference is the history. Male actors have traditionally never been confined to just playing silly romantic leads. Their good looks have never stopped them from making boatloads of money, dominating the dialogue or being the first boldface name on a promotional poster. They haven’t lived in fear of sexual harassment or, worse, rape.
Since the days of matinée idols, the entertainment industry has largely been held hostage by the male gaze. The term, coined by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey in 1975, refers to how women in film and television are often depicted from a masculine point of view. Ever notice a camera pan slowly over a woman’s body? Or a female suddenly naked on screen for no apparent reason? You’ve witnessed an example of the male gaze, in which men hold the power and privilege of looking while women are powerless objects who should consider themselves fortunate for being appreciated.
This phenomenon doesn’t just exist on screen; it translates into everyday life. A Princeton study found that showing men pictures of sexualized, scantily clad women evokes less activity in areas of the brain responsible for recognizing and analyzing another person’s thoughts, feeling and emotions. Instead, the area of men’s brains responsible for handling tools lights up. Showing subjects photos of fully clothed women doesn’t elicit the same reaction.
The reason there’s no equivalent to the “male gaze” is that men haven’t been subjected to the sexual harassment, pay disparity and mental anguish over coerced sexualization followed by cold rejection after a certain age that women have over the years. Tweeting a meme of shirtless Ryan Gosling doesn’t affect his pay grade or ability to take on serious roles or define him solely by how much women would like to sleep with him.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams and Gillian Anderson and other actresses are offered less money than their male co-stars, regardless of screen-time or “star power,” because they’re women in a gender-biased system. A 2014 study published in the Journal of Management Inquiry concluded that pay for female movie stars increases until they reach 34, then rapidly decreases (as does the number of roles for women of a certain age). The top-earning year for men is 51, and there is no noticeable decline in wages after that.
A study by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film reported that women in movies from last year were three times more likely than men to be shown in sexually revealing clothing or nude. Depressingly, only 32 per cent of speaking roles in film are given to women.
Can male objectification be annoying? Certainly. However, a comment on a male’s good looks remains just that: a comment. Objectifying women results in an entire binder full of consequences including unequal pay, unequal screen time, sexual harassment, rape culture and females being valued more for what they wear on the red carpet than why they’re there.
The fact that women can even be accused of objectifying men is actually a progressive step forward.
Though despite all the navel-gazing of male celebrities, women’s sexuality isn’t taken seriously, and that’s why male objectification isn’t as much of a threat. When it comes to being objectified, men simply don’t share the same historical struggles or risks that women do.