A Fashion Complaint

It has been some time since a reason to rant came upon me, though this has indeed been scraping away at my patience for a number of months. Fashion here in the West may change quickly, but there are some things - the leather jacket, the ballet pump, the LBD and le smoking, for example - that never seem to lose their shine. While many examples of continuing trends stay because they are truly great, others leave a little more to be desired. These are the trends that leave the sane scratching their heads, wondering where we as a society went wrong.

Please note that all size references and vocabulary here are UK based.

4. Squeezing into clothes that don't fit

Now let's be clear, I'm not talking about a size eight squeezing into a size six here (even though they shouldn't). I'm talking about full-on bulging, to the extent that it's not even possible for you to have missed it on the way out of the door. If you know that you're overweight, then you have two options: 1 - lose weight through a diet, exercise, or surgery, or 2 - put on some bigger clothes. Oh wait, I forgot option 3 - burn the retinas of everyone around you. If everyone is staring with a look of disgust, you've gone too far. Too far was about two dress sizes ago. Put on a poncho or something. Seriously. Please. It's enough to turn everyone anorexic. Look, if you're cutting off your own circulation, it's too tight. An easy rule of thumb to start off with. There's no advantage in wearing tight clothes to make yourself look thinner, if the bulge in between is larger than the rest of you combined.

3. The croc

The hideous variety of shoe known as the croc - yes, something so deadly to fashion they named it after sonething that could eat you for dinner - has already had its heyday, thank goodness. Which leaves hanging in the air the malodorous question: why are people still wearing them? Take a look around your local town centre and you're guaranteed to spot them, both on sale and on feet. This is an item of footwear that, let's not forget, comes with a huge variety of little buttons you can stick on them in order to amuse children. CHILDREN. They are FOR CHILDREN. Not even children look cool in them, mind you! I don't really care how good something claims to be for your feet, you could really just wear a pair of nice trainers or slippers or something. Let's face it, if you're wearing crocs right now you aren't a high powered executive who has to match his shoes to his suit, nor are you the kind of lady who clicks across the office floor in sharp heels. So if it doesn't matter for your job what you wear, there are better looking options that will be just as "good for you". And if you really insist on wearing them for your health, do it indoors, for goodness' sake.

2. Dressing children like adults

To be honest this would be a toss-up for number one, were it not that it is also possible and likely for fashion-challenged mothers to dress their children in the said number one item, thus making them sort of complimentary points. Which is a shame, since the fad is not complimentary at all. To anyone. Let me tell you about the kind of people that like to see little girls dressed as adult girls: PAEDOPHILES. Whether you're doing it for a beauty contest or a trip to the shops, it is totally and utterly wrong. Let's not even begin on the fact that forcing them to wear high heels is probably deforming their soft young bones - it looks weird, you guys! Particularly when very young girls are dressed in overly sexual ways. Here is a list of things you should not dress your child in: mini skirts; heels; representations of costumes worn by Madonna, Lady Gaga, Cher, or any of their ilk; make up; fake tan; hair extensions; anything else fake; "funny" t shirts; anything else that appears on this list; anything you see someone aged 16+ wearing. BE WARNED.

1. The black legging

Oh, ultimate horror of horrors! Ladies, let me spell his out to you: NO ONE LOOKS GOOD IN THOSE AWFUL BLACK LEGGINGS. Literally no one. If you're a size zero all of your bones are going to stick out like the anorexic and/or drug addict that you are. Any size above an 8 and you are going to look as bulgy as a sack of oranges, and no matter what size you are, everyone is going to be able to see your knickers. Everyone. No knickers, you say? See above for why that could be worse. Supermodels look bad in them. Jennifer Lopez looks cheap in them. You're supposed to wear them UNDER things, people, UNDER. They are not trousers! They are leggings! In fact, in the case of most of the cheap pairs I've seen, they're actually slightly thicker tights! Apart from anything else, the very fact that every single chavvy girl out there is wearing them should be enough to put you off for life. Oh, sorry, you thought they looked good in Vogue? Honey, you need to realise that real life doesn't have photoshop. Throw the leggings in the bin and find something decent to wear outside. But don't worry - if you choose to continue wearing them, all you need is a faded hoodie and some Ugg boots and you're ready to join the fashion-challenged legions.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL?! Does no one look in the mirror before they leave the house any more? Alright, my list is done and I'm going to go lay down in a dark room for a while. Just, please - cover up the leggings before I come out, will you?

If you want to know more about my fashion thoughts, follow my account at Fashiolista.

Terrorism with a Bigger Budget?

Right, now this I know is going to be a very controversial one. Even within my family I know that there are people who would vehemently disagree with my opinions on this subject. However, I am not afraid to open myself up to a little discussion, so long as that discussion does not devolve into the usual form of internet slagging match – I am going to treat this subject in a way that is logical and reasoned, and I would expect any response to this to be the same.


Recently, I saw an image on the internet of a spray painted wall, declaring that ‘war is just terrorism with a bigger budget’. In relation to this image there were many people agreeing, and many people shouting things like unpatriotic and ungrateful. This is not the first time I have seen an anti-war or indeed pro-war post and rolled my eyes, wishing there was some way I could disassociate myself from that part of the human race. Perhaps it’s a point of view thing, relying on the way I was brought up and the way I view the world; most particularly the way that I have been taught to challenge everything I read or hear and decide for myself what I think of it, instead of taking it as the right opinion without thinking about it. Either way, this is my opinion, and one that I hold very strongly.

I would like to tell you why I do not agree with war, and in particular the conflicts that British (and American) troops are currently involved in. The way I will do this is by taking points that I have seen repeated time and time again across the internet and other discussion forums, relating both to war and to the soldiers themselves, and responding to those points.

1.‘They’re just doing their jobs.’

I see this a lot on pro-military support sites and forums. This was the exact same excuse used by Nazi soldiers. I do not just mean the ones fighting on the front lines – I mean the ones lining up Jews and homosexuals and other so-called Untermenschen and shooting them all, or putting them into gas chambers. Please. Following orders is NEVER an excuse. If you are an adult human you ought to know your rights from wrongs, and you should also know that any choices you make are yours to make. Your commanding officer did not force you to shoot someone. If you are a native of the US or UK, you were certainly not forced to join the army/navy/air force/etc either. That was a free choice that you made, aware of the fact that you might end up in a combat situation. There is no element of ‘just following orders’ about this. If someone gave you a knife in a dark alleyway and told you to stab the next person to walk past without explaining why, would you do it?

2.‘If the troops weren’t fighting to defend us over there, we’d have a war on our doorsteps.’

Uh-huh. And how do you think those who send bombs over here justify their actions? Yet again, we are not children. ‘They started it’ is not a good enough excuse. If there were not troops out there fighting every day and pushing the war forward, would there still be a war? Has anyone stopped and taken the time to even figure that out?

3.‘They are brave men and women and we should respect them for it.’

I do not think that it is very brave to kill someone. I think it is illegal, actually, last time I looked. Oh right, yeah, they are trying to kill you so that makes it alright. Hang on, aren’t they trying to kill you because you came into their country with guns and the like and declared war? Brave is being a full-time carer for someone with a disability or mental illness. Brave is giving birth to a child and dedicating your life to it even though you know that he or she will never have a full mental capacity, or will never be able to walk like everyone else, or heaven forbid will not live long. Brave is standing up in court to convict your rapist so that he cannot attack anyone else. Waving a gun around to show how tough you are? Not brave at all, particularly where civilians are involved. You know, the non-bulletproof-vest-wearing kind.

4.‘They needed help getting rid of ____’ [Insert Saddam Hussein/corruption/terrorists/etc here]

You know what? Who made the West rulers of the world? Who decided that we should be the ones to decide how everyone else lives? There are tribesmen in areas of Africa who undertake rituals such as scarification, and who perform body mutilation on the young tribespeople as part of a coming of age ritual. If they performed those rituals in this country, they could be arrested and possibly imprisoned for ABH, GBH, or torture. Are we going to send troops there, next, and kill their chiefs and give them all iPhones and Nikes to make sure that they stay on the straight and narrow from now on? No, we are not, and many people would consider that to be a ridiculous suggestion. So why interfere anywhere, if you will not interfere everywhere? Why are we not sending troops to every single country where anything the slightest bit immoral happens? Well, because of course they would be too busy dealing with those issues on home soil. Besides, if you are really going to push that argument, don’t you think that we should be doing something major about North Korea? For those who cannot stand by and watch atrocities being committed, well, there are other ways of dealing with that than fighting, democratic ways. The UN exists for a reason, and though in many cases it is undercut by non-members, the way to deal with this is to improve the UN, NOT to abandon it and raise a grenade instead. You do not help the citizens of a country by slaughtering them, you help by bringing their leaders and ONLY their leaders to justice, and then you move on.

5.‘They are fighting terror.’

The most repeated, and most ludicrous statement about the last few years of conflicts. Let us analyse, for a moment, the word ‘terror’. It means fear, but more than that – an intense fear of someone or something, or, in another meaning, ’violence committed or threatened by a group to intimidate or coerce a population, as for military or political purposes’. By sending troops to attack people in other countries we are, in this second meaning, actually being terrorists. And, by allowing publicity over these terrorists that we are fighting to increase, by stirring up nations and telling them that we must fight the terrorists, we are increasing and spreading the fear of their violent acts – in other words, we are completing the goals set by the terrorists themselves.


















Now, moving from those quite specific points to more general ones, there are I am sure many points that could be thrown at me using historical precedents. For example, what about people that are trying to expand their countries into others, potentially your own? Well, to this I would say that there is a line (a fine one, yes, but a line nonetheless) between waging war and defending your country. Of course it is obvious that in some cases, it is not correct to stand by and allow your countrymen to be executed – sometimes you must fight in defence of yourself and those you hold dear. Where that line is crossed, however, is when you make a pre-emptive attack or take the fight to their country instead. In this case, you are waging war. What about in defence of others? In defence of democracy? What if all other measures have failed and someone is spitting in the face of international laws and taking over Poland, for example? Well, that is an incredibly difficult situation. On the one hand, what happens in other countries is really none of your concern. On the other hand, it is immoral and cowardly to look the other way when people are suffering under someone who should be stopped. Again, I suggest that going in and getting out quickly are the solutions, rather than declaring war on a whole nation of innocent people. Often the only reason that dictators or the like manage to get into power and begin their genocides or takeover operations is through the strength of their military. Hitler was voted in to power legally, yes, as were many like him, but then he built up his armies and it became incredibly dangerous to oppose him. To this day military rule is the de facto force controlling more countries than we like to think about. The question here, then, is not ‘is it moral to fight to save someone else’ – because the answer to that is undoubtedly ‘yes’. The question is, how did this happen in the first place? The answer – the use of the military.

If, for example, Hitler had been bringing in social reforms for the good of everyone, and inviting other nations to join him in his glorious empire of happiness and love, there would have been no need to fight at all. We could all have joined up, and lived as one nation over the entire earth, helping each other and abolishing warfare altogether. It sounds ludicrous – but why? Why should it matter to me whether my nationality is labelled as one thing or another? Do I feel less connected or able to connect to someone in Florida just because they are not English? No! If I met that person from Florida we could become real friends! We probably have some things in common, like being human or enjoying music! And if we were to meet someone from Brussels, and someone from Tokyo, and someone from Bahrain, chances are we might be able to get along with them too! So why is it that as soon as the idea of ‘territory’ is brought up, weapons are brandished? [disclaimer: read the above paragraph very carefully. I am not saying we should have joined up with the real Hitler. No flaming there, guys]

As I have already said, it is rather likely that someone will disagree with me, and that someone will find a way to batter my points to the ground. But I defy anyone to tell me that, if there were no military or weapons of any sort in existence, that the world would not be a better place.

Translation for the Lazy of the West

I am on a roll here. No sense in quitting while I am ahead!

It seems to me that the film industry, in spite of whatever new technology, financial crisis, or writer's strike we throw at it, is one of the strongest creative outlets that we, as a culture, have produced to date. And when I say 'we', just imagine I am from whatever country you are, because of course there are many different cultures producing films worldwide, not all of which are shelved as alien trash by Western society in general. There are some films that have the power to reach across cultures and across language barriers to inspire an audience outside of their comfort zone. These films are, for the most part, moving, well-made, well-cast, well-scripted hours of entertainment, and there are many of them out there. I for one am quite the fan of foreign cinema, as those who follow my movie blog will know: I own DVDs in German, French, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean...

Which is why I am more than slightly alarmed by a trend that seems to have been picking up speed over the past few years. It is the trend of taking a film made outside the US in a non-English language, repackaging and rebranding it, and rereleasing it fresh from a Hollywood studio. Is this really necessary? Are we in the West so comfortable in our dominance that we must siphon out all strains of other cultures before introducing them to our cinemas? God forbid, if we actually watched something in another language we might end up learning something! I think it is clear that I am somewhat bemused by this entire idea, and I want to explore not why it may or may not be wrong, but why it is happening in the first place, and how long it has been happening for.


The film that first really got me thinking about this was 'Funny Games', by a director whom I personally consider to be a living genius, Michael Haneke. In 1997 he released 'Funny Games' in German, and decided that it was the best and most perfect thing he had ever done. Soon afterwards, however, he began to despair. He realised that, because he had made his film in German - his own language - no one other than Germans were ever going to watch it. But this was the highest point of his career! His major work! To think that no one would ever see it would be... unthinkable! So, he set about remaking the movie himself and released it in 2007, in English, with Naomi Watts and Tim Roth starring as the now so recognizable married couple. Instead of watching some Germans get tortured during this movie, now we as a Western audience see two actors, because we know who they are. We have seen them both getting beaten up before, and we know their reactions. The cast are wonderful, but that is not the point. The point is that Michael Haneke reproduced his movie almost entirely frame for frame (this blog has some comparisons, though I don't agree with their review), just so that it had a chance of being seen by English-speaking viewers.

Did it work? Well, I guess so, because I first stumbled across 'Funny Games', and Haneke, when an American tutor of mine showed us the movie as part of a film studies seminar. 'This film,' he said to us, 'Was remade frame for frame from an original German movie ten years before. It's an excellent study of the use of film theory, and it's really very good.'

He could have said, 'This film is a German film that was remade for a Western audience. I am going to show you the original, though, so you don't get too caught up in the fact that it is Naomi Watts and Tim Roth there on the screen'. He did not. He also showed us a French film with English dub, which almost blew me up with frustration since I speak French perfectly well and did not need my viewing experience to be ruined by bad dubbing. Is this a problem that we, as a culture, need to address? I think it is, because English is not the most spoken language in the world. There are apparently over eight hundred million (800,000,000) people in the world whose native language is Mandarin Chinese. There are three hundred and fifty-eight million (358,000,000) whose native language is Spanish. There are only three hundred and fifty million (350,000,000) whose native language is English. I think our arrogance does not become us.

This is far from the only film remade for a Western audience. A quick summary, listed in chronological order, of some films you may have seen coming from Hollywood but that originated elsewhere:
1959: Some Like It Hot (Germany - 'Fanfaren der Liebe')
1960: The Magnificent Seven (Japan - 'Seven Samurai') note: the cultural references were changed drastically
1961: The Parent Trap (Germany - 'Das doppelte Lottchen')
1964: A Fistful of Dollars (Japan - 'Yojimbo') note: the cultural references were changed drastically
1965: The Sound of Music - reportedly based on a German film 'Die Trapp-Familie', though I cannot verify this
1983: Breathless (France - 'À bout de souffle')
1992: Reservoir Dogs (China - 'City on Fire')
1995: Twelve Monkeys (France 'La jetée') note: this version was also made longer, and the direction style was changed considerably
1996: The Birdcage (France - 'La Cage au Folles')
1998: The Parent Trap (Again) (Germany), Godzilla (Japan - 'Gojira')
2001: Vanilla Sky (Spanish - 'Abre los ojos')
2002: The Ring (Japan - 'Ringu')
2004: Taxi (France - 'Taxi'), Wicker Park (France - 'L'Appartement'), The Grudge (Japan - 'Ju-On')
2005: Dark Water (Japan - 'Dark Water')
2006: The Departed (China - 'Infernal Affairs')
2007: Interview (Holland - 'Interview'), No Reservations (Germany - 'Bella Martha')
2008: Funny Games (Germany - 'Funny Games'), Bangkok Dangerous (Thailand - 'Bangkok Dangerous')
2009: Blood: The Last Vampire (Japan - 'Blood: The Last Vampire')
2010: The Orphanage (Spanish - El Orfanato), Let Me In (Swedish - 'Låt den rätte komma in')
To be released in 2011: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish - 'Män som hatar kvinnor')


Though I found this list on Wikipedia, which you may doubt as a reliable source, all of the information here checks out pretty well. Some of these surprised me, for sure, and unless you are a film buff I am sure they surprised you! How is it that a film can be completely unknown in Chinese, and become a box office hit when remade in English?

I think the one from this list that annoys me the most has to be 'Let Me In', a remake of 'Låt den rätte komma in', which was originally released in Swedish only two years before. Two years! It was also very popular in it's own right: my university actually held a screening of it in 2009, which was well-attended. It won a whole scoop of awards, and featured heavily in all the best-of-2008 lists that anyone paid any attention to. It was praised readily by the English-speaking world just as it was... and yet here we are, with a remake. Disappointing? Yes. Surprising? No.

But why has this happened? Perhaps we as an audience have allowed it to happen. Sales of Hollywood DVDs and cinema tickets clearly outstrip that of any other film industry in the West, including the British film industry. Is this just because there are more Americans, or because Americans seem to be able to put a bigger budget behind their productions? Is it because it is hard to market material from another country in the US and Britain, given the language and culture gaps? I was also horrified to hear lately that the film 'Death Note' which was a phenomenal success in Japan going off the back of the manga/anime/book franchise, is being remade by Warner Bros next year. Ridiculously, some articles written recently, as news trickles down to us about the imminent production, have failed to mention that there are three Japanese films about the subject already. My advice? Do your research. Be open to other cultures. If there is an option to use subtitles instead of dubbing, use them. If we do not value and learn about other cultures, how can we truly value our own?

Now, take a deep, calming breath, looking at the soothing blue and white flowers on either side of this post and how pretty they are, and tell me what your view on this is.

PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals??

Oooh, controversial subject! The first thought of many PETA-fans is going to be to comment a slew of insults and OMG!!!'s, I am sure. However, such people may want to read ahead, since they may actually discover that I am making a valid point.

First of all, I myself am vegetarian, and always have been, coming from a vegetarian family. For the record, I am completely okay with the fact that they made that decision for me at the start of my life, so I can say with pride that I have never eaten the flesh of another living thing. I have owned multiple pets throughout my life, and cared for them, most lately a pair of humongous rabbits that took up the most part of my Saturday with cleaning duties. Sadly, all but two of our pets - a couple of amazing fish - have passed away, but I think you are getting the picture - I am an animal lover. In fact, I am subscribed to Peta and Peta2's mailing lists, I follow them on Facebook, and I once spent a day of school talking only in French to raise money for the RSPCA. So, I am not your average Peta-basher, just out here to make comments like 'LOL MEAT IS NICE' or 'WHO NEEDS SEALS ANYWAY'. I am here to make what I believe is a valid, considered rant about some things they do that really annoy the Hell out of me.

I am going to make two points here, which I believe I can prove. Peta are HYPOCRITICAL (1), and they do not CONSIDER the consequences of their propaganda (2).

Let's start by examining the following campaign, which encourages people to adopt instead of buying dogs: Outward link to Peta website



In the past, I have seen Peta encourage Facebook users to be abusive towards certain celebrities during a weird hate campaign, which frankly is nothing short of inhumane in itself. Who deserves to be bombarded with this kind of press, not to mention the viewer comments, emails, posts elswhere etc etc, just because they wanted to buy a dog? Should Peta not be celebrating the fact that someone wants to look after an animal, rather than condemning it? In the eyes of Peta, it seems, it is worse to buy dogs because 'animals sold in pet shops often come from "puppy mills", where they are housed in cramped, filthy and unhealthy conditions and lack proper veterinary care'. Hmm. Alright. Well, I can see why they would want to discourage the advance of this industry, but don't they usually encourage people to save animals from such horrific treatment (1)? They state that, in regards to animal shelters, 'as many as one dog every hour is killed because of a lack of good homes'. Right, right, okay. But... what exactly happens to the dogs in the pet shops when no one buys them, then (2)?

And hang on, wait a moment - don't Peta put down animals too? In fact, don't they put down a hell of a lot of animals, claiming that it is a 'necessary evil', according to the article I have just linked (1)? If you cannot be bothered to cast an eye over the above information, I will summarize it for you: there are alternatives which have been proved to work, which mean that only unhealthy animals need to be put down. Is peta campaigning to get these alternatives used by more shelters? No! Is peta in fact practicing these methods itself? No!

So let's put Peta to the question: Why do they still euthanize unwanted pets? Well, they have created this useful little page as an answer (warning: disturbing images), presumably because so many people have asked the question. Again a summary: they plainly state, in much nicer words, that they are willing to put down animals who do not have a home in order to save them from the nasty men who will be mean to them if they don't. All of this, by the way, inbetween horrific photographs of injured and unwell pets, drawing your attention away from the words between the lines.

A little side note here, too: If you had young children, would you feel comfortable with the idea of adopting a dog with a troubled past, that may or may not have violent tendencies because of it?

So, in conclusion, what makes me mad about Peta is their hypocrisy and their short-sightedness. They need to stop needlessly pummeling celebrities for buying dogs and start focusing on making sure that they do not euthanize dogs without homes, they encourage more people to spay and neuter to stop the growth of the canine population (and again, this is hypocritical, but still better than the above), and that they make sure people know that there are dogs out there in shelters that need homes in the first place. It has been shown many times throughout history that going on the attack is not a very good way of getting people to listen to your message - it is a way of making people lose respect for you. Please, Peta, stop making veggies look bad.

Now, take a deep, calming breath, looking at the soothing blue and white flowers on either side of this post and how pretty they are, and tell me what your view on this is.