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Fortunate Son at the Vancouver International Fringe Festival 2011 (review)

Anabelle — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:45:58 +0000

I attended the Saturday afternoon presentation of Fortunate Son, which we previewed last week. Given how Raul had enjoyed previous productions from the same company, I was expecting something a bit more interesting than what I was given.

If you forgot, the play is about the first few hours after Pierre-Elliot Trudeau’s funeral, as lived by his eldest son Justin Trudeau and Trudeau’s best friend Cal. It’s not a bad idea in itself, but the text could have used a few more drafts. It was clunky and repetitive at some points, and could have used a bit of editing.

Québecers have a complicated relationship with Trudeau. He started the Révolution Tranquille and then imposed the war measures law during the FLQ crisis. My mother tells me about the tanks roaming the streets of Montréal when she was a teenager, and I understand why most of us are reluctant to consider him a “great” Prime Minister.

That was a long preamble just to say that I found the text overly glorifying. Justin couldn’t help himself but admire and glorify his absent father, despite a lonely childhood. It might pass for Trudeau-ites, but it became bitter in my mouth. The text was a bit too heavy on emotions and tried hard to pull on the viewers’ heart strings. The play got the opposite reaction from me as it tried a bit too hard.

There were bits of French put in here and there, as an afterthought it seems, unfortunately so badly pronounced that it made me cringe. I can’t blame the actor for this, but it could have done away with it altogether. This kind of lip service to bilingualism bothers me–either do it or don’t. Weirdly, there were also more mentions of Vancouver than either Montréal (where the play happens) or Ottawa.

On top of an overly saccharine script, the acting was competent at best, especially on the part of Drew Stanilard, who played Justin. It might have been the text or the fact that he was playing someone who’s alive and publicly active, but I felt there was something forced about the performance. Michael Armstrong as Cal fared a bit better, but overall I didn’t find their dynamic really convincing.

Overall, the play left me a bit bored. Yes, it’s an interesting subject, but it really felt glorifying to me. There was almost no criticism of Trudeau’s reign, only a vague feeling of anger from his son who felt abandoned all his life. It seemed that the play sinned through too many good intentions: it wanted to work through both the personal and political consequences of Trudeau’s death for Justin, but these two topics didn’t work well together and we’re left with a clunky mess of factual exposition and emotional reactions.

Fortunate Son might be a play to see if you’re interested in the history of Trudeau’s reign and the values of the Liberal Party. But there are some things you just can’t be objective about: for me, I can’t swallow having Trudeau thus glorified for his political life. As for Justin, his ultimate fate in the play left me cold; we all know he just got elected for the second time as the MP of the Papineau district on May 2nd.

Disclaimer: Hummingbird604.com was personally invited to see the play and Anabelle got in with a Super Pass courtesy of the Vancouver International Fringe Festival 2011 organizers. We were not paid to write a review, nor was a positive one expected. Raul maintains editorial control at all times.

Read all of our Vancouver International Fringe Festival 2011 coverage here.

The relevance of the American election for Canada

Raul — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:30:22 +0000

So I’ve been wondering about this point recently (and I recognize that I haven’t written much political stuff recently, with the exception of my posts asking Canadians for more interest in the Canadian Federal election – is it true that the American election is much more relevant for Canadians than the recent Prime Minister election? I sure would hope not. I understand where people come from when they say this, but truthfully – despite the economic and political (worldwide) power that the United States hold, and its inextricable relationship with Canada, I don’t think that the international arena (and particularly, the elections in ONE country) are supposed to be MORE relevant to its neighbouring country than the election of the one person who is supposed to lead the country.

For example, I can assure you that for Mexicans, the election of President Felipe Calderon and the comings and goings were WAY more important (and are WAY more relevant for Mexican society) than what’s going on in the United States, despite that it is its largest trading partner. I agree, this 2008 presidential election is going to be a watershed moment. This is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see either the rise of an African American to the Presidency or a woman to the Vice-Presidency (with the chance that potentially, she could become the first female President).

But let’s keep things in perspective. Regardless of who wins the election, Canada will still have to deal with the decisions that the Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to take, and the domestic political and economic dynamics. Surely, these dynamics will be INFLUENCED but not DICTATED by what is happening in the United States.

Being the researcher and the phenomenon – VoterMedia.Org

Raul — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:09:50 +0000

I was briefly reading a couple of notes by Sean Orr (Beyond Robson) and Rebecca Bollwitt (Miss604 on Radio Zoom) on the work of Dr. Mark Latham, founder of VoterMedia.Org and I thought to myself “hey, I haven’t even talked to Mark yet since I came back“. I probably should do it soon.

I have to admit that when I was nominated to participate in the Vancouver Election Blog Awards, I was pretty flattered. It made me feel as though my content was deemed worthy and relevant (in regards to my coverage of political issues, particularly municipal elections in Vancouver).

Truth be told, as someone who has taught public policy, at some points during the VoterMedia project, I have felt both like the researcher and the phenomenon under study. Given my training and education, I am aware of the behavioral mechanisms that underlie the project itself, encouraging bloggers to create guides to educate the public for a better, more informed decision-making process.

Given that I understand how the project works, the hypothesis would be that if I wanted to be rewarded with a monetary incentive, I would be interested in creating such guides. And truth be told, I *do* like monetary rewards But the thing is, my blog is rather personal and while I do have written a fair number of posts on municipal and Canadian politics, and on public policy/water policy as they pertain to Vancouver, I still primarily blog about myself (yeah, you can call me self-absorbed but truth be told, I am not really)

I just want to say that the project has a great underlying platform and it would be great if we (bloggers) kept our readers well informed, so that they can make choices that they feel are more educated and based on data rather than just purely political affiliation or random voting.

And I know that everyone will want me to link to Kevin Grandia’s Vote for Environment site (a lot of my off-line friends have already emailed me saying “hey Raul, can you link to this?”) so here is the link. The foundation of Vote For Environment is to create patterns of strategic voting (i.e. voting not for whom you are ideologically inclined or whom you’d vote but for whom has more chances of winning).

EDIT – I had written this post weeks ago but somehow kept putting it off and now it’s published. Obviously, Vote For Environment’s focus was the Federal election (and we all know what happened to that). But you could still vote strategically in the provincial by-election and municipal election.

Canadian elections results 2008 and poverty – Blog Action Day 2008

Raul — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:30:26 +0000

By now, I think everyone knows that Canada has a (now relatively stronger) minority Conservative government. Despite the abismal voter turnout (40% of Canadians who are eligible to vote chose not to) the Conservative party gained MP seats and the Liberals lost them. Once the dust settles, my biggest question to the new Conservative government remains. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT POVERTY ALLEVIATION?

I mean, let’s be honest. With regards to homelessness and poverty, a tendency to pass the buck seems common… “it’s not MY responsibility, it’s the responsibility of the other level of government“. Since today is Blog Action Day and the focus is on poverty, will the new Conservative government say that their platform is actually working towards economic recovery or will they say that it’s going to alleviate poverty? Because, really, what progress have we achieved in regards to a national homelessness policy and/or a national poverty alleviation strategy? I’m curious to hear…

Politics 2.0 – Data and research methods (and Twitter)

Raul — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:00:47 +0000

I briefly saw a little segment by Susan Ormiston on The National (the night news) where she explained what has been going on Twitter. She has teamed up with Dr. Greg Elmer from the Infoscape Research Lab at Ryerson University. I hadn’t heard about them (although I kind of think that Dr. Elmer was here for Cossette Convergence/VIDFEST — but then again remember that I am not really a tech/new media/social media researcher (like danah boyd or Frank Stutzman). So I should be cut some slack

However, as a researcher and a scholar, I kinda like to know the research methods when I examine a project. Given that I do social media as a hobby, but still look at it from the research perspective, I was kind of taken aback when Susan was explaining that Twitter was “sort of a micro-blogging platform” ( I know I’m being nitpicky, heh ).

They (and by they I am meaning Greg and his team) implemented a tracking mashup “OrmistonOnline” and its corresponding website where they were tracking the Canadian politicians debate that happened tonight (with Stephen Harper, Stephane Dion, Jack Layton, Elizabeth May, Gilles Duceppe – I hope I didn’t miss any candidate!).

I saw part of the debate, and I was kind of taken aback that at some points, the leaders weren’t really very polite to each other, interrupting each other. But I digress. My point of this brief post was that I’d be interested in seeing a global mashup (e.g. not only tracking with the hashtags #ormistononline but tracking for all and each one of the candidates).

I also saw some really neat graphs on television, and I’d be interested in knowing the methodology behind them. I must say that I like the approach of surveying new media on the part of mainstream media. As I have said before, bloggers and journalists both have a role.

And *geek alert* Greg Elmer’s website is powered by WordPress.

The importance of voting in American, Canadian and Vancouver elections

Raul — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:30:16 +0000

One of the areas where my mother does research is in electoral studies (however, she studies elections in Mexico more than anything, although lately she’s been interested in Canadian elections). She was mentioning how important it was to galvanize people and make them want to go and vote.

It’s true that many, many people refuse to vote because they don’t think that their vote is going to count. I was reading some statistics on how many people have voted in recent Canadian elections and I recall a figure hovering around 64% or so (of the whole electorate).

The most recent election for President was the most contested in Mexican history and I can assure you that one of the reasons for that was precisely that a lot of the people who many people thought wouldn’t vote did indeed cast a ballot.

Even though I’m not American, I’m pretty darn sure I have American readers (and of course, Canadian) so I’d strongly encourage you to register to vote. Hat tips to Steve Jagger who tweeted this video (source: YouTube) where lots of US movie stars encourage viewers to vote.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UaRXvRwhOk&hl=en&fs=1]

Politics 2.0? Are Canadian politicians using Web 2.0 the right way?

Raul — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:10:57 +0000

While I know that there is already buzz around the town on the use of Twitter (seen a couple of posts by Buzz Bishop and Kate Trgovac, as well as one on The Tyee’s The Hook, led by Monte Paulsen), Facebook and other Web 2.0 applications by Canadian politicians (like Elizabeth May, Stephane Dion and Stephen Harper), I am a bit surprised that almost nobody has (at least from what I’ve been reading on the sphere) touched on the very basic element of Web 2.0 – interactivity and bi-directionality.

Even if I don’t follow everyone who follows me on Twitter, I ALWAYS interact with the people who follow me. I have just briefly seen the Twitter account of Elizabeth May and she is not following anyone and has not interacted with anyone. The opposite attitude was that of the Twitter account of Barack Obama who basically followed everyone who was following, and then some more.

I don’t know Liz May, but some of my very closest friends do, and if any of those would like to relay this message to her and to the rest of the politicos in Canada, please feel free to do so – TALK TO YOUR FOLLOWERS. Yeah, you could argue with me that Obama never did talk to anyone on Twitter, but the point I’m trying to make is that Twitter should not be treated *just* as a news broadcast. If those of us who evangelize about all things Web 2.0 are really interested in harnessing social media for change, we need to explain to the “newbies” that the crux of social media is the bidirectional, interactive conversation that occurs within the realm of blogs, Twitter, vlogs, Facebook, etc.

And yeah, boo for fake Twitter accounts for political figures!

The game of politics in Canada, the US and the local levels

Raul — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 06:09:11 +0000

I don’t follow US politics. At least, I don’t follow it seriously. This may be perceived kind of shooting myself in the foot and a serious blow to my credibility as a scholar. Not at all, and I’m going to prove you wrong. I am not the only non-US citizen who is NOT obsessed with the results of the US elections. I could scour Twitter and find those key tweets where people said “hey, can we please get over the whole Barack Obama/Michelle Obama/Hillary Clinton speech and move on to other topics?“.

I understand that there are many American ex-pats in Canada, particularly Vancouver. Many, MANY of them are my friends, and not only Twitter friends or blog-friends, but friends, FRIENDS. I can also understand that many Canadians or Canadian residents are interested in the outcome of the US elections because the US is such a key actor in Canadian life. One can’t ignore the US, simply speaking. That’s also the case in Mexico because the US has a strong influence on Mexican politics (both foreign policy and domestic politics).

You could easily build a case to entice me/convince me of why I should follow US politics. But the truth is, I’m rather disappointed by the lack of interest of exactly those who have been tweeting about US politics on LOCAL (and by local I mean, Vancouver politics). Want some proof? Use Summize (aka Search.Twitter.com) and find tweets about “Gregor Robertson” or “Peter Ladner”. 14 tweets on Gregor Robertson (two of mine, and full disclosure, I said I liked him). 8 tweets on Peter Ladner.

Now, do the same for any of the following keywords: Obama, HRC (Hillary Rodham Clinton), National Democratic Convention (NDC). I just did a quick one for Obama and I couldn’t count the number of tweets (they were so many). I’m sure if I used another tool, I could find actual accurate stats on the emphasis that has been given to the US election.

As a scholar who has taught political science, I completely understand why this happens. As a resident of Canada, I can completely understand why this happens. As a resident of Vancouver and someone who has passionately embraced the city where I have lived in for more than a decade, I am dismayed. It looks as though the interest of Twitterers in local, municipal issues is minimal.

While I am absolutely not afraid of retaliation or criticism, I would seriously like to encourage people who live in Vancouver to think about, talk about and discuss the ideas of those people whose decisions will influence YOUR lives. YOUR local livelihood is at stake.

I am not at all asking my readers (particularly my Canadian readers, as I know that I’ve got quite a few from abroad) to stop thinking about or discuss US politics. It’s important. Heck, even I wrote about it (when I complained about the really sad fact that Obama and Clinton had to face-off, because they both would be breaking stigmas and old paradigms).

I just want people to take more of an interest in local politics. And no, it’s not because I’m now in the ballot of the Vancouver Election Contest. I had been ruminating this post since I started getting flooded with tweets about the US National Democratic Convention, the Hillary Rodham Clinton speech, the Barack / Michelle Obama speech, the Joseph Biden speech. Of course, I admire them. I have previously expressed my admiration for Obama and for Clinton. But it came to a point where I was just like “ok, this is a little bit too much“.

I do hope (and expect!) that my Twitter friends will do the same thing when the Vancouver mayoral election draws nearer and I expect (and want!) a barrage of tweets about the local elections. The best way to effect change is to get involved. And I want my Twitter and blogger friends to get involved in issues that will affect them the same or more than the outcome of the US elections.