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(¥ Children are not your political pawns
(¥ Give manga a chance
(Y Inthe age of slacktivism

And more!

Celebrities shouldn't be held accountable
for tweets they made years ago

> No one should, for that matter

Jessica Berget
Opinions Editor

 

I seems like old celebrity posts are being
resurfaced everyday—tweets that are
deemed sexist, racist, homophobic, or just
plain problematic. Listen, we've all said
some offensive things before. We've all
said and done some ridiculously stupid
things. Everyone cringes at the person
they used to be and the things they used
to say, and all it takes is time to learn that
what we said was wrong. What doesn't
help is digging up these old posts and
expecting people to apologize for them.
For instance, American artist Doja
Cat recently came under scrutiny for
a tweet from 2015 where she referred
to artists Tyler the Creator and Earl

Sweatshirt with a homophobic slur.
When confronted with this she said, “I
called a couple people f[******] when

I was in high school in 2015 does this
mean I don’t deserve support?” Despite
her viral music video “Mooo!” reaching
15 million views after being out for
only a month, many people are already
“cancelling” Cat because of this tweet.
However, she makes a good point.
Should she really be shamed for saying
a word that many people used when
they were younger? I’m not saying
calling someone a highly offensive term
in a derogatory sense is acceptable but
shaming someone for tweeting it three
years ago should not be acceptable either.
Many other celebrities have been
put under fire after old posts have been

dug up, including James Gunn, Sarah
Silverman, Dan Harmon , and some sports
stars. All of them have since apologized,
but their careers may never be the
same. There is such a rush to “cancel”
celebrities or make them apologize for
mean or off-colour posts they've made.
People lose their direction, get into a
hivemind mentality, and become bullies.
Everyone is at a different learning
pace for what is or isn’t okay to say.
Middle school, high school, even college
are vital learning periods in everyone's
life. In this learning period you're going
to say a lot of baloney you don’t mean
or understand. Furthermore, teenagers

¢ ¢ I used to say awful things in middle school and
high school—does that make me an awful person?”

 

Give manga a chance

> It’s a great medium for storytelling

Jessica Berget
Opinions Editor

 

know it’s a matter of personal taste

and it’s not for everyone, but people
need to stop hating on manga and
just give it a chance. Seriously, I know
it might be “cool” to hate manga and
anime and anything that differs from
Western culture, but manga is great as
both a visual and literary medium.

People often associate manga with

“weeaboos”’—people who are unhealthily
obsessed with Japanese culture—but
don’t let one group of people ruin it for
you. Manga is fascinating visual way to
read a variety of different genres. Many
people say they would prefer to watch
a movie or read a book, but manga

combines the graphics that we love about
movies and the imagination that goes
into reading books into one comic.
While reading books allows you
to make mental images of the story,
characters, and settings; and films on
the other hand give you the visuals
from one director’s point of view;
manga meets in the middle. It shows
you key scenes and dialogue, but you
get to fill in the blanks for yourself.
Readers can supply for themselves the
colours and background noises of the
scene, what the characters sound like,
and what happens that we don’t see in
the panels. Manga also provides some
entertaining onomatopoeias: “Blarf!”,
“Glurk!”, and “Bwom!” to name a few.
The art that is used in manga is

are the most disrespectful species on
this planet, so most of them don't really
give a damn what’s problematic or not.
Looking at old posts regarding what
is “offensive” now doesn’t make sense. |
feel like there are many things that were
okay to say in 2015 or whenever you were
in high school that are now condemned.
I used to say awful things in middle
school and high school—does that make
me an awful person? Should I be publicly
shamed for the things I said while I was
in a pivotal growing period in my life?
Of course not. Kids today are practically
raised on social media so of course
they're going to post abhorrent things,
but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily
homophobic, racist, sexist, or otherwise
prejudiced. It’s just that those are things
that were thought to be okay to say at
the time, and one day they'll learn from
their mistakes. It doesn’t make it okay,
but it also doesn’t reflect who people are.

C ¢ The art that is used in manga is often
beautifully detailed and immersive.

 

often beautifully-detailed and immersive.
The stories and dialogue are so well-
written that you can almost forget you're
reading a book and not watching it
unfold as a film. It’s an easy format to
read once you get used to going right

to left instead of vice versa. Also, there
are so many different manga out there
and so many different genres that you're
bound to find one that’s in your taste.

I suspect many people don’t like
manga because of the artistic style or
because they view it as too weird, too
different from Western culture, too much
of a culture shock, I get it. Some manga is
a bit outlandish—however, if you give it a
chance you'll realize it’s unlike anything
you've read or seen before, and it’s great.

You can also gain a lot of insight

about Japanese culture from this medium.
Some of these are small insights about
traditions, references, vocabulary,

social practices, or education, while
others deal with deeper concepts

such as gender roles or how religion

is viewed in Japanese society.

Manga also covers genres that aren't
often utilized in comics or films. If you're
into horror or gore, manga may be just the
thing for you. Junji Ito is a great horror
manga author to read: His art is gruesome
and some images will be burned into
your brain forever. If you're not into that,
there is a plethora of cute, adventure,
psychological thriller, or casual manga to
read as well. Finally, most manga can be
read for free online, so there’s no reason
not to check this graphic medium out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
 
  

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Left to right: ‘Snow White’ by Junji Ito, ‘Dragon Ball Super’ by Akira Toriyama, ‘Jojo's Bizarre Adventure’ by Hirohiko Araki, ‘Kimi ni Todoke’ by Karuho Shiina