For those of you too busy watching Dexter jump the shark or Rick go banana-cokoo on The Walking Dead, I'd like to point you toward's last night's American Music Awards. They are, I think, an awards show that Dick Clark started but I'm not sure what the criteria for winning is other than, "be popular." Anyway, it was the 40th anniversary of the show last night (Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj seemed to have been the big winners) and the men's fashion on the show was sort of head scratching. Harem pants have been in-stylish (again) for the last year or two (especially with the American Apparel crowd) but you don't see them very often....until recently. I didn't understand it at all until I watched last night's AMAs and it all made perfect, adorable sense.
News broke earlier this weekend that Bieber and Selena Gomez called it quits and the very next day, Justin was seen in this masterpiece of an outfit:
Michael K over at Dlisted called this outfit a "GD baby outfit." Ridiculous. So it didn't surprise me that the Biebs wore this for his AMA performance last night:
Leather harem pants! Touche, Biebs, touche.
What did surprise me was Psy in harem pants. But I quickly found out what his deal was:
Can I just say how AMAZING I think this performance was? Does this mean Hammer's triumphant return? Does it also mean that the harem pants fad of Fall 2012 was ONLY due to the return of MC Hammer to the stage? I hope so...because dudes, you look RIDICULOUS.
So, spill it! What did you think of last night's American Music Awards?
I recently came across a press release from Match.com informing me that the Edward vs. Jacob thing was still going on in Canada and that they'd done a survey asking single Canadians what type of supernatural creature they would prefer to date. Yes, really, I'm not making that up. We're asking single men and women if they would prefer to date vampires or werewolves. This leaves me with so many questions. First and foremost, however, is why are adult women lusting over teenaged characters in their fantasy worlds and why are we finding this acceptable as a society? Secondly, why the hell are we asking adults if they'd rather have sex with a vampire or a werewolf. I'm glad that as a married person, I don't get asked asinine questions about which undead creature of fiction I'd rather bang.
But back to this quiz for a moment: according to Match.com's Canadian relationship expert, Canadians prefer overwhelmingly to want to date a vampire but, surprisingly, MOST Canadians would rather date a ghost. A GHOST. The bottom two on the list are werewolves and finally zombies. Apparently people haven't heard about Warm Bodies yet (I'm personally excited about this movie, but not because I'm fetishizing zombies). But why are we asking people about this? Oh wait. Twilight.
In case you are living under a rock, the final installment of the film version of the Twilight series will be released in theatres next week. The books, young adult fiction written by Stephanie Meyer as an allegory of her Mormon beliefs aren't very good and centre around 120-something-year-old high school student (and sparklepuss) Edward Cullen who falls in love with 16 year old teenaged girl, Bella Swan. Werewolves get involved, she is torn between the two (but without the premarital sex business), settles on the vamp, eventually becoming a vamp herself and (*spoiler alert*) her former werewolf boyfriend falls in love with her NEWBORN DAUGHTER. Oh, and vampires play baseball during thunderstorms because the sheer power of their baseball prowess would scare people if not masked by thunder. Vampires should not sparkle.
Over 50% of YA fiction is purchased by women over the age of 25. YA fiction is described as fiction for youth aged 12-16. So, we've got this weird romance and no-sex-before-marriage book for girls aged 12-16 that adult women have just decided is the bee's knees. That's sort of weird enough, but I get it. I'm not into YA myself for reading, but I do enjoy movie versions of books such as Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. The weird part of this is the marketing of the Team Edward vs. Team Jacob camps that was clearly designed for adult women. Yes, Edward is a vampire who's technically 120 years old, but he's acting as if he were a teen and became a vampire as a teenager so he LOOKS like a kid. Jacob in the books goes from what, 15-18?
Why is it acceptable for grown women to fetishize these characters? Grown men who look for their own personal Lolita are deemed creepy paedophiles, and ladies, this is weird creepy stuff. At least in 50 Shades, everyone is an adult and the books are about sex (granted, 50 Shades started out as Twilight fan fiction, but that's for another day). But I digress.
Am I being overly sensitive about the idea of grown women fantasizing about teenaged boys? Because if you strip away everything else, (I've seen video clips of grown women trying to rip Taylor Lautner's shirt off. And he just turned 18 in the last year. Why aren't these women being arrested?) this is adult women fantasizing about and sexualizing teenaged boys. Why does our culture have this strange double standard? If 35-year-old fathers were lining up at movie premieres to get their photos taken with Dakota Fanning, we'd scream bloody murder.
I don't have any answer for this because it truly boggles my mind. I cannot, for the life of me understand what makes this acceptable. And before anyone gets all "you don't get it because you don't like the series" this has nothing to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of the books or films that are the Twilight franchise. This is me not understanding how or why as a society we find this kind of adult on teen lust acceptable if it's coming from women and deplorable when it comes from men.
Tell me what you think—do you love or hate Twilight? Do you find sexual interest in the characters? Because for me, if I were going to go for a vampire, it'd have to be Lestat or Louis from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles or that flawless vampire god, Eric Northman. They only come out at night, people.
So, spill it! What do you think of Twilight fan lust?
The last time I went to Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament was for my birthday about four or five years ago. There was a large group of us, we drank too much and had a good time. I couldn't tell you, though, for the life of me how the show was. I barely paid attention. Last week, we got a chance to go to the grand re-opening of Medieval Times with a new stage show and expanded menu so we jumped at the chance. While Henry is still a little bit young for such a show (dinner doesn't start until 8:00pm for most shows), Matt and I happily trekked along with a few friends. I was more than pleasantly surprised. The Medieval Times new show has a lot of great stuff and it's something that the whole family can enjoy.
Medieval Times, for those who haven't been, is a live stage show that is set in the 11th century in a castle where knights joust and fight for the King and his lovely daughter and you, the people of the kingdom. What they have done for the newly revamped show is add more fights, new story and have created a show more centred on the horses that the knights ride. And the horses are beautiful.
The show opens with something that wasn't there last time — The Liberty Horse. The horse is gorgeous and it does a series of complicated moves, choreographed without a rider. The horse's trainer is in the ring with him but he mostly just stands there. My friend Ari and I were literally in tears watching the stallion do his moves. His trainer was beaming ear to ear, too. To call it epic would be an understatement.
Included in your ticket is a meal that is served throughout the course of the show (off and on for about 1.5 hours) and it's alright. You get tomato bisque and garlic bread to start, the main course is a half chicken with BBQ spare rib, herb roasted potato and a pastry for dessert. I didn't know until this visit that they also do Kosher, Halal, gluten-free, and vegetarian options. So basically, anyone can eat at Medieval Times.
We cheered mercilessly for our Green Knight, but alas, he was killed by the Red Knight (who later informed me over twitter that it was due to the non-lady-like hand gestures Ari and I were showing him from our seats while booing). And we had an absolute riot of a time. We got to see all the horses before the show and afterwards, you can meet your knights as they come out into the castle.
While Medieval Times isn't a cheap outing — you'll probably spend around $200 for tickets for a family of four — it's definitely worthwhile for a once-in-a-lifetime birthday or event. And in honour of the new show, they're selling adult tickets at about $45 and kids for $35. Hell, a couple at our table had TWO bottles of Moet Champaign for whatever they were celebrating. TWO. Pop and water are included in your meal ticket, and they do about 4-5 shows a week including a Sunday matinee. When we went for my birthday a few years ago, we had enough people to get a group rate and I got a few extra perks including a free photo of our group (with one of the falcons from the show) and a $30 voucher for the gift shop and all I had to do is call.
I honestly can't say enough great stuff about Medieval Times and if you can, I highly recommend taking your kids out for a fun show. Under five may be a little too young, but over 5 should be just fine.
Even just wearing the paper crown is super fun. I wore mine all the way home.
Printer-friendly version