"Y'a d'avantage d'espace média que de gens qui ont des choses a dire"
(There is more media space than people with things to say)
-The devilish lawyer maître Cardinal played by Yves Jacques to Daniel "Jesus" Coulombe (Lothaire Blutheau) as he tempts him in a skyscraper in Jesus of Montreal.
In Sooky's universe, Insecurity magazine is a parody of Cosmopolitan, Elle, Marie Claire, Chatelaine, Psychologies magazine and all those rags who filled the heads of generations of women with such pearls of wisdom as "men are more shallow than women" (therefore you won't have any sex unless you look like a supermodel), "all men secretely want their mother", "men will use a woman they don't like for sex but will never ask a woman they love for sex" (so even if a guy does have sex with you, he still doesn't love you, be insulted), and "to keep a man, you always have to keep him at a distance". Not to mention "face police" publications (oh, if only it was just Cosmo doing that!) that will make fun of celebrities for doing too much surgery, or not enough surgery, or not looking like they're 18 at age 65, or having the wrong bikini body...
Those same publications have the nerve to put articles of a page or two on the evils of eating disorders, a pedophilish fashion industry and botched plastic surgery...drowned between dozens and dozens of 2-page ads for cosmetic products featuring photoshopped 14-year old semi-nudes.
If it is a more mommy-oriented publication like Coup de Pouce, they will use ads with housekeeping products, but use the same strategy...because our sponsors know that you can't be the "bestest mommy in the World" if you don't use the right brand of fabric softener. You own kids will hate you if you don't buy our product!
Feminists rose against this trend. Pink sang "Stupid Girls" and in 2009 someone made this exquisite parody:
What is a bit perplexing with denouncing this kind of rubbish is that those publications are edited by women and bought by women...on the other hand, in the last four years, the media industry has been praying on the insecurities of men in even more ruthless ways...and nobody's there to call bullshit on it.
Take for example this bodywash ad I positively can't stand, with a robot in a hot tub. It is full of advertisements saying that if you use their products, you'll have sex with more people in an hour than most people will do in their lifetimes. There's men soap, boys' toys, boys snacks (that's the non-100 calorie stuff)...even men's yogourt! As I was listening to Rolling Stones stuff for the intro of this story arc, the line from "I can't get no satisfaction" sounded quite true:
"He can't be a man cause he doesn't smoke
the same cigarettes as me"
So-called pick up artists like Mystery (whom I suspect of being related to Mr. Hat from South Park) and the controversial Julien Blanc make careers out feeding off men's insecurities as well. While no women's magazine would dare to tell women that they are undateable and pathetic, those guys tell men that they are undateable as they are, unless they follow their rules (like "women like jerks", a close cousin of "never make men believe that they have all of you" as shown in women's magazines, in term of fear and anger pandering). Other dating advice they give is stuff like "wash yourself"...eh, that's never been dating advice, that's just common sense! Honestly, who the heck waits until he hears it from dating advice to wash and groom himself a little bit? Dating advice or not, it is something that everyone does for his own good. If you don't act like you are worth taking care of yourself, not to get dates but for yourself, because you are worth is, then nobody else will think you are worth it.
Julien Blanc made a name for himself when he was shown assaulting women in Japan, saying that it's the best place to cruise because women there are submitted to men. In the geeky imagination, Japan is the magical place where anime and video games come from. Therefore, it must also be free of modern day calamities like "people having their own minds", "police and rape laws" and "social pressure".
Feminists call this the "patriarchy". The trouble I have with words like this as it insinuates that all this pressure is deliberately put on women, just women, by men, just men, to keep women under control. To me, it is a passive aggressive game played by the publishing, web and TV industry to squeeze as much money as possible from the pockets of both genders. Nobody is "privileged" or "oppressed" more than the other, here. It sucks for everyone. Everyone is oppressed, and everyone who buys those rags participates in the oppression.
La chasse-galerie
I was not thinking about the line from Jesus of Montreal when I was drawing this, but by the way, Cerberus' canoe is inspired from la chasse-galerie, the Devil's canoe in quebecois and acadian folk tales.
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| Cerberus' ancestors! |
Just like when Groovy Aardvark, a Quebecois rock band, took this song from La Bottine Souriante,,,
And turned it into this when electric guitar replaced fiddle.
