Sure, we might not write in-depth cultural critiques of everything that makes a splash on pop culture’s radar every week, but that doesn’t mean we’re not talking about it around the Vv Magazine office watercooler. That’s why, every Friday, Vv Magazine’s editors roundup the stuff we loved, hated, debated, and obsessed over during the week that was with Vv’s Over-rated/Under-rated. We’re not ashamed to admit that we do more than just keep up with the Kardashians — we have office polls on what everyone from Bruce Jenner and Kate Middleton to Marc Jacobs and Justin Trudeau will do next…
Over-rated: #TheDress hashtag colour divide
After the whitest Oscars in 15 years, is modern society seriously going to open up yet another way to polarizing ourselves over colour differences? We think a prepubescent Macaulay Culkin circa MJ’s “Black and White” said it best when he said, “I don’t wanna spend life bein’ a colour.”
Under-rated: The Oscars – Scarlett Johansson’s patience
As John Travolta spirals more and more into the depths of 3am gym-rat hookup madness, ScarJo seemed surprisingly unfazed (but still annoyed) by the Battlefield Earth actor’s roaming hands and lips at the Oscars 2015. We’re not sure why the actor wants us to believe he is physically compelled to cover Scarlett in butterfly kisses, but we felt violated just watching him do his best airport security rub down of ScarJo’s gown. Look, if Ontario can teach grade two students consent, surely Hollywood can school John Travolta.
Over-rated: The Oscars – Neil Patrick Harris as a host
We wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, and we were super psyched when he opened the show with an edgy “white Oscars” joke, but by the third time he scolded Octavia Spencer for not watching his briefcase, it felt like we were trapped inside a James Franco art house flick without the weed to make it somewhat bearable.
Under-rated: House of Cards returns
We tried to watch the British version to tide ourselves over until season three of the Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright Netflix original premieres this weekend, but guess what — the American version is actually way better, No, really — in that special way that the USA just makes the odd masterpiece that’s so quintessentially American it cannot be rivalled or even compared, like the sad comfort of a piping hot Pizza Pocket, the terrifying catchiness of “Jesus Take The Wheel,” the heartbreaking hilarity of HoneyBooBoo, the explosive bowel movements induced by olestra-laced diet chips, and everything Kim Kardashian puts on Instagram. House of Cards is the popcorn chicken perfect.
Over-rated: The Parties at TOM*FW
The presence of a single editor from GQ Brasil doesn’t qualify something as a GQ party, and yet the TOM*FW “media event” had a line-up that looked like it belonged to Friday night in 1995 when the MuchMusic camera panned the Electric Circus rejects waiting for their chance to dance for the lens. The opening night party at AUDI? Same. Sadly, it looks like Torontonians will still crawl out from every corner of the GTA if an e-flyer can make a general admission gong show sound remotely fabulous. Tonight is the closing party: wear your best exhaust jeans and Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt, eh?
Under-rated: Madonna’s recovery from major stage fall
Did she choreograph that amazing backwards tumble because it certainly looks like Madge took about five Robaxacet and gave it her best Kurt Browning. You always win the gold medal with us, Madonna.
Over-rated: Dakota Johnson as SNL host this weekend
Just in case she hasn’t wowed you with her bubbly personality in I’d-rather-be-anywhere-but-here interviews with co-star Jamie Dornan, or on the Oscars red carpet with her hapahazard ponytail and mild animosity towards mother Melanie Griffith, Dakota Johnson is now hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend. Honestly, can someone hand this girl something else — a second Vogue cover, maybe — while she’s still gracing us with a presence so magical it’s like being in the company of a human leaking tap — a real slow drip that looms, splatters, and repeats? We haven’t felt this amount of resentment towards a random stranger since this morning when that guy looked at us funny on the subway. What a dick.
Under-rated: Canada’s collective seasonal affective disorder/cabin fever
What does it feel like to go shopping or meet friends in public or smoke a cigarette on the balcony without the sliding door freezing shut behind you? We ask because we don’t remember anymore. We’ve never felt more like Ariel in The Little Mermaid — wanting to be where the people are and all — except that we’re starting to get as antsy as a rabid dog in heat with a muzzle and chain holding us back from going totally Tazmanian Devil apeshit in the public sphere. Our spring fever this year is going to be epic — like Insta-citywide-herpes epic. And we’ll get on that just as soon as our toes stop hurting.
Over-rated: Mermaid school
Um, if you call belting people into straightjackets and throwing them into a pool “mermaid school,” then we’d love to sell you a spot at our pegasus camp. It’s a lot like becoming a flying horse with magic powers except you have to jump off our apartment balcony. If you thought Furries and Bronies were the most complicated LARPers to truly “get,” mermaids are the real sh*t disturbers of the role-playing community with all their reckless water-related dramz. It must SUCK to be a Jugalow right now.
Under-rated: the Mermaid Snuggie
Yeah, you’ve got to knit it first, but what else are you going to do with the first half of March anyway? When you’re done putting the final touches on your knitted fish tail, put your two legs in and make refusing to leave the couch at least seem adorable at your intervention. Look, it’s hard to know what to accessorize with when suffocating despair keeps getting in the way of putting on clothes or moving past making sitting upright a daily goal. You might not exactly look like Splash, but you will resemble an oversized toilet paper cozy left on the cutting room floor of Toy Story 2. Sad? At least it’s not mermaid school.
Over-rated: One-way tickets to Mars
Why not try living in a sunless bomb shelter for a year with a group of strangers equally as interested in detaching from their Earth memories first and let us know how it goes.
Under-rated: Douglas Coupland at MoCCA
With rows and rows of exclusively Canadian products all in the same room and collectively resembling a 3D concise history of the country, somehow you’ll “get” national identity when you leave the MoCCA portion of the Coupland exhibitions currently taking over the city. You’ll wanna buy a bag of ketchup chips to take it all in. We laughed, we cried, it was better than Kids in the Hall.
Over-rated: The weather channel
We don’t need a TV station to tell us we need to start online dating in other countries just for the passports. Move over, Cuba! Or wait, maybe we can work something out.
Under-rated: Crotch is the new cleavage trend
We’re not saying we love the look, but it’s a little disarming when it’s become normal for starlets like Rita Ora and Irina Shayk to arrive at the Vanity Fair Oscars party wearing the gown equivalent of horse-fly mesh or beekeeper-chic ready-to-wear face masks. We want to see vulva about as much as we want to see penises at fashion week: Not at all. Give us a little mystery, pop culture, and by mystery we mean a sense of self-respect that you can’t just get from your Instagram following.
Over-rated: The 90s versus Kanye West
After Shirley Manson blasted the “Golddigger” rapper for interrupting her friend Beck’s Grammys speech by silently protesting his Album of the Year win (preferring Beyonce, obviously), Oasis’ Liam Gallagher carried the Kanye-hating torch to the Brit Awards. After West’s performance, Gallagher tweeted, “Kanye West. Utter S–t. LG x.” Um, we’re psyched our generation is getting down with social media, but can someone let Liam know he doesn’t have to legitimize the authenticity of tweets with an initial, unless he’s now the President of the United States and we didn’t get the memo. We liked it better when our rock stars and rappers trashed hotel rooms and wrote defamatory songs about each other with artistically-crafted slams. That’s at least the music world equivalent of hate-fucking; hate-tweeting is like hate-air kissing. Michael Jackson did not write “Just Tweet It.”
What are your thoughts on Vv Magazine’s “Over-rated/Under-rated: Oscars, Crotch Cleavage + #TheDress“? Do you think we should be defending Kanye’s behavious? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us your thoughts @ViewTheVibe.
