What Should Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' Video Have Been Like?

We're writing this post just after the release of Lady Gags' video release for her comeback single 'Born This Way', a Madonna-esque gay-power anthem which owes itself entirely to disco. The video can be seen below. Please watch it so you can draw your conclusions as to how effective it is as a piece of "art", which is almost certainly how Gags herself wants it to be seen. Well, it's B-Movie Art, in the sense that it's value as art is only due to it's camp value and exploitative themes being... well, exploited. But enough GCSE-Level Art analysis! (Talkin' bout a C Grade, y'all) Watch it now:

Isn't it a poor video? Not in the sense that it isn't well-directed and the dancing is poor, but in the sense that it pays no attention to the themes of the song itself. Gags' most popular video is by far Bad Romance, which featured a fluorescent sex-bunker in which she sold herself to a man in a half-mask for money and a polar-bear dress. The video ties in to the song, in at least the barest of ways (bearest of ways, heh). Her next video, Telephone, was about being distracted by her boyfriend when she's out having a drink. So she did a Tarantino tribute video about going on the run with Beyonce and killing a load of people. The shock value was what kept all that working. The song is so trivial and the video so over-the-top, that they worked together.

Then came Alejandro. Alejandro's video was at odds with the song once more, but this time the song itself was a somewhat sweet ballad about summer love... with three men. But still, summer love. The music was upbeat and optimistic, which is why Gags recreated the bra dance sequence she performed in Telephone, sang in front of a dark, dank backdrop, and generally looked moody and creepy. If the song had been "Dance in the Dark" or one of her genuinely off-beat tracks, this would've been all well and good. Against a relatively simple song melody like Alejandro, however, this seemed like a complete disconnect between music and video. It was, at the time, by far her weakest effort- and for a performer who pushes herself off the back of her creative output, that was a big blow.

As you can see above, Born This Way does much the same as telephone. Out goes the stalag camp of Alejandro, but the bra dancing is retained and lengthened, while the intro goes absolutely nowhere and leads only to one or two shots of Gaga giving birth to clones. There's some stuff with her and a male dancer grinding on each other while they have skeleton face-paint on, and at one point she fires a machine-gun leg lifted straight from Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse movie. So her videos have become tame, that's all very well and good. A tame Gaga song is still leagues ahead of the wildest thing Pink could dream up, right? Well yes, that's true, but at the same time let's just point out again that the song is about empowerment.

We're meant to be seeing a display of gay-power so strong and terrifying that the US Government will immediately drop any remaining homophobic policies as they run screaming from the mob of bears and twinks led by their platinum-headed Goddess Gags. Considering we're meant to be seeing a video which is abotu empowerment, why has Gaga instead decided that a better tactic for her video would be to blather on about some kind of dull alien story when she could instead be directly addressing what her song is about... What's the point of shying away from her own song in order to hide in genre and alien cloning stories. It seems like a massively wasted opportunity. Instead, we here at Wilftonville believe that the new video should have gone something like this:

Now you're scared, right? NOTHING CAN STOP THE FORCES OF GAY. Maybe someone needs to reign Gags in a bit more, so she can start leading her audiences astray again.

The 100 Greatest TV Show Characters (Part 10)

55: Xena: Joxer (Ted Raimi)
Joxer the Mighty
He's very tidy
Everyone admires him
He's so handsome it's a sin
When you're in jeopardy
Don't call the cavalry
There's a better remedy
(Although he doesn't work for free)
He's every man's trusty,
He's every woman's fantasy,
Plus he's goo-oood company
He's Joxer—I'm Joxer the Mighty!


54: Firefly: Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin)
Every single character on Firefly apart from Book (you are RUBBISH, Shephard Book) was fun to watch up on the small screen. Jayne Cobb is no exception, being a self-serving bastard who is sticking around with the rest of the characters on their tiny little spacecraft only until he gets a better deal somewhere else. He has no regard for any of the others, so long as he ends up with a paycheque at the end of each job they take and somewhere to sleep. And also, guns. He was a big fan of guns. Adam Baldwin took this snide character and gave him no pathos at all, and yet still made the public like him. Jayne had respect for only a few members of the crew, but Baldwin managed to convey this very subtly – so when Joss Whedon eventually made an episode which hinged around this (I’m thinking of the superb scene featuring Mal and Jayne in the airlock, and will say no more of it to anyone who hasn’t seen) it all came spilling out and felt natural instead of forced. That single scene was what propelled Jayne into this list. Adam Baldwin is much more versatile as an actor than he is given credit for.


53: My Name Is Earl: Randy Hickey (Ethan Suplee)
At the time this list was being written, which is something close to two years ago My Name Is Earl was still seen as one of the bigger comedy shows around. Having Jason Lee play the main character helped with this of course, because Jason Lee is an insanely talented person, but the real stars of the show turned out to be the supporting cast. From Jaime Pressly’s white-trash squawking mother to her boyfriend, who is called… Crabman, there is nary a dud in there. Most of all, there is a massive winner in the form of Ethan Suplee’s character, Randy Hickey. Earl’s brother Randy is not smart or particularly agile, and may in fact be the closest thing to Winnie The Pooh ever seen in real-life TV. He is a big bumbling fool, but the sort of bumbling fool that most people would want to hug. There isn’t a bad bone in his body (most of the time) and he just wants things to be silly, because he’s barely developed mentally. It’s encouraging.


52: Will and Grace: Jack Walker (Sean Hayes)
Everyone needs an intensely annoying camp-gay stereotype in their lives. I know that I certainly have one! But for all those people out there who are missing out on their fix of gay-o-rama look no further than Will & Grace. Nobody liked the two main characters – well, maybe Will had his moments, but Grace was infuriating – and the show quickly honed in on the two characters of Jack and Karen. They took over proceedings entirely, with Sean Hayes’ unabashedly madcap character filling every scene he was in with shrieking, enthusiasm, and irritating quips. More often than not he was hateable, but he was insistently watchable. With him on the screen, none of the other cast members could get a look-in. Karen was better, but Jack was undeniably eye-catching.


51: The American Office: Pam (Jenna Fischer)
The Office is a reactive show rather than a show where the characters make things happen for themselves. Due to the nature of the program none of the cast can ever really change their status quo in a memorable way, which you’d think would mean that they’re less interesting. No! Pam the receptionist – called Dawn in the original, remember, and played by Lucy Davis – is a lovely character, and effortlessly adorable. This is mostly due to the talents of Jenna Fischer, who has managed to pitch herself as the girl of any man’s dreams whilst seeming like a real, broken person and not a wish-fulfilment fantasy. When you watch a sitcom and some of the characters exist simply so they can be romantic interest, they are almost always annoying and feel misplaced. Pam from The Office feels like an integral part of the show, and that’s no mean feat.

Life Lessons We Can Take From Comic Book Characters In "The Beano"

The Beano was and is a very popular comic for children, and most people in Britain as they’ve grown up have picked up a copy at one point in time. In our crazy, backwards and heroic country, it’s even more popular than internet porn or Rachel Stevens. The characters in the comic were madcap and filled with life, ranging from Dennis The Menace’s black hair and stripy shirts prophesising mayhem to Ivy The Terrible’s rampage-fuelled toddler nightmares. From page to page, there was more anarchy compiled in a weekly Beano than in anything Johnny Rotten has ever done (although of course he is incredibly corporate and a massive sell-out so this means little) yet for every laugh gained from seeing someone annoying getting hit with a custard pie, there was a moment which taught us vital lessons about how to live. It’s fair to say that The Beano has taught British children how to behave for the past fifty-odd years, with no signs of stopping.

At Wilftonville, we see everything as an opportunity to write a list-based article. It’s our bread-and-butter, with the crusts cut off because nobody likes the crusts so why do they even exist mysteries never cease. With this, we decided that there would be no finer way to spend our time than to read through a backlog of Beano issues in order to pick out one specific life lesson we learned from each separate strip contained within. The results are highly shocking, unless you already predicted what we were going to say. In that case, you should head straight to the comments section and hurl insults.


Roger The Dodger

Roger spends all of his life trying to avoid doing his chores. To try and get out of having a bath or walking the dog, he tends to devise incredibly intricate ‘wheezes’ which he weaves around everyone in the vicinity, drawing them into a complex web of lies which leaves everyone feeling used and dirty at the end. Typically, Roger will get away with his wheezes, although sometimes he catches himself out and has to suffer the consequences. In a very real sense, Roger’s constant attempts to distance himself from work echo that of the politicians in charge of the country. There are incredible problems with the World right now, but all the public ever seems to get are different cries of helplessness from the people we put in charge of our society. It’s a darn shame. However, Roger also has a charming streak in him, and is a personal favourite character. If you read Roger’s adventures and want to understand better how to live your life, you’ll find everything you need right in front of you. He is a proactive person.

Moral: You Make Your Own Luck


Minnie The Minx

Minnie wins most of the time, as well. A pug-faced ginger cow who screams and argues all the time, she is meant to be seen as the female equivalent of Dennis The Menace but comes across to the reader as awful. Just awful. She stamps her feet and asks horribly to everyone, and quite often she gets away with it.

Moral: There Are No Ramifications For Being A Bitch


Calamity James

The comic strip most kids would try to skip, if they could. Calamity James was probably one of the most detailed and tightly-jokepacked strips in the Beano, but at the same time it was filled with really horrible things. Snot and vomit and everything creeped into most panels, as the main character suffered an increasingly nasty series of mishaps. He’s get beaten up, hurt himself, get into awkward situations and generally have a nasty time all the time. Reading the comic required a strong stomach and a powerful disposition towards the eternal bitch slap that is delivered by the hand of fate. There was never an escape from the pain for James. Every week brought forth fresh horrors for him, which he could never escape. It was a horrible thing to have to read every week, but I think it’s made the nation a lot stronger in character. Also, it genuinely was very funny.

Moral: Life Is Tough And Fate Is Unavoidable


Billy The Whizz

This moral wasn’t very obvious to the casual reader, but if you tend to be the sort of person who likes to research anything before they read it, you’ll have noted what links Billy Whizz to the dark side of the law. Yeah, his surname. The character was famous for being able to run at extreme speeds across the country, which would often cause problems for his family which he’d then have to try and fix. It also made it exceptionally hard for his poor parents to make him have a bath (not washing is a recurring theme in the Beano). But how did he get this power? It certainly wasn’t through a fitness regime of any kind.

Turn then, to his name. Billy Whizz. Whizz. Whizz is the slang term for amphetamines, a drug also known as speed. Oh, well then, I suppose you can see now why Billy Whizz is a bad influence on the children, eh? Of course it isn’t Wilftonville’s place to judge people who do drugs – that’s what Odin is for. But Billy Whizz was totally doing drugs for the whole time he appeared in the Beano, and he wasn’t even repentant, and there wasn’t ever a single panel where he suffered from extreme cramping or muscle spasm. As such, it can only be concluded that drugs are full of win.

Moral: Drug Up


The Bash Street Kids

One of the Bash Street Kids wears a pair of glasses. If he takes off the glasses, he is blind.
Another of the Kids is fat. He likes to eat. He eats all the time, and can’t be stopped.
Wilfred wears a jumper which covers his mouth, and is quite short. As a result, he never talks.

Moral: Judge A Person Upon Their Appearance


Ivy The Terrible

We hear that Ivy doesn’t have her own page anymore, but instead shares one with Dennis The Menace’s sister, Bea. That’s not much of a shame, because nobody ever really cared much about her anyway. Oooh! Controversy! Ivy is a toddler who drives her dad absolutely round the bend with her antics, which we recall usually amounted to her smashing everything. Why would she do this? Is it because she is a toddler? No! She’s actually about as intelligent as any of the other, older characters you’ll find in the Beano. She only smashes because she wants. And when she gets what she wants, she is happy. Quickly it dawned on a generation of children that causing excess damage to property was the best way to get them a Happy Meal for tea.

Moral: Work For What You Want


Dennis The Menace

The main character in The Beano was Dennis The Menace. He lives up to his name, declaring war on the police and the postman (a somewhat unfair move, but still) as well as his schoolteacher and parents. Nobody is safe from his ways, but nobody is less safe than his homosexual neighbour Walter The Softie. Walter organises picnics for his friends, who are called names like Dudley Nightshirt, Jeremy Snodgrass, Softy Matthew, and likes flowers and being friends with girls. Dennis rebels against all of this, and attacks Walter with a vengeance only usually seen when Mel Gibson is denied a drink at the local Jewish pub. The clean, well-dressed Walter is shown no mercy.

Moral: Beat Up Homosexuals

The Further Voyages Of…

The castlist for the 2008 ‘I’m A Celebrity: Get Me Out Of Here’ social experiment has been announced today, and the main surprise was that there were many actual stars in the line-up. For those of you who do not live in Britain and thus do not understand, this scientific project has happened once a year in Britain for the past seven or so years. A group of celebrities are taken to the Australian jungles (statistically the second-most likely place to get killed in the World, after Bridlington) and stranded there for a few weeks, and kept under surveillance. This is so that British scientists can study the celebrities, and eventually cure cancer. It’s also televised, so that the costs of hiring such massively famous celebrities can be regained afterwards.

This year the celebrities include:

• Esther Rantzen (she stars in legal adverts);
• Robert Kilroy-Silk (a notable fascist, I’m informed);
• Martina Navratilova (the producers are hoping for hot lez action this year);
• George Takei.

That’s right. 'The Tak' is going to take part in the show this year. Interestingly, this announcement comes just days after it was announced that gay marriage was banned in California. Is there a link here? It seems like Takei could be trying to foster a welcome from the British, before he moves over here permanently. If he does move here, this would be quite the feather in the cap for Britain, one which would make us quits with America for the whole ‘Independence’ debacle. But anyway, that's not important.

Because Wilftonville officially endorse George Takei for King Of The Jungle 2008.

That's right: we're coming out for Takei. In a thinly-disguised jab at all the websites and TV shows which slavishly covered the American Election as if it wasn't incredibly obvious who was going to win all along, Wilftonville will now be devoted almost exclusively to keeping track of Takei's actions within the Aussie jungle. This is going to be fun!

Discussing Katy Perry

There’s an argument within the media that if something exists, then it must be offensive to someone. It’s an argument which suggests that when Alec Baldwin shouts at his daughter down a phone, it means he’s actually a closet sexist who hates all women and wishes to eradicate the female race using only a seasoned pimp hand. Obviously that’s not true (the only woman Baldwin hates is Kim Basinger, after all), and the same argument has sprung up to surround poor Katy Perry. Her first two songs both took a loose grasp of homosexual culture and used it as a platform to make her famous. “Ur So Gay” and “I Kissed A Girl”, the two songs in question, both feature homosexuality as a topic. In one of the songs she seemingly makes fun of the gays, and in the other she seemingly announces herself as a potential member of their ranks. Because of this, she’s been singled out for abuse by just about everyone.

While some people have pointed out that what Perry is doing is gay-baiting, many more have preferred to take the bait and run off into a little world of criticism, where Perry is a proponent of “schoolyard homophobia” (Glitterati Gossip) and "tired gay stereotypes" (The New Gay). Now obviously Katy should’ve expected a cascade of overly flamboyant criticism – these are the gays we’re talking about, after all – but she’s taken it all in her stride, seemingly. She doesn’t seem to care less, and everywhere you look the girl is running around, falling into cakes, and doing that naughty Myspace pout more times than anyone ever thought feasible.

Why would we choose to defend her? It’s pretty obvious that her songs are somewhat cruel in their use of sexuality to sell records. “I Kissed A Girl” seems to show off positive ideals, until you realise that she’s only kissing girls in order to get attention from her boyfriend. After one listen, we knew this was the case, and we dismissed the song. That was, until we saw the video. More specifically, it was until we saw Perry for the first time. Once we finally saw what the girl looked like, it became very clear that everything Perry was doing was completely legitimate. There is a rule, you see, within the music industry. That rule is very clear.

Fabulousness > Personality Flaws

It’s as simple as that. As long as the performer is absolutely fabulous, she is given a free pass in terms of racism, sexism, homophobia, any kind of prejudice. There are only a few women who are so utterly fabulous that they are legally exempt from being called on their prejudices. Kylie Minogue, obviously, is the very pinnacle of chic, and that’s why she can get away with all those murders she does. This is also why nobody likes Madonna.

You craggy prejudiced bitch.

And Katy Perry IS fabulous. Her album may consist of four good songs and a lot of Pink-esque chaff, and her career may well be predictably short, but as of this moment in time Katy Perry is out there somewhere, even as we speak, and she will be dressed in something spectacular. It’s not a question of being attracted to her. It’s a question of respecting her, and her incredible breasts.

I mean seriously, have you seen them? They’re an astonishing sight to behold. Given the Katy Perry is either twelve years old or thirty years old, the sheer amount of effort the girl has put into making sure her cleavage pops at all times is astounding and deserves applause. Because of the sexual nature of some of her songs (oh, uh, I mean all of them) her record company have cleverly decided that she should probably follow up by flashing the cleavage at anyone who comes within a worldwide distance of her. In her new video for the insanely marvellous ‘Hot N Cold’, Perry has forced herself into the tightest wedding dress imaginable, a dress so tight it could make a vicar renounce himself on the spot. Do you know why? Because the song makes fun of women. “You PMS like a bitch” she spits at her boyfriend, and in doing so she is insulting a good majority of women worldwide (like the gays, women tend to complain about everything. They’re small-minded like that).

The dress is to make up for that. Katy Perry is all trussed up inside that tight wedding dress, looking fabulous, and she can insult women without a care in the world. It is because of Perry’s knowledge of the Fabulousness > Personality Flaws rule that we here at Wilftonville are so eagerly looking forward to the video for her next single after ‘Hot N Cold’, which is called ‘My Love For You Is Like A Black Cripple’.

Shut up! Katy Perry is fabulousness personified.

Close Analysis Of Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” Video

EDIT: Britney's lawyers keep deleting any videos on Youtube which aren't "official". I shall explain my thoughts on this in Friday's post. For the moment, if you want to take part in this fun analysis, then open up

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1-23EToh43M

in a new window and watch it alongside this article.


0:07: Britney is naked in a sauna. The reason for this isn’t explained at any point during the rest of the video. The sauna appears to be a wide, open space with only a tiny amount of steam in it, and yet Britney is covered from head to toe in sweat. This is also not explained.

0:13: A face that will haunt you for weeks to come.

0:18: This is the man who will play the role of ‘cheating boyfriend” in the video. He is probably gay.

0:20: Britney cooks breakfast in a tiny shirt which completely exposes her bra to the World. This will doubtlessly cause dangerous in the event that she drops the pan, or if she cooks sausages and hot fat spits up at her. Her boyfriend, on the other hand, is completely naked and reading a newspaper, because this happens in real life. He is in threat of getting a papercut. The kitchen has black walls and a black floor, which makes the decision to have the kitchen table and chairs painted black questionable.

0:26: Britney’s boyfriend ignores the square egg that she has just cooked for him so he can check his calendar and check that it is still completely clear and that he has nothing going on. His refusal to accept the fact that his girlfriend has just performed a miracle Jesus would be proud of shows how self-centred he is.

0:29: In fact, he then performs a miracle of his own by getting all his clothes to fly on at once, just to spite her.

0:33: We have now moved to his workplace, and a woman arrives to take a drink at the fountain. One of the boyfriend’s work collegues spots her and points her out to the boyfriend.

0:38: But it turns out that this girl is really Britney in a black wig, and she starts doing a jerky dance routine with several of the other people who work at this office. It appears that this branch is populated by aspiring dancers who are working during the day to fund their night-classes.

0:48: We’ve hit the chorus, so we see sauna Britney telling nobody in particular (she is on her own in the sauna) that her boyfriend is a womaniser. It should be noted that by this point, the black-wigged Britney in the office is now slapping around the boyfriend and calling him a womaniser, too. She has only just arrived at this office, and all he’s done is look at her, but Britney takes this as a sign that he is a womaniser and so starts punishing him. This seems unfair and unjust, because this is a poor disguise and he

1:03: Britney seems unaware of what she’s singing about, because she smiles as she sings “I know just what you are.” She seems awfully proud of the fact that her boyfriend is a womaniser. Even though he isn’t.

1:15: The chorus is still going.

1:17: The boyfriend attempts to touch Britney’s bottom using both his hands. This is a move that no man has ever attempted on a woman before.

1:20: Britney pushes the boyfriend along on a chair while he preens for the camera. At this point, nothing makes sense anymore.

1:25: The office go back to the day-job, leaving only Britney and the boyfriend aware that a song is still going on. Meanwhile, Britney heads to the copy-machine, and he films her using his brand-name camera. Shiny BUY BUY.

1:33: Britney gives him a picture of her bottom, and then punches a hole through the middle. This scene doubtlessly makes for uncomfortable viewing for any woman who has gone through childbirth.

1:35: Britney throws boyfriend onto the copier. In the background – hey! It’s that guy Britney seduced on the plane in the ‘Toxic’ video! Didn’t that turn out to be a facemask that a blonde model was wearing, that she ripped off? How come he’s got the facemask back on, and is now working in an office?

1:38: Boyfriend returns to a business lunch with some friends, seemingly oblivious that a woman who looks just like his girlfriend has beaten him up in an office whilst singing.

1:41: Britney returns! This costume is more poorly-disguised, but certainly sluttier.

1:47: Redhead slut Britney starts giving the boyfriend a lapdance, and he’s into it despite the fact he’s a gay. She pulls him up by the tie and starts dancing round him.

1:55: The waitressing staff - who are working during the day so they can fund dance-classes – throw all their things in the air and join in the dancing.

2:00: The boyfriend patently ignores everything that Britney is singing, because he’s looking down her top while she calls him a womaniser. Again, her reasoning for this is questionable at best.

2:08: About fifteen people have gathered together at the bar to take part in a very dodgy-looking orgy scene. The waiters and waitresses start kissing. That the orgy exists only so Britney can then shout at her boyfriend later on is disturbing, but what’s worse is that after this, none of the staff at this restaurant will ever be able to look each other in the eyes again.

2:25: Boyfriend gets thrown onto a counter in a kitchen by Britney, who is strong and resilient. She mounts him, and he’s loving it, which gives him the chance to do a minor audition for porn films as he writhes in faked ecstasy and pretends she’s Tom Cruise.

2:33: Britney eats a cherry – but not the stalk – and then shows him that she tied the stalk into a knot. Using her psychic abilities.

2:36: The boyfriend up to this point has been dry-humped several times, but nothing bad has happened to him yet. He gets into a car only to find that Britney is the driver. If you’re wondering what she’s going to do to him, then you haven’t been paying attention.

2:43: Britney dry-humps her boyfriend. She steers the car with one shoe, which is freakin’ awesome.

2:53: We’re entering the part of every Britney song where she starts singing words in no coherent order, so we flash on many different things. Amongst them, we see boyfriend taking a shower, Britney flashing some leg in the car, the car driving itself because Britney is no longer at the wheel, and Britney watching her boyfriend shower.

3:03: Returning home, the boyfriend has been beaten there by Britney somehow, despite travelling there in the same car. She spins round and clothes fall off her, so she’s wearing the same outfit she was wearing at the start. She then proceeds to dry-hump the boyfriend into submission.

3:18: Britney stops dry humping him long enough to push him off the bed, and then follows this up by kicking him down some stairs. This guy has had a really weird day.

3:24: She throws him back onto the bed using only one hand, because she is a monster.

3:26: Another face that will scare even the bravest of little children.

3:31: He is now aware that Britney is going to do something to him, and looks as petrified as any right-thinking man should be, because Britney Spears is crazy. She might cover him in petrol, or stab him, or throw him off the building. Heck, in the Toxic video she poisoned that one guy. What is she going to do?

3:42: Surprisingly, no dry humping. Instead she drapes the bed sheets over him and walks away. Once the video is over, he will probably get out of bed, ask her what the hell is going on, and slap her around a little. Don’t womanise, men, or you might have the same fate.

Twelve Vital X-Men Characters You Probably Don't Know

6: The New Mutant Women

Who Are They?

The New Mutants were the second generation of X-Men to be created, after Cyclops and Beast and all those people. The women, in particular, have been a part of X-Men history for a long time. The ones I’m focusing on here are:

• Wolfsbane - Rahne Sinclair, who is essentially a werewolf
  
• Mirage - Dani Moonstar, who used to have powers but has since lost them.
  
• Karma – Xi’an Coy Manh, who can possess other people.
  
• Magik – Illyana Rasputin, who was a mystic
  
• Magma – Amara Aquila, who controls, surprise, magma

These five women all joined, at one point or another, the ‘New Mutant’ group, and went off on adventures which only rarely intertwined with those of the X-Men. They all keep busy, with Wolfsbane, Dani, Karma and Magma all working as advisors and teachers for the new new new generation of mutants and Magik being… well dead, actually. But she came back recently. Rahne left the mansion after dating a student for a while, and since became a private detective and now works with a secret team of X-Men used for assassination missions. As a strongly religious woman, that sure does cause some problems. I won’t focus on anything specific here, but they’re a very diverse set of women (Karma is a Vietnamese lesbian, for example, while Illyana is the sister of Piotr Rasputin – Colossus, the guy who turns into metal – and travels into hell from time to time). Here they are:

You can see in the picture, going clockwise from top left: Illyana, Dani Moonstar, Karma, Magma, and Wolfsbane.


Why Are They Important?

They’re important because they are all strong women. The X-Men have never been short of strong female characters, but the New Mutants are different because their characters started out as teenagers and have over time reached their mid-twenties. They’ve been assigned many different things, but have always been defined by their strength and friendship with each other. It’s little things like seeing these character maintain their friendships that rewards fans of the X-Men, and keeps the whole series feeling, as far as possible, realistic. When Dani got a job working as an advisor for the new kids, she didn’t hesitate to invite Wolfsbane and Karma to help her with the job, and later she asked Magma to come along too. They’re all strictly B-List characters, but you’ll be hard-pushed to find any comics series which can give you such strongly-defined, humanised B-Listers.

Twelve Vital X-Men Characters You Probably Don’t Know

9: Northstar

Who Is He?

Jean-Paul Beaubier is quite different to the majority of other superheroes, and not just because he has the ability to fly and move at superhuman speeds. And not just because he wears these totally rad sunglasses when he’s on duty, either. Northstar, as he calls himself, is different because he is Canadian. Aside from Wolverine, there aren’t many superheroes that have been outed as Canadian yet, but this has turned to the advantage of the many, because it means the X-Writers can make him say little lines of French whenever they want, and it makes sense. Jean-Paul has a sister (who also has powers), Aurora, and as is often the case with comic-book siblings, his character is very much defined by that of his sister. He started off with a team called Alpha Flight, who eventually disbanded, and then moves to the X-Men a while later.

Northstar is a great character within the X-Universe because he’s famous already for being a world-champion skier. Using this position, he later wrote a book detailing his experiences as a mutant in order to help other people who might be in the same situation. Although he has a snobby attitude, and a wealth of literary quotes at his disposal whenever he needs them, Jean-Paul has the best interests of mutants and other minorities at heart (I’m really straining not to mention that other defining characteristic of his, you may be noticing, X-Men fans). He joins the X-Men quite late on, but wastes barely any time in having a miserable life when his sister got brainwashed and he himself got killed by an evil Wolverine. He came back, although he and his sister at this time were both in considerable states of mental… weirdness.

It’s all been cleared up now though, thank goodness, and Jean-Paul has taken on a proper role with the X-Men, on top of his role as an ambassador for mutants everywhere. Sadly, he’s seemingly got rid of those rad specs of his.



Why Is He Important?

Okay, okay, so let’s get this over with. Northstar is an out-and-proud homosexual character. As such, he’s one of two X-Men to have come out over the years, and one of the most well-known gay characters in comics…. ever. Not many other comics have gay characters in them, and it’s taken until recently for any of the gay characters who did exist to get recognition for something other than their gayness. It’s not his homosexuality that makes Northstar so important to the X-Men though; it’s the way he feels about it. It doesn’t define him. Other characters get saddled with turning gay as a way of generating cheap interest, but Northstar has been around for a long time, and his outing hasn’t been sensationalised much at all, if ever. It just became another of those parallels that the X-Men have so brilliantly drawn over the years, between minority groups and those who don’t like minority groups.

Oh, and did I mention that Jean-Paul is totally rad? I think I might’ve actually, yeah. Northstar is important to the X-Men because he is one of the few characters who actually tends to make sense. He’s one of the smartest mutants in terms of tactics, strategy, and common sense, and those are three skills that the mutants could really do with at the moment. If ever there is a character who could wrestle away the leadership from Cyclops, then it is Northstar, because he’s just so darned smart. He teaches business and economics, and speaks different languages! And he can FLY! Northstar is completely one of the most important X-Men that nobody talks about (and honestly, his role can only increase in future, given his limbo-status at the mo) and hopefully will get more star billing soon.

Are You Kidding Me, Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Dear Sophie Ellis-Bextor,

On the Jonathan Ross show a long time ago, you met in the green-room a backing musician for the musical guest of the evening, and fell head-over-heels for him, and given your passion for big heels that must have been quite the tumble! But in all seriousness, I was crushed, as a fan of your music and a fan of your body, and it hurt me a little. Eventually, my therapist told me that perhaps I should let it go – after all, you were happy, and that’s all I ever wanted. I still had my hallucinogenic dreams. I got over you.

We didn’t hear from you for a while, and I missed your unique brand of glam-disco-pop music, because nobody else has anything like the same amount of style as you do. (Not even Rachel Stevens, and she looks amazing in a bikini.) You were gone so long, it turned out, because you’d had a beautiful little baby with your new musician husband, which brought back all the feelings that I’d kept bottled up for so long. My only consolation was knowing that I was a highly-regarded factual blogger, whilst he was unknown and unfamous worldwide. I am a lot more loved than he is.

Well, that all changed, didn’t it? Because your husband became a member of a band called ‘The Feeling’, who got very famous very quickly in Britain a year ago. I got to see him for the first time, and I felt horrible.


He’s dreamy, Sophie. Even I would be tempted if he came over to me at a bohemian jazz-bar and asked me to have a drink with him. It was awful. Your husband was dreamy, and he was a musician who made decent little pop songs, and all I have are my legions of online fans. I consoled myself with the fact that at least this proved once and for all that your taste is fabulous. There are millions and millions of men out there who aren’t good enough for you, so the fact that you settled with the handsome lead-singer of a band was fair enough.

Then I saw an interview with your husband, Dan Gillespie, where he said that he was gay. And then he referred to his band-mate Richard Jones, who was “married to Sophie Ellis-Bextor.”

All this time, when I thought you were dating the rakish lead singer of The Feeling, I was wrong! But oh well, Sophie. Every member of a group is important, apart from the drummer. You can replace a drummer with a drum-machine and not notice. So at least you… wait. Richard Jones? You married… Richard Jones? You married… this one?



Why the hell have you married THE CREEPY ONE, Sophie?

“Katy Perry kissed me and I didn’t like it” Claims Woman

A woman desperately seeking attention from the general public announced today that she was the subject of teen sex-poppet Katy Perry’s chart-topping song “I Kissed A Girl”. The woman, who refused to be named as anyone apart from Amy Shuker, said that she could no longer stay silent on the issue as she wants to become famous this year and sees this as her best opportunity to do so. At the conference, held in Portsmouth, Shuker accepted the fact that her claim was unverifiable, but pointed that nobody else had come forward to admit to inspiring the song “so it could have been me.”

Perry’s song, which has been number one for two weeks running in the UK, has caused a storm with churches because Catholicism is an essentially prejudiced religion. Other religions, such as Islam and Judaism, have not been brought into the debate because journalists don’t care about them for some reason. It has been claimed that the song either promotes or makes fun of homosexuality due to lyrical content such as lines like “I kissed a girl/and I liked it/I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it”.

Because Perry admits to kissing the girl as a way of getting attention from her boyfriend, she has been called out for making fun of homosexuality in general, although in her defence homosexuality isn’t a real sexual preference anyway because it’s rubbish. In her statement, Shuker, an English student, said that “the whole lesbian drama thing that all the papers have been talking about doesn’t bother me so much as the grammar. She should definitely take some lessons.”

And Shuker also suggested that Perry take a crash course in lesbianism, revealing that Perry “wasn’t the best I’ve ever had. I’d give her about a 5 or a 6 out of 10”. A brief Q&A session revealed that she got her cherry chap-stick from Boots. The rest of the press conference consisted of half an hour of Shuker shouting out her contact details for casting agents.

Perry was unavailable for comment, because we didn’t bother to get in contact with her.

The Secret World of Sonic The Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the most recognised computer game characters of all time, a blue hedgehog with a short patience and the ability to run really, really fast. Created by Sega, he has starred in several of their most popular games, and it second only to Mario in terms of worldwide fame, when it comes to computer game characters. The premise of most of his games are simple: run to the exit as quickly as you can. Avoid the baddies and run like a devil over different levels until you make it to the exit. It is simple, but very addictive, and the popularity of the games has meant that the character has crossed over into comics and television several times over the past few decades. It’s all a very simple premise, which is what makes it so surprising to find that there are several dangerous aspects of the series which Sega have repeatedly tried to hide from the public. Cover-ups, conspiracies, and recurring illegal practises are inextricably linked to the games, and once you’ve read up on the disturbing shadowy overworld that makes up Sonic The Hedgehog, you won’t be able to view the lil’ blue spinester in the same way again.

Cover-Up 1: Sonic The Hedgehog is illicitly sponsored by fast food companies

During the early development of the first Sonic game, Sega were faced with a budgetary issue, as they found they were rapidly losing money due to increased global fondness for red-capped plumbers. With nowhere else to turn, the company struck a deal with several fast food companies in order to fund their labour of love. In the process, however, they had to make several concessions in order to fulfil their contracts. The main villain, Dr Robotnik – an evil half-unicorn, half-robot badass – was replaced with Dr ‘Ivo’ Robotnik, who was all-human. This changed the story significantly, as Ivo’s backstory (which was later retconned further, as will be detailed below) was made to be more in line with fast food desires. No longer a unicorn who was evil due to grief at the death of his species because of hedgehogs, Robotnik now became an allegorical symbol of the egg-industry.

Ivo Robotnik was a mild-natured man who was turned evil after an egg exploded in his face, thus transforming him into a fat, beady-eyed villain with an indeterminately gay moustache (see “the refusal of Sega to accept homosexuality”, below). It was the conclusion of the general public that this story was designed to make Robotnik the very essence of a “rotten egg”, but in reality this was Sega’s way of downplaying the healthy and nutritious value of eating eggs every day. As Mr Strong has proved, eating eggs is a great way to grow up to be big and strong – exactly the characteristics that fast food chains do not want associated with their customers (apart from Subways, who offer superb quality food for great value). The name ‘Ivo’ is the reverse of ‘Ovi’, based on the Latin for ‘eggs’. Later, the character was connected even more strongly to the egg industry through the unexplained change from ‘Dr Robotnik’ to ‘Dr Eggman’. This was all based off the further payments Sega received after the failure of the Dreamcast, which saved it from bankruptcy.


Conspiracy 1: Is there a company-wide hatred for Australians?

The basis for this conspiracy stems around a character introduced in Sonic 3; called Knuckles. A red echidna, Knuckles personifies the country of Australia almost as much as the once-planned “Retard the platypus” would have done. Retard was originally imagined to be Sonic’s idiotic friend who runs a surfing shop, who continually attempts to sell Sonic surfboards even though Sonic has no need for them because water instantly kills him. Retard was scrapped after the company realised that portraying an Australian as someone capable of running a small business was too positive, and instead Knuckles was born. His role was to guard the Master Emerald, a source of massive power within the Sonic Universe, and he does so diligently by sitting on his arse all day and doing jack-all. When it comes time to actually do some work, he fails to beat Dr Robotnik – and on top of this failure, he is then tricked by the evil Dr into believing that Sonic is the real villain. Thus encouraged, Knuckles loses his temper and goes after Sonic with no thoughts for protecting the rest of the emeralds, and promptly loses in battle to the hedgehog.

After he realises how wrong he was, Knuckles goes back to sitting round all day and doing nothing, from time to time losing the emeralds due to his own uselessness or laziness, dependant on the game involved. Not only does he then prove to have the worst sections of all the most recent Sonic games, but he also is due to be kidnapped in the next game to be released; this time by aliens. For a character that is tasked with looking after a Master Emerald, Knuckles proves remarkably able to leave his duty behind to go off and take part in other Sonic games, where he plays sport without a care in the world. All in all, it seems remarkably clear that Sega have got it in for Australians.


Unanswered Question 1: Why does everyone like such a dick?

Sonic is a prick. Why do people keep buying his games?


Conspiracy 2: What’s with all the gambling?

Sonic games typically feature one level set in a carnival, and one set in a casino, where Sonic has to bounce off flippers and bumpers in order to make his way through the game safely. These are typically some of the hardest levels, but always provide a feeling of strong relief and achievement once they have been completed. This begs the question: what’s with all the gambling, Sega?


Unanswered Question 2: How do rings keep Sonic alive?

Mario collects coins, which makes sense, but Sonic collects ‘power rings’. How come they just sit around on the levels waiting for him to pick them up, then? If these rings give him so much power, wouldn’t it make sense for Dr Robotnik to simply take all of those, before he embarks on his quest to destroy the world? There’s a world of difference between fighting a blurry whizz-kid who can break the sound-barrier, and a hedgehog, y’know.


Conspiracy 3: Are Sega trying to promote drug-use?

Chaos Emeralds. They are the item that Robotnik is always trying to steal in order to turn the world into ‘Egg-Topia’ (see above, “Sonic The Hedgehog is illicitly sponsored by fast food companies”) and thus rule the world. They are interesting, in that they are hard to find and obtain, but contain almost unlimited energy that can be used by the characters whenever they want a fix. If a character gains all seven of the emeralds that exist in-universe, then they ’transform’. Sonic, in particular, turns golden and starts going completely mental whenever he uses them all together, and other characters have also been shown as ‘going golden’. This is, to put it “bluntly” (ha!), due to the efforts of ‘Sonic Team’, the designers responsible for creating the games. A bunch of meth-addled creatives with a flair for hokey dialogue, Sonic Team are high all the time, and they want you to join them. They don’t want to actively be seen promoting drugs, of course, so instead they decided to put in this aspect of the Chaos emeralds.

Mario collects power stars, but once he collects them they go in a fault. Donkey Kong collects bananas so he can eat. Sonic… gets a charge off of Chaos Emeralds. In many respects, as he goes from game to game and fights Robotnik again and again, he has become a junkie, relying on the benefits of the Emeralds to boost his power time and time again. Super Sonic, as he becomes, is then able to completely save the day with his massive OTT powers. He becomes faster and taller and stronger and he has forceshields – and he’s a little bit addled. He becomes a meth-addict, in other words. And every game sees him do this at the end, making him not just an addict, but a full-blown junkie. Sure, Sonic ‘says’ he does it to save the day, but how can we trust an anthropomorphic hedgehog?


Cover-Up 2: The refusal of Sega to accept homosexuality.

If you know anything about Sonic the Hedgehog, then you’ll know that I’m about to mention a certain character, That’s right: Tails. Tails is a Stuart Miles lookalike who also happens to be a fox with two tails. He is, as is made ludicrously obvious to everyone in the World, a gay man. He likes floating around by whipping his tails around in a tight circle which lets him hover above the ground, and his best friends are blue, pink, and red. That sentence may well be the most gay sentence ever written to not actually invoke any gay references in it. On top of this, Tails spends most of his time with Sonic floating behind him, watching his blue bottom with a fearless devotion and passionate intensity that hasn’t been seen since Des and Mel got taken off the air. It is obvious that Tails is gay. So why hasn’t he come out as gay, you wonder?

There is nothing wrong with homosexuality, as everyone should know but don’t because of that ‘religion’ thing. The gays (or poofs, as I will henceforth be calling them) are the best people in the World, and that is a fact that you cannot verify unless you happen to have gay friends yourself. Or, y’know, if you yourself are gay (but why would you read this? Gay people don’t like computer games!) Poofs turn up on TV and in comics all the time, movies have been written about them and music is filled with them. So why won’t Sega finally let Tails come out of the closet and film a cut-scene at the end of the next game where Tails has an awkward conversation about his feelings with his best friend? Politics, my friend. Even though Nintendo are open about the fact that all their computer game characters are either gay or into bestiality, Sega remain reluctant to admit that their blonde fox with a mullet might not like other female foxes.

It all goes back to the start of the company. When Sega was first founded, poofs were illegal in Japan. As such, when the company drafted up the rules it was made clear that nobody gay would be allowed to work for them. Although times have changed and gays are now only illegal in a very few places, this company policy is still enforced throughout Sega. There is a reason they haven’t changed this charter, which would finally allow Tails to come out of the closet. We went online to check up their website, and found a picture of the president of Sega:

Proof: Sega are a subdivision of Vatican City.


Feel free to copy and paste all of this into Wikipedia now you’ve finished reading.

My Beef With Robert Mugabe

Last week I was feeling outspoken, and controversial, so I decided to take a stand against something. After searching the news for a cause I could get behind, I landed on a story about Robert Mugabe’s refusal to accept he had lost the Zimbabwe national election. Inspired into action, I went immediately to my Facebook page and changed my status to:

“Steve would be more than happy to steal Zimbabwe from Mugabe. Hell, I couldn't screw that place up anymore than he did, can I? I challenge you to a fistfight, Mugabe!”

Little did I realise what I was beginning.


Within a few hours of putting this status up, I found that a group had been created in support of my challenge against Mugabe, titled “I bet I can find 1 person who wants to see Steve fight Robert Mugabe”. Within mere days, this group has attracted fifteen members, all of whom previously knew me and wanted to see me achieve my goal of fighting the Zimbabwean leader on a global stage. I didn’t have any specifics down for where, when, and how the fight would take place, all I knew was that at some point in my future, I wanted to take on that man and see if I could succeed where politics and violence had failed before me.

Mugabe has still not responded to my challenge, despite the tens of supporters I have backing me, and I presume this is because he is too busy being a coward and sticking with politics. Strangely, after weeks of speculation that he had lost the elections handsomely, Mugabe now seems to be winning, a feat that many call out as blatant rigging of the results. Now I don’t know much about politics – my specialisation lies within the realm of bare knuckle boxing – but I agree. It seems like Mugabe is rushing his claim to the leadership of Zimbabwe, and I think I know why. He’s seen my challenge, and he’s worried. This entire thing is clearly a reaction to my offer of a fight, whereby he is trying to cement his position as President before I can get over there and take it from him.

I wasn’t entirely sure if this was true, so I had a talk with Nelson Mandela about what could possibly be motivating Mugabe. He was at a fund-raiser doing his best to save the world (sure, like THAT is ever going to happen) and I sidled over to him. “Hey N-Dogg,” I said, utilising the black lexicon that I’ve developed after countless hours of watching Chris Rock stand-up shows. “What up?”
“I do not know” he told me. “What is up with you?”
I turned to face him. “Listen, I need a straight-up answer from you, y’feel me? I need to know; what’s up wit that Mugabe foo?” (This was a term I had learnt from watching the A-Team, which features a black member on the team).
He looked at me, sighed, and put a hand on my shoulder in reassurance. “Trust me, you do not want a part of that shit. He would straight up murder your ass,” he told me wisely, sighing again before walking off in disconsolation.

Undeterred by this warning from the wisest man on the planet, I posted a message on the wall of the facebook group, calling out Mugabe again. I told him that if he didn’t accept my challenge of a boxing fight, then that would make him a gay – a ruse, I was sure, that would finally stir the old python out of his snake-nest. No such dice. Mugabe has remained as quiet and terrified about the prospect of fighting me as ever, and has advanced his claim on Zimbabwe further since I issued this second challenge.

Obviously I seem to be having a profound affect on the way Mugabe is running his campaign. The more I dare him to fight me, the tighter he holds onto the last desperate part of his Presidency. Now as a lover of the black man, it pains me to see this man getting them down. They’ve had enough of this in the past, and they certainly don’t need any more of it now, just because I want to fight a 70-ish year old in a gladiatorial arena, without the use of weapons. So I’m going to compromise. We don’t need to have the arena, Mugabe. In fact, I’ll let you pick whatever location you want for our fight. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m certain that I’ll be able to whupp you all over any battleground.

So come on, be reasonable. I’m trying to make this easier on you, Rob! Just give me a location, and we’ll get this over with, and I won’t call you a homo anymore.

Reasons We Should’ve Realised Dumbledore Was Gay

His clothes – always the flashy dresser, Dumbles like to walk round in a purple cloak, the very height of magical fashion. All he needed were some high heels and a handbag, and he’d be sorted. In fact, there’s nothing in the books to suggest that this isn’t how he dressed in private.

He's bad with directions – Apparently he has a map of the London Underground on his knee; I can’t remember if the average gay man is meant to be good with directions or not, but I’ll go the safe option and say they're rubbish. So yeah, this is solid evidence, right here. And didn't he always get lost in the castle?

Collects jewellery – He gets his hands on a pretty ring which he knows is probably cursed, but it looks so pretty he can’t resist! He puts it on, gets cursed, brings about his own downfall. That says a lot about a man, if jewellery is more important than saving the World, doesn't it? Oh, one more thing - in his bank vault there is only one thing: a giant gemstone. Flashy!

He's a former head boy – All head boys turn out to be either gay or bi-curious.

He has a long beard – And he obviously gives it a lot of care; bathing it in whatever the magical equivalent of Pantene is and brushing it every night. How else could he keep it so shiny and soft? Anyone who grows a beard that long is gay – just look at ZZ Top.

When he looks in the Mirror of Erised he sees Christian Bale naked – Yeah, this one was never made completely clear, but it’s obvious now you think about it. Dumbles was obviously lying about the whole “socks” thing, and the only reason he’d do this is because he felt embarrassed that he fancied Bale pre-Batman.

He likes raspberry jam – The gayest of all the jams.

He didn’t think Hermione was hot – The worst crime of all. In that last Harry Potter film, the entire male cast is checking out Emma Watson for the entirety of the showing, even the teachers. But have a guess who was the only character who wasn’t seen mentally undressing her? That’s right – Dumbledore.