Good news from Ontario health minister George Smitherman yesterday. Looks like OHIP could be changing to cover sex reassignment surgery. This from Xtra:

Helma Seidl is a counsellor who helps people prepare for their transitions.

“There are lots of people who are very happy once they transition, who don’t want this surgery,” says Seidl. “But there are lots of people who waited because they don’t have the money — $16,000 per surgery or more. If we have it paid by they government, that will open up the opportunity to a lot of people.”

There are some details that need to be worked out before the coverage is a reality, but all and all a step in the right direction. Read the details here.

So it’s no secret that I really hate that Canadian Club ad and have from the start. It’s also pretty clear that I’m not alone.

Good news is, there are some fantastic bloggers on the interwebs who turned their distaste for this ad into something fantastic and subversive. Michelle Schwartz has a great critique of the campaign:

Apparently, the only people invited to the Canadian Club Club are White Males, Ages 18-30, women and people of color need not apply. It’s not that surprising to me that a company is aiming at that small demographic, but the way they’re doing it is truly offensive. Basically, they are appealing to men who miss the days (whether or not they were born yet) of grabbing the asses of their secretaries, playing a few rounds at the all-white private golf club, and then going home to their wives, the happy homemakers who would mix them drinks, cook them dinner, and wait on them hand and foot. None of this women’s lib, civil rights, limp-wristed liberal bullshit that men are expected to follow these days. No, let’s go back to the days of rampant sexual harassment, before women could expect to be seen as equals and before the gays turned all those masculine men into pansies with waxed eyebrows. Let’s return to the days when men were men. Please.

Her thoughts are accompanied by some of her own (feminist) spoof ads that kick the campaign in the ass. There’s a whole series of them that include “Your Mom Wasn’t a Stepford” and “Your Mom Played Sports.” My fave? “Your Mom Had Groupies.”

As part of the project, Stark brings us this fantastic gem:

Thanks to Michele for alerting us to her great project!

This year, Shameless Magazine is a proud sponsor of Inside Out’s Queer Youth Digital Video project. In the days leading up to the Inside Out festival, Shameless will be posting trailers of some of the films on offer at the festival that may be of interest to our readers.

On Saturday May 17 at 1:00 p.m. Inside Out brings a children’s television classic to a whole new generation with the free family screening of Free to Be … You & Me.

Free to Be… You and Me is a record album and illustrated songbook for children, first released in November 1972, and later in 1974 as a television special, featuring songs and stories from celebrities. Using poetry, songs, and sketches, the basic concept was to salute values such as individuality, tolerance, and happiness with one’s identity; a major thematic message is that anyone, whether a boy or a girl, can achieve anything one wants.

Torontoist’s Johnnie Walker has a great piece on the Canadian Club campaign and its obvious homophobic overtones:

It’s also hard not to view the campaign as somewhat homophobic. The “YOUR DAD WAS NOT A METROSEXUAL” ad seems to basically say, “your Dad wasn’t a gay, but you probably are if you don’t buy Canadian Club.” Guess what, Canadian Club? Most of our Dads aren’t gay. This is not news. One would hope that our Dads’ likely heterosexuality is not the most interesting thing about them.

The comments section is packed with your usual “calm down” and “relax, it’s only an ad” offerings, but also some fantastic spoofs, like this one.

For Shameless discussions on Canadian Club, click here and here.

Dove’s still keepin’ it real, and by real I mean an unrealistic, retouched kind of real.

Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ Pics Could Be Big Phonies?

In a May 12 profile in The New Yorker posted online, Pascal Dangin of New York’s Box Studios is quoted as saying he extensively retouched photos used in the Campaign for Real Beauty, which, if true, could seriously undermine an effort that already has subjected Unilever to considerable consumer and activist backlash in recent months.

The best quote of all?

“I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual ‘real women’ in their undergarments,” wrote Lauren Collins in the New Yorker article. “It turned out that it was a Dangin job. ‘Do you know how much retouching was on that?’ he asked. ‘But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.’”

This comes after Dove has maintained there was no retouching done to the images. Their response is that Pascal Dangin is a liar.

The Shameless Blog has talked extensively about the controversy behind this campaign, namely the hypocrisy of an “accept yourself as you are” and “beware unrealistic marketing” ad hook produced by the same company that brings us female sex slave imagery. Again, it seems that accepting yourself the way you are still involves a lot of retouching.

“No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.” Um, yah.

May 15-25 marks the 18th annual Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival.

This year, Shameless Magazine is a proud sponsor of The Queer Youth Digital Video Project, a series of workshops by Inside Out and Charles Street Video that teaches young people everything from development to editing to final post-production all in a queer-positive environment. Initiated in 1998, the Queer Youth Digital Video Project chooses a small group of youth to make a short video for the Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival. The final videos are premiered at the Inside Out Festival in May.

Nine talented, enthusiastic young people with something to say have spent the winter learning the A to Zs of no-budget filmmaking. Each participant brings style, humour, creativity and a unique perspective to the screen in this stellar series of short videos. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Project, several of Toronto’s best and brightest film and video makers showed their support by acting as mentors for these up-and-coming artists throughout the process. Proudly co-presented for a decade by Inside Out and Charles Street Video, this program is at the heart of the queer Canadian film community!

In the days leading up to the Inside Out festival, Shameless will be posting trailers of some of the films on offer at the festival that may be of interest to our readers. First up is Waterlillies (France, 2007), Céline Sciamma’s impressive feature debut: a raw, darkly funny story of three teenage girls taking their first awkward steps into an adult world. Catch it Monday, May 19 at 7:30pm at the ROM.

The Big Book of Pop Culture: A How-To Guide for Young Artists
Hal Niedzviecki
Illustrated by Marc Ngui
(Annick Press)

With this book, Broken Pencil Magazine publisher and fiction editor Hal Niedzviecki has created a thorough, informative and easy-to-use guide to why indie matters. Specifically geared to young people poised to make change, this fun foray into all things independent lets readers know exactly how they can (and why they should) make their own culture in an increasingly corporate world. This book features all the dirt on DIY, inviting readers to use modern media to make zines, comics, websites, movies, music and more.

As informative as it is entertaining, the book features interviews with young culture-makers, the dos and don’ts of DIY, resources and realistic how-tos. It’s a must read for anyone ready to make their own mark on our cultural landscape.

Come and say hello to Shameless at the Toronto Small Press Book Fair!

Spring 2008 Toronto Small Press Book Fair
Sat Jun 07, 2008/ 11am - 5pm — free!
The Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre (750 Spadina Ave)
More info: torontosmallpressbookfair.org

Shameless magazine is a feminist magazine for teenage girls. So we have to ask the question: what is life like for feminist teenage girls?

Well, for one thing, high school is depressing.

(Via Feministing.)