What's hot on the web - Part 4: Performances gone wrong

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:03:09 GMT

A lot of time has passed since our last What's hot on the web broadcast, so I bet you are already eager to see more. The series is doing quite well, but the time has come to do a bit of specialization. This part will be focused on weird (and therefore funny) performances from around the globe, turning into epic fail. Looks like some people think they are ready for the spotlight, but they aren’t. Youtube, you can make our day.

Model takes a tumble twice

I don’t know what's funnier about this one, the commentators who can't stop laughing or the model who does the boogie woogie. We all know fashion has it's price, but the price for this one is a new type of dance nobody can reproduce.

Staying on stage fail

If you have a public performance and you actually do choose to play on playback, make sure you stay on the stage. Otherwise, everybody will know what you're doing...

Ken Lee

This one already became a legend. A girl, performing at a Talents competition in Bulgaria wanted to sing Mariah Carey's Ken Lee, a song which nobody heard of. It turns out she got the lyrics of Without you a bit wrong, which is amusing the jury. Later on she tried to repeat the performance and do it again with the right lyrics, but the original version took the most applause. The extensions of this meme went so far that even Mariah herself made a comment about it.

Is Europe a country?

Stereotypes have it that Americans suck at geography and that blonds are a bit, well, you know... This one proves them right. In a show where people compete against fifth graders, this girl fails miserably when she thinks Europe is a country.

American educational system

On beauty contests, answers of the competitors are always a bit interesting. In this case, it looks like Miss South Carolina didn't quite understand what the question on American education was and she answers a totally different thing. Besides, even if she answered something, nobody knows what that was. A sad irony.

Exclusive nightclub fail

There are a lot of interesting moments on TV shows and quizes, so we won't even try to go through all of them. We’ve all seen The wheel of fortune, where people have to guess the right letters and words. The following competitor almost had it, but not quite. Check your spelling capabilities before you go playing a game like that.

Wrong price is right winner

Another cool quiz that produces a lot of awkward moments is Price is right. This one is twice funny. First, this woman makes a really stupid bet, putting her in a situation where she has almost no chance of winning. Besides, when the price is told, she thinks she actually won. Twice. Triple fail for that one.

Coconut breaking

People do all sorts of crazy shit to get noticed. Like this guy, who sets out to break a few coconuts with his hand. Hm, even before you see the footage you can tell this was a bad idea...

I hope these perfomances make you think before going public. Once it’s online, you’ll be marked forever.

Check out the complete What's hot on the web series.

Evolution of men and its representation in James Bond movies

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:11:18 GMT

If you didn’t notice, things have changed quite a lot in the past 50 years. The perception of the world changed and so did the people. One species that went through extremely significant metamorphosis is the human male. Once strong, rough and commanding, now cute, femininine and emotional. A term used more and more often for urban men is metrosexual, representing someone that looks a bit gay even though he is heterosexual, taking care of his looks and appearance.

The mass media and pop culture have been giving people representations of stereotypes since the dawn of television. People have been giving it back. It doesn’t matter who was more influential, the fact is that this evolution of society has been documented and can now be studied. In our case we will focus on a figure of a man. To make things easier, pop culture brought up a perfect case study, represented in a series of films about one perfect alpha male, detective James Bond.

Since Dr. No was filmed in 1962, the mentioned 50 years passed. In more than 20 films, James Bond was portrayed by different actors representing different ages. If you compare all the different looks and different behaviors of actors representing the same character, you can perhaps get a clearer picture on how the society of each time was perceiving a perfect male. Amongst other things, James Bond definitely got less hairy and more buff. You could say he’s not that handsome anymore, now he’s a bit beautiful.

Comparing Sean Connery and Daniel Craig we can wonder in which novel James Bond actually thought about shaving his armpits and waxing his chest. We can also wonder in which novel he’ll start to pluck his eyebrows and wear a bit of mascara. Perhaps he and his Bond girl can then do it while they are getting their legs waxed. It may seem far fetched, but cultural changes between consecutive Bonds are massive, so don’t get surprised when something like that happens.

Another important thing occurred in this feminization process - James Bond became a bit less charming. The old school acts and seduction methods the original used have been replaced by modern ones, quite boring and lame. A simple task of ordering a drink could once be made legendary, but now such things are loosing it’s appeal and look weird. Today it’s more important which telephone someone has and which brands he wears, because wits are not that appreciated anymore. All in accordance with the figure of a modern male, looking good with not much smart to say.

The way the future man will look is probably up to the women and their expectation of men. This will probably manifest in the form of which pop star they will idolize the most. Seeing the hysteria over that vampire guy, it looks like it’s futile to resist. The ultimate question, is James Bond imitating a stereotypical cool guy or is a stereotypical cool guy imitating James Bond was probably answered with that thought, so I might as well go put on some hair conditioner.

Stritar's chronolog