Globe and Mail turns celebrity photos slideshow into commentary on Quebec protests

The caption writer on the Globe and Mail's "Celebrity Photos of the Week" department has some trenchant political fun with the feature. Opening with a picture of the mass demonstrations still rocking Quebec, the writer notes "Thousands of Quebec students march through Montreal to protest university tuition fee hikes. Oh wait. Sorry about that, English Canada. You didn't come here to look at a bunch of self-centred, entitled people who don't know the value of a dollar and obviously crave attention. I don't know what I was thinking. You have no time for those kind of people."

Of course, the rest of the slideshow is of celebs holding fancy handbags flashing prosthetic dentistry attending red carpet events ("Cannes jury member Diane Kruger hits the Cannes red carpet last week in a dress that hardly resembles at all something Marie Antoinette would have worn") interspersed with protesters getting forcibly taken down and arrested in Montreal, creating an imaginary dialog with the celebs ("Zac, this is a bad person with misguided values. According to some, this Quebecker is no better than a Greek person who lost his job and isn't gracious enough to be pleased that his unemployment is helping Wall Street recover from the 2008 recession").

The Globe's celebrity photo caption-writer does this sort of thing regularly, but this is the best to date.

Celebrity Photos of the Week (Thanks, Emily!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: canada • Funny • inspired • media theory • politics • pq • protest • quebec • slebs

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Antinous / Moderator

Brilliant. Mainichi Shimbun used to have an English translator who made every article a pleasure to read. And then somebody ratted him out to the editors, he was fired, comments were closed for months and every translation was done by a robot programmed to maximize tedium. I wonder if this person will keep his/her job after this.
ElectroDruid

Chrome says: “This page has insecure content”.

I guess I’ll pass on all that insightful caption-based commentary, then.
- Susan Carley Oliver
  
  Chrome is just commenting on the self-esteem problems all those celebrities have. It shouldn’t affect you, unless of course you have body image issues.
- http://twitter.com/matcatastrophe mat catastrophe
  
  It’s their CSS
- eselqueso
  
  Paris Hilton may just be too slitty for Chrome.
- robuluz
  
  Were you planning on typing your credit card details in there somewhere?
- http://twitter.com/3lbFlax 3lbFlax
  
  Change the link from https to http and those warnings will melt away. All or many of the images on the page are being pulled in via http, which contributes to the 200 or so warnings Chrome generates.
  
  Since you’re using Chrome, you can check the errors by pressing F12 and then clicking the little yellow logo with an exclamation mark in the bottom right. You can do this without responding to the security warning. It’s boring reading, but it’ll show you what’s bothering the browser.
Susan Carley Oliver

Seriously, it’s one of the highlights of my week. Last week was all about the Eurovision contest: “Trackshittaz. That is the name of the band representing Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest: Trackshittaz. Furthermore, their song is called “Woki Mit Deim Popo.”"

WOKI MIT DEIM POPO, PEOPLE!!!
- 5alo
  
  Well, the song was about pole-dancing. The kind where men throw money at girls who take their clothes off.
  - ImmutableMichael
    
    Thanks for the explanation. I’ve spent a fortune watching women in traditional Polish costume folk dancing and wondered what all the fuss was about. Now I feel a little foolish.
http://twitter.com/matcatastrophe mat catastrophe

Um, the rest of the slideshow is *NOT* just celebrities.

Caption for 13 of 19:
Zac, this is a bad person with misguided values. According to some, this Quebecker is no better than a Greek person who lost his job and isn’t gracious enough to be pleased that his unemployment is helping Wall Street recover from the 2008 recession.
- Richard Dagenais
  
  Too much Twitter. You forgot to read past 144 characters.
  
  “the rest of the slideshow is of celebs holding fancy handbags” [...] ” interspersed with protesters getting forcibly taken down and arrested in Montreal, creating an imaginary dialog with the celebs”
robuluz

Truly awesome.
Shinkuhadoken

Mmm. I love the smell of fresh snark in the morning. Here’s to Quebec!