Insensitivity prevailed amongst Saskatoon’s bar scene on Nov. 10.
The biggest qualm some people have with Remembrance Day is that the holiday subtly glorifies war. However, Remembrance Day should never endorse partying either and it didn’t take me my moment of silence to figure that out.
Poppies, veterans, war, Jagger-bombs, Flanders Field and notions of heroism were the images fluttering through my mind as I took my moment of silence on Remembrance Day.
Hold on a second — how did something as silly as a Red Bull-diluted drink interrupt such a sombre series of thoughts? Through visions of tanks, exploding grenades and Vimy Ridge, I was unable to refrain from thinking of how repulsed I had become by the marketing tactics Saskatoon’s bar scene chose to employ to celebrate Remembrance Day.
As Remembrance Day fell on a Wednesday last week, that meant party time on Tuesday night for a lot of overworked, studied out, zombie university students. It’s all good — I even took some time to relax Tuesday night and had a few pints to take the edge off before I went back to studying the next day.
Here’s what really chaps my ass though; throughout the course of the day I kept hearing advertisements on the radio on campus about “Remembrance Day Eve” parties and social events that were happening that night at various clubs in Saskatoon. It felt wrong and filthy. Yuck, double yuck and no thanks.
I also get the argument, “If you don’t like it, don’t listen.” However, that’s kind of tough to do when such advertisements are reverberating through the halls of the Arts Building.
Fuzzy visions of unbearably disgusting bathrooms, bouncers who read at a fourth grade level, belligerent underage teenagers vomiting on themselves and dumb girls mouthing Lady Gaga songs all come to mind when thinking of night clubs. Such debauchery should not be associated with something as grave and saddening as Remembrance Day.
“How were the night clubs going to give their shout out to Remembrance Day?” I pondered.
Techno remixes of “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” poppy martini drink specials and best paper mache crane contests took over my train of thought in attempting to envision this situation. And the whole irony of the Remembrance Day celebration at a club is that the club’s patrons likely got too intoxicated to remember a damn thing the next day. So much for any notions of moments of silence — what a fucking circus!
None of these Remembrance Day-holiday-bar-marketing strategies make sense to me. Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, Canada Day — all these holidays are undoubtedly open game for drinking and major money makers for bars. Again, this is good stuff and in their defence, I even vaguely remember spending a few minutes in a certain club last Halloween, though only because I was in disguise.
The difference is that these happy-go-lucky holidays usually convey themes of celebration and merrymaking, unlike their sombre cousin Remembrance Day.
Remembrance Day has remained an innocent, untainted and pure holiday in the face of greedy capitalistic marketing throughout the years. And let me make one thing clear: I hate ads with a passion. With Christmas shopping fever soon to arrive, along with pressure to purchase gifts for people you don’t like, all of a sudden here come Saskatoon’s clubs ready to taint Remembrance Day’s reputation.
The only real industry that should profit on Remembrance Day should be the felt poppy industry — and even then, aren’t most of those funds put towards Veterans’ legions or other commemoratory purposes?
This brings me to the inevitable point that these night clubs are greedy and insensitive. As if they didn’t have enough boozers running around there on the weekend, they just had to get their soulless hands on Remembrance Day too. Knowing Wednesday was a day off for us college kids, they took advantage of Remembrance Day by taking advantage of our well-versed drinking habits.
I don’t blame any of my fellow peers for clouding their brains on Nov. 10, and in fact, I was even feeling a little groggy the following Remembrance Day morning from the pints I consumed the prior night. I do, however, blame drinking establishments for turning a respectable holiday like Remembrance Day into a silly, superficial soirée.
Remembrance Day doesn’t move me terribly, nor does my world revolve around it, but I am respectful towards the significance the holiday bears for older generations who may have lost family in past wars or experienced the terror of combat themselves.
It’s one thing to be thankful for the freedom we have in Canadian society on Remembrance Day — it’s another to be so thankful that dancing the night away on a speaker is acceptable because it’s Nov. 11 again. All I’m trying to say is, as far as gratitude can go, there’s a difference between solemn thankfulness and celebratory thankfulness.
The desperate attempts on behalf of bars to associate Remembrance Day with glee in order to intoxicate the masses are downright deplorable. And if students were going to consume alcohol on Nov. 10, it’s because of a day off from school, not because we have an urge to celebrate “Remembrance Day Eve.”
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photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brenderous/