The Martlet

Every Feb. 14, we’re inundated with pink decorations, boxes of chocolates and bouqets of flowers. It’s a time of romantic dinners, stressed-out boyfriends and exchanges of frilly, colourful cards. But not everyone likes the holiday of love.

It prompts the question: is Valentine’s Day awesome or lame?

Mikale:

Pink and red, red and pink. Relationship or not, who isn’t a little bitter when it comes to V-Day?

We’ve all heard it before: Valentine’s Day is a fake holiday made up by Hallmark, candy companies, diamond brokers and flower peddlers to trick consumers, put pressure on boyfriends and make the couple-less lonely, yadda yadda yadda.

Then there’s the old standby, “why do you need Feb. 14 to say I love you? In a healthy relationship, every day is Valentine’s Day. Who even needs a holiday to be romantic?” Barf.

While this is all true, the pressure people feel as a result of Feb. 14 reflects something much more sinister and insidious than simply dinner plans and expensive chocolates. Although it may have good intentions, Valentine’s Day reiterates gender and social scripts that rarely reflect the realities of most people’s lives. It bases your self-worth on your success at having a monogamous, heterosexual relationship, and dangerously continues to reinforce the so-called “normal” ideal.

Are you gay or happily self-reliant and single? According to Cupid, it may be time to reassess your situation. Besides, public displays of affection (PDAs) make me ill.

Samantha:

You word those classic arguments well: “yadda yadda yadda.” Aren’t we bored of hearing that Valentine’s Day is a consumerist invention, a symbol of cliché and, more profoundly, a reinforcement of the hetero-normative society? Let me reframe it for you: Valentine’s Day is a day dedicated to love. Pure and simple.

Really, every day should be dedicated to love, but come on. Who doesn’t find themselves wishing speeding tickets upon the dickhead who cut them off, or vainly hoping their enemies would spontaneously combust.

Even with our loved ones, we judge and argue and play merry-go-round in ridiculous power games. Or we get so tangled in work or study that we forget to look up and actually acknowledge the people who are important in our lives.

So let’s put aside time this Saturday to share our appreciation for ourselves and each other. Why not? Flowers and chocolates can be nice – the idea is to treat another person to something beautiful or tasty. I also suggest massages, or walks outside, or just genuine good listening. Obviously going through the motions is boring and meaningless. So why would you choose to do it?

Plus – pink and red are underrepresented colours in our society (pink especially).

Mikale:

“Reframing” V-Day is a nice theory, so long as you’re able to ignore the mass advertising, TV specials, and cut-out construction paper hearts that hang from every store window. These all continually reiterate the same message: romantic love is the foundation of Valentine’s Day. Pretending it is merely a day to let all the love flow is at best idealistic, at worst potentially oppressive.

So why not just re-contextualize the day and make it your own? Well, in a holiday that is loaded with such hype, debate and expectation, is it even possible to celebrate in an unrehearsed, free and authentic way?

The fact is, Feb. 14 is only marketed to a privileged few and loaded with over-the-top-cheese, rituals, requirements, pressures and, like all built-up events, disappointments. Date disappointments, representation disappointments, financial disappointments, single-dom and relationship disappointments.

It sneakily uses the “love cover” to subconsciously remind people of their otherness from mass society.

Call me bitter, but it might be for a good reason.

Samantha:

Reframing isn’t theory, it’s common practice. Check it out:

The annual One Heart Valentine’s Day Dance is an all-ages community-centered affair with everyone from the age of two to 92. On campus, the interfaith centre is hosting a workshop about the universal practice of Healing Touch. Afterwards, the Farquhar Auditorium will be packed for The Banquet of Love (on the cover of Focus Magazine), which is about peace, love and Black History.

Across the city, those who have lost their loved ones will be marching for Stolen Sisters, an awareness campaign honouring missing and murdered Aboriginal women across Canada. And on Saturday night, the Women’s Sexual Assault Centre begins training its new volunteer response team. That’s just a piece of the action.

Those passé Valentine’s Day ideals that trigger your nausea are only successfully mass-marketed to the people who still believe in them. Pretending you don’t have the power to change to way you see the world, or to change the way others see the world, is what is oppressive at worst (and pessimistic at best).

This year, the V-Day “hype” is about anti-oppression. It’s not hard to be a part of it — start by turning off your TV and ditching the mall.