Considering the petition to ban Kanye West from performing at the Pan Am Games’ closing ceremonies, do you think that Kanye deserves the negative attention that he often receives?
“From a professional view, no certainly not, but from an entertainment point of view, I can see how he sparks a lot of conversation… his behavior has obviously been controversial.”
— Ewan Farrelly, English
“I can definitely understand why he receives that kind of attention. There have been a few significant events that have brought about a negative response, so I think it justifies the attention, but I don’t know if it justifies them asking him not to come.”
— Ayesha Bery, Mathematics
“I can see where the petitioners were coming from… Canadian talent would have been nice to see, and I’m not sure if Kanye fit in with the Pan Am vibes. If it were perhaps a different event or different ceremony maybe it would have made more sense, because as a performer I think he’s entertaining and makes great music.”
— Victoria Ivchenko, Sociology
“I don’t think so. There’s no particular reason why someone should say no to him [performing], because he’s not very negative — aside from what he did with Taylor Swift — and there’s nothing particularly bad about what he might have said or done that would make him warrant that kind of attention.”
— Noel Ariyaratanm, Canadian studies
“Probably not. I can see why that kind of attention was garnered, but I think that a lot of the anxiety and anger directed towards him was perhaps misunderstood from the people projecting it. There may have been some concern that he would deflect attention from the excellence of the athletes, but I think that people were already angry about the games being here in the first place, so they used him as an opportunity to escalate this anger.”
— John Bray, Masters of workplace living and social change
“I think he had every right to perform at the closing ceremonies for the Pan Am Games… regardless of the location of the host city, the games themselves are meant to encourage competition and cooperation between the Americas, and the closing ceremonies consisted of a performer from Canada, from America, and from South America… I understand why the petition was started, I just don’t agree with the premise of banning Kanye from performing.”
— Andrei Dumascu, Political science
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