Culture

Went to buy a card the other day for a friend’s birthday. Approached the vast card stand along the side of the wall (why are card rows ALWAYS against a wall?) and found the selection on offer was (c)ardly very good.

Cards typically go one of two ways. Both were pretty evident in this newsagency. There’s the “this is your age in fluoro writing! Congratulations!” genre. They’re fine. Nobody has a problem with them. They’re simple and to the point, a little bland for a good friend though. And then there’s the “dirty joke combined with crude stereotype” card.

They are everything that is wrong with the card business. Many makers of these pieces of cardboard at the heart of our present-giving tradition figure that everyone, male or female, fits neatly into a gender stereotype. For instance, if you’re a bloke, Hallmark and co. assume that your mate Jimmy Jones would love a card with a a beer, a sports-car, an electric guitar or a hot cardboard sheila on the front.

Continue reading "A crude stereotype is the hallmark of a lame card" »

Brisbane songwriter maestro Robert Forster fell into an old but reliable trap last month when he used Bruce Springsteen as a contrast at the beginning of a brilliant critique of the Dirty Three’s latest opus Toward the Low Sun.

After listing four song titles from Springsteen’s show-stopper record, Wrecking Ball, Forster says the names of the tunes give away the whole disc as a dud. “...these song titles, shop-worn and spare even by Springsteen’s standards, offer little encouragement to listen to an album that seems to be stuck in old ground,” he wrote in The Monthly.

Never judge a book by its cover, our betters told us when we were young and learning. Never a truer word, as they say in the backstreet bars of any town with a musical heart.

Continue reading "A complete course in modern culture in one album" »

The recent resurfacing of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda, or the “Kill the Gays” Bill as it is notoriously referred to, has been a timely reminder of how homophobia remains a threat to human dignity. So how do sexuality, national politics and human rights align?

In numerous places around the world, homosexuality remains a site of intense political and social anxiety. Despite sexual orientation becoming a valid focus of international human rights law, over 80 countries around the world continue to criminalise homosexuality.

Uganda is now reconsidering legislation that would enhance the criminal penalties that already exist for people who engage consensual same-sex relationships. This may also include the death penalty for offences that are deemed to be of an “aggravated” nature.

Continue reading "Homophobia is the hate that dares speak its name" »

Robert Redford was born in Santa Monica, California. Burt Lancaster was born in East Harlem, New York. There the similarities end.

Redford claims to be a facilitator of alternative artistic dreams and talent. Lancaster genuinely was. Redford can’t act. Lancaster could.

Redford has never risked playing characters that make him look malevolent or wrongfooted or unpleasant. Lancaster often played characters without redemptive traits. In 1961, with the war still close to many damaged hearts, he played a Nazi war criminal jurist in “Judgment in Nuremburg”.

Continue reading "Over-rated Redford and the Sundance kidding" »

Someone had to pay for disco. Nile Rodgers took the bullet in late 1979 when it finally became official: disco sucked.

Rodgers was co—founder, with Bernard Edwards, of the band Chic. Rodgers played guitar and Edwards, now deceased, the bass.

They were more of production team than a true band, putting changing voices in front of their music to produce late 70s hits such as “We Are Family”, “Le Freak” and “Good Times.”

Continue reading "Disco: When music made straight for your groin" »

This column is the first of a monthly series we’ll be running on what’s happening in China from a political, social, environmental, music and arts perspective. If you’d like to contribute to the series, know of some great links, websites, magazines, contacts or just harbor a passion for China, feel free to drop me a line: lucy@thepunch.com.au.

Today in China there are approximately 123,509,752 children under 14 years of age. By the end of this year, 20 million others will be born.

Thanks to the one-child policy, 70 per cent of these children will go through life without a sibling. The average Chinese parent will spend up to two-fifths of their yearly income to educate them.

By 2040, this generation will form part of a minority: the workforce of a country that has grown old before reaching its full economic potential. Here’s how they’re growing up.

Continue reading "ChinaWatch: Growing up in a brewing social disaster" »

I was walking down the street yesterday, minding my own business when a young gentleman passed me wearing a Bintang singlet and a Power Balance bracelet. After I had controlled the urge to run after him and demand that he impregnate me IMMEDIATELY, I got to thinking about those all important visual cues that can help you avoid making contact with a douche bag.

Sure it’s shallow and we’re taught as young children that we should never judge a book by it’s cover, but here’s the reality. I do judge a book by its cover. All the time.

I do the same with wine. As a result I’m rarely reading Shakespeare or drinking anything that remotely resembles Grange, but when it comes to douche bags I do think there are a few reliable indicators that can help you avoid a potentially underwhelming encounter with an idiot.

Continue reading "Ten great ways to pick out and avoid douche bags" »

Have you seen this advertising campaign for the Art Series Hotels?  As reported in The Australian, it encourages people to come and stay the night in one of the three Art hotels (The Cullen, Olsen and Blackman) all based in Melbourne. 

If you see the piece of art by Banksy, (it’s valued at over $15,000) on the walls you can steal it.  If you manage to get away with it you get to keep it.  If you get caught then back on the wall it goes. The promotions aim is to encourage people to stay at the hotel over summer by offering them the chance to be in their very own art heist, and so far has been extremely popular. 
There are good reasons why, but before I get into that I have to disclose it was our agency that helped develop this scheme.

Offering people the chance to steal, is like offering people the chance to cheat, lie, covet thy neighbours wife, eat a whole tub of ice cream, or a litany of other sins.  These are all things we know we should not indulge in, but for what ever reasons at times, have a strong desire to do.  In forensic psychology there is a well-established saying ‘bad men do what good men dream’. That is, we all have the impulses to act in anti-social ways, however, most of us have learned how to manage such urges, and not act on them.  We have realized that acting on these urges will often lead to hurting someone, or ourselves – hence we suppress that which we know we should not do. 

Continue reading "I don’t know about art, but I might steal this" »

What’s Australia like? A sizeable question, but a young Argentine student who has returned home to Buenos Aires after a year in Australia has given his report: he was so lulled into contentment that he felt he had to leave.

Carlos Miceli, 24, had planned to study in Australia for three years but pulled up stumps two years early. He expresses deep affection for the people and place but found a country with too many rules and too little to engage the socially or intellectually curious.

His views, recently posted on his website, will cause some people to say: “Then don’t come back.” That would prove his point.

Continue reading "Don’t cry for me Australia. Truth is, I’m glad I left you" »

Twenty years after his death, Clairvius Narcisse, a zombie from Haiti, stood staring down at his own tombstone.

The inscription was faded and barely legible. Narcisse was showing his grave to Harvard-trained Canadian anthropologist and ethno-botanist, Wade Davis, whose key interest is the relationship between psychoactive plants and humans.

On April 30, 1962, Narcisse, then aged about 40, had presented at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles, Haiti. He was spitting blood and was running a fever. Three days later, he died. The day after that, he was buried under a heavy concrete slab.

Continue reading "A walking, talking, real-life zombie from Haiti" »

Driving home last night the ute in front of me – Green P plater – had the following bumper sticker emblazoned across the back panel: If you don’t speak English, don’t dribble shit to me.

Delightful, eh?  As he veered right and I drove on, I looked through the window and gave him a look that said ‘you’re a dickhead’ (but not so much so that he might come beat me up).  My look however, was met with something of a surprise: the guy – a young, beefy tradesman-type was Asian. 

Which frankly, left me a little confused.  Leaving aside the apparent inconsistency of lauding ‘proper’ language on the one hand and berating the dribbling of shit on the other, wasn’t the bumper sticker anti-immigration?  Haven’t Asian migrants to Australia historically borne the brunt of anti-immigration sentiment (only to be replaced relatively recently by refugees and boat people)?  So how could an Asian person be anti-immigration?

Continue reading "Australia’s way of life does not need protecting" »

As White Ribbon Day comes around again on November 25, I’m wondering what it actually does to address a culture that celebrates – indeed eroticises – violence against women.

Sure, men buy white ribbons. They attend events where they eat sausages and swear not to hurt women. They raise money (none of which goes into services supporting survivors of violence).

Of course it’s good that men stand up and pledge not to be violent and put white ribbons on their shirt collars. We need men to be engaged in the issue. But since the inception of White Ribbon Day, violence against women and children has continued unabated. And the culture that helps to makes violence against women permissible, even something to be celebrated, remains unaddressed.

Continue reading "Violence against women is endemic to our sick culture" »

There’s nothing like a leaky boat full of traumatised asylum seekers to spark fear and loathing in Australia.

Why is that?

Today’s news reveals that there are 13 times as many visa overstayers in Australia as there are asylum seekers in detention, but people arriving by planes – who are mostly Chinese, American, British or Malaysian - just don’t trigger the same gut reaction.

Continue reading "Stop the planes!" »

That’s it. I am done with fashion magazines. Officially. I am never buying one, or reading one … or even nonchalantly flicking through the pages of one in my dentist’s office again. Ever. Again.

Since my teens I have bought women’s fashion magazines off and on. The frequency dropped off as I got older but I would still occasionally buy one on impulse, sucked in by the glossy pages, the surreal photo of that actress I like on the cover and the promise of a few hours of mindless engagement with fashion, celebrity and perhaps even a decent article or two. 

However, every time, from the first page to the back cover, I would travel a well-worn path through the six stages of fashion magazine consumption:

Continue reading "Real women don’t wear white silk jumpsuits" »

Cradle snatcher. Toy boy. Cougar. Child bride. Teen bride. Paedophile.

How old is too old, how young too young? We may have a visceral revulsion when we witness a large age gap in a relationship, but when does it go from odd to deeply wrong, sick – when should it be illegal? And what can we do about it?

The Daily Telegraph reports that more than 200 17-year-old girls and hundreds of 18, 19 and 20-year-olds have been granted prospective spouse visas to marry older – in some cases much older – men here in Australia.

Continue reading "Culture and religion are no excuse for child brides" »

On the first Tuesday of November, around three-ish, every fair-dinkum Australian gathers round for “The Race That Stops the Nation”. They show it in pubs, clubs, old-folks homes and school class-rooms. TABs fill up with people who couldn’t tell you the difference between a trifecta and a trilby, having their one bet for the year.

Suddenly you find yourself surrounded by racing experts who know all about form, breeding, lead-ups and how the raiders can’t handle the hard Aussie tracks.

In workplaces right around the country, people chuck in for $2 sweeps and agonise about drawing the 200-1 outsider with a name they can’t pronounce. And right around the country, in every state bar Victoria, work shuts down at 12.

Continue reading "Make Melbourne Cup Day a national public holiday" »

Remove romantic love from the concept of marriage and what are you left with? A partnership, long-term companionship, shared living and financial arrangements, the promise of a family - or a domestic horror story? 

For the 16-year-old Lebanese Australian girl who successfully took her parents to court last month to protect herself from a forced marriage, it’s definitely the latter. The Sydney judge presiding over her case agreed, and praised her bravery in defying her parents’ decision.

Unfortunately this story is not uncommon. Forced or servile marriage arrangements have reared their ugly heads in many Australian communities of late. Take the last year. A 14 year old Melbourne girl and a 17 year old Sydney girl. Both contacted the AFP in desperation, fearing their family’s plans to force then into marriage overseas.

Continue reading "You’ll marry who I tell you to marry, young lady!" »

I was never really an AFL fan.  Until last year’s final I was not able to confirm with confidence if, when a ball struck the outer post, it counted as a point or not.  Yet I was surprised that the Grand Final tie did not produce as much buzz or excitement around town as I would have expected. 

The city should have been brimming with football fever during the week’s interlude between matches, but instead I found most talk of ‘footy’ sneered at as almost an embarrassing interruption to the weekend.  Though I might not have been much of a fan, I always had time for the role AFL played in the city’s spirit. 

Thus, almost in defence of the game’s apparent decline in popularity, I feel obliged to pay homage to this most definitive affirmation of Melbourne’s identity.

Continue reading "There’s nothing more Melbourne than AFL" »

Interesting story on the Courier Mail today via mX magazine. A “culture expert”, whatever that is, says that the rest of the world sees Australia as a dumb blonde.

The woman’s name is Patti McCarthy and her somewhat pretentious job title is “Director of Cultural Chemistry” at a company who helps overseas businesses understand Australia’s nuances. But she makes a telling point.

“A lot of people expect us to be [a dumb blonde country] because of our laid-back nature, Neighbours and Ugg boots,” McCarthy told mX.

Continue reading "Friday dilemma: Is Australia really a dumm blonde?" »

They’re calling it the “mother of all mega malls”. Frank Lowy’s Stratford Westfield; home to seven miles of shop windows, 300 outlets, 70 restaurants, 5,000 car spaces and 50, 000 lights.

Sounds like hell. But you’d check it out, you know you would. People love to shop.

Fast, convenient and completely mind-numbing. Shopping has become the ultimate lifestyle activity; shopping malls the modern equivalent of the town square.

Continue reading "Plastic wastelands; the mall the merrier" »

When this new picture for my column (headshot) was emailed to me, I zoomed in. And zoomed in again.

What do you reckon I saw? Smart top? Nice jeans? Fab blow-dry? Nope. I saw lines. Big parenthesis-shaped ones running Jack Nicholson Joker-style from my nose to my chin. You didn’t notice? You do now.

Apparently, they’re called nasolabial folds and are caused by ageing and laughing – which is unfortunate because, short of sticking myself in the deep freeze or being perpetually glum, they’re only going to get worse.

Continue reading "Reading between the furrowed lines" »

Is it time for our libraries to get loud? For background music to joyfully sing out from loudspeakers while members flip through their favourite sections of their local institutions?

For mums to discuss bedtime books for their children over a well made latte (yep, you guessed it, with the sound of a library cafe’s coffee machine hissing along with their conversation).

For book club discussions to rise and fall with the passion of the group, for students’ laughter and cookie munching to be heard at study tables and whole conversations to be voiced within the libraries’ venerated walls.

Continue reading "Turn up the volume on libraries" »

It was not until I recently heard an art historian visiting Australia to talk about Guernica – the iconic anti-war painting by Pablo Picasso – that I connected the dots of why the 9/11 attacks had such a penetrating impact on the global community.

Art historian Professor Timothy J Clark was explaining in a Sydney Ideas lecture why Picasso’s depiction of the world’s first terrorist air-raid continues to have political currency in the post-9/11 era, despite the existence of more “real” forms of media than existed in 1937.

Clark said that in essence Picasso managed to communicate what it is really like to be bombed. He told me after the speech that “Guernica wouldn’t have its continuing political relevance if it didn’t somehow manage to wrench the material reality of suffering out of that black and white virtual world”.

Continue reading "Cool heads are needed when horror is writ large" »

We’ve all read the headlines: “A disastrous weekend at the box office as Australian films fail dismally”.

The idea we don’t like our own movies has become so prevalent it was the subject of a panel discussion at the recent Mumbrella360 conference. 

Despite being an advertising nerd who’s never marketed a film in my life, I found myself sitting beside film-makers, an executive from Screen Australia, and a distributor, discussing the topic “What needs to be done to persuade Australian filmgoers to watch Australian films?”

Continue reading "How to turn a profit from Aussie film flops" »

Imagine if the construction workers union, the CFMEU, issued a statement calling for Maoris and Islanders to be banned from working in the building industry. Or if the white-collar Australian Services Union demanded an end to all those pesky Indians stealing our jobs in IT.

They would be howled down as racist protectionists, accused of taking the nation back to the dark days of the White Australia Policy, offending the principles of inclusion and diversity by denying people from other countries a chance to settle and work here.

It might be 2011 but the actors and journalists’ union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, has this week launched a campaign which is the artistic equivalent of legislating to keep the kanaks off the canefields in the early 20th century.

Continue reading "Aussie actors unite - we grew here you flew here" »

We parents do it tough these days. Seems there’s no aspect of child rearing which doesn’t attract a “tssk tssk” from some know-it-all with a bunch of letters after their name. But we’re about to have the last laugh, thanks to a brilliant new book.

Go the F—k to Sleep hasn’t even been released yet, but has soared to number one on Amazon based purely on pre-orders. It’s no biggie why. The book taps into the belief that our children are mollycoddled to death – something many of us feel, but dare not speaketh lest we break the delicate eggshell of acceptable modern parenting.

As the book’s title alludes, sometimes enough is enough. When the bed has been tucked, bedtime stories read and lullabies sung, it’s over. It’s time to go the f—k to sleep and give mummy and daddy some mummy and daddy time. And there’s plenty more mummy and daddy would like to say too…

Continue reading "“Go the f—k to sleep”. What parents really want to say…" »

Koreans make it salty, Mexicans like it spicy and Thais do an easily-digestible, boiled rice-style soup.

The British inhale beans on toast, a full English breakfast (hold the sausage, thanks) or a deliciously greasy bacon buttie;  the Turks, a generous plate of organ meat. Organ meat? Yes, really, organ meat.

Personally, it’s a toss up between peanut butter on toast, or a packet of plain Smiths crinkle cut chips. It must be crinkle cut. All washed down with a gallon of soda water and several peppermint teas.  Coffee is an absolute no, no and hair of the dog is acceptable from about midday.

We’ve shared a few more of our faves below. Please add yours in too. There are mornings when we’ll need to try them, believe us!

Continue reading "Pass the bacon milkshake: our foolproof hangover cures" »

As soon as a mainstream, watermelon-wearing, faux lesbian-curious, pop starlet with abysmal spelling declared her vacant-eyed love for Chris Lilley, you knew he was in trouble.

Not only did Katy Perry go all schoolgirl-giggly on Lilley at the Logies, but last night she tweeted her mad enthusiasm for him before the start of his new show, Angry Boys.

As did a colossal number of semi-literate Twits, making Angry Boys the top trender in Australia before the show even began. And it hit the top worldwide once it started. For Twitnoramuses, that means it was the most talked about subject IN THE WORLD (forgive caps) on Twitter.

Continue reading "Lilley’s old stuff’s (much) better than his new stuff" »

The ABC mini-mini-series Paper Giants has been a great hit. Funky footage blended with some brilliant performances, fabulous frocks, and an intriguing behind-the-scenes look at the creation of women’s mag, Cleo. On a smaller scale, it did for the magazine industry what Mad Men did for the advertising industry.

Here at The Punch, it made us wonder: What’s next? What else could benefit from this historical dramatisation?

The ABC is reportedly looking at other Cleo-related or Packer family-related options - but we reckon there’s much broader scope in the genre. Anyway, see below for our thoughts on Paper Giants, and share your own thoughts below.

Continue reading "What should get the Paper Giants treatment next?" »

A radio host the other day was discussing the iPod-full of Australian artists that our Prime Minister gave to Barack Obama. Reviewing the collection of songs - which included Midnight Oil - he claimed it proved “political correctness has gone mad’.

(Glenn Beck on political correctness gone mad)

These sentiments were echoed in The Punch the other morning when Kevin Donnelly warned us that the proposed national curriculum was much too ‘politically correct’. The entire curriculum, Donnelly argued, is overwhelmed by politically correct messages and ignores Christianity.

Feeling under siege by political correctness I decided to do something about it: I called a Muslim friend and made some jokes about her cultural background. I figured it was OK, because some of my best friends are Muslim.

Continue reading "Economic correctness - the new political laziness?" »

Last week was a historic moment for multicultural Australians, a day for which we have waited and fought for five years. When migrants were targeted in the last elections and when some Australian voices joined the chorus of multicultural indictment in Europe, we despaired and thought the day would never arrive.

Last week in Sydney, Minister Chris Bowen announced that Australia has a new Multicultural Policy.

Australia’s last national multicultural policy expired in 2006.  The lack of a national government affirmation of Australia’s multicultural reality has allowed divisive and racist voices to gain legitimacy. The statements of European leaders, which in actual fact spoke more about the failure of their own vision, seemed to fuel abhorrent sentiments in our country.

Continue reading "Multiculturalism has never been a dirty word" »

Cricket is the new footy. That’s the implicit message from Cricket Australia, who yesterday expanded the Big Bash state Twenty20 competition to eight teams, including two each from Sydney and Melbourne.

Traditionalists, of course, are spitting the kind of bland old-fashioned flavourless chips they always spit when anything changes in their goldfish bowl.

But they can no more stem the tide of Twenty20 cricket than they can force people to the opera en masse instead of to the iTunes store to buy the latest Lady Gaga “song”. And that’s not agenda pushing. That’s fact.

Continue reading "Three cheers for cricket people actually want to watch" »

There’s a big event on today awash with celebs, skimpily-dressed WAGs and meatheads who get sweaty for a living.

I speak not of the Allan Border Medal, that self-congratulatory wankfest, aka the poor man’s Brownlow, where Shane Watson will again be recognised as the only bloke in Australia who can play cricket.

I’m talking about the Super Bowl, which starts at 10am today eastern time and goes for, oh, I don’t know, about a day or so.

Continue reading "It ain’t called the Super Bowl ‘cos the portions are small" »

The world’s unlikeliest cricket club touched down in Australia yesterday. And boy, do they have a timely reminder for us all.

The Compton Cricket Club is a group of reformed gangsters from the infamous violent South Central Los Angeles neighbourhood. I wrote about these guys for The Punch last September when four of them made a flying visit out here to raise awareness and funds for the current tour. Mission accomplished.

Self-described “ambassadors of peace and goodwill”, the Compton cricketers long ago turned their back on the wildly egotistical, chest-beating American sports culture which has rapidly become inseparable from the wildly egotistical, chest-beating global sports culture.

Continue reading "Bravado and “me, me, me” are destroying modern sport" »

Seen at the local pool: two bikini-clad girls – around 14 - simulating a sex act in the toddler pool, then pole dancing under the toadstool fountain while their delighted boyfriends recorded (and possibly distributed) the footage on their mobile phones. 

It wouldn’t have happened back in the day, and that’s not just because we didn’t have the technology for it. 

Am I wearing rose-coloured glasses, or were most early-teen girls in the 80s too scared of the Grim Reaper, and just too generally innocent, to put much more than a toe in the water (with a boy or a girl) - let alone cavort around in it in broad daylight like amateur porn stars, then plaster the evidence as far and wide as technology would allow (which wasn’t very far).

Continue reading "Parents play role in raunch culture" »

This is the fourth in a series of essays adapted from the Centre for Policy Development book, More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. Australian culture is rich, deep and diverse and our new federal cultural policy should recognise this, writes Ben Eltham.

Australia has been promised a new cultural policy by the Gillard Government, due sometime in 2011. What is a cultural policy and why do we need one?

Cultural policy is not often treated as an important public affairs issue. But culture touches on many of the things that Australians do, see, hear and engage with everyday. Watching television, reading a newspaper, playing a computer game, updating your Facebook status, sending a tweet, going to a bar to see comedy, even things like gardening and cooking: all of these activities are explicitly cultural.

Continue reading "Putting Australian culture under the microscope" »

In so many ways it looks familiar. Players lining up for their turn to lead, mark the ball, and pass to their team mate leading in the opposite direction. It is the quintessential footy drill.

But with the familiarity comes two big differences. First, despite this being Australian Rules we were not in Australia. And second, every sprinting player left a cloud of dust rising in his wake.

Nauru is a footy mad nation and the Linkbelt Oval is its home of footy. It is the MCG. It may also be the most unique ground in the world of AFL. It is not a field of grass. Rather, footy is played on soft phosphate looking dirt which sits upon a base of coral rock.

Continue reading "The power of sport to cross cultural divides" »

The third cricket Test starts today. But whether Australia recovers, England continues to stomp its foot on our throat, or a huge meteorite crashes into the WACA, there’s really only one sports story in town.

It’s a story which has spilled well beyond the sports pages, and it shoots off in an exciting new direction each week, enlivening an otherwise flat sporting summer.

The story is of course Shane Warne.

Continue reading "Summer of Shane" »

Hello England. You’re that island (or portion thereof) adrift in the North Sea somewhere near, gee I dunno, Iceland or something right?

England, I’m told you used to be this terrifically confident place which belied its speck-on-the-map geographical status by civilising the world with such benevolent and enduring cultural endowments as the Westminster system, cricket and The Benny Hill Show.

But suddenly England, you’ve gone all insecure and snipey. England, I can’t tell you how genuinely shocked I was to read this piece by journalist Matthew Norman in The Telegraph the other day. Here’s the really surprising bit.

Continue reading "Land of no hope and vainglory" »

Australians are often proud of our relaxed, easy-going, “she’ll be right” ethos.

In fact nothing could be farther from the truth.

Most of the time she will not be right and on the rare occasions that she is right it’s only because someone more industrious – say a Scandanavian for example – has gotten off their arse and done something.

Continue reading "On second thoughts, she probably won’t be alright" »

It seems boatpeople bashing has once again become a national sport.

Pauline Hanson must be proud of the continuing work of those purveyors of xenophobia, radio shock jocks and table thumping newspaper columnists.

Every day there’s a new scare campaign, accompanied by a terrifying toll of the number of “criminals”, “terrorists” and “queue jumpers” reaching our shores.

Continue reading "Boat people bashing has become a national sport" »

I once encountered Peter Garrett on the way to Coober Pedy.

I was shooting down the Stuart Highway, several hours through a tough, dry, apocalyptic part of central Australia, when mine shafts, mounds and machinery appeared over the horizon. My iPod, running on shuffle, picked the mood perfectly: Blue Sky Mining.

On that day, the Midnight Oil frontman was in the right place at the right time. But since he entered politics, recruited by Mark Latham, Garrett’s timing has been off. Some of his strumbles are well-known: messing up the insulation scheme, or saying in front of Steve Price that Labor would ``change it all’’ if it won power. His responsibilities were first reduced in 2007, when Kevin Rudd handed responsibility for climate change to Penny Wong, a shrinkage later repeated when Greg Combet was asked to fix insulation. Now he’s lost arts too.

Continue reading "How Peter Garrett lost the support of the art world" »

If alien life tuned into Australian news and TV broadcasts, they may wonder why immigration is an issue for any Australian political leader. They would certainly wonder where all these immigrants are, such is the gap in Australian television between the nation we live in day by day and the Australia broadcast on our allegedly diverse TV channels.

TV news audiences are steadily falling and audiences are moving towards online news providers. Against this trend it seems our news networks’ idea of competition (regarding selection of news presenters) is to retreat into a view of Australia as it was circa 1980. Amongst the 25 National News anchors across the 5 major networks, SBS accounts for 4 out of 6 prominent multicultural presenters, the others being ABC’s Jeremy Fernandez and Juanita Philips.

The three commercial free-to-air networks – Seven, Nine and Ten – account for almost 70% of the national news viewers, according to Throng Media. While there are a few reporters (including Nine’s Tracy Vo) on the front line, most living in major cities would largely agree that the face of Australian news doesn’t map the diversity we encounter at our offices, cafés and restaurants, parks and cultural events.

Continue reading "Minority reports: TV news fails on ethnic diversity" »

Traditionalists worry about the undue influence of American culture on Australia. Republicans stress about our British links. Hansonites panic about Muslims and Asians.

But it’s the French we should be keeping an eye on. 

‘What French Women Know: About Love, Sex and Other Matters of the Heart and Mind’ is the latest book by American-in-Paris writer Debra Ollivier. In it, Ollivier decodes the French mystique, arguing French chicks are so sexy because they “don’t give a damn”.

Continue reading "French things are not the fast track to sophistication" »

To own your own home is the dream of many.  I never noticed it as much until I arrived to Australia almost 7 years ago.

People younger than myself had already purchased their first homes; some even had additional investment properties. I was shocked; I couldn’t understand how they managed to achieve it.

In Ireland then, no one I knew in my age bracket owned their own home, instead we all rented and spent most of our disposable income on entertaining and holidays in Europe.

Continue reading "The Australian dream is fine for those who can afford it" »

Imagine my excitement when I discovered that a food and film festival was coming to the very suburb I live in.

Not merely a food festival. Or a film festival. But a food and film festival.

What’s more it wasn’t simply coming to my suburb. It was coming to a specific area in my suburb. According to the large glossy ad on the bus shelter it was coming to a place known to us locals as The Spot.

Continue reading "Marketing trick #253: hold an event, call it a festival" »

There are young Australians who are already making a name (and money) for themselves in the latest market for creative content – and it didn’t exist a moment ago. YouTube is a huge repository of amateur content, but it is also rapidly evolving into a site that has legally contracted Hollywood movies and TV shows but is working out ways to share revenues from advertising with gifted and committed amateurs whose creativity attracts a big following.

Can government play a role in assisting Australian creative talent to catch some of dynamism of emerging markets for culture?

Peter Garrett’s call to develop a National Cultural Policy could be an important opportunity to take innovation to the next stage in this country. The deadline for formal submissions closed yesterday. Most submissions want more recognition, and funding, for the arts. We think this is a great time to close the gap between innovation and cultural policy.

Continue reading "Supporting culture when everyone’s on YouTube" »

UPDATE 10.30am: The author is in a panic following the release of a study this morning that showed watching television can result in early death. As a confessed hypochondriac who persistently frets about dying he is now considering his future and will discuss his position tomorrow on The Punch.

I love television. Absolutely, bloody love it. And I have a real distrust of people who say, “I don’t really watch television”. I’m convinced that I detect a smug sneer as they say it.

My Pavlovian reaction to anyone who says this is to immediately picture the person – and I swear this is true – in a wood-panelled drawing room, sat with their partner in high-backed leather arm chairs, either side of a big old-fashioned radiogram, smiling serenely at each other. Sometimes the female of the pair is engaged in some sort of embroidery.

I have no idea where this mental picture comes from, but I guess it may be some weird visualisation of my inverted snobbery trying to puncture their television condescension at the first whiff I get. (Not sure what this all means psychologically, but I’m sure Dr Phil would know).

Continue reading "Liking television doesn’t make me a vacuous idiot" »

‘There,’ I said, balancing the candle I’d snapped off the broach in the palm of my hand. ‘What do you think?’ I ran my other hand through my hair, pushing back my recalcitrant fringe. My fingers came away moist. It was hot in the workroom, but that wasn’t the only reason I was sweating.

Even though I had been making candles ever since I could remember, I awaited Pillar’s opinion nervously. It wasn’t that Pillar was such a great candlemaker; in fact, he often lamented how pedestrian and ordinary his work was and that he only earned enough lire to survive. Pillar was right. His work was nothing special, not compared with the work of the master candlemakers who lived on the salizzada and controlled the Candlemakers Scuola, but what he thought mattered terribly to me. While he lacked the artistic flair of the masters, or their golden ducats to spend on exotic waxes and wicks, his candles were solid, the wicks dependable, and they burnt long and brightly.

‘Well?’ I pressed. He didn’t usually take so long to offer his opinion. ‘Can we afford to purchase more beeswax?’

Continue reading "Book extract: Tallow" »

Everyone in Australia knows that books cost a whole lot more than they should.

The absurdity in the debate about whether to make books cheaper is that politicians who will make the final decision – some of whom are beating their chests about our cultural heritage – are voting with their mice and buying books online from cheaper online retailers overseas.

Our website The Punch is surveying the nation’s MPs about their media consumption, including the use of new media, the type of technology they use, and how they buy movies, music and books.

Continue reading "Book debate is absurd when we’re buying them overseas" »