Pop Culture

A quarter of a century ago, American academic Neil Postman released a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death, which argued that television was dumbing down society in dangerous ways.

Decades before Kevin Rudd used his folksy appearances on Sunrise as a launching pad to the prime ministership, Postman was warning that in a culture based on visual images, a politician’s policies were becoming far less important than whether they came across well on TV.

Two books released in recent months suggest that Postman’s direst predictions may have come to pass. The first is Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World by American lawyer and television commentator Lisa Bloom.

Continue reading "Slaves to the dumbocracy, and getting dumber" »

With the MasterChef juggernaut about to serve up its latest side dish in the form of Junior MasterChef, the kitchen timer is already trilling with the first claim of exploitation of its young contestants.

Last night the nation’s most lucrative TV brand shortened the apron strings and lowered the bench heights as a bunch of eight to 12-year-olds battled it out to become the most precocious kid …. oops, I mean, the most talented tween chef in Australia.

But not everyone is happy about combining kids with reality TV and it’s not because they’ll be staying up past their bedtimes.

Continue reading "Junior MasterChef: Child abuse or character building?" »

If the nastiness of this election is getting you down, perhaps it’s time to take a break. If you want to forget that Mark Latham even exists, it’s probably time to open your brain to the full-frontal lobe sensory assault that is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

It’s hyperreality stretched to the limit, an ADHD teen-nerd rom-com packed with Atari-style graphics, manga and anime. And you’ll either love it or want to chew your own eyes out.

The plot, adapted from a comic book series, is ludicrous: Scott Pilgrim – played by quintessential geek Michael Cera – meets the girl of his dreams, but in order to date her, he must first defeat her seven evil exes in battles that make The Matrix look like Raging Bull.

Continue reading "Triumph of the geek in an assault on the frontal lobe" »

Am I the only one a little queasy over the underlying public gloat at the jailing of master criminal Lindsay Lohan?

There it is, just beneath the surface – unspoken and insidious. It’s the patriarchal desire to see a wanton woman tamed.

Disagree? Replay the Lohan case with buttoned-down Katie Holmes in the dock and picture the reaction. See what I mean? But a boozing bisexual rootrat with a spoiled tabloid reputation and cash in the bank must be brought to heel.

Continue reading "Lohan stitched up by patriarchal virgin worship" »

After a week in which the country went into a collective meltdown following the eviction of someone called Marion Grasby, it’s easy to forget there are actually people who don’t watch MasterChef.

Perhaps it’s time for those of us who have somehow managed to miss the entire series to form a self-help group.

I can’t have been the only one left feeling completely bewildered by overhearing spirited conversations about satay sauce everywhere I go. Can I? I’m not sure fans of the show understand how bizarre lengthy debates over the finer points of Thai cuisine cook-offs sound to their hopelessly uninitiated friends and colleagues.

Continue reading "My name is Sarrah and I don’t watch MasterChef" »

I wish to make it clear, first of all, that this was not planned. I never saw it coming. It wasn’t premeditated.

You know those affairs where you just stop in at the pub on your way home for a quick drink, and before you know it you’re waking up handcuffed to a bed in a Taree motel next to a harelipped Slovenian wrestler? That’s how it was with me and MasterChef..

I had always been one of those men who loathed cooking shows in all their manifestations. Every time I saw one of those grinning loons drizzling things, or rubbing spices into the intimate sections of other species, or plunging their disgusting greasy hands into mounds of dough, I would go into a violent rant that nearly drove my wife to distraction, huffing and puffing about the degeneration of modern television and how in my day we had quality programmes like The A-Team and Vidiot but these days all we seemed to have was fat men opening cans and Nigella Lawson dripping her juices all over various puddings.

Continue reading "My name is Ben and I’m addicted to MasterChef" »

It’s a show that deals with the most ideologically contested decade in living memory, but neither the Left nor Right have stepped up to the plate and dragged Mad Men into the culture wars.
 

The third season of Mad Men, the cult hit TV show set (thus far) in a Kennedy-era ad agency, is about to be broadcast in Australia by cable channel Movie Extra. The show is now closing in on 1964 ­- the year when the Sixties really began to swing.

By the season’s finale JFK will be history and the Beatles three months away from setting off the baby boomer youthquake that, within four years, will have torn the US and, to a greater or lesser extent, the rest of the Western world in two, setting in motion a host of rancorous political conflicts that are still being played out five decades later.

Continue reading "Where are all the angry white mad men?" »

Before indulging in a teeny-weeny bit of sympathy for celebrities whose private lives are flayed open for the public to feast on, spare a thought for what global leaders and their spouses have to endure.

If it’s not the Italian stallion, Silvio Berlusconi having flings with escorts, or holding frivolous parties, prompting calls he should be put out to pasture (from everyone and everywhere but his actual Italian constituents), or Vladamir Putin rising out the water, James Bond-esque, in budgie smugglers and with a well-toned body that defies his age, making world headlines, then it’s what the partners of these leaders are wearing.

In fact, when it comes to powerful women and/or the female spouses of Presidents and Prime Ministers, the fashion police are criminally biased.

Continue reading "Why spouses of the powerful get such short shrift" »

Yes! Stick this in your eye, over-analytical movie critics: Quentin Tarantino has named his favourite 20 movies of his directing career, and it’s a laundry list of pop shtick including Speed, The Matrix, Fight Club, and Team America - World Police, while the closest it gets to a Semillon Sauvignon Blanc is the palatable Lost in Translation. 

To my fellow trashy-movie-loving Philistines who have been hiding in the closet: it’s time to celebrate. Liking movies with bad guys and guns is OK. Quentin Tarantino, one of the finest directors of his generation, says so.

The list includes some off-the-wall Japanese and Korean martial arts and monster flicks - which I haven’t seen and probably won’t, ever - but the rest help make up one of the most quotable lists you’ll see this year.

Continue reading "At last, a movie buff who says it’s OK to love trash" »