Saturday, September 18, 2004
The coming backlash?
Research from the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra showed that by 2003, those aged 40 to 54 held an estimated 38 per cent of total household wealth, up from 33 per cent in 1986. In contrast, the share of total wealth held by 25 to 39 year olds declined from 27 to 19 per cent over the same period. The centre's data also reveals that between 1986 and 2001, the over-40 group almost doubled its wealth.
The above quote is from today’s Age – try and guess, dear reader, what the broader article might be about.
Perhaps the future implications of a whole generation of highly-educated Australians fast approaching middle-age, with no job or a McJob at best, and no assets or McAssets at best (as in some McSuperannation: at 40, my lifetime accumulated balance is a few hundred dollars)?
Not a chance. The generation of losers in the above stats gets no further mention, other than in this euphemistic dismissal:
Generations X (aged 23 to 29 [sic]) and Y (aged 22 and younger) struggled to maintain their share.
Actually, Leon Gettler, if you bothered to read what you had just written, you would find that there is not the slightest evidence of GenX* either (i) struggling, or (ii) maintaining its share. If only.
But it gets better:
[A] study from British research group Demos suggests there's trouble ahead for politicians. They risk a backlash if they fail to meet the demands of . . .
Try and guess the end of this sentence, dear reader. Okay, it’s a pretty lopsided challenge, because you already know that the said backlash couldn’t possibly come from GenX. Nonetheless, you’d expect it to be about something serious, like poverty or health care?
Again, not a chance – the cited much-feared backlash instead is expected to come from baby boomers “planning to grow old disgracefully and in a different way from their predecessors”.
Welcome to our future-free future, where politics is reduced to a bidding-war over increasing the consumption choices available to the old and rich.
* As far as Generation Y goes, it is still early days.
Research from the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra showed that by 2003, those aged 40 to 54 held an estimated 38 per cent of total household wealth, up from 33 per cent in 1986. In contrast, the share of total wealth held by 25 to 39 year olds declined from 27 to 19 per cent over the same period. The centre's data also reveals that between 1986 and 2001, the over-40 group almost doubled its wealth.
The above quote is from today’s Age – try and guess, dear reader, what the broader article might be about.
Perhaps the future implications of a whole generation of highly-educated Australians fast approaching middle-age, with no job or a McJob at best, and no assets or McAssets at best (as in some McSuperannation: at 40, my lifetime accumulated balance is a few hundred dollars)?
Not a chance. The generation of losers in the above stats gets no further mention, other than in this euphemistic dismissal:
Generations X (aged 23 to 29 [sic]) and Y (aged 22 and younger) struggled to maintain their share.
Actually, Leon Gettler, if you bothered to read what you had just written, you would find that there is not the slightest evidence of GenX* either (i) struggling, or (ii) maintaining its share. If only.
But it gets better:
[A] study from British research group Demos suggests there's trouble ahead for politicians. They risk a backlash if they fail to meet the demands of . . .
Try and guess the end of this sentence, dear reader. Okay, it’s a pretty lopsided challenge, because you already know that the said backlash couldn’t possibly come from GenX. Nonetheless, you’d expect it to be about something serious, like poverty or health care?
Again, not a chance – the cited much-feared backlash instead is expected to come from baby boomers “planning to grow old disgracefully and in a different way from their predecessors”.
Welcome to our future-free future, where politics is reduced to a bidding-war over increasing the consumption choices available to the old and rich.
* As far as Generation Y goes, it is still early days.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Private school funding and the election
If Labor's policy is so fair, show me where it has a transparent method of calculating what amount schools ought to receive, says Graham Young at “Troppo”.
Here’s a solution, Graham (and Mark Latham): zero public funding for private schools – now that’s transparent.
I’ve blogged pre-electorally and quite fully on this topic, and accordingly wasn’t going to touch it this time around, but I just couldn’t stop myself when I saw the venom being spewed out at the prospect of Labor’s milder-than-mild funding cuts.
As for a zero public funding for private schools policy, I’m quite serious, with two qualifications. One is to allow for state-funded religious schools, as happens in Canada. While I’m not up to speed on the current Canadian system, in the 80s Catholic schools at least were resourced identically to secular public schools, and so were tuition-free. Obviously, especially today, all religions should be able to avail themselves of such a model, should they wish – and there is of course a price to pay, in terms of extensive state regulation, and probably also critical mass, in terms of being able to justify and run a skeletal, dispersed system-within-the-system.
My second qualification admits the drastic nature of what I’m proposing (especially if my above qualification/compromise would not get off the ground, which is a fair chance in today’s socially atomised Australia). Accordingly, it should be implemented as a strictly temporary move – that is, the tap to private schools should only be turned completely off for as long as it takes for Australia’s public universities to be properly resourced (say, back to mid-80s levels).
Again, this latter condition may be a simple case of “never” – but at least the ball is then firmly in the court of the Nation’s Choosing to Cut its Own Throat if it Wishes.
Two of today’s SMH letters to the editor nicely show up the dilemma-cum-paradox that is merrily splashing money around on private schools, while starving public universities. (I should note here that this “Good Education, Bad Education” game was started by Labor in 1987, and further, that while Labor’s current campaign promises for tertiary education are miles better than the status quo, they are a band-aid on a suppurating wound that is at least 50% of Labor’s creation.)
Catherine Matterson of St Ives writes:
Until yesterday, I was a swinging voter. Then upon reading Mr Latham's proposal to cut funding to certain private schools, when there is clearly so much money in the government coffers to fund all schools (government and private), I made another choice. (emphasis added)
If there was indeed so much money to fund education generally, you stupid rich bitch, then no one would be squabbling over the last hot chip, viz whether students from a top private school get $1500 or $3000 per head per annum.
In the other corner, Barry Henson of Cronulla says:
My boys go to a public school. They sit in portable classrooms that have no heating or air-conditioning.
At my most-recent employer, a Melbourne (public) university, I largely taught in such conditions – while not actually portable classrooms, a whole building wing lacked any heating or air-conditioning. And lacking even access to a shared office, I used my car for this purpose, and had to pay handsomely for this (the car-parking), too.
Such, then is my point – in a severely resource-constrained environment, giving taxpayer money to private schools (and private universities) is a plain obscenity. I’m not envious; I’m just numb.
Update 18 September 2004
Today, a new twist on the “finite amount of taxpayer money available for education” argument – why not charge fees to public school students? The rationale here is apparently that because many students today have mobile phones, therefore their families must be quite wealthy (which argument, of course, is a Clive Hamilton original).
Believe it or not, the case for public school fees is being put forward by a current teacher in the public school system: Susan Leembruggen, of the Ashtonfield/Branxton area. In 2001, Susan was a distressed chook farmer asking for a government bail-out, while in the late 90s, she was pricking Margo Kingston’s conscience, so as to install within it an embryonic empathy with the regional battlers personified by the rise of One Nation.
All up then, Susan can hardly be accused of inconsistency. OTOH, that such a piece of white trash* sees fit to now display her white trashness in a prominent public forum does give one pause to wonder – do public schools actually have a policy of employing their own worst enemies?
* and baby boomer also, I would hazard a guess, based on her sense of “me” entitlement, and fuck everyone else
If Labor's policy is so fair, show me where it has a transparent method of calculating what amount schools ought to receive, says Graham Young at “Troppo”.
Here’s a solution, Graham (and Mark Latham): zero public funding for private schools – now that’s transparent.
I’ve blogged pre-electorally and quite fully on this topic, and accordingly wasn’t going to touch it this time around, but I just couldn’t stop myself when I saw the venom being spewed out at the prospect of Labor’s milder-than-mild funding cuts.
As for a zero public funding for private schools policy, I’m quite serious, with two qualifications. One is to allow for state-funded religious schools, as happens in Canada. While I’m not up to speed on the current Canadian system, in the 80s Catholic schools at least were resourced identically to secular public schools, and so were tuition-free. Obviously, especially today, all religions should be able to avail themselves of such a model, should they wish – and there is of course a price to pay, in terms of extensive state regulation, and probably also critical mass, in terms of being able to justify and run a skeletal, dispersed system-within-the-system.
My second qualification admits the drastic nature of what I’m proposing (especially if my above qualification/compromise would not get off the ground, which is a fair chance in today’s socially atomised Australia). Accordingly, it should be implemented as a strictly temporary move – that is, the tap to private schools should only be turned completely off for as long as it takes for Australia’s public universities to be properly resourced (say, back to mid-80s levels).
Again, this latter condition may be a simple case of “never” – but at least the ball is then firmly in the court of the Nation’s Choosing to Cut its Own Throat if it Wishes.
Two of today’s SMH letters to the editor nicely show up the dilemma-cum-paradox that is merrily splashing money around on private schools, while starving public universities. (I should note here that this “Good Education, Bad Education” game was started by Labor in 1987, and further, that while Labor’s current campaign promises for tertiary education are miles better than the status quo, they are a band-aid on a suppurating wound that is at least 50% of Labor’s creation.)
Catherine Matterson of St Ives writes:
Until yesterday, I was a swinging voter. Then upon reading Mr Latham's proposal to cut funding to certain private schools, when there is clearly so much money in the government coffers to fund all schools (government and private), I made another choice. (emphasis added)
If there was indeed so much money to fund education generally, you stupid rich bitch, then no one would be squabbling over the last hot chip, viz whether students from a top private school get $1500 or $3000 per head per annum.
In the other corner, Barry Henson of Cronulla says:
My boys go to a public school. They sit in portable classrooms that have no heating or air-conditioning.
At my most-recent employer, a Melbourne (public) university, I largely taught in such conditions – while not actually portable classrooms, a whole building wing lacked any heating or air-conditioning. And lacking even access to a shared office, I used my car for this purpose, and had to pay handsomely for this (the car-parking), too.
Such, then is my point – in a severely resource-constrained environment, giving taxpayer money to private schools (and private universities) is a plain obscenity. I’m not envious; I’m just numb.
Update 18 September 2004
Today, a new twist on the “finite amount of taxpayer money available for education” argument – why not charge fees to public school students? The rationale here is apparently that because many students today have mobile phones, therefore their families must be quite wealthy (which argument, of course, is a Clive Hamilton original).
Believe it or not, the case for public school fees is being put forward by a current teacher in the public school system: Susan Leembruggen, of the Ashtonfield/Branxton area. In 2001, Susan was a distressed chook farmer asking for a government bail-out, while in the late 90s, she was pricking Margo Kingston’s conscience, so as to install within it an embryonic empathy with the regional battlers personified by the rise of One Nation.
All up then, Susan can hardly be accused of inconsistency. OTOH, that such a piece of white trash* sees fit to now display her white trashness in a prominent public forum does give one pause to wonder – do public schools actually have a policy of employing their own worst enemies?
* and baby boomer also, I would hazard a guess, based on her sense of “me” entitlement, and fuck everyone else
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
How Dame Edna got her mojo
The conventional wisdom behind the late-50s origin, and early development, of the Barry Humphries character Dame Edna Everage has never quite satisfied me. AFAIK, the fullest account here is in John Lahr’s Dame Edna Everage and the rise of Western civilisation, Uni Calif Press 1992 (pp 52, 58-59, 66, 80-84). In executive-summary style, Dame Edna was Humphries’s reaction to the stifling suburban conformity of Melbourne at the time, and more particularly, among a certain (middle) strata of its women-folk.
Such an explanation belies the brazen gaucherie that has been the core of Edna’s character since at least the 1970s – prim and proper she ain’t. Lahr depicts Edna’s transition here – from an unmade-up Humphries dressed as a dowdy matron, to an over-the-top superstar – as essentially seamless. In contrast, I suspect that these two Ednas are actually two quite separate characters; sharing the same name, but not at all the same origin.
What, then is the origin of the brazen Dame Edna? (that is to say, the Dame Edna, unless: (i) you’re interested in what the character was 40 or more years ago, or (ii) like me, you want a more plausible account of where she comes from, and so who she ultimately is).
In an exhibition currently showing in Melbourne*, there is a photograph that provides startling evidence of what I’ll term Dame Edna's “missing link”. The photo, taken by Christopher Humphries, is of Barry Humphries striking a pose in some rather spectacular drag. It was taken on-set at the 1958 television recording of “The Bunyip and the Satellite”, a children’s program that was presumably a close copy of the children’s play of the same name which premiered in Melbourne in December 1957, and toured to Sydney in May 1958.
As you may or may not have guessed, the Barry Humphries-in-drag character was none other than the Bunyip itself (for non-Australian readers, a Bunyip is a figure from Indigenous mythology, of the monster-invented-for-scaring-(and delighting)-children sort). So Dame Edna is a Bunyip!
Supporting evidence for my revolutionary Edna-is-a-Bunyip theory comes from the title card to the above-mentioned photograph. It reads, in part:
Taking the title role in a 1957 children’s musical called “The Bunyip and the Satellite”, the young satirist [Barry Humphries] came on as a “prancing bird-like clown with a falsetto”. Co-writer Peter O’Shaughnessy later said “Barry’s performance was the finest and most touching he has ever given in the theatre”.
Even leaving aside the evidence of the photograph, then, it is plain that the “prancing bird-like clown with a falsetto” Humphries character of 1958 contributes far more to the make-up of the modern Dame Edna than her actual, prim namesake of the day.
Why does this matter now (apart from that sense of a jigsaw puzzle solved, that is)? It matters, I think, because it throws some doubt over Humphries’s sole ownership of the intellectual property in the Edna character.
For what ever reason, Peter O’Shaughnessy in not credited as a co-writer of “The Bunyip and the Satellite” in the index of play paraphernalia in the NLA’s collection (same URL). For the record, the play program (Sydney season) front cover currently on display in Melbourne lists the credits thus:
by Peter O’Shaughnessy and Jeffrey Underhill
with the assistance of Barry Humphries
under the direction of Doris Fitton
O’Shaughnessy’s role in Humphries’s early career is mentioned briefly by Lahr at p. 96 – the pair worked together on a number of revues in the three years to 1959, culminating in a “Testmonial Performance” in February 1959, which also doubled as Humphries’s send-off the England (where he was to remain for the entire 1960s).
I think that the Edna-as-Bunyip lineage also matters because of the Indigenous link with her comic grotesqueness. There has always been something magisterial and yet elemental about her – and now we know why. Edna has very little to do with scorning the suburbs of Melbourne; she comes from a much older artistic tradition. And one day, I hope that this might be properly acknowledged.
* "Making a Song and Dance: The Quest for an Australian Musical"
The conventional wisdom behind the late-50s origin, and early development, of the Barry Humphries character Dame Edna Everage has never quite satisfied me. AFAIK, the fullest account here is in John Lahr’s Dame Edna Everage and the rise of Western civilisation, Uni Calif Press 1992 (pp 52, 58-59, 66, 80-84). In executive-summary style, Dame Edna was Humphries’s reaction to the stifling suburban conformity of Melbourne at the time, and more particularly, among a certain (middle) strata of its women-folk.
Such an explanation belies the brazen gaucherie that has been the core of Edna’s character since at least the 1970s – prim and proper she ain’t. Lahr depicts Edna’s transition here – from an unmade-up Humphries dressed as a dowdy matron, to an over-the-top superstar – as essentially seamless. In contrast, I suspect that these two Ednas are actually two quite separate characters; sharing the same name, but not at all the same origin.
What, then is the origin of the brazen Dame Edna? (that is to say, the Dame Edna, unless: (i) you’re interested in what the character was 40 or more years ago, or (ii) like me, you want a more plausible account of where she comes from, and so who she ultimately is).
In an exhibition currently showing in Melbourne*, there is a photograph that provides startling evidence of what I’ll term Dame Edna's “missing link”. The photo, taken by Christopher Humphries, is of Barry Humphries striking a pose in some rather spectacular drag. It was taken on-set at the 1958 television recording of “The Bunyip and the Satellite”, a children’s program that was presumably a close copy of the children’s play of the same name which premiered in Melbourne in December 1957, and toured to Sydney in May 1958.
As you may or may not have guessed, the Barry Humphries-in-drag character was none other than the Bunyip itself (for non-Australian readers, a Bunyip is a figure from Indigenous mythology, of the monster-invented-for-scaring-(and delighting)-children sort). So Dame Edna is a Bunyip!
Supporting evidence for my revolutionary Edna-is-a-Bunyip theory comes from the title card to the above-mentioned photograph. It reads, in part:
Taking the title role in a 1957 children’s musical called “The Bunyip and the Satellite”, the young satirist [Barry Humphries] came on as a “prancing bird-like clown with a falsetto”. Co-writer Peter O’Shaughnessy later said “Barry’s performance was the finest and most touching he has ever given in the theatre”.
Even leaving aside the evidence of the photograph, then, it is plain that the “prancing bird-like clown with a falsetto” Humphries character of 1958 contributes far more to the make-up of the modern Dame Edna than her actual, prim namesake of the day.
Why does this matter now (apart from that sense of a jigsaw puzzle solved, that is)? It matters, I think, because it throws some doubt over Humphries’s sole ownership of the intellectual property in the Edna character.
For what ever reason, Peter O’Shaughnessy in not credited as a co-writer of “The Bunyip and the Satellite” in the index of play paraphernalia in the NLA’s collection (same URL). For the record, the play program (Sydney season) front cover currently on display in Melbourne lists the credits thus:
by Peter O’Shaughnessy and Jeffrey Underhill
with the assistance of Barry Humphries
under the direction of Doris Fitton
O’Shaughnessy’s role in Humphries’s early career is mentioned briefly by Lahr at p. 96 – the pair worked together on a number of revues in the three years to 1959, culminating in a “Testmonial Performance” in February 1959, which also doubled as Humphries’s send-off the England (where he was to remain for the entire 1960s).
I think that the Edna-as-Bunyip lineage also matters because of the Indigenous link with her comic grotesqueness. There has always been something magisterial and yet elemental about her – and now we know why. Edna has very little to do with scorning the suburbs of Melbourne; she comes from a much older artistic tradition. And one day, I hope that this might be properly acknowledged.
* "Making a Song and Dance: The Quest for an Australian Musical"
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
University of Newcastle's plagiarism scandal
Like the cases of Jarndyce v Jarndyce and the two co-creators of a reality TV format hit at loggerheads, the current ICAC investigation into the University of Newcastle's unsatisfactory handling of proven plagiarism by some of its students looks set to continue ad infinitum, or until the money runs out, anyway.
There is nothing new, or complex in the story. More than a year ago, Ian Firn, the whistleblowing academic at the centre of the story, said this: "Incredulity is the initial response of every academic to whom I tell this story. Derisive laughter is evoked when I tell them what the inquiry found."
At this stage, it is really not that important which inquiry – for there have been several – found what. The plain fact is that there has been a cover-up to the highest levels; the only worthwhile question remaining is what to do about it.
Not acknowledged at all in recent media reports in the highly salient (or so I would have thought) fact that current vice-chancellor Roger Holmes is leaving his seat in a few weeks' time, presumably for a cushy retirement.
Thus, all Roger the Dodger* needs to do right now is to hope that the ICAC investigation limps along until he sails off with his payout, and his reputation more-or-less intact. And with limping along being the operative word at the moment, Roger’s best-case script looks set to be the final draft.
Be that as it may, there are several other senior and/or key players in the cover-up who appear set to remain at the University of Newcastle. IMO, a prima facie case appears to exist for the summary dismissal, on the grounds of academic misconduct, of the following individuals:
Brian English, deputy vice-chancellor
Ronald MacDonald, deputy vice-chancellor of research and internationalisation**
Paul Ryder, the then head of the Newcastle Graduate School of Business, now keeping a low profile at the Central Coast School of Business
Rachid Zeffane, academic
Meanwhile another key player, Robert Rugimbana, the then deputy director of the Newcastle Graduate School of Business seems to have joined his former boss Paul Ryder in the slinking-off game – this time to Brisbane’s Griffith University.
For more reading, I recommend these previous posts (not on Newcastle specifically), and fellow blogger Tim Lambert, who has been following the scandal closely. I’m with Tim in assessing the best line to have come out of the scandal so far being that of (the once unfortunately-, but now aptly named) Ronald MacDonald, who said that it was beyond his capacity to judge plagiarism by business students because “I’m a physicist.” So there you go, science geeks: the case for anti-matter has just been conclusively proved to exist – inside the skull of Newcastle Uni’s Ronald MacDonald.
Running a close second, though, is the hilarious thought of "remedial training sessions" in plagiarism policy, which one of the previous inquiries recommended for several of the above academics. As an answer, apparently.
* Roger Holmes was once vice-chancellor of one of my previous employers, before packing it in after a few weeks, apparently because he didn't like the climate.
** Which is to say, Chalk and Cheese.
Like the cases of Jarndyce v Jarndyce and the two co-creators of a reality TV format hit at loggerheads, the current ICAC investigation into the University of Newcastle's unsatisfactory handling of proven plagiarism by some of its students looks set to continue ad infinitum, or until the money runs out, anyway.
There is nothing new, or complex in the story. More than a year ago, Ian Firn, the whistleblowing academic at the centre of the story, said this: "Incredulity is the initial response of every academic to whom I tell this story. Derisive laughter is evoked when I tell them what the inquiry found."
At this stage, it is really not that important which inquiry – for there have been several – found what. The plain fact is that there has been a cover-up to the highest levels; the only worthwhile question remaining is what to do about it.
Not acknowledged at all in recent media reports in the highly salient (or so I would have thought) fact that current vice-chancellor Roger Holmes is leaving his seat in a few weeks' time, presumably for a cushy retirement.
Thus, all Roger the Dodger* needs to do right now is to hope that the ICAC investigation limps along until he sails off with his payout, and his reputation more-or-less intact. And with limping along being the operative word at the moment, Roger’s best-case script looks set to be the final draft.
Be that as it may, there are several other senior and/or key players in the cover-up who appear set to remain at the University of Newcastle. IMO, a prima facie case appears to exist for the summary dismissal, on the grounds of academic misconduct, of the following individuals:
Brian English, deputy vice-chancellor
Ronald MacDonald, deputy vice-chancellor of research and internationalisation**
Paul Ryder, the then head of the Newcastle Graduate School of Business, now keeping a low profile at the Central Coast School of Business
Rachid Zeffane, academic
Meanwhile another key player, Robert Rugimbana, the then deputy director of the Newcastle Graduate School of Business seems to have joined his former boss Paul Ryder in the slinking-off game – this time to Brisbane’s Griffith University.
For more reading, I recommend these previous posts (not on Newcastle specifically), and fellow blogger Tim Lambert, who has been following the scandal closely. I’m with Tim in assessing the best line to have come out of the scandal so far being that of (the once unfortunately-, but now aptly named) Ronald MacDonald, who said that it was beyond his capacity to judge plagiarism by business students because “I’m a physicist.” So there you go, science geeks: the case for anti-matter has just been conclusively proved to exist – inside the skull of Newcastle Uni’s Ronald MacDonald.
Running a close second, though, is the hilarious thought of "remedial training sessions" in plagiarism policy, which one of the previous inquiries recommended for several of the above academics. As an answer, apparently.
* Roger Holmes was once vice-chancellor of one of my previous employers, before packing it in after a few weeks, apparently because he didn't like the climate.
** Which is to say, Chalk and Cheese.
Monday, September 13, 2004
Somersault and gay-bashing
If Somersault (wr/dir Cate Shortland) is one of Australia’s most outstanding films of recent years then the Australian election has been clearly overtaken in The Most Depressing Thing Around at the Moment stakes.
[Warning: Plot spoiler alert from now on!]
I saw it last night, not knowing anything about it other than (i) it was filmed in Jindabyne, (ii) with a beautiful young female protagonist and yet arthouse/Cannes cred, it was almost certainly going to be a chick flick, and (iii) the story was based on a real-life murder of a gay man.
The last of the snippets of information had come from my ex, via an interview with Cate Shortland on “The Movie Show”, apparently. I’m not sure of its exact veracity (so typical of my ex!) because elsewhere (PDF), Shortland has said her inspiration came from the trial that followed the brutal bashing (but not murder, I assume) of a gay friend of hers by a young man met at a beat. Specifically, Shortland’s fascination was with the supportive-in-court young girlfriend of the young male accused – a woman who was the nucleus for Somersault protagonist Heidi.
Now, Females who Cling to Homophobic Arseholes doesn’t strike me as a particularly promising inspiration for a film’s central character. It might be perfect fodder for a depressing documentary or its told-as-fiction equivalent (Monster), but here in Australia, we seem to like our protagonists sunny-side up, i.e. mostly sympathetic. Cate Shortland’s curious – and probably cavalier – triumph has been to nonetheless craft the requisite sympathy in and for the character of Heidi.
As for her character’s relationship with a homophobic arsehole, Heidi’s clinginess – to the character of Joe, and all else – can’t be faulted. Personally, I can’t stand such women (as they invariably are) in real life, but I accept that such types – Fucked-up Woman Takes Small Step Forward at end of movie – are a staple of chick flicks.
Inevitably, the fact that Heidi is all-round clingier than McDonalds on one’s pancreas dilutes the actual homophobic venom in (equally fucked-up) boyfriend Joe. The gay bashing/murder scene is depicted so lightly that it is ambiguous as to whether it really even takes place. Such ambiguity may be well and good for Heidi’s character journey – she gets the best of both worlds, by having been a tourist in Hell-Lite, and getting to grow (!) by the experience – but it sure leaves Sam hanging, and with him, the whole topic of male homophobic hate-crimes.
Because of this, Somersault is a seriously-flawed film. Irrespective of her real-life inspirations for it, Shortland had a duty to either cover male homophobic violence properly, or leave it well alone. (Hint to future would-be filmmakers on this subject: if you think that the topic makes a perfect fit with a Female Protagonist Finds Herself story, then you’re wrong.)
Finally, a disclosure (which possibly explain this whole post as just a personal over-reaction to a few seconds of Shortland’s film). The film, although mostly set in Jindabyne, is intertwined with the locale and characters of white-trash Canberra and its surrounds – a fact I didn’t know until the movie was unspooling. I lived in and near Canberra for two years in the mid-90s, during which time my friendly local (and gay) GP was Dr Peter Rowland. Dr Rowland was murdered by three local young men in 1996 (same URL) in what was almost-certainly a hate crime. At the time of the murder, he was living in a farmhouse outside Canberra – a setting very similar (I imagine) to the farmhouse where the Older Gay Man in Somersault lives, and is murdered/bashed/or-is-it-a-dream by Heidi’s boyfriend Joe.
Whether Cate Shortland consciously used Peter Rowland’s murder as her inspiration I don’t know – I accept that the similarities could just be a coincidence. But even if so, Somersault is a woeful and exploitative film, for its use of the nastiest recesses of the male psyche as a transient plot device to achieve a Lassie-comes-home closing moment.
Update 14 September 2004
Just to clarify a couple of things about the relationship of Cate Shortland’s film to gay-bashing and to Peter Rowland’s murder.
Peter Rowland was murdered by a gang of three men, who (AFAIK) had (i) heard he was gay and (ii) went to his house to kill him because of that fact. Homophobic young men who go – invariably (i) alone and (ii) for no explicable reason – to notorious beats or to pay a social home visit to The Town Poof, and then bash and/or kill, are in a slightly different category.
Not, I stress, a lesser category of moral or legal culpability – rather, they have a different psychological make-up, and in particular, one in which their confused sexual identity would be plain for most to see, and especially plain to their girlfriends.
Joe’s character in Somersault shows zero credible signs of confused sexual identity. In other words Shortland has, by default, depicted Joe as a gang-of-one of the sort that killed Peter Rowland. But she had to draw this character manqué for narrative reasons – keeping Joe both one-dimensional and relatively psychologically stable allows Heidi to safely reach, and then cleanly leave rock-bottom. For the real girlfriends of Peter Rowland’s murderers, the situation would be quite different, at a guess, especially in terms of collusion in the crime.
If Somersault (wr/dir Cate Shortland) is one of Australia’s most outstanding films of recent years then the Australian election has been clearly overtaken in The Most Depressing Thing Around at the Moment stakes.
[Warning: Plot spoiler alert from now on!]
I saw it last night, not knowing anything about it other than (i) it was filmed in Jindabyne, (ii) with a beautiful young female protagonist and yet arthouse/Cannes cred, it was almost certainly going to be a chick flick, and (iii) the story was based on a real-life murder of a gay man.
The last of the snippets of information had come from my ex, via an interview with Cate Shortland on “The Movie Show”, apparently. I’m not sure of its exact veracity (so typical of my ex!) because elsewhere (PDF), Shortland has said her inspiration came from the trial that followed the brutal bashing (but not murder, I assume) of a gay friend of hers by a young man met at a beat. Specifically, Shortland’s fascination was with the supportive-in-court young girlfriend of the young male accused – a woman who was the nucleus for Somersault protagonist Heidi.
Now, Females who Cling to Homophobic Arseholes doesn’t strike me as a particularly promising inspiration for a film’s central character. It might be perfect fodder for a depressing documentary or its told-as-fiction equivalent (Monster), but here in Australia, we seem to like our protagonists sunny-side up, i.e. mostly sympathetic. Cate Shortland’s curious – and probably cavalier – triumph has been to nonetheless craft the requisite sympathy in and for the character of Heidi.
As for her character’s relationship with a homophobic arsehole, Heidi’s clinginess – to the character of Joe, and all else – can’t be faulted. Personally, I can’t stand such women (as they invariably are) in real life, but I accept that such types – Fucked-up Woman Takes Small Step Forward at end of movie – are a staple of chick flicks.
Inevitably, the fact that Heidi is all-round clingier than McDonalds on one’s pancreas dilutes the actual homophobic venom in (equally fucked-up) boyfriend Joe. The gay bashing/murder scene is depicted so lightly that it is ambiguous as to whether it really even takes place. Such ambiguity may be well and good for Heidi’s character journey – she gets the best of both worlds, by having been a tourist in Hell-Lite, and getting to grow (!) by the experience – but it sure leaves Sam hanging, and with him, the whole topic of male homophobic hate-crimes.
Because of this, Somersault is a seriously-flawed film. Irrespective of her real-life inspirations for it, Shortland had a duty to either cover male homophobic violence properly, or leave it well alone. (Hint to future would-be filmmakers on this subject: if you think that the topic makes a perfect fit with a Female Protagonist Finds Herself story, then you’re wrong.)
Finally, a disclosure (which possibly explain this whole post as just a personal over-reaction to a few seconds of Shortland’s film). The film, although mostly set in Jindabyne, is intertwined with the locale and characters of white-trash Canberra and its surrounds – a fact I didn’t know until the movie was unspooling. I lived in and near Canberra for two years in the mid-90s, during which time my friendly local (and gay) GP was Dr Peter Rowland. Dr Rowland was murdered by three local young men in 1996 (same URL) in what was almost-certainly a hate crime. At the time of the murder, he was living in a farmhouse outside Canberra – a setting very similar (I imagine) to the farmhouse where the Older Gay Man in Somersault lives, and is murdered/bashed/or-is-it-a-dream by Heidi’s boyfriend Joe.
Whether Cate Shortland consciously used Peter Rowland’s murder as her inspiration I don’t know – I accept that the similarities could just be a coincidence. But even if so, Somersault is a woeful and exploitative film, for its use of the nastiest recesses of the male psyche as a transient plot device to achieve a Lassie-comes-home closing moment.
Update 14 September 2004
Just to clarify a couple of things about the relationship of Cate Shortland’s film to gay-bashing and to Peter Rowland’s murder.
Peter Rowland was murdered by a gang of three men, who (AFAIK) had (i) heard he was gay and (ii) went to his house to kill him because of that fact. Homophobic young men who go – invariably (i) alone and (ii) for no explicable reason – to notorious beats or to pay a social home visit to The Town Poof, and then bash and/or kill, are in a slightly different category.
Not, I stress, a lesser category of moral or legal culpability – rather, they have a different psychological make-up, and in particular, one in which their confused sexual identity would be plain for most to see, and especially plain to their girlfriends.
Joe’s character in Somersault shows zero credible signs of confused sexual identity. In other words Shortland has, by default, depicted Joe as a gang-of-one of the sort that killed Peter Rowland. But she had to draw this character manqué for narrative reasons – keeping Joe both one-dimensional and relatively psychologically stable allows Heidi to safely reach, and then cleanly leave rock-bottom. For the real girlfriends of Peter Rowland’s murderers, the situation would be quite different, at a guess, especially in terms of collusion in the crime.
