tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/australian-culture-7868/articles
Australian culture – The Conversation
2023-09-22T01:53:09Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212542
2023-09-22T01:53:09Z
2023-09-22T01:53:09Z
30 years of the web down under: how Australians made the early internet their own
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549472/original/file-20230921-26-kkvvcm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C31%2C2973%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blacktownmemories.recollect.net.au/nodes/view/3189">Blacktown City Libraries</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The internet is growing old. While the roots of the internet date back to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET">the 1960s</a>, the popular internet – the one that <a href="https://www.acma.gov.au/publications/2022-12/report/communications-and-media-australia-how-we-use-internet">99% of Australians now use</a> – is a child of the 1990s. </p>
<p>In the space of a decade, the internet moved from a tool used by a handful of researchers to something <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/8147.0Main%20Features1Nov%202000">most Australians</a> used – to talk to friends and family, find out tomorrow’s weather, follow a game, organise a protest, or read the news.</p>
<h2>The popular internet grows up</h2>
<p>This year marks 30 years since the release of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)">Mosaic</a>, the first browser that integrated text and graphics, helping to popularise the web: the global information network we know today.</p>
<p>Google is now 25, Wikipedia <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wikipedia/videos/it-is-our-21st-birthday-celebrate-by-enjoying-the-gift-of-free-knowledge-togethe/921982118679471/">turned 21</a> last year, and Facebook will soon be 20. These anniversaries were marked with <a href="https://www.admscentre.org.au/event/web-search-revolution/">events</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/google-turns-25-the-search-engine-revolutionised-how-we-access-information-but-will-it-survive-ai-212367e">feature articles</a> and <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kue_Ulang_Tahun_Wikipedia.png">birthday cakes</a>. </p>
<p>But a local milestone passed with little fanfare: 30 years ago, the first Australian websites started to appear.</p>
<p>The web made the internet intelligible to people without specialist technical knowledge. Hyperlinks made it easy to navigate from page to page and site to site, while the underlying HTML code was relatively easy for newcomers to learn. </p>
<h2>Australia gets connected</h2>
<p>In late 1992, the first Australian web server was installed. The <a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/19961227221525/http://life.anu.edu.au/">Bioinformatics Hypermedia Server</a> was set up by David Green at the Australian National University in Canberra, who launched his LIFE website that October. LIFE later <a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/19961227221525/http://life.anu.edu.au/">claimed</a> to be “Australia’s first information service on the World Wide Web”.</p>
<p>Not that many Australians would have seen it at the time. In the early 1990s, the Australian internet was a university-led research network. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARNet">Australian Academic and Research Network</a> (AARNet) connected to the rest of the world in 1989, through a connection between the University of Hawaii and the University of Melbourne. Within a year, most Australian universities and many research facilities were connected.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australia-connected-to-the-internet-25-years-ago-28106">How Australia connected to the internet 25 years ago</a>
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<p>The World Wide Web was invented by English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee and launched in 1991. At the time, it was just one of many communication protocols for creating, sharing and accessing information. </p>
<p>Researchers connected to AARNet were experimenting with tools like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)">Gopher</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat">Internet Relay Chat</a> alongside the web.</p>
<p>Even as a research network, the internet was deeply social. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Robert_Elz">Robert Elz</a>, one of the computer scientists who connected Australia to the internet in 1989, became well-known for his <a href="https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/siddhartha-vaidyanathan-on-online-cricket-text-commentary-pioneer-robert-elz-666085">online commentaries</a> on cricket matches. Science fiction fans set up mailing lists. </p>
<p>These uses hinted at what was to come, as everyday Australians got online.</p>
<h2>The birth of the public internet</h2>
<p>Throughout <a href="http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/OzI04.html">1994</a>, AARNet enabled private companies to buy network capacity and connect users outside research contexts. Ownership of the Australian internet was transferred to Telstra in 1995, as private consumers and small businesses began to move online.</p>
<p>With the release of web browsers like Mosaic and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape">Netscape</a>, and the increase in dial-up connections, the number of Australian websites grew rapidly. </p>
<p>At the start of 1995, there were a <a href="http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/OzWH-1201.html">couple of hundred</a>. When the Australian internet went public just six months later, they numbered in the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Virtual_Nation.html?id=FmHSqYXCW98C&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">thousands</a>. By the end of the decade there were hundreds of thousands.</p>
<h2>Everyday Australians get connected</h2>
<p>As everyday Australians went online, students, activists, artists and fans began to create a diverse array of sites that took advantage of the web’s possibilities.</p>
<p>The “cyberfeminist zine” <a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/19980110230739/http://geekgirl.com.au/">geekgirl</a>, created by Rosie X. Cross from her home in inner-west Sydney, combined a “Do It Yourself” punk ethos with the global distribution the web made possible. It was part of a diverse and flourishing feminist culture online.</p>
<p>Australia was home to the first <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/online-doctorate-flies-in-face-of-convention/146942.article">fully online doctorate</a>, Simon Pockley’s 1995 PhD thesis <a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/19970729130000/http://www.cinemedia.net/FOD/FOD0001.html">Flight of Ducks</a>. </p>
<p>Art students presented poetry as animated gifs, labelling them “<a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/19970512130000/http://student.uq.edu.au/%7Es271502/index.html">cyberpoetry</a>”. Aspiring science fiction writers <a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/19970624130000/http://www.melbourne.net/mindgate/index.html">published</a> multimedia stories on the web.</p>
<h2>The Australian internet goes mainstream</h2>
<p>Political parties, government and media also moved online. </p>
<p><a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/19961219182321/http://theage.com.au/">The Age Online</a> was the first major newspaper website in Australia. Launched in <a href="https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/scholarlywork/1270106-born-outside-the-newsroom--the-creation-of-the-age-online">February 1995</a>, the site beat Australia’s own national broadcaster by six months and the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/19961230230427/http://www.nytimes.com/">New York Times</a> by a year.</p>
<p>Though The Age was first, <a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/19961017233008/http://www.abc.net.au/">ABC Online</a> and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20020928000336fw_/http://home.ninemsn.com.au/homepage.asp">ninemsn</a> – linked to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlook.com#Launch_of_Hotmail">Hotmail</a> email service – were the most popular. </p>
<p>During the 1998 federal election, ABC Online saw over <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X9909300111">two million hits</a> per week. Political parties, candidates and interest groups were quick to establish a web presence, kicking off the era of online political campaigning.</p>
<p>The web also became big business. By the end of the decade, Australia had its own internet entrepreneurs, including a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Turnbull">future prime minister</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine.com.au">Established media companies</a> dominated web traffic. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/internet-fever-takes-ecorp-serious-market-comment/docview/363293857/se-2">Internet fever</a>” was sweeping Australian businesses, leading to an “<a href="https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/libertyone-takes-best-internet-stocks-frenzy/docview/363388164/se-2">internet stocks frenzy</a>”. The internet had gone mainstream and the “dot com bubble” was <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/when-we-went-pop-20090619-cpdr.html">rapidly inflating</a>.</p>
<h2>Looking back on the decade the popular internet was born</h2>
<p>The public, open, commercial internet is now a few decades old. Given current concerns about the state of the internet – from the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Economics/Digitalplatforms">power of large digital platforms</a> to the <a href="https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/have-your-say/new-acma-powers-combat-misinformation-and-disinformation">proliferation of disinformation</a> – it might be tempting to look at the 1990s as a “golden age” for the internet. </p>
<p>However, we must resist looking back with rose-coloured glasses. What is needed is critical scrutiny of the conditions that underpinned internet use and attention to how a diversity of people incorporated technology in their lives and helped transformed it in the process. This will help us understand how we got the internet we have and how we might achieve the internet we want.</p>
<p>Understanding online history can be particularly difficult because many sites have long-since disappeared. However, archiving efforts like those of the <a href="https://archive.org/web/">Internet Archive</a> and the <a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/">National Library of Australia</a> make it possible to look back and see how much things have changed, what concerns are familiar, and remember the everyday people who helped transform the internet from a niche academic network to a mass medium.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-internet-was-born-from-the-arpanet-to-the-internet-68072">How the Internet was born: from the ARPANET to the Internet</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kieran Hegarty receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology through a Digital Humanism Junior Visiting Fellowship at the Institute for Human Sciences.</span></em></p>
What did Australians do online in the 1990s? Shared bioinformatics data, made cyberfeminist zines, cruised the information superhighway …
Kieran Hegarty, Research Fellow (Automated Decision-Making Systems), RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/200342
2023-02-22T00:45:02Z
2023-02-22T00:45:02Z
What is a ‘shoey’ and why did Harry Styles do one on stage in Australia?
<p>“Shoey” is Australian slang for having a celebratory drink out of a shoe. Usually the beverage is alcoholic and the celebration follows a sweaty quest to victory. The shoey has become a popular part of some sports and music festival cultures.</p>
<p>As a cultural phenomenon, the shoey represents overcoming adversity - literally drinking out of the vessels that got you over the line. Newly minted Grammy and BRIT award winner Harry Styles did his first Australian concert – and we assume his first shoey – in Perth this week. Here’s the, um, footage (pun intended, sorry). </p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-809" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/809/16ffcdf7ad3fe768cad17de443228402c31b1680/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>One of the most famous supporters of the shoey is racing driver Daniel Ricciardo - someone for whom Styles has shown <a href="https://www.foxsports.com.au/motorsport/formula-one/music-icon-harry-styles-rocks-daniel-ricciardo-shirt-amid-mclaren-contract-saga/news-story/5bf4ac0d89138918c9599f2b43500990">his own fandom</a>. Footballers, surfers, musicians and various celebrities have also had a go. </p>
<p>Usually, it’s a cultural practice undertaken by men, although marathon runner Des Lindon, inspired by Ricciardo, also celebrated in this way, as did champion golfer <a href="https://www.news.com.au/sport/golf/aussie-golf-star-hannah-green-celebrates-milestone-win-with-a-shoey/news-story/75f2083b8036bac194cc0f94af9b9b21">Hannah Green</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/harry-styles-is-winning-big-because-his-music-is-a-breezy-pop-antidote-to-our-post-pandemic-blues-200129">Harry Styles is winning big because his music is a breezy pop antidote to our post-pandemic blues</a>
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<p>Although Australians have claimed the “shoey”, we are not its only practitioners. </p>
<p>Drinking from boots, or even delicate high heels, is said to have <a href="https://medium.com/the-practical-mythologist/the-bizarre-history-of-drinking-from-womens-shoes-f9a5cef52ddd">started in Europe</a>. There are US and Russian influences too, including drinking out of <a href="https://vinepair.com/articles/champagne-womens-shoes/&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1676950624379615&usg=AOvVaw0dDNhrnPc7Qk9l7HC-pWPG_">silk ballet flats</a>. </p>
<h2>Culture of defiance</h2>
<p>The contemporary Aussie shoey is really about defiance – claiming victory against the odds. </p>
<p>It’s a type of attitude many different types of Australians have tapped into over generations, a classic trait of the “little battler” or “underdog” stereotype that sees triumph even after a struggle.</p>
<p>Importantly, there is clear humour in the shoey - this is not a win steeped in earnest glory, but deliberately crowd-pleasing and silly. The result is a soggy shoe and a terrible taste in your mouth, but also, to tap into another stereotype, making sure tall poppy syndrome is avoided. </p>
<p>The shoey is a great leveller – it brings everyone down to the same (albeit pretty basic) level. Like other local party tricks and traditions, it can also bring an international guest into the fold - someone willing to “do a shoey” is inevitably going to be accepted by the crowd.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">American rapper Post Malone enjoying a shoey while in Australia.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The shoey does have its critics though. It is regularly called out as being messy, gross and just a bit disgusting. Styles played along but clearly didn’t enjoy the actual act, joking it <a href="https://themusic.com.au/news/harry-styles-does-his-first-ever-shoey-i-feel-ashamed-of-myself/dbttaWhram0/21-02-23">made him feel ashamed of himself</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/creative-country-98-of-australians-engage-with-the-arts-80145">Creative country: 98% of Australians engage with the arts</a>
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<h2>Was the shoey just a shameless local reference?</h2>
<p>Big touring artists may see hundreds of cities across a world tour. Typically these massive events are hugely formulaic and stage-managed, necessitated by the stadiums they play in and the scale they need to navigate. </p>
<p>To make each show memorable and, importantly, to draw audiences in, many add a specific local reference to the country or city they’re playing in. </p>
<p>It could be a nod to the sporting team or attraction, or ideally to local artists to give them some additional exposure. In Australia, some just bring out a stuffed koala or reference a Vegemite sandwich on stage. One of the most creative local references was Amanda Palmer’s ode to local slang with the song Map of Tasmania.</p>
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<p>Styles’ shoey was definitely an acknowledgement of an aspect of Australian culture - even if the beautiful designer sneaker he sipped from was a world away from a sweaty footy boot. </p>
<p>More impressive for mine, and less likely to cause infection, was the inclusion of a cover of Daryl Braithwaite’s 1990 version of Horses, a song that has gone from cool to daggy and all the way back again. </p>
<p>Styles hammed it up then proclaimed: </p>
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<p>you don’t hear that song very much until you get here, but then it’s like catnip… I can feel the Aussie coursing through my veins!</p>
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<p>It’s not the first time Australian audiences have asked Styles for a shoey, but only now has he obliged. At a time when anyone around the world can stream just about any event (mostly legally), finding something special about each place and its audience can be tough. </p>
<p>The shoey is something those present won’t forget in a hurry.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Styles hans’t always been a fan of the shoey.</span></figcaption>
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<p>For the rest of his tour, other Australian oddities Styles might want to look out for are plagues of deadly drop bears, and the “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/adelaide/programs/breakfast/eagle-drop/101848598&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1676950120695484&usg=AOvVaw04i3h1CLbH5ZD2LSn3t00W">Eagle Drop</a>” when Daddy Cool comes on the stereo. </p>
<p>Make sure the budgie smugglers are as clean as those sneakers though, hey?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200342/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Giuffre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The contemporary Aussie shoey is really about defiance - claiming victory against the odds.
Liz Giuffre, Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/165609
2021-08-09T19:57:23Z
2021-08-09T19:57:23Z
Don’s Party at 50: an achingly real portrayal of the hapless Australian middle-class voter
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415155/original/file-20210809-19-4jcntz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1599%2C898&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The play Don’s Party premiered on August 11 1971 at Carlton’s Pram Factory, home to the radical theatre ensemble, the Australian Performing Arts Group. </p>
<p>Established four years earlier in 1967, the group would nurture some of the most passionate Australian voices of a generation, including Max Gillies, John Romeril, Kerry Walker, Geoffrey Milne and Jenny Kemp. </p>
<p>Until this point, there was very little original Australian theatre. With the exception of Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1955), Australian stages were dominated by scripts imported from the UK and America.</p>
<p>This new generation was interested in creating a muscular, fiercely nationalistic form of theatre preoccupied with “<a href="https://www.currency.com.au/books/history-and-criticism/power-plays-australian-theatre-and-the-public-agenda/">staging the nation</a>”.</p>
<p>Hot off the back of The Removalists at La Mama, Don’s Party was the fifth play by the young, engineering-student-turned playwright David Williamson.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-australias-great-theatre-artists-trod-the-boards-50-years-of-melbournes-la-mama-theatre-80602">Where Australia's great theatre artists trod the boards: 50 years of Melbourne's La Mama theatre</a>
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<p>Williamson’s hallmark satiric naturalism sat outside the collective’s experimental and confrontational aesthetic and there was some early resistance to programming the play.</p>
<p>But the explosive zeitgeist energy of Don’s Party and — <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1433808/">as described</a> by Graeme Blundell, who played Simon — the “gasp of recognition” from audiences couldn’t be ignored.</p>
<h2>A forensic look at Australia</h2>
<p>Don’s Party is a slice-of-life satire, set at an Australian barbecue hosted by 30-something couple Don and Kath on election night 1969. When the opposition Labour Party takes an early lead, all the couples at the party are elated — except for the “ring-ins”, Liberal voting couple Simon and Jody. </p>
<p>As the election win slides away, the evening slowly descends into despair. </p>
<p>The long, beery night, with guests milling in front of the television and wandering in and out of the lounge room, is laced with the unfinished sexual encounters, fist fights and drunken accusations that fuel the plot. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415131/original/file-20210809-26-rf0m5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415131/original/file-20210809-26-rf0m5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415131/original/file-20210809-26-rf0m5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415131/original/file-20210809-26-rf0m5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415131/original/file-20210809-26-rf0m5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415131/original/file-20210809-26-rf0m5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415131/original/file-20210809-26-rf0m5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415131/original/file-20210809-26-rf0m5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Pram Factory theatre was at 317-337 Drummond St, Carlton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/238290">John T Collins © State Library Victoria</a></span>
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<p>Williamson’s forensic characterisation nailed the social construction of party affiliation at the end of the 1960s. A new generation of left wing, middle class voters were challenging the puritanical and conservative culture of Australian politics. Williamson and many of his collaborators were born just at the beginning of what would <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/542159/how-generations-named-baby-boomers-generation-x-millennials">become known as the Baby Boomers</a>, and the play captured the fears and dreams of their audience. </p>
<p>It’s not all politics. The comedy also comes from the permissive wife-swapping social milieu of the Australian middle classes in the late 1960s. Free love, swearing that would make your ears hurt, and detailed discussion of excretion were the hallmarks of the swinging Australian suburban sophisticate.</p>
<p>(In 2005,<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1433808/"> Williamson observed</a> this period of wife-swapping only lasted a few years, finishing “as soon as women realised that this was as oppressive as what had proceeded it”.)</p>
<p>The play’s reception was electric. In a few short years it would go on productions at Jane Street Theatre in Sydney (1972); in the newly created Melbourne Theatre Company (1973); and the Royal Court in London (1976), cementing Williamson’s international critical reputation. </p>
<p>Don’s Party signalled Williamson’s future as our most prolific playwright and king of the Australian middle-class, mainstream drama. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-great-australian-plays-williamson-hibberd-and-the-better-angels-of-our-countrys-nature-79332">The Great Australian Plays: Williamson, Hibberd and the better angels of our country's nature</a>
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<h2>The brutality of film</h2>
<p>The real imprint of the play on Australian culture came from its adaptation into film in 1976 by director Bruce Beresford and producer Philip Adams, the pioneers of 1970s ocker <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/stories-and-ideas/what-is-ozploitation/">Ozploitation</a> films. </p>
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<p>Although Williamson wrote the screen adaptation, the film has a much more brutal tone. In a <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1433808/">documentary</a>, actor Susan Binney — who played “nymphette” university student Susan — says she still “shudders” when she recalls the filming of the pool scene where she was forcibly undressed and thrown into the pool by Don, Mal, Mack and Cooley. </p>
<p>Binney wasn’t warned she would be thrown into the pool during rehearsals, as the sexist machismo of the story bled over into real life.</p>
<p>Williamson has also shared his disquiet about that scene and some of the other additions to the film that brought the off-stage bedroom of the original play into graphic cinematic world. </p>
<p>Yet this bleed of 1970s ocker film genre into the more nuanced, gendered satire of Williamson’s script gave Don’s Party its enduring cultural impact. In its 50 years, the play has seen multiple remounts, a 2011 sequel Don Parties On (where the same friends gather on the night of the 2008 federal election) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfVKAc_MGrk">pop culture tributes</a>.</p>
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<h2>A capsule of Australian theatre — and Australia</h2>
<p>Contemporary theatre director Sam Strong <a href="https://www.mtc.com.au/discover-more/about-us/media/media-releases/emerald-city/">notes</a> how Williamson’s “enduring power is to speak <em>directly</em> to Australian audiences.” </p>
<p>This year, the film was released on Netflix and Amazon Prime. A re-watch proves how fresh the work still is as a time capsule of the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/theatre-research-international/article/abs/radical-visions-19682008-the-impact-of-the-sixties-on-australian-drama-by-denise-varney-amsterdam-rodopi-2011-pp-294-21-illus-86-pb/85201F42171A41F2548BFEB78C8189FD">Boomer generation preparing</a> to bring Australia into a globalised world, and a reminder of the often futile experience of the hapless Labour voter in barracking for what, in electoral terms, has been a long-term losing team.</p>
<p>Indeed, when I contemplate drinking my moderately-priced chardonnay on what is likely to be another sweaty election night eve sometime across the next eight months, I am haunted by the fear of enduring another Don’s Party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165609/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathryn Kelly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Set at a long, beery election night party, David Williamson’s classic play is laced with unfinished sexual encounters, fist fights and drunken accusations. It feels remarkably fresh today.
Kathryn Kelly, Lecturer in Drama, School of Creative Practice and member of the 'Creative Practice for Social Impact' Research Group, Queensland University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/143902
2020-09-03T05:13:13Z
2020-09-03T05:13:13Z
Competing in Birmingham, live from Mount Druitt: how hip hop moved online under COVID-19
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352443/original/file-20200812-22-n5ssp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C8%2C5964%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joseph Frank/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the South Bronx of New York City, in the early-to-mid 1970s, block parties started to incorporate much of the artistic elements of hip hop as we know it today. </p>
<p>On the streets between their apartment buildings, young African-American, Caribbean and Latino people would gather at parties in which graffiti art, breaking, DJing and rapping were taking place. </p>
<p>These block parties, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Dangerous_Crossroads.html?id=qvjZAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">writes</a> American studies scholar George Lipsitz, were “an attempt to channel the anger of young people in the South Bronx away from gang fighting”. They would become a positive social, cultural and political force for many young people and their communities.</p>
<p>By the mid-1980s, hip hop had hit the mainstream with a force. Today, it is one of the most <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/hip-hop-continued-to-dominate-the-music-business-in-2018-774422/">popular musical genres</a> in the world. During the coronavirus pandemic – and with the resulting high unemployment, disruption to education, restricted travel and lockdown – hip hop has again become a vital outlet for many young people. </p>
<p>Instead of dancing on the streets, they are now performing online and across the world.</p>
<h2>Connecting online</h2>
<p>As hip hop music and dance artists tend to gather in public places, the pandemic and lockdowns have heavily restricted these kinds of events. Many hip hop artists - both in Australia and internationally - have <a href="https://twitter.com/partywithmiya11/status/1262522627421323265">taken to</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/wood_girls_mama/status/1239899249799835651">social media</a> to voice their frustration and disappointment with feeling cut off from this community.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1240262642691948546"}"></div></p>
<p>Artists responded to the early stages of the pandemic by moving online. Zoom, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube provided a much needed social and creative outlet. </p>
<p>In July, Melbourne hip hop dancer Nadiah Biddle started running an online “Krump Dance” program for women. <a href="https://blogs.uoregon.edu/jerkrumpop/krump/">Krumping</a> started in Los Angeles in the 1990s, and is now recognised for its expressive, exaggerated, and highly energetic movements.</p>
<p>Attracting dancers from across Australia and New Zealand through Zoom video-conferencing calls, Biddle teaches the basics of Krumping and leads students through choreography.</p>
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<p>“The vibes have been really high”, says Biddle. </p>
<p>“The ladies have expressed to me that they feel so much more uplifted [after dancing] and that they always look forward to the classes.”</p>
<p>Sydney dancer Lowe Napalan recently won the <a href="https://www.birminghamhippodrome.com/calendar/b-side-hip-hop-festival-2020/">The B-Side Hip Hop Festival</a> organised by the Break Mission crew in the UK. </p>
<p>The annual festival takes place at Birmingham’s Hippodrome Theatre, but during the pandemic it moved online for the first time – opening up the competition to international artists like Napalan. He competed from the comfort of his own home in Mount Druitt via Instagram live.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B_L8XXmhbI5","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Although he was on the other side of the world, Napalan says he had a real feeling of belonging in the event, just as if they had all been in the same room. </p>
<p>He set up his laptop in the living room to watch the other competitors and to film himself. It was a little strange, he says, because the music had to come through the laptop speakers, and there was some internet lag during some moments of the competition. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, it he found it amazing to compete on the international stage with some of the top breakers in the world.</p>
<p>The move online hasn’t just been for professionals. The Perth City Breakers, a collective of hip hop dance teachers and performers from Perth, started a hip hop dance podcast featuring local performers and an <a href="https://perthcitybreakers.podia.com/fit-rockers?fbclid=IwAR3XSCVJHGj5iAX_dl_t1_VZHQHQJmQb92EizPLe5PWJ0mxFlg12zdxqpIE">online training program</a> for absolute beginners, giving people a new way to stay fit under lockdown.</p>
<h2>A global artform</h2>
<p>Hip hop is ever-changing, dynamic and globally diverse. While graffiti art, breaking, DJing and rapping are often recognised as being the forms core artistic elements, the label is much more expansive than that.</p>
<p>It encompasses a wide range of different musical and artistic practices, all of which are able to be expressed and transformed in ways that are local and unique. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/aboriginal-hip-hop-meets-iranian-diaspora-in-a-cross-border-rap-29159">Aboriginal hip-hop meets Iranian diaspora in a cross-border rap</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In late July, for instance, Soundz of the South, a hip hop music collective based in Khayelitsha, South Africa, organised an open-mic event called Rebel Sistah Cypher. Eight South African hip hop music artists and poets each performed on a Zoom call live-streamed on the group’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=290506098721962">Facebook page</a> to raise money for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WaveOfHopeForTheFuture">Wave of Hope</a>, a charity that supports refugees and asylum seekers living in overcrowded camps in Lesbos, Greece. </p>
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<p>Hip hop is the <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ435214">representative voice</a> of many young people, since the culture was created by and for them. It is a uniquely malleable, dynamic and empowering artform – and its adaptation to the pandemic is especially vital given creative outlets are <a href="https://theconversation.com/brain-research-shows-the-arts-promote-mental-health-136668">so important</a> for well-being.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucas Marie is member of the Australian Anthropology Society. </span></em></p>
Hip-hop got its start as a political artistic force in the streets of Bronx. In the age of coronavirus, that same force has taken to the internet.
Lucas Marie, Early career researcher, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/139839
2020-06-04T19:58:35Z
2020-06-04T19:58:35Z
Friday essay: the politics of dancing and thinking about cultural values beyond dollars
<p>What keeps democracies together? As America burns, Brazilians die and Europe braces for another wave of the coronavirus, the question assumes an alarming immediacy. If the answer is complicated in one way, it is simple in another: what we have in common, what we share, and what we value as a result. </p>
<p>This week saw the federal government finally open discussions about real support for Australia’s flailing cultural sector as it slips ever closer to the abyss, and prepares to take a significant chunk of Australia’s GDP with it. </p>
<p>COVID-19 has shown up a mind-bending contradiction. On the one hand, the arts are entwined with our daily lives. Whether we are out and about, or in lockdown, it is the arts that fill our days with meaning, instruction and fun. Yet culture has all but disappeared as a major focus of federal policy. The tailored assistance packages have been manifestly inadequate, while the exclusions around JobKeeper have badly affected cultural workers and organisations.</p>
<p>Labor’s Tony Burke said it plainly on <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/labor-to-renew-its-call-for-a-rescue-package-for-the-arts-sector/12299216">ABC radio last Friday</a> and again, this week, <a href="https://medium.com/the-equity-magazine/an-industry-in-crisis-fea31752818d">in print</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This industry is worth an estimated $111 billion a year. It employs hundreds of thousands of Australian workers. It helps drive other industries, too, like tourism and hospitality. It’s an important part of our economy. But [the government] has done next to nothing [to support it].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Moving on from <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/today/paddy-manning/2020/25/2020/1590384896/job-blooper">Mathias Corman’s erroneous claim</a> that the sector has not demonstrated a significant fall in revenue, the government is now promising a culture-focused <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/arts-fund-the-show-must-go-on/news-story/9e6e2fa745bc0ffc82f00e510d8c29b1">coronavirus relief fund</a>. Details are scanty. A proposal would need to clear the expenditure review committee, and discussions with state arts ministers (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/jun/02/australias-arts-support-package-in-limbo-as-meeting-of-ministers-ends-in-stalemate">reportedly tense</a>) appear to have stalled. </p>
<p>But it isn’t just a matter of money. The real question – the one every cultural worker feels like a kick in the face – is why the sector was left out of policy calculations in the first place.</p>
<p>Something has gone fundamentally wrong with the relationship between government and Australian culture. This is important to acknowledge, because behind the question of how the nation should support the cultural sector is the larger one of what value the sector truly provides. Now is the moment to reconsider the whole cause and case of arts and culture, their place in Australian life. That can only be done if there is an understanding of how we got into this policy black hole in the first place.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-says-artists-should-be-able-to-access-jobkeeper-payments-its-not-that-simple-138530">The government says artists should be able to access JobKeeper payments. It's not that simple</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Australia’s failed attempts at finding common ground</h2>
<p>A central feature of arts and culture that makes them hard to manage from a policy perspective is that they include both the broadest aspects of human existence, and the most particular. Culture defines us, our common values and collective way of life. At the same time, we enjoy specific cultural activities and art forms as a matter of individual preference. This double helix makes them a profoundly challenging area for governments to address.</p>
<p>By conducting the conversation about arts and culture in solely economic terms – and this has been the way we have talked about them <a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p61151/pdf/ch0228.pdf">for a long while now</a> – we neglect a host of issues key to understanding the real role they play in our lives. We strip the conversation of its political, historical, social and moral dimensions.</p>
<p>It is time to regain those dimensions and integrate them into a new cultural policy vision. This is not an easy task nor simply a matter of goodwill. It requires wrestling with large and sometimes uncomfortable questions of history, identity, and social purpose.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339668/original/file-20200604-130923-e5501w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339668/original/file-20200604-130923-e5501w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339668/original/file-20200604-130923-e5501w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339668/original/file-20200604-130923-e5501w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339668/original/file-20200604-130923-e5501w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339668/original/file-20200604-130923-e5501w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339668/original/file-20200604-130923-e5501w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339668/original/file-20200604-130923-e5501w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Circa and Opera Queensland’s Orpheus & Eurydice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jade Ferguson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are two prime examples of common values thinking whose failure weakened a proper understanding of Australian arts and culture at a policy level. Both aimed to articulate our identity as a nation, and though neither were specifically cultural documents, they both involved artists. One came from the conservative side of politics, one from the progressive side.</p>
<p>The first was Prime Minister John Howard’s attempt to insert a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp9900/2000RP16">Preamble into the Australian Constitution in 1999</a>, which was written with the help of the poet Les Murray. The other was the <a href="https://ulurustatement.org">2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart</a>, which is itself an artwork, in the form of a Yirrkala bark petition, telling two Anangu creation stories in pictorial form.</p>
<p>Both documents sought to encompass, in a few hundred words, principles important to all Australians. There are, of course, significant differences between them. But there are also some compelling consonances, and at a time of growing social and political division, these are worth considering. </p>
<p>Here are eight key words the Preamble and the Uluru Statement have in common:</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-489" class="tc-infographic" height="80%" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/489/ec6ad4b93191ab4e71a163f982b5b8a7141f8f7e/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The Preamble was lost in the vortex of the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/from-the-archives-1999-australia-says-no-to-a-republic-20191104-p537bp.html">republic referendum</a>. The Uluru Statement was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-27/decision-to-reject-uluru-statement-is-indefensible/9093408">rejected by the Turnbull government</a>. </p>
<p>Yet without these kinds of common values statements, and considered debate around them, the soullessness characterising the government’s response to arts and culture during COVID-19 will continue.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/remember-the-arts-departments-and-budgets-disappear-as-politics-backs-culture-into-a-dead-end-128110">Remember the arts? Departments and budgets disappear as politics backs culture into a dead end</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>It’s not just the economy, stupid</h2>
<p>When the policy case for the cultural sector is made, it is almost always in terms of its incidental effects – the social, health, diplomatic and especially economic impact. When cultural policy is developed, its relationship with our national identity, with our history, with our land, with the vast tapestry of Australian experiences and stories, is ignored or given only lip-service.</p>
<p>We don’t ignore these on a personal level, of course. The arts wouldn’t make any sense if we did. But when we address them in policy terms, the words aren’t there. We can’t speak to ourselves in meaningful ways about what we culturally care for and see this translated into effective public action.</p>
<p>However important the issue of financial assistance to the cultural sector is – and I’d be the first to say it’s vital – there is a broader conversation that determines it. It is one that Australia often seems reluctant to have. But it offers the chance to discover the things that genuinely unite us, not just the ones over which we angrily disagree.</p>
<p>Only by finding the courage to talk honestly and openly about difficult matters of history, identity and collective purpose can we develop the emotional and intellectual resources to value the arts and culture that are their daily expression.</p>
<p>Only by finding a way to agree on the common values we have as a nation will the place of Australian arts and culture be better understood by everyone. Especially by governments, who should support them as part of our precious, democratic way of life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Meyrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
COVID-19 has shown up a mind-bending contradiction. On one hand, the arts are entwined with our daily lives. Yet culture has disappeared from federal policy. Something has gone fundamentally wrong.
Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/128052
2019-11-29T04:57:18Z
2019-11-29T04:57:18Z
Brilliant creature: Clive James spent his salad days in good company
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304393/original/file-20191129-45193-1lbkcbs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C7%2C1691%2C1487&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The University of Sydney in the late 1950s was full of bright young things who'd go on to shape Australia's cultural scene.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UTS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many remember Clive James as the wry television presenter, but long before his small screen success, he honed his performing and writing skills at the University of Sydney. </p>
<p>Arriving as a 17-year-old fresher in 1957, James found himself surrounded by an exceptionally talented group of young people including, among others, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/i-held-clive-s-hand-and-he-said-we-ve-known-each-other-for-60-years-20191128-p53f2e.html">Bruce Beresford</a>, <a href="https://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/about-us/history/">John Bell</a>, <a href="https://belvoir.com.au/john-gaden/">John Gaden</a>, <a href="https://www.portrait.gov.au/people/leo-schofield-1935">Leo Schofield</a>, <a href="http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/st-john-madeleine-13361">Madeline St John</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0924103/">Richard Wherrett</a>, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/ken-horler-man-of-theatre-civil-libertarian-and-barrister-20180921-p5055e.html">Ken Horler</a>, <a href="http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/hughes-robert-studley-17325">Robert Hughes</a> and, soon after, <a href="https://ethics.org.au/big-thinker-germaine-greer/">Germaine Greer</a>. </p>
<p>As James himself recognised, they were the lucky beneficiaries of a generous Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Menzies educated the whole generation that would later on vilify his memory. That made all the difference as we were all at university. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was right time, right place, and these students revitalised drama on campus, drawing the attention of mainstream critics with their stylish productions of the classics, and some of the most innovative contemporary drama from England and Europe, in addition to the irreverent, political and satirical annual university revues they themselves wrote and staged.</p>
<h2>In revues</h2>
<p>James was a prolific writer, contributing a steady stream of articles, poems and reviews to the student newspaper, Honi Soit. He documented the torrent of productions, including the world stage premiere of Beckett’s radio play All That Fall, Leo Schofield’s somewhat subversive production of HMS Pinafore, and he especially loved Ken Horler’s direction of Capek’s satirical Insect World, singling out Rosaleen Smyth as “a star” in the making. </p>
<p>“I can think of no other thing to say about her that could convey the way I see this actress,” wrote James, although as he was well known to be smitten with Smyth, his journalistic objectivity was shaky at best. </p>
<p>By 1958 he had launched himself into writing for the university revues: his skits were so good that they were recycled in revues for years to come. </p>
<p>His funny take on the Helen of Troy myth featured in the 1960 revue. In it actor Jenny Towndrow burst onto the stage (“like a nuclear explosion” according to Honi Soit), as Cassandra, singing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Zippy de do dah</p>
<p>Zippy de eh</p>
<p>I’ve had a hint of a horrible day</p>
<p>Hordes of destruction heading our way</p>
<p>Zippy de do dah</p>
<p>Zippy de eh… </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Having completed her calamitous prophesy she skipped off again, and Priam and Hecuba deadpanned:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Priam: She’s a gloomy girl.</p>
<p>Hecuba: Never liked to play with the other children.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Inherent vice</h2>
<p>In 1961, James not only directed the revue, Wet Blankets, but also wrote eight of its 14 skits. He had, according to his contemporaries, very clear ideas on how his work should be performed – indeed, some believed he wanted to perform <em>all</em> his own work himself.</p>
<p>James was keenly aware of the powerful lure of the stage. The previous year the Sydney University Players staged an ambitious season of plays, with profits being donated to the Sydney Opera House Building Fund. </p>
<p>Schofield directed the Australian premiere of Brecht’s Good Woman of Setzuan, and Horler (later one of the founders, along with Bell, of the Nimrod Theatre) created a highly acclaimed production of Twelfth Night, starring Bell as Malvolio and Gaden as Sir Toby Belch. But the season kicked off in a city theatre, with Lysistrata. </p>
<p>In this classic Greek comedy, set in the Trojan Wars, the womenfolk deny their fighting men sex as a strategy to end the wars. This “sex theme” attracted the attention of the state censor, who two years later would ban one of Bruce Beresford’s early student films, It Droppeth As the Gentle Rain, for obscenity. </p>
<p>Two policemen dutifully attended the first performance of Lysistrata but no further action was taken. On the second night of the season, with the vice squad safely out of the way, James bounced on stage as a Spartan herald – with a large, rolled scroll strategically angled under his very short Grecian tunic. James revelled in the audience’s delighted reaction. </p>
<p>One-time girlfriend Jill Kitson (who became an ABC broadcaster), was also in the cast, and vows this was the moment from which James set out to publicly perform as part of his brilliant career. Writing decades later, Schofield reflected that those who had seen the production “recognised early two … of Clive’s ruling passions, sex and showbiz”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RfjvKMV1c8c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">James was among the Brilliant Creatures who led the cultural revolution of the 1960s.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lasting legacy</h2>
<p>The friendships and collaborations formed while television was in its infancy have flourished for over six decades and enriched cultural life in Australia and beyond.</p>
<p>In an interview for our <a href="https://www.currency.com.au/books/history-and-criticism/the-ripples-before-the-new-wave/">book</a> The Ripples Before the New Wave: Drama at the University of Sydney 1957-63, James modestly told Robyn Dalton and myself he was convinced: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>One day we’ll all be remembered, if we are, because we once knew Madeleine St John. She was the genius; we didn’t know it at the time. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>St John, the first Australian nominated for the Booker Prize, wrote a series of sparkling novels James loved. Her book Women in Black follows the lives of a group of department store employees in 1959 Sydney and includes a main character based on another of James’ university friends. James recommended it to Beresford who optioned the film rights. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304397/original/file-20191129-95221-1rnsvcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304397/original/file-20191129-95221-1rnsvcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304397/original/file-20191129-95221-1rnsvcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304397/original/file-20191129-95221-1rnsvcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304397/original/file-20191129-95221-1rnsvcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304397/original/file-20191129-95221-1rnsvcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304397/original/file-20191129-95221-1rnsvcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304397/original/file-20191129-95221-1rnsvcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The character of Lisa (Angourie Rice) in Ladies in Black was based on Colleen Olliffe (Chesternan) – a university friend of James, Beresford and St John.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6684884/mediaviewer/rm1313174016">IMDB</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beresford’s acclaimed 2018 film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6684884/">Ladies in Black</a>, is a loving tribute to the era when this group of young people were taking their first steps in their adult lives. </p>
<p>James’ contributions then, and since, will ensure that he too, will be long and fondly remembered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128052/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Ginters received grants from the University of Sydney, the Australasian Drama Theatre and Performance Studies Association and the Chancellor's Committee (University of Sydney) which contributed to the research and publication of The Ripples Before the New Wave (co-written with Robyn Dalton), on which this article draws.</span></em></p>
Clive James’ brilliant career began as an undergraduate at the University of Sydney in 1957, where he first honed his skills as a performer and writer.
Laura Ginters, Senior Lecturer, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/122038
2019-11-18T19:20:43Z
2019-11-18T19:20:43Z
What the termite mound ‘snowmen’ of the NT can tell us about human nature
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300410/original/file-20191106-88414-7fqg96.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=176%2C23%2C2018%2C1352&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Along the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory, giant termite mounds have been bestowed with human clothes and accessories.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory is dotted with around 300 termite mounds, dressed as people. They are reminiscent of giant, ochre coloured <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowman">“snowmen”</a> in their distinctly human forms of decoration. </p>
<p>These tall, colourful mounds variously sport scarves, caps, singlets, shirts, sunhats, bras, hard hats and even a beer can. They start just below Darwin, near the Noonamah Hotel, and occur all the way down to Kulgara, just north of the South Australian border. This covers around 1,800 kilometres.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296842/original/file-20191014-135491-1gruawq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296842/original/file-20191014-135491-1gruawq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296842/original/file-20191014-135491-1gruawq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296842/original/file-20191014-135491-1gruawq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296842/original/file-20191014-135491-1gruawq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296842/original/file-20191014-135491-1gruawq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296842/original/file-20191014-135491-1gruawq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296842/original/file-20191014-135491-1gruawq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Different categories of people as depicted in the NT termite mounds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The snowmen are an irreverent, larrikin, Northern Territorian phenomenon. But who created them? And what can they teach us about fundamental human behaviours? </p>
<p>Termite mounds occur naturally. They are made of clay, soil, sand and other natural materials, bound together with the saliva of termites. They <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/8/140731-termites-mounds-insects-entomology-science/">occur globally</a> and can reach as high as five metres.</p>
<p>In the NT, the first snowmen appeared during the 1970s. More quickly followed. They appear on both public and private land, lining major highways and rural roads and extending into national parks. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300411/original/file-20191106-88428-1nakezb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300411/original/file-20191106-88428-1nakezb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300411/original/file-20191106-88428-1nakezb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300411/original/file-20191106-88428-1nakezb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300411/original/file-20191106-88428-1nakezb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300411/original/file-20191106-88428-1nakezb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300411/original/file-20191106-88428-1nakezb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300411/original/file-20191106-88428-1nakezb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The snowmen are on both public and private land.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the years, many people have made these snowmen. Some were made by roadworkers, staying at roadside camps along the highway, with limited access to towns and entertainment but plenty of work clothing. Some were made by the owners of rural and remote properties. Some were made by fisherman traversing to remote fishing locations. Some may have been decorated by tourists.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299412/original/file-20191030-17930-10i49h9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C259%2C2000%2C1059&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299412/original/file-20191030-17930-10i49h9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C259%2C2000%2C1059&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299412/original/file-20191030-17930-10i49h9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299412/original/file-20191030-17930-10i49h9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299412/original/file-20191030-17930-10i49h9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299412/original/file-20191030-17930-10i49h9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299412/original/file-20191030-17930-10i49h9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299412/original/file-20191030-17930-10i49h9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first ‘snowmen’ appeared in the 1970s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The manager of the Royal Flying Doctor Service Tourist Facility, Samantha Bennett, is a Territorian born and bred. She says of the mounds:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sometimes the clothing is changed according to festive calenders. They don’t do Halloween, but they definitely do Christmas and Australia Day. They dress them up with flags and high viz clothing, which is cool because you can see them from a distance. Sometimes, they are used to help with directions. They mark the location of a driveway in a remote area or turnoffs to secret fishing spots. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Social markers</h2>
<p>The snowmen are actually snow people – men, women and children. Some are arranged in family groups. Gender is marked by clothing. Economic status can be discerned through the use of silk scarves, resort wear or hard hats. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294283/original/file-20190926-51429-1bw0ld5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294283/original/file-20190926-51429-1bw0ld5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294283/original/file-20190926-51429-1bw0ld5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294283/original/file-20190926-51429-1bw0ld5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294283/original/file-20190926-51429-1bw0ld5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294283/original/file-20190926-51429-1bw0ld5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294283/original/file-20190926-51429-1bw0ld5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294283/original/file-20190926-51429-1bw0ld5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A snowman wears a natty silk scarf.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The NT has the <a href="https://digitallibrary.health.nt.gov.au/prodjspui/bitstream/10137/1281/1/Northern%20Territory%20Alcohol%20Policies%20and%20Legislation%20Review%20-%20Issues%20Paper.pdf">highest rate of beer drinking in Australia</a>. Not that long ago, it had the highest rate of alcohol consumption <a href="https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/northern-territory-drinks-most-alcohol-in-the-world/news-story/3300997e0a7ce7169154d9df0b44d308?sv=432ecc26d0736576fb59482b63a6e1e">in the world</a>. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, beer cans are held by some snowmen.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296843/original/file-20191014-135529-179fexk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296843/original/file-20191014-135529-179fexk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296843/original/file-20191014-135529-179fexk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296843/original/file-20191014-135529-179fexk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296843/original/file-20191014-135529-179fexk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296843/original/file-20191014-135529-179fexk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296843/original/file-20191014-135529-179fexk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Representatives of the Northern Territory’s renowned beer-drinking culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The wider NT cultural landscape</h2>
<p>The snowmen are part of a wider cultural landscape in the NT. If you go to the Coburg Peninsula and lose one of your thongs, you put the remaining thong on the <a href="https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/5144910/the-thong-tree-that-grew-at-swansea/">thong tree</a>: a tree covered top to bottom with old rubber thongs. </p>
<p>Then there is the “fence of shame” on Andreas Avenue at Dundee Beach, west of Darwin. This is where you put your fishing rod if you have broken it during your trip. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296845/original/file-20191014-135487-18pq5l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296845/original/file-20191014-135487-18pq5l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296845/original/file-20191014-135487-18pq5l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296845/original/file-20191014-135487-18pq5l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296845/original/file-20191014-135487-18pq5l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296845/original/file-20191014-135487-18pq5l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296845/original/file-20191014-135487-18pq5l5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ageing snowmen and a slightly ageing family group.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is material evidence that the snowman tradition has some longevity. In some cases, the clothing is in a dilapidated state. In others, the termites have renewed their building efforts on top of the clothes.</p>
<h2>Aboriginal traditions and termite mounds</h2>
<p>It is unlikely that the snowmen were created by Aboriginal people. As <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barunga,_Northern_Territory">Barunga</a> resident Isaac Pamakal explains: “Aboriginal people don’t do that, because that might make people sick.”</p>
<p>Termite mounds are woven into NT Aboriginal belief systems. In some areas, there is a belief that anyone who knocks over a mound will get diarrhoea. Indeed, powerful Indigenous people have been known to put someone’s clothes onto a termite mound in order to make that person sick. The intended victim would be identified by the sweat on their clothing (which contains their DNA). (This link between sweat and DNA is an example of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-indigenous-knowledge-advances-modern-science-and-technology-89351">Indigenous science</a>, which is increasingly being <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-015-0296-6">drawn on</a>.)</p>
<p>However, termite mounds are mostly known, in the NT and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ens.12328">around the world</a>, for their medicinal properties. They contain high proportions of kaolin, used for the treatment of gastric-disorders in both traditional and modern pharmacologies.</p>
<p>Francoise Foti has <a href="https://espace.cdu.edu.au/eserv/cdu:34579/Thesis_CDU_34579_Foti_F.pdf">conducted research</a> in two NT Aboriginal communities, Nauiyu Nambiyu (Daly River) and Elliott. She records people consuming small quantities of termite mounds to deal with gastric disorders or after eating certain foods like yams, turtle or goannas. Similarly, termite mound material is sometimes eaten during pregnancy or lactation as it contains iron and calcium.</p>
<h2>A global phenomenon</h2>
<p>The urge to humanise inanimate objects is a global phenomenon – through both time and space. For thousands of years, humans have had a penchant for making animals and things look like people. </p>
<p>This is most clearly shown in a style of rock art known as <a href="http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/news/cave_art_paintings.php?id=Half-Human-Half-Animal-Rock-Art">therianthropes</a>, which depicts beings that have both human and animal characteristics. It also manifests in depictions of mermaids, centaurs and other mythical creatures.</p>
<p>So while they are special, the snowmen of the NT are not unique. They are simply another example of a human need to reinvent the world in our own image.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122038/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Around 300 termite mounds dressed as people can be found along the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory. They sport all manner of accessories from bras to hard hats to beer cans.
Claire Smith, Professor of Archaeology, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124428
2019-10-02T05:04:29Z
2019-10-02T05:04:29Z
Mojo: the rise and fall of an Australian advertising empire
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295136/original/file-20191002-173380-jjkagt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=313%2C11%2C1930%2C1265&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">You might not know the name, but you would recognise the songs. Mojo was the advertising agency behind such classics as You Ought to be Congratulated.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10sBVtp6PZM">Screenshot/YouTube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Advertising agencies are full of confidence and self-belief, but only a few have the chutzpah to think they can take on the world. In the 1980s, <a href="https://www.adnews.com.au/awards/advertising-hall-of-fame/mojo">Mojo</a> was one such agency. </p>
<p>With the goal of becoming Australia’s first multinational agency, Mojo’s founders believed their success lay in their distinctive culture. While their unwavering faith in themselves and their approach would see Mojo briefly realise its goal, it also formed the basis of the agency’s demise. </p>
<p>The ABC’s recent documentary, <a href="https://iview.abc.net.au/show/how-australia-got-its-mojo">How Australia Got Its Mojo</a>, hosted by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5957238/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Gruen</a>’s Russel Howcroft, presented a nostalgic account of the Mojo story. The real story is more complex – and offers a more fascinating insight into the world of advertising. </p>
<h2>An Australian voice</h2>
<p>In the 1960s, many Australian advertising creatives <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/209410722">were tiring</a> of the formulaic practices of the multinational agencies that dominated Australia’s industry. Hoping to create their own type of advertising, creatives such as <a href="https://campaignbrief.com/mo-has-left-the-building/">Alan “Mo” Morris</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Johnston_(advertiser)">Allan “Jo” Johnston</a> took matters into their own hands. </p>
<p>Mo and Jo had worked for small creative agencies and large multinational agencies. Smaller agencies provided creative freedom but lower salaries; multinationals offered larger clients and generous salaries, but significantly less creative freedom. By establishing Mojo as their own creative consultancy, Mo and Jo hoped to get the best of both worlds. </p>
<p>The cornerstone of Mojo’s identity was its ordinariness. Their simple but catchy jingles sung in Jo’s unmistakably Aussie voice resonated with local audiences. </p>
<p>On the business side, ordinariness meant rejecting the multinationals’ structured approaches. Mojo’s <a href="https://campaignbrief.com/john-paul-mo-jo/">outlook</a> drew heavily on egalitarianism, unpretentiousness, and a blokey sense of mateship. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HoRW6Y4D-Ko?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In 1979, billings of A$14 million gave Mo and Jo the confidence to convert Mojo into a full-service agency, embracing public relations alongside advertising. Client billings continued to climb, with Mojo producing some of the nation’s most memorable campaigns – including You Ought to be Congratulated for Meadow Lea, C’mon Aussie, C’mon for World Series Cricket, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn_CPrCS8gs">Come and Say G’day</a> for Tourism Australia. </p>
<p>By 1985, Mojo was the third largest Australian-owned advertising agency. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2uBjJAV3CMk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>‘We might become big, but we’ll never be boring’</h2>
<p>In July 1986, Mojo surprised the advertising world when it announced it would be merging with another local agency, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EncUvnjKGsk">Monahan Dayman Adams</a> (MDA). </p>
<p>The two agencies had collaborated on the Commonwealth government’s bicentenary campaign. With few conflicting accounts and a shared commitment to creativity, the merger seemed a logical step. The new agency’s principals proudly proclaimed: “<a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JHRM-10-2018-0048/full/html">We might become big, but we’ll never be boring</a>.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zDxjLoTuAlA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>MDA’s small network of international offices plunged Mo and Jo into the international market. Within months of the merger, Mojo-MDA opened offices in Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand. However, the main game was the USA and the UK. </p>
<p>In November 1986, Mojo-MDA bought out a San Francisco agency, enabling it to link the Qantas and Australian Tourism accounts in the lucrative US market. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f4b0UtbyKwk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>London operations started from scratch – agency principals believed Mojo’s Australianness was a major advantage as “advertising in the UK [was] crying out for <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:388445/THE14408.pdf">a fresh approach</a>.” </p>
<p>Perhaps the most audacious move was the opening of a new office on New York’s Madison Avenue: the home of advertising. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-secret-of-mad-mens-marketing-success-revealed-25402">The secret of Mad Men’s marketing success revealed</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The honeymoon soon wore off. Differences between the <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/17469527">agencies’ cultures</a> began to affect everyday practices – from the sacking of staff to office locations. Mojo won the cultural war. Mojo was identified as the creative heart of the new agency, while MDA’s heritage was dismissed as the bland business side. </p>
<p>While Australian staff spread the Mojo ethos with missionary zeal, they <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JHRM-10-2018-0048/full/html">struggled to convert</a> local clients and audiences. Explaining the “way they wanted to sell themselves would have gone down in New Zealand like a ton of bricks”, a local staffer revealed Mojo’s Australian outlook was problematic. </p>
<p>In San Francisco, Amanda Moody, a creative assistant, recalled “the guys were a bit overconfident that they’d succeed here,” adding “what worked for advertisers in Australia just didn’t carry here.” </p>
<p>Leigh Clark, managing director of the Hong Kong branch echoed similar sentiments: “They just thought they could impose their culture and the same formula would work.” </p>
<p>By 1989, the Mojo-MDA network was under strain. With few international clients and an ethos that did not sit well with international audiences, it seized the opportunity to <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article120903668">sell out to Chiat/Day</a>, the West Coast American creative giant. </p>
<p>The Americans’ interest was the agency’s network of offices – not its unique culture. Chiat/Day staff were highly dismissive of Mojo’s creative output. Mo and Jo were soon sidelined and disillusionment set in. </p>
<p>Mo exited in 1991, Jo followed in 1994. While Mojo agency <a href="https://www.adnews.com.au/news/publicis-retires-mojo-sydney-as-marcel-opens">continued through to 2016</a>, it was never the same. </p>
<h2>Too rigid before the fall</h2>
<p>Viewed some thirty years later, it’s difficult not to see hubris at the heart of Mojo’s rise and fall. Mojo’s unique culture saw Mo and Jo become national heroes. It also gave them the confidence to take on the world. But Mojo’s rigid adherence to its culture meant it lacked the flexibility to sustain a viable global operation. </p>
<p>While Mojo had hoped to emulate Paul Hogan’s spectacular international rise, the reality was their story was more <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JHRM-06-2015-0019/full/html?mobileUi=0">Vegemite</a> than Hogan – an easy product to package and export, but a difficult taste for foreign palates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Crawford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The ABC documentary, How Australia Got Its Mojo, purported to tell the story of advertising agency Mojo. But the real story is more complex.
Robert Crawford, Professor of Advertising, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124281
2019-10-01T20:08:36Z
2019-10-01T20:08:36Z
Paul Hogan and the myth of the white Aussie bloke
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294926/original/file-20191001-194832-1jfooib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C11%2C1498%2C986&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Through Paul Hogan and Crocodile Dundee we can learn a lot about the enduring myth of the Aussie Bloke. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paramount</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian Story recently featured a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/austory/a-fortunate-life---part-1/11505028">two-part look</a> at Australia’s iconic film and television legend Paul Hogan, documenting Hogan’s rise and fall in Australian culture. </p>
<p>Self-described as a “<a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/awards/im-a-huge-onehit-wonder-paul-hogan-lands-highest-australian-film-award/news-story/ecea5d08d63f076200fd730f175944d6">one-hit wonder</a>”, Hogan’s well-loved persona is attributed to his embodiment of the ordinary, Aussie bloke.</p>
<p>But just who is this <a href="https://www.routledge.com/White-Masculinity-in-Contemporary-Australia-The-Good-Ol-Aussie-Bloke/Waling/p/book/9781138633285">mythic Australian bloke</a>?</p>
<p>He is white, straight, able-bodied, and good for a laugh. He is practical and good in a crisis, but generally laid back. He rejects individualism in favour of loyalty to his mates. He is a larrikin and a hater of authority. </p>
<p>He is just your ordinary, average guy. </p>
<p>Hogan’s emergence as an international Australian icon is largely in part due to his embodiment of this idealised Aussie bloke. </p>
<h2>The long ocker history</h2>
<p>The outback ocker was embedded in white Australian culture through the late 1800s and early 1900s. </p>
<p>Poets such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson, and literary magazines such as The Bulletin, romanticised ocker men and the hardships of bush life. White men who could survive in the rough Australian climate were valued for their mateship, perseverance, and push back against authority. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294925/original/file-20190930-194842-lc7dgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294925/original/file-20190930-194842-lc7dgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294925/original/file-20190930-194842-lc7dgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294925/original/file-20190930-194842-lc7dgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294925/original/file-20190930-194842-lc7dgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294925/original/file-20190930-194842-lc7dgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294925/original/file-20190930-194842-lc7dgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shearing the Rams is a classic capturing of the rough Aussie bloke.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NGV Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The significant losses of ANZACs during the first world war <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443059809387364?src=recsys">marked a shift</a> from focusing on the bush as a site of masculinity, to life on the urban beach. Australia was desperate for heroes, and the image of a strong, white, and healthy male was nurtured. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294927/original/file-20191001-194862-1xvzsmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294927/original/file-20191001-194862-1xvzsmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294927/original/file-20191001-194862-1xvzsmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294927/original/file-20191001-194862-1xvzsmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294927/original/file-20191001-194862-1xvzsmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294927/original/file-20191001-194862-1xvzsmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294927/original/file-20191001-194862-1xvzsmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Post WWI, the image of the Australian bloke moved from the bush to the beach.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ray Leighton/Trove</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 60s and 70s, there was a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20638163?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">cultural push</a> in Australian society to instate a white, collective, homogeneous Australian identity occurring alongside the abolition of the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/end-of-the-white-australia-policy">White Australia policy</a>. There was a push towards Australian national pride, encouraging consumption of local goods and entertainment, and the inclusion of white Australian history in the school curriculum. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">Australian politics explainer: the White Australia policy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Simultaneously, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-06/indigenous-recognition-timeline-of-australian-history/6586176">fought</a> (and continue to fight) for increased recognition for rights, histories, and social justice – standing in contrast to colonial ideas of Australian identity and heritage. </p>
<p>Through the 70s and 80s, films such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084296/">The Man From Snowy River</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082432/">Gallipoli</a>, and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088866/">Burke & Wills</a>, and television shows such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask_the_Leyland_Brothers">Ask the Leyland Brothers </a>and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0461719/">The Bush Tucker Man</a>, gave a revival to the image of the white ocker. As Australian life moved further away from idealised bloke, this man was being revived on screen. </p>
<p>It was in this era we met Crocodile Dundee. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rijQ5oBFlO0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>A lasting image of Australian culture</h2>
<p>In his early career, Hogan had <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-04/early-a-current-affair/9115052">recurring appearances</a> on A Current Affair, and became a household name with <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129705/?">The Paul Hogan Show</a>.</p>
<p>But the prevailing image of Hogan is as Mick Dundee, a character which also helped form a global reputation of Australia as a place that is easy-going and unconcerned with material lifestyles – despite Australia being quite the contrary, thanks to post-war prosperity. </p>
<p>Dundee has spurred <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGEYD92eA_s">parodies</a> and a cameo on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcE0aAhbVFc">The Simpsons</a>. Last year, Tourism Australia created a trailer for a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-smart-strategy-behind-tourism-australias-croc-dundee-super-bowl-pitch-to-the-americans-91312">fake new instalment</a> of the Crocodile Dundee films to promote Australia tourism.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jvmcWPeQwIc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The success of this advertisement is attributed to the <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5501778/superbowl-spoof-crocodile-dundee-trailer-was-so-good-theres-now-a-campaign-to-turn-it-into-a-real-movie/">public push</a> for such a film to be produced. But at the same time this posited return of Hogan was celebrated, it was clear that this image of the Aussie bloke has also lost its shine. </p>
<p>Characters like Crocodile Dundee <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/23/crocodile-dundee-was-sexist-racist-and-homophobic-lets-not-bring-that-back">are now critiqued</a> for being sexist, racist, and homophobic, and performing masculinity is regarded as a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0891243205278639?journalCode=gasa">major form of oppression</a> for men. </p>
<p>The conversation has shifted. The stoicism of the Aussie Bloke can lead to poor mental health, as men are forced to embody a narrow definition of Australian masculinity. There needs to be a change in how men behave and enact masculinity in Australian culture. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-challenging-masculine-stereotypes-is-good-for-men-114300">How challenging masculine stereotypes is good for men</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Contemporary critiques of the bloke</h2>
<p>Hogan’s performance of masculinity is one that is easy-going, ordinary, and down-to-earth. It is relatable because it is not extraordinary. </p>
<p>But after the height of Crocodile Dundee, Hogan experienced major downfalls. <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3795710/He-doesn-t-speak-Paul-Hogan-s-ex-wife-Noelene-breaks-silence-27-years-reveals-feels-betrayed-iconic-actor.html">Divorce</a> and <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/paul-hogan-ready-to-settle-his-tax-stoush/news-story/393d02e13a7baa448ef8fdd75d19817d">tax evasion scandals</a> went against the idealised image of the Aussie bloke; not helped by Australia’s <a href="https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/is-tall-poppy-syndrome-embedded-in-our-dna/news-story/e461e79c8b2c22e5de95a25c1551f3ca">Tall Poppy Syndrome</a>. </p>
<p>Hogan’s representation of an everyday, ordinary bloke had been damaged by his accumulation of wealth and break down of his nuclear family structure. The performative masculinity of the Australian bloke is narrow and exacting, forever threatened.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294654/original/file-20190929-185399-1lfwve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294654/original/file-20190929-185399-1lfwve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294654/original/file-20190929-185399-1lfwve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294654/original/file-20190929-185399-1lfwve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294654/original/file-20190929-185399-1lfwve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294654/original/file-20190929-185399-1lfwve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294654/original/file-20190929-185399-1lfwve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The myth of the white Australian bloke can be damaging – but perhaps there is a way forward.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paramount</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is much damaging about this legend of the ordinary, Aussie bloke: its exclusion of those who don’t fit the white, able-bodied, hetero norm; its impact on men’s mental health; its ties with colonialism and the subjugation of women and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures. </p>
<p>But in watching the recent Australian Story, there is something, too, we can all take to heart from the value of ordinariness in a world where we are increasingly asked to be extraordinary. </p>
<p>Maybe this is the new Australian myth we should all embrace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124281/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Waling does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The mythical Australian bloke is white, straight, and able-bodied – he’s Crocodile Dundee. But where does this legend come from, and what is his future?
Andrea Waling, Research fellow, La Trobe University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/120897
2019-07-24T09:36:16Z
2019-07-24T09:36:16Z
Vale Margaret Fulton: a role model for generations of Australian food writers
<p>Legendary Australian food writer Margaret Fulton <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-24/margaret-fulton-celebrated-australian-cook-dies-aged-94/9618732">has died aged 94</a>. At the news of her death, many are noting her long career and her influence on cookery and eating habits in Australia. With a professional life spanning well over 60 years, she successfully managed that career and her image in the media over this long period, providing a role model for generations of Australian food writers. </p>
<p>With 1.5 million copies of her <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2348160.Margaret_Fulton_Cookbook">eponymous cookbook</a> sold, Fulton achieved significant public recognition for her work. In 1983, she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia. In 1997, she was inducted into the World Food Media Awards Hall of Fame and named as one of the National Trust’s original 100 Living Australian National Treasures. </p>
<p>Even more than that, though, she was trusted. Margaret Fulton, indeed, built her career on the provision of sound, trustworthy cookery advice. And she knew it.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285477/original/file-20190724-110191-vss69u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285477/original/file-20190724-110191-vss69u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285477/original/file-20190724-110191-vss69u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285477/original/file-20190724-110191-vss69u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285477/original/file-20190724-110191-vss69u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285477/original/file-20190724-110191-vss69u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285477/original/file-20190724-110191-vss69u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285477/original/file-20190724-110191-vss69u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1980, reflecting on her career, she recognised that her brand was built on reliability rather than novelty or extravagance, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/39232428?q=The+Reputation+With+a+%2425%2C000+Tag%3A+And+the+Face+to+Launch+a+Thousand+Home+Profits&c=article&versionId=52071144">stating</a>: “I believe my reputation is built on the fact that people can rely on me. Unlike other cookery people, I believe I’m doing the right thing by not being flamboyant. I know that’s the success of my business.” </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3329913-i-sang-for-my-supper-memories-of-a-food-writer?from_search=true">her memoir</a>, she originally dreamt of being a showgirl, but Fulton began her career during the Second World War on a public stage of a different kind – as a cookery demonstrator with the Australian Gas Light Company. </p>
<p>She gained valuable experience in retail – selling pressure cookers, and running the kitchen and homewares section of David Jones – before joining then-popular <a href="http://collections.anmm.gov.au/people/16645">Woman magazine</a> as a food writer in 1954.</p>
<p>At this time, she was also completing a professional cookery course at the East Sydney Technical College. Largely based on classical French cookery, she learnt recipes and techniques which stood her in good stead throughout her later career.</p>
<p>In 1955, Fulton joined the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, managing a number of food accounts and, when television broadcasting started in 1956, began working on television commercials for such major food brands as Kelloggs and Kraft.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285468/original/file-20190724-110149-y1ez9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285468/original/file-20190724-110149-y1ez9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285468/original/file-20190724-110149-y1ez9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285468/original/file-20190724-110149-y1ez9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285468/original/file-20190724-110149-y1ez9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285468/original/file-20190724-110149-y1ez9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285468/original/file-20190724-110149-y1ez9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285468/original/file-20190724-110149-y1ez9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fulton (right) with Dur'e Dara, Melbourne restauranteur in 2003.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Greenpeace/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fulton learnt much from this advertising experience. Although she was to appear in major television campaigns for ingredients and appliances, and publicise named products in cookbooks such as <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/6316505-the-margaret-fulton-crock-pot-cookbook">The Margaret Fulton Crock-pot Cookbook</a> (1976), she was able to maintain her credibility.</p>
<p>In 1960, Margaret Fulton commenced a 20 year association with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Day_(Australian_magazine)">Woman’s Day</a> as first a writer, and then its cookery editor. It was in this role that she was especially influential in exposing her readers to both new trends in ingredients and food preparation, as well as to reliable methods of reproducing traditional dishes. Fulton was able to translate and popularise the dishes of post-war and other migrants to Australia, featuring Italian, Greek, Yugoslavian and other cuisines in her food pages.</p>
<h2>Her life’s work</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2348160.Margaret_Fulton_Cookbook?from_search=true">Margaret Fulton Cookbook</a> was published in 1968. Unexpectedly selling out its then record first print run of 100,000 copies, it went to a second printing the next year, and many more after that. This book features step-by-step illustrated guides to not only how to cook the so-called “Continental” and “Oriental” dishes that have now become our nightly fare, but also how to eat them. There were, for instance, photographs of how to twirl spaghetti on a fork and illustrations of how to use chopsticks. </p>
<p>In the late 1970s, Fulton joined New Idea magazine as its cookery writer. At this time, while writing and promoting realistic and reliable recipes, techniques and products, she was also consolidating her own reputation in appearances in television commercials.</p>
<p>This mixture of reliability and creativity took her far from the food pages of women’s magazines. In 1980, for example, Fulton acted as the culinary consultant for Ansett Airlines, designing then-revolutionary snack boxes of sandwiches and fresh fruit for short flights. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285485/original/file-20190724-110170-1brd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285485/original/file-20190724-110170-1brd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285485/original/file-20190724-110170-1brd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285485/original/file-20190724-110170-1brd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285485/original/file-20190724-110170-1brd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285485/original/file-20190724-110170-1brd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285485/original/file-20190724-110170-1brd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285485/original/file-20190724-110170-1brd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By late 1982, a feature article in the Weekend Australian judged her to have had “more impact on the Australian kitchen than anything or person since the refrigerator”. Just a few months later, in 1983, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/106156.Margaret_Fulton_s_Encyclopedia_Of_Food_Cookery">Margaret Fulton’s Encyclopedia of Food and Cookery</a> was published, cementing her place as the arbiter of Australian domestic cooking. When, over 20 years later, a revised and updated version of this volume was released in 2005, Fulton referred to it as her “life’s work”. </p>
<p>It was not until 1999, at the height of the personal memoir’s popularity, that Fulton published her memoir, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3329913-i-sang-for-my-supper-memories-of-a-food-writer?from_search=true">I Sang for My Supper: Memories of a Food Writer</a>. This was a brave act, for as well as cataloguing her achievements, this text revealed her to have met many professional, personal and financial challenges.</p>
<p>Long after reaching the age at which many others would have retired, her writing continued to be in demand. In 2001, Fulton co-authored <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17764982-cooking-for-dummies?from_search=true">Cooking for Dummies</a> with Barbara Beckett. This book was published at the peak of the high profile series’ success. </p>
<p>Fulton had a long history of assisting the causes she believed in, including grassroots organisations. In 2003, she launched the second edition of a non-genetically modified ingredients True Food Guide for Greenpeace.</p>
<p>But it is her cookery writing that so many will not only remember, but continue to reach for. This writing truly came from her heart and although the purpose of her recipes was largely practical and educational, the results were intended to delight and nurture. On the first page of The Margaret Fulton Cookbook, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2348160.Margaret_Fulton_Cookbook?from_search=true">she wrote</a>, “I have always believed that good food and good cooking are part of all that is best in life, all that is warm, friendly and rewarding”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120897/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donna Lee Brien does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Margaret Fulton built a long-lasting career on the provision of sound, trustworthy cookery advice.
Donna Lee Brien, Professor, Creative Industries, CQUniversity Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/113363
2019-07-18T19:19:42Z
2019-07-18T19:19:42Z
Friday essay: why old is new again - the mid-century homes made famous by Don’s Party and Dame Edna
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265714/original/file-20190325-36252-1ouoeik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Royal Victorian Small Homes House, designed in conjuction with The Age newspaper, 1955. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=SLV_VOYAGER1758929&vid=MAIN&search_scope=Everything&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US&context=L">Photo: Wolfgang Sievers. Pictures Collection, State Library Victoria</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Of all the mantras for modernism, the one I think most befitting for Australian mid-century modern houses is <a href="http://arti.sba.uniroma3.it/esprit/">L'esprit Nouveau</a> – The New Spirit. These houses represented more than style; they reflected a new Australian spirit that emerged in the postwar era. </p>
<p>Modernism was established in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. An intentional shift away from classical tradition, it was informed by new technology and mass production. While early modernism was weighed down by the avant garde and elitism, mid-century modernism - which includes architecture from the 1950s to the late 1970s - became accessible and was embraced internationally. </p>
<p>The current resurgence in popularity of mid-century modern houses in Australia has been spurred by websites such as <a href="https://modernistaustralia.com">Modernist Australia</a>, social media groups for “MCM” enthusiasts, <a href="https://www.heide.com.au/exhibitions/design-life-grant-and-mary-featherston">public exhibitions</a>, and even real estate agents dedicated to selling the <a href="http://www.modernhouse.co/">Modern House</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283628/original/file-20190711-173325-1ewrzm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283628/original/file-20190711-173325-1ewrzm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283628/original/file-20190711-173325-1ewrzm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283628/original/file-20190711-173325-1ewrzm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283628/original/file-20190711-173325-1ewrzm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283628/original/file-20190711-173325-1ewrzm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283628/original/file-20190711-173325-1ewrzm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283628/original/file-20190711-173325-1ewrzm7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boyd House, Walsh Street, South Yarra 1958.
Architect: Robin Boyd.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph: Mark Strizic, c.1965 Mark Strizic Collection State Library Victoria Melbourne © Estate of Mark Strizic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-modernism-24534">Explainer: what is modernism?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A fascination with mid-century modernism has also been explored in the two-part documentary <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/streets-of-your-town/">Streets of Your Town</a>, hosted by comedian and self-proclaimed “architecture tragic” <a href="https://www.timross.com.au">Tim Ross</a>. He describes how the popularity of these houses was underpinned by purpose as much as style:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Modernism may have had its birth in Europe and its glamour in America but I think it found its egalitarian purpose, unrivalled anywhere else in the world, in Australia’s suburbs. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some enthusiasts point to the television series <a href="https://www.curbed.com/2017/11/22/16690454/midcentury-modern-design-mad-men-eames">Mad Men</a> as the catalyst for international mid-century modern revivalism. But visual culture has also been central to its popularity in Australia. As these homes emerged, so too did the suburbs, which became the setting for much of Australian television and theatre.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283813/original/file-20190712-173329-9h3dfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283813/original/file-20190712-173329-9h3dfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283813/original/file-20190712-173329-9h3dfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283813/original/file-20190712-173329-9h3dfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283813/original/file-20190712-173329-9h3dfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283813/original/file-20190712-173329-9h3dfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283813/original/file-20190712-173329-9h3dfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283813/original/file-20190712-173329-9h3dfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The hit TV series Mad Men is closely associated with the global revival of mid-century modern style.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I think this is central to the popularity of these houses. Even if you didn’t grow up in one, you probably watched a family who did on television.</p>
<p>I grew up in a late 70s, mid-century modern home. It was designed by a draftsperson, not an architect, but featured many of the design elements commonly associated with the style. Just like the Kerrigan family in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf8AjYvQZmE">The Castle</a> we had a pool room, complete with a purpose-built bar. </p>
<h2>Mid-century modern in pop culture</h2>
<p>Early 20th century Australian architecture, especially during the interwar period, had been burdened with the nationalistic desire to create a distinctly Australian house. </p>
<p>In the postwar era, however, the cultural landscape shifted from the wide brown land to the interior of our suburbs, and especially our homes. Australian culture was motivated by the kind of self-consciousness often associated with modernism. This was reflected in mid-century modern houses, with their humble facades and efficient planning. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265717/original/file-20190325-36273-1dwpj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265717/original/file-20190325-36273-1dwpj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265717/original/file-20190325-36273-1dwpj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265717/original/file-20190325-36273-1dwpj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265717/original/file-20190325-36273-1dwpj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265717/original/file-20190325-36273-1dwpj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265717/original/file-20190325-36273-1dwpj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265717/original/file-20190325-36273-1dwpj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Image of interior of a Royal Victorian Institute of Architects Small Home Services House, designed in conjuction with the Age newspaper, 1955.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1cl35st/SLV_VOYAGER1758927">Photo: Wolfgang Sievers. Pictures Collection, State Library Victoria</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ray Lawler’s 1955 play <a href="https://australianplays.org/script/CP-2584">Summer of the 17th Doll</a> exemplifies this shift and is considered to be the first Australian play to be set inside a house. Around the same time, in 1956, Melbourne was hosting the Olympic Games, and with a shortage of hotel accommodation, families were asked to billet athletes. This placed Australian homes, in a very real sense, on an international stage.</p>
<p>It was this event that inspired the character <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/dame-edna-60-years-of-megastardom-20151211-glliea.html">Mrs Norman Everage</a> (later Dame Edna Everage) of Moonee Ponds. The first Edna Everage show revolved around her domestic preparations for international guests in the lead up the 1956 Games. Barry Humphries then took a satirical view of Australian domesticity to an international audience. </p>
<p>Humphries’ critical view on Australian life, alongside books such as David Horne’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3305564-the-lucky-country?from_search=true">The Lucky Country</a> (1964) and architect Robin Boyd’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2479687.The_Australian_Ugliness?from_search=true">The Australian Ugliness</a> (1960), represented a <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/books-peter-conrad-coming-age-peter-conrad-robin-boyd-s-australian-ugliness-fifty-years-2175">maturing</a> of Australian culture, which emerged from critical reflections on our position in the world through art, architecture, literature and film. </p>
<p>Boyd and Humphries shared an enduring friendship, and there are many <a href="https://griffithreview.com/articles/a-preposterous-life/">overlaps</a> in their critique of Australian domesticity. Boyd’s work has undoubtedly been at the centre of the current mid-century modern revival. The attention it attracts is not just about his architecture, <a href="https://placesjournal.org/article/revisiting-robin-boyds-anti-architecture/?cn-reloaded=1">but also the sentiments that informed it</a>. For Boyd, architecture was not an isolated discipline, rather it possessed the capacity to shape, and be shaped by, broader social, political, economic and cultural ideas. </p>
<p>Boyd was instrumental in setting up the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-14/treasure-trove-small-homes-helped-deliver-great-australian-dream/9861204">Small Home Service in 1947</a>, which delivered designs for modern, small, flexible, and affordable homes in response to postwar housing shortages. It is probably this aspect of his work that resonates the most – a solution to housing inefficiencies led by professionals for the greater good, not financial greed. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264275/original/file-20190318-28483-1izrisg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264275/original/file-20190318-28483-1izrisg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264275/original/file-20190318-28483-1izrisg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264275/original/file-20190318-28483-1izrisg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264275/original/file-20190318-28483-1izrisg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264275/original/file-20190318-28483-1izrisg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264275/original/file-20190318-28483-1izrisg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264275/original/file-20190318-28483-1izrisg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brochure of Royal New South Wales Institute of Architects Small Homes Services Catalogue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://collection.hht.net.au/firsthht/fullRecord.jsp?recnoListAttr=recnoList&recno=7433">Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Sydney Living Museums</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Great Australian party houses</h2>
<p>Of course, there is much to admire about Boyd’s designs, and those of the other architects working for the Small Home Service. Externally, the designs were refined and simple. Australian mid-century modern houses are unique with their pitched roofs in contrast to the flat roofs found in America and Europe. They introduced open plan living areas, a move away from a series of rooms connected by hallways. </p>
<p>This openness brought more light into living spaces, as did bigger windows and glass sliding doors that connected inside and outside. And, as Ross’ book <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-rumpus-room-tim-ross/prod9780646969886.html">The Rumpus Room, And other stories from the suburbs</a> (2017) describes, this openness made them great Australian party houses.</p>
<p>Made of prefabricated elements, these houses were a builders’ delight - and affordable. By the 1960s, most large building companies, including AV Jennings offered a range of such houses for sale.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264274/original/file-20190318-28471-1g8ml61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264274/original/file-20190318-28471-1g8ml61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264274/original/file-20190318-28471-1g8ml61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264274/original/file-20190318-28471-1g8ml61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264274/original/file-20190318-28471-1g8ml61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264274/original/file-20190318-28471-1g8ml61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264274/original/file-20190318-28471-1g8ml61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/264274/original/file-20190318-28471-1g8ml61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">AV Jenning Homes Brochure 1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AV Jennings</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This year marks <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-18/1969-federal-election-was-comedy-of-errors-in-tally-room/11124594">50 years since the election party</a> that inspired David Williamson’s play <a href="https://australianplays.org/script/CP-187">Don’s Party</a> (1971). Williamson drew inspiration from his AV Jennings Type 15 home, built in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora in the 1960s. </p>
<p>In 2011, I asked him how his home had influenced the writing of Don’s Party. He told me: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a feature of these houses was the openness and connectedness of the living, dining and kitchen areas with the bedrooms down a corridor at the back. This openness allowed one to think of a set design. It was good for the dramatic structure. I drew a floor plan and had the characters’ names on slips of paper which I slid around the floor plan so I knew who was where at any particular time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Williamson’s reflections show how these houses were a literal backdrop to writers and performers at the time. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h7pS0XkOvYc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Cooley’s Monologue from the 1976 film version of Don’s Party.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 1976 film Don’s Party was shot in a house built by Australian company Pettit and Sevitt, founded in 1961. Its design, known as the “Lowline”, was created by architects Ken Woolley and Michael Dysart. </p>
<p>Like the Small Homes Service, Pettit and Sevitt aimed to build good quality, affordable, architect-designed homes. Forty years after closing their business, they have <a href="https://www.pettitandsevitt.com.au">recently re-opened it</a>, such is the current enthusiasm for mid-century modernism. </p>
<p>It seems obvious that the combination of affordability and well designed homes is an irresistible quality. However, the popularity of mid-century homes, - both then and now - runs much deeper. I would argue that they are also a reflection of a nation quietly contemplating its place in the world.</p>
<h2>The problem child of heritage</h2>
<p>The rise of the mid-century modern house unfortunately coincided with the modernist urban planning principles that resulted in car dependent, low density suburbs on the outskirts of cities. The sprawling nature of these suburbs has contributed to the housing stress many Australians currently experience. </p>
<p>The location of these houses, along with their larger lot sizes, means many have now been demolished and replaced with higher density developments. There is now a sense of urgency about their protection and conservation. </p>
<p>Professor Philip Goad from the University of Melbourne describes modernism as the “<a href="https://australia.icomos.org/wp-content/uploads/Unloved-over-loved-or-just-misunderstood-Modern-architecture-%E2%80%93-the-problem-child-of-heritage-vol-25-no-1.pdf">problem child of heritage</a>”. By this he means, it belongs to an era that has surely passed by, but is too young to be broadly admired as built heritage.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/uneasy-heritage-australias-modern-church-buildings-are-disappearing-94115">Uneasy heritage: Australia’s modern church buildings are disappearing</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Publications such as <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Designer-Suburbs-Judith-OCallaghan/9781742233468">Designer Suburbs</a>, <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/hot-modernism-macarthur-john/prod9781908967589.html">Hot Modernism</a>, <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/australia-modern-hannah-lewi/prod9781760760151.html?source=pla&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzNaBppK44wIVkoRwCh0QAwnYEAQYASABEgJUDfD_BwE">Australia Modern</a>, <a href="https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/an-unfinished-experiment-in-living-australian-houses-1950-65">An Unfinished Experiment in Living</a>, and <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/other-moderns/">The Other Moderns</a> have highlighted the broader cultural value of these houses. This has also been part of the mission of the <a href="https://robinboyd.org.au">Robin Boyd Foundation</a>, which has conserved Boyd’s iconic Walsh Street House. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283627/original/file-20190711-173338-ix2qqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283627/original/file-20190711-173338-ix2qqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283627/original/file-20190711-173338-ix2qqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283627/original/file-20190711-173338-ix2qqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283627/original/file-20190711-173338-ix2qqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283627/original/file-20190711-173338-ix2qqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283627/original/file-20190711-173338-ix2qqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283627/original/file-20190711-173338-ix2qqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boyd House, Walsh Street, South Yarra 1958.
Architect: Robin Boyd.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph: John Gollings, 2012 © John Gollings</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This year marks 100 years since Boyd’s birth. In August, an exhibition at Melbourne’s <a href="https://www.heide.com.au/exhibitions/robin-boyd-design-legend-0">Heide Museum of Modern Art</a> will celebrate ten of his most iconic houses. The exhibition aims to share Boyd’s “<a href="https://www.heide.com.au/exhibitions/robin-boyd-design-legend-0">humanist belief that good design can improve people’s lives and the world we live in</a>”, capturing both the ethos of mid-century modern and the sense of nostalgia that now surrounds it.</p>
<p>Very few surveys of mid-century modern houses in Australian suburbs exist. In 2018, Bayside Council in Melbourne started a heritage survey of them in the suburbs of <a href="https://architectureau.com/articles/melbourne-council-begins-survey-of-one-of-australias-densest-concentrations-of-mid-century-modernist-homes/">Beaumaris and Black Rock</a>. Unfortunately, less than a year later, council had <a href="https://architectureau.com/articles/melbourne-council-dumps-survey-of-one-of-australias-densest-concentrations-of-mid-century-modernist-architecture/">abandoned the project</a>.</p>
<p>The connection between Australia’s mid-century modern houses and popular culture demonstrates their cultural and heritage value. However, heritage is not simply determined by perceived aesthetic merit – it also needs to address <a href="https://www.icomos.org/risk/2002/20th2002.htm">practical issues</a> such as the maintenance of building materials, as well as good planning principles. </p>
<p>The efforts of mid-century modern enthusiasts have produced greater awareness of the cultural significance of these buildings. In time, they should secure the same heritage protection afforded to other architectural styles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kirsty Volz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Renewed interest in mid-century modern houses is more about substance than style. They represent the emergence of a new spirit and a coming of age in postwar Australia.
Kirsty Volz, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/108678
2018-12-19T19:07:59Z
2018-12-19T19:07:59Z
What the folk? Whatever happened to Australia’s national folklife centre?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250908/original/file-20181217-185240-jlbt21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Poster for the 23rd National Folk Festival in Maleny, Qld, 1989. Since 1994, the Festival has been held in Canberra.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive and Kim Brown, 462585.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most Australians know something about “folklore”. Every year crowds converge on Canberra for the <a href="https://www.folkfestival.org.au/">National Folk Festival</a>.
But, folklore encompasses far more than song and dance. The term refers to a rich intangible heritage of games, yarns, legends, stories, crafts, jokes, tricks, taboos, poems, recipes, birthday customs and even graffiti. </p>
<p>It exists in the playground, in the kitchen, at the bar and even on the walls of the Australian War Memorial, stitched into the beautiful <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/quilt">Changi quilts</a>. Folklore is everywhere. </p>
<p>Australia has often undervalued its folklife. There was a time, however, when one government department took a special interest in the study and preservation of Australian folklore. In 1986, Barry Cohen, then Minister of Arts Heritage and Environment, commissioned a Committee of Inquiry into Folklife in Australia.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250864/original/file-20181217-185246-1ef6q7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250864/original/file-20181217-185246-1ef6q7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250864/original/file-20181217-185246-1ef6q7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250864/original/file-20181217-185246-1ef6q7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250864/original/file-20181217-185246-1ef6q7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250864/original/file-20181217-185246-1ef6q7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250864/original/file-20181217-185246-1ef6q7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250864/original/file-20181217-185246-1ef6q7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Folklife: Our Living Heritage (1987)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The resulting report <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1838606">Folklife: Our Living Heritage</a>, was published in 1987. It concluded that despite the valiant efforts of individuals, local and community organisations, Australia was by “international standards […] poorly equipped” to ensure the protection of its folklore. Of the 51 recommendations, many depended on the success of the first: the establishment of an Australian Folklife Centre.</p>
<p>As part of this bold but much-needed initiative, the Centre would “provide national focus for action to record, safeguard and promote awareness of Australia’s heritage of folklife”. It was estimated that its establishment would cost $1.25 million (equivalent of $3.7 million today), with a further $1.5 million to support activities in its early years.</p>
<p>Several recommendations were concerned with folklife in schools, particularly important as the primary school playground is today <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/education/the-kids-are-all-right-vegemite-20130912-2tmav.html">a major location</a> for children’s folkloric play. The committee decided not to report on traditional Aboriginal ceremony, lore and belief, but it did include Aboriginal craft and contemporary urban and rural folklife. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bang-bang-bang-the-shock-of-a-boy-playing-with-a-gun-on-a-suburban-street-85815">'Bang, bang, bang!': the shock of a boy playing with a gun on a suburban street</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The inquiry made it clear that the government was, and still is, responsible for the protection of the nation’s tangible and intangible heritage. This was apparently not the news that the government and its new environment and arts minister, Graham Richardson, wanted to hear: none of the recommendations of the folklife inquiry were ever implemented by the Government.</p>
<p>Still, Australian folklorists were not so easily deterred. Inspired by initiatives like the American Folklife Center and the Ontario Folklife Centre, Gwenda Davey, Jennifer Gall and Pamela Rosenberg went ahead and declared the establishment of an Australian Folklife Centre in Canberra in December 1990.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250865/original/file-20181217-185268-ga1rh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250865/original/file-20181217-185268-ga1rh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250865/original/file-20181217-185268-ga1rh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250865/original/file-20181217-185268-ga1rh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250865/original/file-20181217-185268-ga1rh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250865/original/file-20181217-185268-ga1rh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250865/original/file-20181217-185268-ga1rh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250865/original/file-20181217-185268-ga1rh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Girls Playing ‘Oranges and Lemons’ Game, Melbourne, 1954. Courtesy of Museums Victoria and Dr June Factor, Item MM 104103.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Australia’s major coordinating body for national folk arts, <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-369454854/findingaid">the Australian Folk Trust</a>, courageously took up responsibility for the Centre. The National Library, National Museum and National Film and Sound Archive were all on side. The Centre also had international support, even from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, which invited Australia to be the featured nation at the 1993 <a href="https://festival.si.edu/about-us/mission-and-history/smithsonian">Festival of American Folklife</a>. Only one country, Sweden, had declined the offer in 48 years. Much to the dismay of the folklore community, Australia was to be the second.</p>
<p>The Australian Folklife Centre should have been an early victory in Australia’s culture wars: a moment when the Federal Government made an important commitment to protecting the nation’s living culture. The Centre itself would have been an initiative not only of collection and preservation, but of research, advocacy, training and public policy. In the end, it could not continue its work without government funding and it wound up its affairs in 1994-5 after four years of hard work.</p>
<p>Timing appears to have been a major obstacle to gaining momentum. Established under the first Hawke government, but published under the second, the Folklife Inquiry suffered under changing government priorities after the 1987 federal election as well as a wave of post-Bicentenary fatigue. As the historian Frank Bongiorno <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=vEDDCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn:1863957766&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQtobyuajfAhVKWX0KHZp4AUMQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">has observed</a>, Australia had just finished celebrating “the biggest party [it had] ever seen”.</p>
<h2>A ‘national disgrace’</h2>
<p>Folklorists did their best to maintain pressure on governments, but they were met with little success. In 1992, Gwenda Davey, a major proponent of the Centre and later the director of the promising Victorian Folklife Association in Melbourne, considered it a “national disgrace” that “Australia is one of the very few nations in the world which has no Ministries of Culture and no national institutions [primarily] dedicated to its traditional cultures”.</p>
<p>While the Labor government of the day might be an easy target of blame for the Centre’s demise, the story is far more complex (notably, no Coalition government has rushed to the rescue either). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251108/original/file-20181217-185249-d0m986.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251108/original/file-20181217-185249-d0m986.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251108/original/file-20181217-185249-d0m986.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251108/original/file-20181217-185249-d0m986.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251108/original/file-20181217-185249-d0m986.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251108/original/file-20181217-185249-d0m986.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251108/original/file-20181217-185249-d0m986.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251108/original/file-20181217-185249-d0m986.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photograph of Roland Griffin and Barry Skipsey at the Gold Rush Folk Festival, Tennant Creek, 1981.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of NT Library, PH0662/0087.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Australia Council, the government’s arts funding and advisory body, was focusing its efforts on supporting professional and contemporary arts rather than traditional amateur arts. And while folklorists have always prided themselves on their local and regional influence, they struggled to mobilise with one voice. Internal disagreements, especially about the definition of folklore, did not help.</p>
<p>Folklorists also struggled to weigh in on the big issues of the nation. As Richard Kurin, then director for Centre of Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies at the Smithsonian Institution noted in 1992, folklorists “should be at the forefront of national and international debates on fundamental cultural issues”.</p>
<p>One can’t help but wonder what Australia’s cultural landscape would look like if the Australian Folklife Centre had been successful. Would bus-loads of school children, while making the annual pilgrimage to Canberra, visit to learn about the games, recipes, dances and rhymes of their ancestors? Might they even find the time to record their own lore for the next generation?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108678/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Gallagher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Folklore is everywhere and a valuable part of our national heritage. But it is undervalued by our government.
Emily Gallagher, PhD Candidate, School of History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100736
2018-07-31T20:15:08Z
2018-07-31T20:15:08Z
Artists’ welfare: why it’s time to act
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229761/original/file-20180730-106530-15n82j6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Traditional support networks too often fail our artists.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cauis Norbano Sorice was an actor of secondary roles. His herm (a sculpture of his head, mounted on a long pillar) stood in the porticus of Pompeii’s forum, by order of the city’s senators, when it was engulfed and preserved by volcanic ash in AD 79. We don’t know any more about this actor, but clearly he was regarded as a person of high status to be accorded this honour. We can’t say the same for working actors in Australia today. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229710/original/file-20180729-106530-1f02t7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229710/original/file-20180729-106530-1f02t7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229710/original/file-20180729-106530-1f02t7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229710/original/file-20180729-106530-1f02t7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229710/original/file-20180729-106530-1f02t7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229710/original/file-20180729-106530-1f02t7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229710/original/file-20180729-106530-1f02t7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">C. Norbano Sorice, National Museum of Archaeology, Naples.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph, Mark Williams</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Compared to other Australian workers, professionals in the performing arts will end up poorer, have worse mental and physical health, and a shorter lifespan. They have made substantial contributions to our culture - yet traditional support networks all too often fail them. This means, as a society, that we have failed them. And in doing so, we have failed ourselves.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gender-pay-gap-is-wider-in-the-arts-than-in-other-industries-87080">latest economic study</a> by David Throsby and Katya Petatskaya shows the population of professional artists is ageing, incomes have plateaued and self-employment is on the rise. It dovetails with Victoria University/Entertainment Assist’s <a href="http://apo.org.au/system/files/121961/apo-nid121961-494671.pdf">report of October 2016</a>, which focused on mental and physical health in the sector. It found <a href="https://www.entertainmentassist.org.au/our-research/">suicide attempts </a> among those working in the entertainment industry were more than double those of the general population. Levels of moderate to severe anxiety symptoms were 10 times higher than in the general population, with symptoms of depression five times higher.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mental-health-woes-are-rife-in-the-arts-no-wonder-54386">Mental health woes are rife in the arts – no wonder</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A 2015 <a href="https://www.mediasuper.com.au/about-our-community/industry-trends">Media Super Study</a> meanwhile, found that most members working in arts and entertainment consider their work is important to the nation but are ignored by government and will be unable to support themselves in retirement. Indeed, the mean gross savings for those over 45 in MediaSuper, the main industry superannuation fund for workers in all media (including artists), <a href="https://www.apra.gov.au/publications/annual-mysuper-statistics">was A$58,000 as of 2016</a>. For those in UniSuper, by contrast, the figure was $144,000.</p>
<p>There has been a positive response to these various findings from flagship institutions such as the Sydney Opera House and Arts Centre Melbourne. But most people in the arts spend their careers underemployed, have multiple employers and work as freelancers here and internationally. </p>
<p>Studies of varying persuasiveness over the last few years point to factors such as insecure work, irregular working hours and high workplace mobility leading to reduced social networks, family instability and a lower sense of self-worth for those in the arts, when measured against the rest of society. Australian Ballet’s resident psychologist, Lucinda Sharp, also <a href="https://journals.humankinetics.com/doi/abs/10.1123/jcsp.5.1.58">points to perfectionism</a> and concern about body image as a source of insecurity. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/out-of-character-how-acting-puts-a-mental-strain-on-performers-86212">Out of character: how acting puts a mental strain on performers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Housing is a major problem for many in the arts. Without regular income, most struggle to gain a foothold on the housing ladder. Yet tax advantages in Australia (such as negative gearing and salary sacrificing) mostly benefit those who own houses and have considerable super.</p>
<p>Within a free society, independence of thought requires independence of means. When either is compromised – by the industrialisation of culture or the fragmentation of material support – the consequences for the individual in terms of mental and physical health can be dire. The artist in society is thus the canary in the coal mine of the gig economy.</p>
<h2>What to do?</h2>
<p>What can be done about this dire situation? In a new Platform Paper, released today, I suggest a number of possible solutions. They include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Government, in addition to low-balance support for superannuation, considering a further supplement based on the salary sacrifice principles common in other sectors where artists, in relatively good times of well-paid work, could make additional contributions to their super via the PAYG system.</p></li>
<li><p>A levy of as little as five cents on every ticket to a live performance sold in Australia to support a tightly administered fund delivering welfare solutions to artists. There are other possibilities allied with large-scale entertainment: in the UK, since 2007, Britain’s Got Talent has donated a portion of money raised through phone voting to the <a href="http://www.royalvarietycharity.org/royal-variety-performance-home/britains-got-talent">Royal Variety Charity Fund</a>. </p></li>
<li><p>More training (and funding) within arts companies to deal with health and mental health issues.</p></li>
<li><p>Industry superannuation funds looking at the provisions of their trust deeds to see if they can set up and administer emergency and other charitable support for members of the industries they cover - out of specific reserves - in a way that would not infringe <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2007L04438/Explanatory%20Statement/Text">the ancillary purpose test</a> of the superannuation guarantee charge.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Maybe, too, we need to go back to the fork in the road others have travelled. The personification of that in Australian theatre was an actor-manager, “low comedian” and later Victorian MLA, George Selth Coppin. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229711/original/file-20180729-106524-2oiuy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229711/original/file-20180729-106524-2oiuy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229711/original/file-20180729-106524-2oiuy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229711/original/file-20180729-106524-2oiuy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229711/original/file-20180729-106524-2oiuy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229711/original/file-20180729-106524-2oiuy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229711/original/file-20180729-106524-2oiuy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A herm of George Selth Coppin, Coppin Centre, Freemasons’ Homes, Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph Mark Williams</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instrumental in the creation of the Distressed Actors’ Fund and the Australasian Dramatic and Musical Association, Coppin arranged a grant of land, originally referred to as the Dramatic Homes in 1871. It later merged into the Old Colonists’ Association, which he also co-founded. The association exists to this day in North Fitzroy providing accommodation to people (some but not all of them actors) otherwise unable to afford secure housing in their old age. </p>
<p>In Britain, the US and Italy, institutions such as <a href="https://www.denvillehall.org.uk/about">Denville Hall</a>, <a href="http://www.royalvarietycharity.org/brinsworth-house">Brinsworth House</a>, <a href="https://www.roh.org.uk/about/benevolent%20fund">Royal Opera House Benevolent Fund</a>, the <a href="https://www.actorsfund.org/about-us/history">US Actors’ Trust</a> and <a href="https://www.casaverdi.it/en/">Casa Verdi</a>, were founded around the same time. They continue to help those in the performing arts. </p>
<p>But Australian philanthropic models withered with the creation of the welfare state and compulsory superannuation. They need to be revived.</p>
<p><em>Mark Williams is the author of <a href="http://www.currencyhouse.org.au/node/268">Falling through the Gaps: Artists’ Health and Welfare</a>, available from Currency House. It’s launched today in Sydney with forums to follow in Melbourne and Canberra.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100736/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Williams is a member of the Committee of the Victorian Actors' Benevolent Trust</span></em></p>
The performing arts is the canary in the coalmine of the gig economy.
Mark RW Williams, Solicitor in private practice and Adjunct Professor in the School of Art, RMIT, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/98383
2018-06-27T19:57:04Z
2018-06-27T19:57:04Z
Community pool projects show how citizens are helping to build cities
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223296/original/file-20180615-32310-sp4lix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Badeschi on the Spree River in Berlin. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nordicbird/Flickr </span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Swimming is central to Australian identity, whether at the beach, in a river or a backyard pool or creek. At the heart of Australia’s bathing culture is the public pool. Its persistent popularity is reflected in a raft of recent proposals to construct pools across the country. </p>
<p>Property developer Riverside Marine has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-17/floating-pool-planned-for-brisbane-river/8034092">proposed building a pool</a> that would float in the Teneriffe section of the Brisbane River. And the <a href="http://yarrapools.com/">Yarra Pools project</a> in Melbourne, which also seeks to create a floating swimming pool on the Yarra River, is gaining momentum through the input of a collection of peak bodies and community organisations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224635/original/file-20180625-114736-1wfpm5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224635/original/file-20180625-114736-1wfpm5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224635/original/file-20180625-114736-1wfpm5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224635/original/file-20180625-114736-1wfpm5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224635/original/file-20180625-114736-1wfpm5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224635/original/file-20180625-114736-1wfpm5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224635/original/file-20180625-114736-1wfpm5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224635/original/file-20180625-114736-1wfpm5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Artist’s impression of the Yarra Pool, Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Studio Octopi, Yarra Swim and Picture Plane</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such realities reflect a growing trend of individual and organisational interests, not local and state governments, leading Australian community construction proposals.</p>
<h2>Rise of the public pool</h2>
<p>The public pool became embedded in <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-segregation-to-celebration-the-public-pool-in-australian-culture-82916">Australia’s cultural consciousness</a> after hundreds of seaside and suburban pools were constructed all over the country in the early to mid 20th century.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-segregation-to-celebration-the-public-pool-in-australian-culture-82916">From segregation to celebration: the public pool in Australian culture</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This reflected a belief that government should provide amenities for citizens that promoted health, safety and appropriate leisure activities. It was also part of a belief that humankind could control, regulate and tame nature, including water.</p>
<p>With the rise of indoor leisure centres and backyard pools in the 1970s and ’80s, the popularity of outdoor public pools declined. Attendances waned and public funding fell away. This exacerbated under-investment and led to <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/community-groups-swim-against-the-tide-in-a-bid-to-save-outdoor-pools-20150203-134mqe.html">many closures in the 1990s</a>. </p>
<p>But the 21st century has seen a wider global interest in urban pools, water parks and promenades – like Helsinki’s <a href="https://www.allasseapool.com/">Allas Sea Pool</a> – as part of efforts to make places more healthy and attractive. There is particular interest in the redevelopment of many docks, ports and city beaches in wealthy cities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223297/original/file-20180615-32342-1omgn6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223297/original/file-20180615-32342-1omgn6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223297/original/file-20180615-32342-1omgn6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223297/original/file-20180615-32342-1omgn6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223297/original/file-20180615-32342-1omgn6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223297/original/file-20180615-32342-1omgn6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223297/original/file-20180615-32342-1omgn6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Allas Sea Pool in Helsinki.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ninara/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-that-clean-swimming-pool-smell-is-actually-bad-for-your-health-73936">Why that 'clean swimming pool' smell is actually bad for your health</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Popular opinion and public support</h2>
<p>The private sector has been active in proposing pool developments. Some design firms and property developers have signalled their interest through what’s called the “render drop”. This is the release to media outlets of an artist’s impression of a project that has a novelty factor, in the hope of gaining traction and public support. </p>
<p>Damian Rogers Architecture and Arup employed the render drop to gain attention for a proposal for <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-10/docklands-surf-beach-proposal-firm-wants-to-build-wave-pool-/5878632">a surf pool at Melbourne’s Docklands</a>. But attention for a project does not equate to support for it. A render drop can test popular opinion, but a project put forward this way can fail to achieve engagement with the stakeholders that would have to help plan, deliver, maintain and use the project.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-that-clean-swimming-pool-smell-is-actually-bad-for-your-health-73936">Why that 'clean swimming pool' smell is actually bad for your health</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Community and private interests should work with government from early on in a project’s conception. Yarra Pools has, for instance, had a long road-map for gaining public support for the pool. This includes <a href="https://theurbandeveloper.com/articles/yarra-swim-co">partnering peak community bodies</a>, engaging with private firms and speaking with governmental organisations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223298/original/file-20180615-32339-tvongw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223298/original/file-20180615-32339-tvongw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223298/original/file-20180615-32339-tvongw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223298/original/file-20180615-32339-tvongw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223298/original/file-20180615-32339-tvongw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223298/original/file-20180615-32339-tvongw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223298/original/file-20180615-32339-tvongw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223298/original/file-20180615-32339-tvongw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Artist’s impression of the proposed surf pool at Docklands, Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Studio Magnified/Aurecon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Working together</h2>
<p>The visibility of non-government proposals may reflect a sense that governments lack the responsibility, will, finance or imagination to deliver public projects. This makes way for the private and community sectors to meet an untapped demand. </p>
<p>An increase in non-government proposals may also be the result of an increased push from the community and private sectors to be involved in the processes of urbanism. </p>
<p>Though, as architect and historian Hannah Lewi argues in the 2010 book <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/4901519">Community: Building Modern Australia (2010)</a>, governments weren’t always responsible for urban projects. She writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Progress societies and local groups were instrumental in the building of public pools through fundraising to bolster municipal, state and federal government assistance that was typically meagre and stopped short of achieving such a costly undertaking.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Scarce public funding has often pushed the delivery of community infrastructure towards collaboration between community, government and private sectors. In this relationship, if one wants to shift the behaviour of local government – at the very least, to get a pool built – one needs to engage with government rules, regulations and organisational culture from the outset. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-is-what-our-cities-need-to-do-to-be-truly-liveable-for-all-83967">This is what our cities need to do to be truly liveable for all</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A community project to create a pool with the input of individuals and organisations shifts the role of the public. They go from being a passive agent, which is consulted at the beginning of the design process, to a potentially ongoing and active participant – or collaborator – in the continuing life of buildings and cities.</p>
<p>This model can also hold governments and private stakeholders to account in the area of project delivery while building trust by opening up the often opaque processes of urban development. </p>
<p>The building of a pool can be part of a larger project of building new civic institutions and networks that fall somewhere between market, state and civil society.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The Conversation is co-publishing articles with <a href="http://www.alva.uwa.edu.au/community/futurewest">Future West (Australian Urbanism)</a>, produced by the University of Western Australia’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts. These articles look towards the future of urbanism, taking Perth and Western Australia as its reference point. You can read other articles <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/future-west-30248">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Community proposals for public swimming pools are popping up all over the country. But individuals need to work with governments to ensure these projects actually get off the ground.
Timothy Moore, PhD Candidate, Melbourne School of Design, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97443
2018-06-21T18:48:33Z
2018-06-21T18:48:33Z
Friday essay: Australia’s dangerous obsession with the Anglosphere
<p>Over the past three weeks the ABC program <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/trumprussia:-follow-the-money/9840958">Four Corners</a> has presented special reports on American politics, which involved one of our best journalists, Sarah Ferguson, travelling to the US on special assignment. I watched these programs and I enjoyed them. But in part I enjoyed them because they covered ground that is already familiar. </p>
<p>If the same effort had gone into bringing us in-depth special reports from, say, Jakarta or Mumbai they would have been less familiar, but perhaps more interesting. Most important they would not be stories already covered by major English language media to which we have extraordinary access. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224132/original/file-20180620-137720-1yl3nes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224132/original/file-20180620-137720-1yl3nes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224132/original/file-20180620-137720-1yl3nes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224132/original/file-20180620-137720-1yl3nes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224132/original/file-20180620-137720-1yl3nes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224132/original/file-20180620-137720-1yl3nes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1248&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224132/original/file-20180620-137720-1yl3nes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1248&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224132/original/file-20180620-137720-1yl3nes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1248&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Neal Stephenson’s 1995 novel The Diamond Age coined the term ‘Anglosphere’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As we struggle to make sense of a changing world order, in which the role of the US seems less defined and dependable, our fascination with things American continues to grow. It is one of the ironies of current Australian life that preoccupation with “the Anglosphere”, a <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-anglosphere-and-tony-abbott/">favourite phrase of former prime minister Tony Abbott’s</a>, is in practice shared by many who regard themselves as progressive.</p>
<p>What is the Anglosphere? The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster%27s_Dictionary">Merriam-Webster</a> Dictionary defines it as “the countries of the world in which the English language and cultural values predominate”, clearly referring to Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. A surprisingly recent term, it was coined by the science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his 1995 novel <a href="https://wordspy.com/index.php?word=anglosphere">The Diamond Age</a>, and then picked up by a number of conservative commentators.</p>
<p>The Churchillian notion of near-mythical bonds created by the English language and British heritage has always attracted Australian conservatives. <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/there-is-something-good-in-the-anglosphere-20120811-2414g.html">Chris Berg</a> from the Institute of Public Affairs wrote in 2012: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our heritage is not something to be ashamed of. It is not a coincidence the oldest surviving democracies are in the Anglosphere. Or that a tradition of liberty, stretching back to the Magna Carta, has given English-speaking nations a greater protection of human rights and private property. We ought to be proud, not bashful. Sure, it’s more fashionable to talk of the ‘Asian century’. But the Anglosphere will shape Australia’s cultural and political views for a century. It’s a shame only conservatives feel comfortable talking about it. </p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-politics-of-the-us-family-sitcom-and-why-roseanne-rocks-95208">Friday essay: the politics of the US family sitcom, and why Roseanne rocks</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Both former foreign affairs minister <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/bob-carr-takes-swipe-at-colonial-tony-abbott/news-story/b99cead06165645c9b1b6b976d57d737">Bob Carr</a> and former prime minister <a href="https://neoskosmos.com/en/14083/rudd-slams-abbotts-anglosphere-vision/">Kevin Rudd</a> attacked Abbott’s enthusiasm for the Anglosphere. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is far less likely to invoke the term, and the election of Donald Trump means the idea has gone out of fashion on the right, who are struggling how to respond to a US president who is both their worst fears and their greatest hopes made flesh. </p>
<p>Yet despite 50 years of governments talking about Australia as part of Asia, now somewhat rebadged in the concept of the Indo-Pacific, our cultural guardians continue to behave as if nothing has changed. We may be wary of Trump’s America, and a little bemused by the reappearance of Little Britain, but we still look unreflectively to the US and Britain for intellectual guidance.</p>
<h2>The Anglo obsession</h2>
<p>Take the ABC’s flagship talk program, Q&A. In the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4821970.htm">week of the Sydney Writers Festival</a>, Q&A ran a panel on which four of the five writers worked and lived in New York, and the bulk of the questions were about Trump. The <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4821974.htm">following week</a> they included a British Tory novelist, Stanley Johnson, whose real claim to fame seemed to be that he was Boris Johnston’s father.</p>
<p>This was in part a reflection of the extraordinary emphasis on American writers at the festival, and the scarcity of writers from other parts of the world. But it was particularly notable in a year when the festival’s theme was power, and only some of the invited writers, such as Chinese-Canadian Yiwei Xue, might have taken part in a discussion of the different ways power is played out in, say, China, India, Saudi Arabia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224159/original/file-20180621-137746-zo2wnv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224159/original/file-20180621-137746-zo2wnv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224159/original/file-20180621-137746-zo2wnv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224159/original/file-20180621-137746-zo2wnv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224159/original/file-20180621-137746-zo2wnv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224159/original/file-20180621-137746-zo2wnv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224159/original/file-20180621-137746-zo2wnv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224159/original/file-20180621-137746-zo2wnv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexis Okeowo, Richard McGregor, Masha Gessen, Katy Tur and Wesley Morris on Q&A.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyBixcQ0Loc">Screenshot from Youtube</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The obsession continues. The Monthly recently announced a weekly dispatch from the US, because “the number of Australians reporting from the United States has dwindled”. Unlike, of course, the Australian reporters based in Beijing, Delhi or Sao Paulo. And the Melbourne Writers Festival is already promoting the first of its guests, with prominent Americans such as Ronan Farrow, Emily Nussbaum, Ta-Nehisi Coates and David Neiwart, although it deserves credit for also highlighting a number of Australian and international writers.</p>
<p>A common language means that inevitably we will be more aware of writers in English and the cultural fashions of New York, London and Hollywood. We have access to the richest and most diverse range of cultural production in the world, and we grow up reading, viewing and interfacing with the Anglo metropolis.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/were-laughing-in-an-echo-chamber-its-time-to-rethink-satire-95867">We're laughing in an echo chamber: it's time to rethink satire</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But Australia is not Britain or the United States, and there is a paradox that we are more and more obsessed with them even as their relative importance in the world, and certainly in our region of the world, declines.</p>
<p>The intelligentsia recite “Trump, Brexit” as a summary of everything wrong with global politics – occasionally they will refer to Putin – but somehow the setbacks for democracy in countries closer to us, such as Thailand and the Philippines, are rarely mentioned. </p>
<p>Thus the experienced and progressive journalist, David McKnight, begins his book, <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/power-people/">Populism Now!</a>, with quotations from Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn. Predictably, they are quickly contrasted to Trump and Brexit.</p>
<p>What is striking about these tropes is that they show so little interest in countries where there may be more useful progressive models for Australia, even if, like Germany, they don’t speak English. A few years ago, <a href="http://www.publishing.monash.edu/books/nl-9781921867927.html">Andrew Scott</a> pointed to some interesting public policies in Scandinavia, but these are largely ignored. We pay relatively little attention to either Canada or New Zealand, although they share more similarities with us than either of the major Anglospheric powers.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-can-learn-a-lot-about-public-policy-from-the-nordic-nations-32204">We can learn a lot about public policy from the Nordic nations</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Similar issues arise in the current debates about whether and how “Western civilisation” should be taught in our universities. A full course in “Western civilisation” would of course examine the complex interaction between Europe and the rest of the world, and the extent to which these interactions shaped our assumptions of liberal progress. </p>
<p>If students are led to ponder the extent to which the foundation of the United States depended upon slavery, or why Nazism could arise in one of the great centres of Western culture, they may be better prepared to develop an understanding of the world less dominated by the preoccupations of London and New York.</p>
<h2>Culture shapes politics</h2>
<p>Our political debates are inevitably coloured by the cultural dominance of Anglo-American literature, film and music. All small countries face questions of how to develop their own culture while open to the rest of the world. In Australia, language is both a barrier and an opportunity. </p>
<p>It is no surprise that our film and television viewing is heavily American: of the top ten grossing films in Australia only two, from the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series, are not unambiguously American. <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/fact-finders/cinema/industry-trends/films-screened/top-50-all-time">Only three Australian films, led by Crocodile Dundee</a>, make the top 50.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224130/original/file-20180620-137728-17411s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224130/original/file-20180620-137728-17411s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224130/original/file-20180620-137728-17411s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224130/original/file-20180620-137728-17411s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224130/original/file-20180620-137728-17411s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224130/original/file-20180620-137728-17411s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224130/original/file-20180620-137728-17411s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224130/original/file-20180620-137728-17411s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Avatar is the highest-grossing film of all time in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Television is more complex; the ABC in particular is fond of British material, although Australian-made programs regularly win high ratings, heavily skewed towards sports and reality shows. SBS offers an extraordinary range of non-English language programs, often from countries with small diasporas in Australia; how many Scandinavian-noir series can there be?</p>
<p>There is a great deal to relish about the dominance of the US in our cultural imagining, whether it be jazz, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5853176/">The Good Fight</a> or the cartoons of The New Yorker. But the problems arise when we echo American rhetoric to respond to very different political realities in Australia.</p>
<p>This is clearest in foreign policy debates, where successive governments have accepted an American view of the world even while insisting that Australia must work within its own region. Because so much of our view of the world comes to us through American and, to a lesser extent, British eyes, we are uncritical of the dominant view of Washington and Whitehall, and its implicit assumptions that they represent forces of good.</p>
<p>There was a certain irony in Australian military operations in Afghanistan taking place under the aegis of NATO: the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. But Australia has a bipartisan record of sending troops overseas to win the gratitude of our “great and powerful friends”. </p>
<p>With an American president who seems uninterested in traditional alliances and unmoved by appeals to protect democracy or human rights, one might expect the government would be more conscious of the reality that US and Australian interests will not always converge. On the contrary: they seem to be working harder to align us with the United States.</p>
<p>In the short run it might pay off: it seems to have for steel exports, although the trickle of asylum seekers on Manus who are accepted by the US suggests that Trump’s objections carried weight. But the inability of the major parties to view the United States dispassionately, as a great power with interests that will often diverge from ours, is increasingly hobbling our foreign policy.</p>
<p>This is where culture and foreign policy meet: <a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-china-challenge-is-the-issue-of-the-moment-in-australian-foreign-policy-98580">alarm bells about Chinese influence </a> ignore the far greater sway of American, to a lesser extent British, influence on our everyday lives. Yes, China is a repressive authoritarian state which is trying to increase its global influence. Yes, we should be cautious about their expansion. But too often we view this through an American prism, rather than making the effort to understand how the shifting power relations are being understood in countries in our region.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224131/original/file-20180620-137708-uuktf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224131/original/file-20180620-137708-uuktf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224131/original/file-20180620-137708-uuktf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224131/original/file-20180620-137708-uuktf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224131/original/file-20180620-137708-uuktf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224131/original/file-20180620-137708-uuktf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224131/original/file-20180620-137708-uuktf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224131/original/file-20180620-137708-uuktf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clive Hamilton’s Silent Invasion raised alarm bells about the influence of the Chinese Communist Party in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course our diplomats know this, but for its size <a href="https://archive.lowyinstitute.org/publications/australias-diplomatic-deficit">Australia has an under-resourced foreign service</a>. We are less well represented abroad than most other members of the G20. But politicians reflect larger cultural assumptions, and the major parties are united in seeing the world through an America-centric focus. </p>
<p>Except for occasional feeds from Al Jazeera on SBS television news, we rely heavily on American and British reports for our understanding of the outside world. The ABC does its best to cover overseas stories with reporters based around the world, but its network is small and under-resourced. Inevitably, overseas news will come to reflect the preoccupations of New York, London and Los Angeles.</p>
<h2>Broadening our horizons</h2>
<p>If we want a serious discussion about populist politics and the threat of “illiberal democracy”, there are far more examples to draw on than Trump and Brexit: Hungary, the Philippines, Venezuela and Turkey are all examples of countries where authoritarian governments are increasingly threatening human rights and freedom of expression.</p>
<p>There are writers in all these countries, whose insights would be somewhat different to those from New York and whose voices might shake some of the assumptions on which we base our picture of the larger world. I recognise that institutions like writers festivals and the Wheeler Centre depend heavily on publishers, and that publishing in New York and London dominates the Australian market. </p>
<p>But there are many people within Australia who can speak with authority about a larger world. SBS Radio broadcasts in 74 languages, yet despite the language of diversity, it is rare for speakers from most of the countries represented to be asked onto mainstream platforms. </p>
<p>Our political culture shares many elements with Britain and the United States, and there are good reasons to uphold the basic values and understandings of individual freedom that are part of a common legacy. But these values are not unique to “the Anglosphere”, and often they are more honoured in rhetoric than practice.</p>
<p>The danger of aligning ourselves with the Anglosphere is that it distorts the complexity of the greater world and aligns us with policies that are neither in our national interest nor that of a more just world. Just as republicans can enjoy the spectacle of a royal wedding without abandoning the idea of an Australian head of state, we need to remind ourselves that Trump is, literally, not our president.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Altman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Coined in a science-fiction novel in 1995, the Anglosphere has become Australia’s cultural (and political) obsession. That leaves us blind to other perspectives.
Dennis Altman, Professorial Fellow in Human Security, La Trobe University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/92822
2018-03-14T19:01:14Z
2018-03-14T19:01:14Z
Barracking, sheilas and shouts: how the Irish influenced Australian English
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210182/original/file-20180313-131610-vf8lj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Warrnambool potato harvest of 1881.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Victoria</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian English decidedly finds its origins in British English. But when it comes to chasing down Irish influence, there are – to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld – some <em>knowun knowuns</em>, some <em>unknowun knowuns</em>, and a bucket load of <em>furphies</em>.</p>
<h2>Larrikins, sheilas and Aboriginal Irish speakers</h2>
<p>The first Irish settlers, around half of whom were reputedly Irish language speakers, were viewed with suspicion and derision. This is reflected in the early Australian English words used to describe those who came from <em><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/7288872?q&versionId=45928084">Patland</a></em> (a blend of <em>Paddy</em> and <em>Land</em>).</p>
<p>The Irish were guided by <em>paddy’s lantern</em> (the moon); their homes adorned with <em>Irish curtains</em> (cobwebs); and their hotheadedness saw them <em>have a paddy</em> or <em>paddy out</em>. These Irish were said to follow <em>Rafferty’s Rules</em> – an eponym from the surname Rafferty – which meant “no rules at all”.</p>
<p>More than a few Irish were <em>larrikins</em>. In his book <a href="https://archive.org/details/australenglishdi00morruoft">Austral English</a>, E.E. Morris reports that
in 1869, an Irish sergeant Dalton charged a young prisoner with “a-larrr-akin about the streets” (an Irish pronunciation of <em>larking</em>, or “getting up to mischief”). When asked to repeat by the magistrate, Dalton said: “a larrikin, your Worchup”.</p>
<p>This Irish origin of <em>larrikin</em> had legs for many years, and perhaps still does. Unfortunately, here we have our first <em>furphy</em>, with more compelling <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/whats-their-story-9780195575002?cc=au&lang=en&">evidence</a> linking <em>larrikin</em> to a British dialect word meaning “mischievous or frolicsome youth”. </p>
<p>But if <em>larrikin</em> language is anything to go by, these youths went way beyond mischievous frolicking – <em>jump someone’s liver out</em>, <em>put the boot in</em>, <em>stonker</em>, <em>rip into</em>, <em>go the knuckle on</em> and <em>weigh into</em> are just some items from the larrikin’s lexicon of fighting words.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/future-tense-how-the-language-you-speak-influences-your-willingness-to-take-climate-action-92587">Future tense: how the language you speak influences your willingness to take climate action</a>
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<p>With the Dalton <em>furphy</em>, though, we see evidence of something called “epenthesis”, the insertion of extra sounds. Just as Dalton adds a vowel after his trilled “r” in a-larrr-akin, many Aussies add a vowel to words like “known” and “film” (<em>knowun</em> and <em>filum</em>) – and here we see a potential influence of the Irish accent on Australian English.</p>
<p>In contrast to <em>larrikin</em>, the word <em>sheila</em> is incontrovertibly Irish. Popular belief derives it from the proper name, Sheila, used as the female counterpart to Paddy, a general reference to Irish males. </p>
<p>Author Dymphna Lonergan, in her book <a href="http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=721&cat=5&page=4">Sounds Irish</a>, prefers to derive it from Irish Gaelic <em>síle</em>, meaning “homosexual”, noting Sheila wasn’t a particularly popular Irish name as it began to appear down under. </p>
<p>Significantly though, St Patrick had a wife (or mother) named Sheila, and the day after St Paddy’s Day was once celebrated as Sheelah’s Day. So, Sheila was something of a celebrity. </p>
<p><em>Barrack</em> is another likely Irish-inspired expression. A range of competing origins have been <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/whats-their-story-9780195575002?cc=au&lang=en&">posited</a> for this one, including the Aboriginal Wathawarung word <em>borak</em>, meaning “no, not”, and links to the Victorian military barracks in Melbourne.</p>
<p>But the most likely origin is the Northern Irish English <em>barrack</em>, “to brag, be boastful of one’s fighting powers”. The word has since sprouted opposite uses – Australian <em>barrackers</em> shout noisy support for somebody, while British <em>barrackers</em> shout in criticism or protest.</p>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly to many, the Irish were the first Europeans some Australian Aboriginal tribes encountered.</p>
<p>This contact is evident in the <a href="http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=721&cat=5&page=4">presence</a> of Irish words in some Aboriginal languages. For instance, in the Ngiyampaa language of New South Wales, the word for shoe is <em>pampuu</em>, likely linked to a kind of shoe associated with the Aran Islands in Ireland, <em>pampúta</em>.</p>
<h2>Didgeridoos, chooks and shouts: An Irish language perspective</h2>
<p>Lonergan <a href="http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=721&cat=5&page=4">argues</a> that more attention should be directed to this sort of Irish Gaelic influence. </p>
<p>Lonergan points, for example, to archival evidence linking the origin of <em>didgeridoo</em> to an outsider’s perception of how the instrument sounds, questioning the degree to which the sound corresponds to the word.</p>
<p>As a counter-argument, she notes an Irish word <em>dúdaire</em> meaning “trumpeter or horn-blower”, as well as Irish and Scots-Gaelic <em>dubh</em>, “black” and <em>dúth</em>, “native”. She observes that Irish and Scots-Gaelic speakers first encountering the instrument might well have called it <em>dúdaire dubh</em> or <em>dúdaire dúth</em> (pronounced respectively “doodereh doo” or “doojerreh doo”).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-origins-of-pama-nyungan-australias-largest-family-of-aboriginal-languages-92997">The origins of Pama-Nyungan, Australia's largest family of Aboriginal languages</a>
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<p>Similar arguments are made for a number of other words traditionally viewed as having British English origins. </p>
<p>The Australian National Dictionary sees <em>chook</em> (also spelled <em>chuck</em>) as linked to a Northern English/Scottish variation of “chick”. However, Lonergan notes this is phonetically the same word (spelled <em>tioc</em>) the Irish would have used when calling chickens to feed (<em>tioc, tioc, tioc</em>). </p>
<p>Another potential influence also comes from the transference of Irish meaning to English words. For example, the Australian National Dictionary is unclear as to the exact origin of <em>shout</em>, “to buy a round of drinks”, but Lonergan links it to Irish working in the goldfields and an Irish phrase <em>glaoch ar dheoch</em>, “to call or shout for a drink”. </p>
<p>Lonergan posits that Irish miners translating to English might have selected “shout” rather than “call” – “shouting” could easily have spread to English speakers as a useful way to get a drink in a noisy Goldfields bar.</p>
<h2>Good dollops of Irish in the melting pot</h2>
<p>Irish influence on Australian English is much like the influence of the Irish on Australians themselves – less than you’d expect on the surface, but everywhere once you start looking. </p>
<p>And those with a soft spot for Irish English might feel better knowing that some of their <em>bête noires</em> are in fact Irish (<em>haitch</em>, <em>youse</em>, <em>but</em>, <em>filum</em> and <em>knowun</em>). </p>
<p>As Irish settlers entered the Australian melting pot, so too did a hearty dose of their language.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92822/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Irish influence on Australian English is much like the influence of the Irish on Australians themselves — less than you’d expect on the surface, but everywhere once you start looking.
Howard Manns, Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University
Kate Burridge, Senior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies and Professor of Linguistics, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87080
2017-11-12T19:01:22Z
2017-11-12T19:01:22Z
The gender pay gap is wider in the arts than in other industries
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194092/original/file-20171110-13311-iwoicn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C33%2C7360%2C4473&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The income gap between men and women is wider in the arts than the average gap across all industries in Australia. This is especially so for female writers, visual artists and musicians.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dmytro Zinkevych/shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian artists now spend more time on their creative practice than in previous years but earn less from it. The situation is particularly gloomy for the average Australian female artist. She is better educated than her male counterpart, she spends about the same time on creative work as he does, yet she earns a much lower income from it – $15,400 versus $22,100 in the 2014-15 financial year. </p>
<p>Indeed, the income gap between men and women is wider in the arts than the average gap across all industries in Australia. This gap appears to be especially evident for female writers, visual artists and musicians.</p>
<p>These data come from <a href="http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/research/making-art-work/">a major survey of practising professional artists in Australia</a> that we have carried out over the past year. It’s the most recent in a long series of surveys undertaken in the Economics Department at Macquarie University since the early 1980s with funding from the Australia Council. The accumulated results tell us a lot about how the conditions of professional arts practice have changed over the years.</p>
<p>Our survey shows that the average income Australian artists earned from creative work is now just $18,800 a year, which is less in real terms than for any of the previous survey years. This is less than they could earn in other professional occupations that require similar educational qualifications. Their total gross annual income including all sources of income is $48,400.</p>
<p>One of the hazards that professional artists face throughout their career is having to explain why they should be paid for doing what others do for fun – painting, making music, acting, dancing, writing poetry.</p>
<p>People often don’t appreciate that the level of education, training, experience and skill required to become a professional are at least as rigorous in the arts as they are in other professions like medicine and the law. In fact, the great majority of professional artists (90%) have post-school qualifications compared with only 53% for the general labour force. Artists spend about six years in training to obtain their basic qualifications, then almost another four years to receive further ones.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194098/original/file-20171110-13351-1a8voi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194098/original/file-20171110-13351-1a8voi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194098/original/file-20171110-13351-1a8voi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194098/original/file-20171110-13351-1a8voi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194098/original/file-20171110-13351-1a8voi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194098/original/file-20171110-13351-1a8voi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194098/original/file-20171110-13351-1a8voi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194098/original/file-20171110-13351-1a8voi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The great majority of artists have post-school qualifications.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are just under 50,000 professional artists in Australia. Since the genders are split in roughly equal proportions, the average or “typical” artist could be male or female. She or he is likely to be aged around 49 years, born in Australia, living in one of the capital cities, married or living with a partner, and without dependent children.</p>
<h2>A ‘portfolio’ career</h2>
<p>Artists are multi-talented. At some point in their lives they will have engaged in some other form of original creative work beyond their principal artistic occupation. Indeed the majority of artists today follow a “portfolio” career, working as freelancers under various contractual arrangements, often spanning multiple artforms, and applying their creative skills from time to time in industries far removed from the arts.</p>
<p>Less than a quarter of all artists are able to pursue their original creative practice full-time. We find that 66% of artists would like to spend more time at their creative work. The most important reason why most cannot do so is because working in the arts does not pay well enough, and they need to earn more income elsewhere.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194095/original/file-20171110-13299-1daixy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194095/original/file-20171110-13299-1daixy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194095/original/file-20171110-13299-1daixy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194095/original/file-20171110-13299-1daixy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194095/original/file-20171110-13299-1daixy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194095/original/file-20171110-13299-1daixy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194095/original/file-20171110-13299-1daixy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194095/original/file-20171110-13299-1daixy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Less than a quarter of artists are able to pursue their practice full-time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Violetta Nahachevska/shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Why do so many aspirants long to take up a career in a field that offers so little prospect of financial security? Clearly one reason is the non-pecuniary rewards to be derived from art practice – what economists call, rather quaintly, “psychic income”. </p>
<p>The inner drive to make art is what encourages artists to continue. When asked what have been the most important factors that have contributed to advancing their careers, 23% of artists nominate hard work and persistence, and 21% point to their passion, self-motivation and self-belief.</p>
<p>The average artist works a 45-hour week, not including hours spent on unpaid activities such as studying or voluntary work. Yet although creative work absorbs 57% of artists’ working time, it generates less than 40% of their income. More than three-quarters of all artists have to take another job to support their creative practice. </p>
<p>These additional sources of income may be found within the arts sector – visual artists teaching in art school, for example, or dancers or musicians taking private pupils – or employment may have to be sought outside the arts altogether.</p>
<h2>Why the income decline?</h2>
<p>Why have artists’ incomes declined? Could it be due to a sudden increase in their numbers, or perhaps a decrease in support provided to them? Neither explanation is convincing – though total numbers of artists have risen since 2009, the increase is comparable with the growth in the Australian labour force as a whole. And, while it appears that more artists have been applying for financial assistance in recent years, the success rate is similar to before.</p>
<p>Although we cannot answer the above question fully, the data point to the extent to which genuine creative activity is being curtailed by circumstances over which artists have no control. This should continue to be of concern for public policy – if the market does not adequately recognise the contribution that artists make to the cultural life of this country, some financial intervention may be warranted to rectify the inequity.</p>
<p>What of the future? The accumulated results from this series of surveys have helped us over the years to comprehend more clearly why we as a society need to accord artists the respect they deserve as professionals.</p>
<p>An understanding of the conditions of professional arts practice is a prerequisite for the development of more effective measures to support individual artists and to nurture the growth of the arts. At present, such measures are needed more urgently than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87080/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Throsby received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts to carry out this survey. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katya Petetskaya received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts to carry out this survey. </span></em></p>
The average Australian female artist is better educated than her male counterpart but earns significantly less than him, new research shows. And artists’ incomes are declining in real terms.
David Throsby, Distinguished Professor of Economics, Macquarie University
Katya Petetskaya, Research Project Director at the Department of Economics, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85995
2017-11-07T19:25:40Z
2017-11-07T19:25:40Z
‘Australia has no culture’: changing the mindset of the cringe
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192972/original/file-20171102-26456-zzvgvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A scene from Bangarra Dance Theatre's Lore: the oldest continuing culture in the world resonates with overseas audiences.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeff Tan/Newzulu</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Australia has no culture, so why would anyone overseas be interested in us?” says a young MA student at a University of Melbourne forum as part of a discussion about Australian “culture” being promoted seriously and strategically overseas.</p>
<p>Her peers joined in. “Yes, it’s a cultural cringe”. “Yes, Australia is so young, compared with other countries”. “Yes, Australia has no clear sense of identity”. “Yes, Australia’s film industry is just in its fledgling stage”. All feeling free, in 2017, to utter such statements. The only one to offer any counterpoint said this was to be expected as there is no central Arts policy.</p>
<p>They were saying no-one would or should be interested in us. They added the Canadians were in a similar position. One speaker from the Confucius Institute said it was an issue of money, but he had also just said that the Australian Government paid funds for his Chinese organisation.</p>
<p>I know these students’ sentiments are wrong. I’ve spent my life working with Australian culture overseas, particularly in Asia. I’ve seen how the oldest continuing culture in the world resonates with overseas audiences; I’ve seen how poets and painters have evoked Australian love of space and land and made it real for people elsewhere; and I’ve always felt assured that my fellow Australians would always treat people of all social classes in other lands with grace and fairness.</p>
<p>The (pejorative) comment about being a “young” country (with no time to build “culture”) always gets to me. It’s the old mantra that Europeans and Asian cultures, like China, use: an argument that suits cultures which have remained in one place for a long time. It of course denies (forgets about?) Australian Indigenous culture - which is an issue in itself.</p>
<p>Even accepting this argument as cogent, it also simplifies all cultures with significant migrant populations (like the USA or Singapore or Malaysia for that matter) down to the time those people have spent in the new geographic site, as if none of their histories come with them. They do come with what they have, and often use that in their new environment to make something highly prized: think of Bangarra Dance’s melding of elements of Western ballet with Indigenous forms or Paul Grabowsky’s musical Indonesian inclusions in projects like The Theft of Sita.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192746/original/file-20171031-32619-vhnmb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Grabowsky in 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewins/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, why is this group of bright students so quick to bring up these old furphies (a good Australian word of course) about our “lack of culture”? Is it some easy mantra of a long-gone age that never gets challenged and addressed?</p>
<p>Where is the Australia Council in this? After nearly 50 years why has its work of “promoting” Australian culture so spectacularly failed to resonate with these young people? Has the Council been ineffective in telling Australians of its work or has its work been less effective than it could have been? </p>
<p>The Council was founded at the time of Gough Whitlam’s great enthusiasm for and confidence in Australian culture. It had, and has a role in international engagement, but we still have no specialist agency for international cultural engagement that might be strategically focused in this area – unlike Germany and Japan, which have the Goethe Institute (founded in 1951) and the Japan Foundation (founded in 1972).</p>
<p>Is the subtext to little strategic focus on our role internationally (and awareness of the interest of our culture overseas) perhaps that the powerful in Canberra also, like these students, think we have nothing to offer? As a side comment, I never think it is a matter of money: it is belief and focus and strategy that are wanting.</p>
<p>Nearly 30 years ago, when I was envisaging the Asialink Arts program (always supported by Asialink director Jenny McGregor), I pushed for an “export” role, rather than what seemed to me to be an easier “import” focus, based on the idea that we Australians were poor at promoting ourselves. I would always be asking artists we sent to Asia to think about further international projects they could be creating; always asking curators to be looking out for further opportunities. But Asialink Arts has always been a small agency, not in the league of the German or Japanese nationally-supported institutions. </p>
<p>What of our universities? Despite the University of Melbourne having an Australian Centre, decades of teaching Australian literature, visual art, theatre, history, politics and film, and its own practical arts faculty, it still allows a group of students like this to be so blasé. Do these students think so little of the books and art works and films and activities they learn about that they must be of no value or interest to anyone else?</p>
<p>Is there a lack of consciousness at best, or, worse, to use a phrase of these students, still a cringe within the institution? It certainly has been so in the past. <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/3914959">Ann Stephen, Andrew McNamara, and Phillip Goad</a> have recorded the relatively passive reception of modernism in Australia rather than any celebration of its transformation here. Co-head of the Australian Centre, Professor Denise Varney’s ARC-supported research discusses the unacknowledged modernist period of the post-war period in Australian theatre studies.</p>
<p>Still today, in mainstream arts subjects, Australian and indeed Asian art can be sidelined for the big names of a single-line, Euro-American history. We can still fail to acknowledge some of our own bright thinkers: Margo Neale, one of our leading experts about Indigenous culture, curator of the current Seven Sisters exhibition in Canberra, has been in Melbourne recently, but was she asked to speak about her work in the tertiary sector? You know the answer. If such is our mindset, how will these students see their own culture as equal to these others, and how will they think of themselves as capable of leading in their field?</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kfdHqUmFmuc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>We can change our thinking. An example of such “success” is the widespread consciousness of the need to include equal numbers of women as men in our research and teaching practices. We could, for instance, undertake an audit of the level of inclusion of Australian cultural material in our tertiary sector. We could revisit our international strategies and assess how successful they have been.</p>
<p>This isn’t a discussion about what Australian culture is but about the things and ideas we value and how they might be of value to others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Carroll does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Why do students still describe Australia as a ‘young’ country lacking culture? Are our universities doing enough to to teach Australian films, artwork and books?
Alison Carroll, Founding Director (1990-2010), AsiaLink Arts, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85464
2017-10-25T04:51:53Z
2017-10-25T04:51:53Z
Hanging out with the boys: how bromance often steals the spotlight in The Bachelorette
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190091/original/file-20171013-31446-13aaypt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bachelorette Sophie Monk with this year's contestants.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/the-bachelorette/photos/best-of-week-1#15">Channel Ten</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The celebrated Australian trait of mateship is very much on display in the third season of Channel 10’s The Bachelorette. But this is not always to the benefit of the protoganist, Bachelorette Sophie Monk. </p>
<p>This emphasis on male bonds can be seen in the parting words of two bachelors. Professional polo player Bingham Fitz-Henry’s concern about leaving the show had little to do with missing out on time with Monk:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m enjoying my time hanging out with the boys and the experience I’m having is second to none and if it was to end now I’d be devastated.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another departing bachelor, restaurant manager Harry Farran, also spoke gushingly of his new-found male companions:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These group of guys have become my friends over the last few weeks and I honestly believe that you will fall in love cause I have.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While it is gratifying that male friendship is alive and well, such examples of “bromance” sit awkwardly alongside the show’s defining narrative of heterosexual romance. Conceived originally as a bond between men, mateship’s traditional exclusion of women potentially undermines their desire and identity. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-bachelor-turns-women-into-misogynists-62423">How The Bachelor turns women into misogynists</a></em> </p>
<hr>
<p>A glimpse of this was seen in the relationship between Bachelorette contestants Sam Cochrane, a voice over artist, and Blake Colman, an entrepreneur, whose mutual affection led to each pledging support for the other in winning the game. The glaring question of Monk’s desire was irrelevant.</p>
<p>The Bachelorette might appear to be a progressive alternative to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-bachelor-turns-women-into-misogynists-62423">The Bachelor</a>, but it is actually doing nothing for women when male bonds are central to its drama. And there is a dark side to mateship that popular television shows such as this tend to gloss over.</p>
<h2>Mateship’s darkness</h2>
<p>The significance of mateship in Australian culture can in part be attributed to Russell Ward’s influential <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/16/1052885396799.html">The Australian Legend</a>, which identifies it as a great social equaliser and defining national trait. The cultural embrace of mateship has continued into the modern era, such as when John Howard <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/mateship-secular-australias-religion-and-how-john-howard-hijacked-it-20141217-129c7t.html">tried unsuccessfully</a> to include the term in a new preamble to the Australian Constitution.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190093/original/file-20171013-31414-1ae4s4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190093/original/file-20171013-31414-1ae4s4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190093/original/file-20171013-31414-1ae4s4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190093/original/file-20171013-31414-1ae4s4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190093/original/file-20171013-31414-1ae4s4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190093/original/file-20171013-31414-1ae4s4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190093/original/file-20171013-31414-1ae4s4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Australian version of The Bachelorette emphasises bonds between its male contestants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/the-bachelorette/photos/best-of-week-4#4">Channel Ten</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, mateship has not always fostered equality between all. This is deftly dramatised in a number of classic Australian films where women in particular experience it as a negative social force.</p>
<p>For example, Bruce Beresford’s cinematic adaption of the David Williamson play <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074422/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Don’s Party</a> (1976) depicts drunken larrikins bonding at an election night party, to the general detriment of their female companions. Neil Rattingan’s book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6844770-images-of-australia">Images of Australia</a> suggests that rather than “promoting a sense of bonding and community”, the film highlights a hostile social system where barely concealed feelings of “envy, jealousy, and aggression” underlie the surface humour.</p>
<p>The undervalued Australian film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093952/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_4">Shame</a> (1988), starring Deborra-Lee Furness, foregrounds another ominous dimension of mateship. Here, a male ocker-style pack mentality leaves young women endangered and ultimately violated.</p>
<p>But nowhere has the dark side of mateship been better explored than in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067541/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Wake in Fright</a>, Ted Kotcheff’s devastating 1971 film adaptation of the Kenneth Cook novella. A new version of Wake in Fright recently screened on Channel 10 as a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6660456/?ref_=nv_sr_2">miniseries</a>. While the TV series covers aspects of the film, it fails to rediscover the dark power of Kotcheff’s original.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190094/original/file-20171013-31422-17o0zpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190094/original/file-20171013-31422-17o0zpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190094/original/file-20171013-31422-17o0zpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190094/original/file-20171013-31422-17o0zpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190094/original/file-20171013-31422-17o0zpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190094/original/file-20171013-31422-17o0zpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190094/original/file-20171013-31422-17o0zpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wake in Fright (1971).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067541/mediaviewer/rm1673856512">IMDB</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is interesting that it took the vision of a British author (Cook) and Canadian director (Kotcheff) to successfully expose mateship’s malevolent character, including continual scenes of debauchery, excessive drinking, heedless gambling and bloody roo-hunting expeditions. After appearing in Kotcheff’s film, Jack Thompson admitted that the depiction of mateship was “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/movies/wake-in-fright-and-australian-new-wave.html?smid=tw-nytimesmovies&seid=auto&_r=3&">embarrassingly accurate</a>”.</p>
<p>The only woman of any note in Wake in Fright, Janette Hynes (Sylvia Kay), is reduced to being a “good sheila” who cooks, serves alcohol and provides the men with a point of sexual arousal. The incorporation of more female characters into the 2017 television remake only downplayed the original story’s disturbing chronicle of chauvinism. </p>
<h2>Exclusive club</h2>
<p>Gender studies theorist <a href="http://evekosofskysedgwick.net/biography/biography.html">Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick</a> has argued that <a href="http://thowe.pbworks.com/f/sedgwick.between.men0001.pdf">male bonds</a> are developed through women’s exclusion. Although American, her ideas resonate perhaps even more in an Australian context, where white, male heterosexual bonding has also traditionally excluded non-white and non-heterosexual men.</p>
<p>As I have argued previously, while the Bachelorette and Bachelor both promote competition, the conflict between the women in The Bachelor far outstrips men’s rivalry in The Bachelorette. In the 2016 season of The Bachelor, the personal nature of the women’s clashes was at times sexist and even in some cases misogynistic. </p>
<p>The very different dynamic going on in the male and female versions of this reality TV franchise should give us pause to reflect upon whether this mirrors real life relationships between men and women. In a show that is supposedly about Sophie Monk’s quest for love, bromance often steals the spotlight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suzie Gibson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Bachelorette might appear to be a progressive alternative to The Bachelor, but it is actually doing nothing for women when male bonds are central to its drama.
Suzie Gibson, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Charles Sturt University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/82916
2017-09-05T04:37:08Z
2017-09-05T04:37:08Z
From segregation to celebration: the public pool in Australian culture
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184451/original/file-20170904-2786-otl4y5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Pool: Architecture, Culture and Identity, exhibition by Aileen Sage Architects (Isabelle Tolandand Amelia Holliday) with Michelle Tabet, commissioned for the Australian Pavilion by the Australian Institute of Architects for the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2016. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian exhibition for the 2016 Venice Biennale, <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/the-pool/">The Pool</a>, designed by Isabelle Toland, Amelia Holliday and Michelle Tabet, is currently installed at the National Gallery of Victoria. The Pool aims to literally “bottle-up” the smells, sounds, feel and look of a pool and recreate it in a cultural setting. </p>
<p>It might seem, on first glance, that pools are essentially little more than a hole in the ground filled with water. In fact, many exhibit distinctive architectural elements associated with our experience of movement, water and light, and Modern stylistic experimentation. They satisfy complex functional and environmental demands like any other types of buildings. And they reveal much about Australia’s culture, such as the gradual relaxation of dress codes and attitudes to women and other ethnicities. </p>
<p>The history of public artificial pools is largely a product of European Enlightenment and modernism. The benefits of bathing in seawater were discovered as early as 1750 by the French army, and bathing for health and cleanliness was soon promoted. </p>
<p>From the late-18th century, water had become increasingly important in domestic life, particularly through the integration of plumbing into homes and the widespread use of water in picturesque gardens. </p>
<p>Modern swimming pools might also be seen as a process of creativity and domestication. Pools transform natural bodies of water into highly artificial, contained, controlled and specialised environments. This modernising process emerged properly in the early decades of the 20th century. By the 1920s, as swimming costumes shed their Victorian layers and became lighter, pools become ever more transparent as large spans of glazing became more achievable.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184457/original/file-20170904-8510-1j7awt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184457/original/file-20170904-8510-1j7awt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184457/original/file-20170904-8510-1j7awt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184457/original/file-20170904-8510-1j7awt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184457/original/file-20170904-8510-1j7awt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184457/original/file-20170904-8510-1j7awt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184457/original/file-20170904-8510-1j7awt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184457/original/file-20170904-8510-1j7awt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The North Sydney Pool sits under the Harbour Bridge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pools go public</h2>
<p>There are many Australian examples that capture the rich history of pool design, from prosaic outdoor pools surrounded by grass and concrete (still found in so many suburbs and towns), to iconic sites like the North Sydney Pool, completed in 1936. </p>
<p>Others are certainly architecturally notable. The Beaurepaire Pool on the University of Melbourne campus (designed by Eggleston, Macdonald & Seacomb, 1957) is a great example of modern architecture and art working together to create a striking building – with murals and mosaics by the artist Leonard French. And the Centenary Pool in Brisbane (designed by James Birrell, 1959) is free-flowing and organic in plan and form, with a curved restaurant originally overlooking the pools.</p>
<p>Some were built specifically for national sporting events, such as Beatty Park Pool in Perth for the Empire and Commonwealth Games of 1962. Others fulfilled memorial functions, like the Harold Holt Pool in Melbourne, designed by Kevin Borland and Daryl Jackson in 1969 and named in honour of the Australian Prime Minister who drowned in Victoria in 1966. This act of commemorating a pool after a drowned man indeed seems an ultimately defiant gesture of Australian aquatic patriotism: a faith in the construction of artificial environments against the uncertainties of the oceans that surround us.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184456/original/file-20170904-8541-26lnaa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184456/original/file-20170904-8541-26lnaa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184456/original/file-20170904-8541-26lnaa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184456/original/file-20170904-8541-26lnaa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184456/original/file-20170904-8541-26lnaa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184456/original/file-20170904-8541-26lnaa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184456/original/file-20170904-8541-26lnaa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184456/original/file-20170904-8541-26lnaa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brisbane’s Centenary Pool in 1960, with its distinctive curved restaurant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Tanner/National Archives of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However just how “public” early public pools really were is revealing. Although swimming for health and survival was beginning to be widely encouraged by the first decades of the 20th century, it was not yet fully accessible to all. </p>
<p>Women’s freedom to enjoy swimming at public pools was constrained by conventions of segregation, modesty and decorum. Dress and behaviour were still more regulated than at the beach. Bathing in pools and ponds was highly segregated with time limits for women and girls, and bathing costumes were still long, loose, flowing and heavy until after the 1912 Olympics when tighter body-fitting designs gained popularity.</p>
<p>From the 1920s onwards bathing costumes allowed more freedom of movement. More outdoor pool-building followed. However some segregation continued for women, as well as racial groups and indigenous Australians until well into the mid-century. For example the Mooree Artesian Baths in NSW was one potent site of the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/exhibitions/1965-freedom-ride">Freedom Rides</a> protests in 1965, sparked by the ban of Aboriginal children in the public pool.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184460/original/file-20170904-8555-1clr1x9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184460/original/file-20170904-8555-1clr1x9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184460/original/file-20170904-8555-1clr1x9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184460/original/file-20170904-8555-1clr1x9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184460/original/file-20170904-8555-1clr1x9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184460/original/file-20170904-8555-1clr1x9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184460/original/file-20170904-8555-1clr1x9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184460/original/file-20170904-8555-1clr1x9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Swimmers at Manuka Pool, in 1932.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pool building also became a subject of social and political debate. Post-WWII, artificial pools – as opposed to natural lakes, oceans and river-pools – were favoured for safer swimming instruction, and their provision by governments was regarded as a right, not a luxury. Governments at all levels responded by investing modestly. </p>
<p>More generous funding was often concentrated in regions that were far from natural water resources. For example, Western Australia’s colloquially named “Ribbon of Blue” scheme in the 1960s, was a state government program to help local authorities more than 35 miles from the coast to build public swimming amenities. However, many other places were left largely to their own devices to raise funds and build their own pools. </p>
<p>This legacy of DIY municipal infrastructure makes their social capital all the more important today. Rising costs, dwindling popularity of outdoor public pool-use, and changing attitudes to sun exposure have seen many public pools closed around over the last 30 years. Many country towns and urban neighbourhoods have fought to retain their outdoor amenities. Prominent and successful campaigns include those in Melbourne to save public pools in Fitzroy and Coburg, but there have also been many losses.</p>
<h2>Meaning in artifice</h2>
<p>Public pools often tested innovative design, structural and mechanical solutions to span Olympic-sized facilities with increasing natural light and roofs that could be opened and closed, alongside new techniques for waterproofing and filtration. Pools also gave the opportunity for designers to explore new relationships between interior and exterior; between water and land; between light and shade; and between visibility and privacy.</p>
<p>In 1967, architect and critic Robin Boyd cited the Melbourne Olympic Pool (designed by John and Phyllis Murphy, Kevin Borland and Peter McIntyre in 1956) as a highpoint of post-WWII design invention. Boyd was particularly concerned with “artificial Australia”. He defined “artificial” as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the part of Australia that is not gum-trees or kangaroos or people. I mean the background of everyday modern Australian life; thus the design of all the things that make up this background: buildings, appliances advertisements, suburbs, cities and even the landscape.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was the generation of pioneering Australian architects of the 1950s that Boyd saw as the “cradle of modernity”, and who first gave vision to a modern, designed and “artificial” Australian environment.</p>
<p>The Venice Biennale exhibition installed at the NGV, and the voices captured in the accompanying book, very successfully evokes Australia’s connection with pools. They are not just historical, designed and “artificial” sites, but also public places full of individual memories and shared social significance.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/the-pool/">The Pool</a> will be showing at NGV Australia until February 18 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82916/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Lewi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Swimming pools are much more than holes in the ground - they are often beautifully designed, as a new exhibition at the NGV shows. They also document Australia’s history of racism and sexism, and gradual relaxation of social mores.
Hannah Lewi, Professor, Architecture, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/80602
2017-07-09T19:53:46Z
2017-07-09T19:53:46Z
Where Australia’s great theatre artists trod the boards: 50 years of Melbourne’s La Mama theatre
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177240/original/file-20170706-18401-16b3m91.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Discontinuities, a triple bill staged at La Mama in 2002. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Mama </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Betty Burstall returned to Australia in 1967 after two years in New York with her husband, the artist Tim Burstall, she missed the little places where you “paid 50 cents for a cup of coffee and you saw a performance”. After talking to a few local actors, directors and writers, she signed a lease on a former (some say shirt, others say underwear) factory at 205 Faraday Street in Carlton, Melbourne. It was a two-storey brick building 28 feet wide and 30 feet long, with a garden in front. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177241/original/file-20170706-18401-1x0c017.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177241/original/file-20170706-18401-1x0c017.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177241/original/file-20170706-18401-1x0c017.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177241/original/file-20170706-18401-1x0c017.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177241/original/file-20170706-18401-1x0c017.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177241/original/file-20170706-18401-1x0c017.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177241/original/file-20170706-18401-1x0c017.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177241/original/file-20170706-18401-1x0c017.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Betty Burstall founded La Mama in 1967.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Mama</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It remains the same today, although the car park is a paved square facing onto the street. The venue Burstall founded, La Mama (named after its New York prototype), would go on to become a vital centre of creativity. It provided space and time, and a share of the door, for theatre artists, avant garde film-makers, poets, musicians, from big names to small, to make new work. </p>
<p>In 1967, Carlton was, in Burstall’s words, “a lively, tatty area with an Italian atmosphere and plenty of students”. Back then, the rent was $28 a week (about $340 today), which seemed an uncomfortable amount for a not-for-profit and unsubsidised theatre collective. </p>
<p>Fortunately, La Mama paid its rent on time and quickly became the Melbourne branch of the <a href="http://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/genres/alternative-theatre-iid-21360">alternative theatre movement</a> gathering momentum in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Americas, Canada and Japan, as well as Australia and New Zealand. In its early years, La Mama was the kind of venue where almost every production was a world premiere. </p>
<p>The preference was for short plays, often presented as a triple bill, with participants writing for one, directing another and acting in the third, while working front and back of house, operating lights, making coffee and so on. This flexibility reflected the anti-hierarchical community values that underpinned La Mama. </p>
<p>The preference for short plays was initially a rejection of the conventional three-act drama, but it was also a smart way of encouraging new work. The lack of money, lights and sets marked its theatre as different from and a welcome alternative to the longstanding cultural <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-are-the-new-australian-musicals-waiting-in-the-wings-79831">dominance of commercial theatre</a> in Australia. It led to a new critical language that admired rough but energetic theatre and, as it took shape, it struggled against the blokey Anglo-Celtic culture that surrounded it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177250/original/file-20170706-7671-cv8125.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177250/original/file-20170706-7671-cv8125.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177250/original/file-20170706-7671-cv8125.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177250/original/file-20170706-7671-cv8125.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177250/original/file-20170706-7671-cv8125.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177250/original/file-20170706-7671-cv8125.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177250/original/file-20170706-7671-cv8125.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177250/original/file-20170706-7671-cv8125.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">La Mama Theatre in Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mat Connolley</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reaction and innovation</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-great-australian-plays-the-front-room-boys-and-new-wave-theatre-72956">The New Wave of Australian drama</a>, which saw a new generation of writers, directors and performers overturn a moribund imported theatre culture and make exciting new theatre about Australian people, places and politics, reached a high point in Melbourne around the La Mama playwrights <a href="https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/638">Jack Hibberd</a>, <a href="https://ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/462">John Romeril</a> and <a href="https://ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/2">David Williamson</a>. Hibberd had seven world premieres in La Mama’s first two years. He was joined by Romeril in 1968 and Williamson in 1970. </p>
<p>New plays by Sydney-based <a href="https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/457">Alex Buzo</a> and works from the alternative theatres of the northern hemisphere made their way to Melbourne audiences via La Mama. As a backlash against the radicalism of the 1960s took hold, new theatre works by <a href="https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/225669">Peter Handke</a> and <a href="https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/389">Sam Shepard</a> later in the decade were less exuberant and more reflective of the violent underpinnings of modern capitalist societies.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177242/original/file-20170706-25361-1sdigcb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177242/original/file-20170706-25361-1sdigcb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177242/original/file-20170706-25361-1sdigcb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177242/original/file-20170706-25361-1sdigcb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177242/original/file-20170706-25361-1sdigcb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177242/original/file-20170706-25361-1sdigcb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177242/original/file-20170706-25361-1sdigcb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177242/original/file-20170706-25361-1sdigcb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=961&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dimboola, Jack Hibberd’s 1968 play in which the audience becomes the guests at a wedding.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Mama</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The other side of the La Mama story is the emergence of devised performance, which began not with a written dramatic text but with a series of workshops around themes, concepts or techniques to do with the use of voice or the body. The Antimacassar Show in September 1974 was designed and performed by a 12-person ensemble with neither a designated writer nor a director. By 1976, James McCaughey was making devised work with performers. </p>
<p>Performance art, music, poetry and film were also established in the early years at La Mama and continue today.</p>
<p>Despite women’s participation in ensemble work and as performers, by 1974 the lack of progression for women writers and directors was recognised with the three-year appointment of <a href="http://gamma.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/1027">Valerie Kirwan</a> as La Mama’s first playwright in residence. Kirwan produced a stunning series of plays including: Hamjamb and the Gigolo (1975), <a href="http://gamma.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/130046">Stringray Play</a> (1978), <a href="http://gamma.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/12364">The Art of Lobster Whistling</a> (1979) and Facile (1980). </p>
<p>Reflecting on Kirwan’s output, Melbourne artist and scholar Meredith Rogers refers to her as the Diva of Melbourne Surrealism: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kirwan’s insouciant surrealism, her freewheeling, apparently improvisatory writing style and the drama and beauty of the theatrical image-making she managed in the tiny confines of La Mama had an impact on a generation of Melbourne theatre-makers far greater than her place in the historical and critical literature of the period would suggest, but at least her plays were produced, some of them even more than once.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Kirwan’s highly imaginative writing and directing influenced other women to step up and write and direct their own work. She had a formative effect on Melbourne writer, director and teacher <a href="https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/3373">Jenny Kemp</a>. </p>
<p>Kemp was impressed by two aspects of Kirwan’s work: that a woman could write and direct her own work and that this work could express imaginary worlds that came from within a woman’s rich interior life. Kemp’s first play, The Point Isn’t To Tell You, was an experimental short piece co-written with and performed by Robert Meldrum and staged at La Mama in 1979. She went on to become one of Australia’s most visually imaginative playwrights with collaborative ensemble productions that include Call of the Wild (1989), The Black Sequin Dress (1996), Still Angela (2002), Kitten (2008) and Madeleine (2010), taking the stream of feminist radicalism in theatre into the 21st century.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177243/original/file-20170706-7671-5ebvza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177243/original/file-20170706-7671-5ebvza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177243/original/file-20170706-7671-5ebvza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177243/original/file-20170706-7671-5ebvza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177243/original/file-20170706-7671-5ebvza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177243/original/file-20170706-7671-5ebvza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177243/original/file-20170706-7671-5ebvza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177243/original/file-20170706-7671-5ebvza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cate Blanchett and Elise McCredie in European Features, 1989.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Mama</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other influences from the first decade flowed onto Anthill Theatre in Napier Street, South Melbourne (also known as the Australian Nouveau Theatre), which presented its first show at La Mama in a 1981 double bill. This was the world premiere of Melbourne teacher and theatre maker Richard Murphet’s Quick Death to Infinity and Antonin Artaud’s To Have Done with the Judgement of God, directed by Jean Pierre Mignon. </p>
<p>Thirty-five years later Murphet restaged the work at La Mama with a new generation of actors. Hibberd, Romeril and Williamson have also returned in recent years. </p>
<p>Spectators still marvel at how versatile the 28-feet-wide and 30-feet-long space can be. While remaining adaptable and with increasing diversity, La Mama’s founding principles are the glue that binds members of Australia’s theatre culture.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>La Mama’s <a href="http://lamama.com.au/2017-winter-program/la-mama-50th-mini-fest">50th Mini-fest</a> begins this week.</em></p>
<p><em>This article was updated on July 10 to correct the name of Betty Burstall’s husband.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denise Varney receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
From Cate Blanchett to David Williamson, some of Australia’s most well known theatre artists have performed at La Mama, which celebrates its 50th birthday this year.
Denise Varney, Professor of Theatre Studies and co-director of the Australian Centre in the School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/78465
2017-05-30T02:10:05Z
2017-05-30T02:10:05Z
Australia’s videogames are inventive, acclaimed and world-class, so where’s the government support?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171380/original/file-20170530-25201-6l3pzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6016%2C4016&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week, the CEO of the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association Ron Curry penned a clearly frustrated <a href="http://www.mcvpacific.com/news/read/special-feature-an-open-letter-to-minister-for-communications-and-the-arts-senator-the-hon-mitch-fifield/0182835">open letter</a> to the Minister for Communications and the Arts, Mitch Fifield, about his government’s stubborn persistence in ignoring the Australian videogame industry.</p>
<p>The letter was a direct response to the minister not mentioning videogames during a keynote address at the recent <a href="http://www.acma.gov.au/theACMA/About/Events/Australian-content-conversation">Australian content conversation</a> held by the Australian Communications and Media Authority and other government bodies. But the frustration underpinning it is much deeper. It’s a response to years of struggle as the burgeoning local industry fights to be recognised as a significant creative force.</p>
<p>Indeed, the few times the current coalition government has recognised the existence of an Australian videogame industry have been nothing short of catastrophic. Videogames were one of the many victims of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s brutal first budget in 2014, when the half-completed <a href="https://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/05/government-pulls-funding-for-aussie-video-games-industry-in-federal-budget/">Australian Interactive Games Fund was stripped of its remaining A$10 million without any industry consultation</a>. This left many small studios who were preparing for the next round of funding in the lurch.</p>
<p>Then, in 2015, when then-Arts Minister George Brandis proposed the National Program for Artistic Excellence (since rebranded as the Catalyst Fund) to replace existing Arts Council funding, <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-country-for-new-videogames-brandis-and-abbott-are-playing-with-our-creative-future-44309">“interactive games” were explicitly excluded</a>.</p>
<p>Four hundred days ago, a <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Video_game_industry">senate inquiry</a> handed down its findings on the future of Australia’s videogame industry, recommending that there be a funding body for games. Compared to its previous actions, it is almost a relief that the government’s response to this has been one of deafening silence. </p>
<h2>Videogames by numbers</h2>
<p>It remains baffling that a government whose rhetorical posturing is all about <a href="https://www.innovation.gov.au/page/agenda">innovation, the future, and exports</a>, is so reluctant to support a local videogame development industry. </p>
<p>The numbers have been cited to death: globally the videogame industry is approaching a <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/15/digital-games-market-to-see-sales-worth-100-billion-this-year-research.html">value of A$100 billion</a>. In Australia alone <a href="http://www.igea.net/2016/03/australian-video-game-industry-strides-towards-3-billion/">the industry is worth nearly A$3 billion</a>, except this number is primarily made up of overseas games sold in Australia, not games made here. </p>
<p>Obtaining an exact dollar value of the local development industry is more difficult (and, surely, less impressive sounding), but it probably employs <a href="https://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/04/how-many-people-work-in-the-australian-games-industry-more-than-we-thought/">nearly a thousand people</a>, and with the right support could employ many more. Videogames also drive innovation in a range of sectors, and stand ready to take advantage of virtual and augmented reality. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xk69qfTRIgY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">L.A. Noire was one of the last blockbuster games developed in Australia by Team Bondi.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More importantly, about 70% of Australians play videogames, on computers, on TVs, on mobile phones - you probably have a few on the device you’re reading this on right now. Clearly a market exists for homegrown content. </p>
<p>Just citing the numbers, however, risks narrowing the much broader cultural significance of videogames to a simple dollar value. Videogames aren’t just products. They are creative works. </p>
<p>Videogames are a significant aspect of Australian culture and identity, and local practitioners should receive just as much support from arts funding bodies as artists working in any other medium. If nothing else, they shouldn’t be excluded simply for working with the medium of videogames.</p>
<h2>Not just a boys’ club</h2>
<p>What the lack of support really comes down to is an image problem. There is still a popular perception of videogames as just silly throwaway toys for teenage boys, despite the fact that <a href="http://www.igea.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Digital-Australia-2016-DA16-Final.pdf">players are on average 30-years-old and as likely to be women as men</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171374/original/file-20170530-25198-yq7iyl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171374/original/file-20170530-25198-yq7iyl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171374/original/file-20170530-25198-yq7iyl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171374/original/file-20170530-25198-yq7iyl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171374/original/file-20170530-25198-yq7iyl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171374/original/file-20170530-25198-yq7iyl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171374/original/file-20170530-25198-yq7iyl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171374/original/file-20170530-25198-yq7iyl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crossy Road is a popular mobile game made by a small team of Melbourne developers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.crossyroad.com/press/assets/screenshots/1536x2048/screenshot1-en.png">Hipster Whale</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In part, this is the global videogame industry’s own fault. Through the latter decades of the 20th century, male teenagers were the dominant target audience. The most visible videogames were all schlocky action, racing cars and army soldiers.</p>
<p>But videogames are a form as diverse and eclectic as television. While massive blockbuster action games for teenage boys still exist, so do small mobile games for a more general audience, educational games for training and the classroom, and little personal games made by individuals more concerned with expressing an idea than making a huge profit.</p>
<p>Indeed, it’s the latter that the current Australian videogame development industry is excelling at. Government support or not, it is building a small and sustainable ecosystem in this area.</p>
<p>Australia has been a powerhouse of mobile videogame development for years, responsible for early international successes like Flight Control, where you play as an air traffic controller, and Fruit Ninja, where you slice fruit with a blade.</p>
<p>More recent successes include Crossy Road (the player has to dodge traffic), Framed (you have to rearrange comic book panels to avoid the police), and Jelly Juggle (a kind of circular ping-pong involving where a fish acts as the paddle, and the jelly is the ball). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171375/original/file-20170530-25241-qz3u6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171375/original/file-20170530-25241-qz3u6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171375/original/file-20170530-25241-qz3u6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171375/original/file-20170530-25241-qz3u6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171375/original/file-20170530-25241-qz3u6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171375/original/file-20170530-25241-qz3u6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171375/original/file-20170530-25241-qz3u6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171375/original/file-20170530-25241-qz3u6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fruit Ninja was developed in Brisbane and has managed to become an international success.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fruitninja.com/">Halfbrick</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Australia is also home to a vibrant scene where individual and part-time developers have created small games that receive international acclaim. House House’s <a href="https://pmpygame.com/">Push Me Pull You</a> sees you, as a two-headed person with a stretchy body, facing off against another two-headed foe to take control of the ball. Ian MacLarty’s <a href="https://ianmaclarty.itch.io/catacombs-of-solaris">Catacombs of Solaris</a> is a psychedelic, never-ending labyrinth. Flat Earth Games’ <a href="http://objectsgame.com/">Objects in Space</a> is a space trading game where you must silently plot against space pirates and corrupt governments. </p>
<p>Sorath’s <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/422970/Devil_Daggers/">Devil Daggers</a> is a twitchy love letter to late 1990s first-person shooters such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_(video_game)">Quake</a>. Grace Bruxner’s <a href="https://fisho.itch.io/alien">Alien Caseno</a> is pun-filled alien casino. And Marbenx’s <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/359050/Shower_With_Your_Dad_Simulator_2015_Do_You_Still_Shower_With_Your_Dad/">Shower With Your Dad Simulator</a> is as bizarre as it sounds.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ztmbNJETkbw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Push Me Pull You is a self described cooperative game about friendship and wrestling.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Each of these small Australian games have received international attention through the press or overseas exhibitions, yet their creators have access to precious few avenues of funding or support.</p>
<h2>Supporting creators</h2>
<p>Boasting about these successes risks sounding as though government support isn’t required, like things are already fine. But it’s no coincidence that the majority of these developers are located in Melbourne, where the state screen funding body, <a href="https://www.film.vic.gov.au/funding/games-funding/">Film Victoria</a>, has been actively funding and supporting game development for years. </p>
<p>The majority of these developers also do not currently make videogames full time. As Australia no longer has large videogame publishers, without government funding, few can afford to take the risk to leap into full-time videogame development.</p>
<p>During the senate inquiry, the games industry stated that over 5,000 students enrol in tertiary courses to study videogame development each year, while there are, at most, 1,000 people employed as “active participants” in the industry. </p>
<p>Some will no doubt join existing studios, and others will try to start their own. But without government support for videogames as either an industry or a creative form, many of these graduates will slip sideways into other industries, or join the countless other Australian developers that have moved to Europe or Canada to find greener pastures.</p>
<p>The government seems willing to be left behind in the last century, stubbornly looking to the past rather than the future, and not doing its part to support Australian creators.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78465/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendan Keogh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Australia’s videogame industry has called for an end to the government’s silence around funding. And with local games competing on the world stage, it’s time for the cultural medium to be recognised alongside TV and film.
Brendan Keogh, PhD Candidate, Game Studies, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69787
2016-12-11T23:36:53Z
2016-12-11T23:36:53Z
Why we should care more about the Logies
<p>This is the time of year when many of the nation’s good little boys and girls start making wish lists. It’s also when many of the good boys and girls of Australian television start asking their audiences to vote for them at the Logies.</p>
<p>You could, perhaps, dismiss each as an overly and unnecessarily commercial ritual – or you could look at the latter, at least, as a rare occasion where the audience gets to have a say about who represents them on television. No channel or potential nominee is immune at the moment; even SBS and Aunty are shamelessly plugging voting outlets and partitioning for support.</p>
<p>There is one notable exception – Lee Lin Chin. But she’s so wonderful the award is barely worthy of being bestowed on her, anyway.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"800480872277250049"}"></div></p>
<p>The Logies is a fantastically daggy institution. For nearly 60 years the awards have been typically held in a ballroom/hotel/casino space, punctuated by a shipped-in international (read: American) celebrity, where Australian television is celebrated in all its often low-budget glory. </p>
<p>At its best, the tension between these elements has simply been stared down and sent up. Take Shaun Micallef’s 2010 acceptance speech. Not wanting to appear “cocky” by writing a speech, nor wanting to waste time writing notes in case he didn’t win, he just downloaded a speech from the internet. Upon winning, he followed through with his plan, reading out Sir Laurence Olivier’s 1977 Academy Award winner’s speech, which – as he put it – “seems only appropriate” for the occasion.</p>
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<p>Importantly, the Logies provide space to compare public and industry definitions of achievement. And often the public and the industry make very different choices about what they want to celebrate in the Australian television industry. </p>
<p>As TV Week explains <a href="http://www.tvweeklogieawards.com.au/logies-faq">on its website</a>, “popular” (labelled as “best”) awards are voted by the public, while “outstanding” awards are voted by the TV industry. These categories and their descriptions are curious – implying that the public can assess what might be worthy of surface attention (“best”); while the industry determines what is lasting and of broader significance (“outstanding”). </p>
<p>You could assume, then, that different types of shows and artists win the audience and industry nominated categories. You might also even assume, particularly given recent political trends towards conservatism, that the audience awards would tend to favour traditional stereotypes of Australianness: male performers of a certain age and type with the right mix of camera-loving Crocodile enthusiasm and loveable roguishness. </p>
<p>It follows then, to assume that the industry awards might reflect artists that are a bit more diverse than this – perhaps more women, perhaps artists who are culturally and ethnically diverse, perhaps people of different ages and with a traditionally less prominent place in dominant Australian media culture.</p>
<p>However, if we compare the two big ticket industry and audience awards – the Hall of Fame (industry) and the Gold Logie (audience) – some interesting patterns emerge, breaking these assumption models. The Hall of Fame has only existed since 1984 so I compared both from there, drawing data from the <a href="http://www.tvweeklogieawards.com.au/logie-history/">Logies website</a>.</p>
<p>A quick comparison of these award winners shows the remarkably different way the audience and the industry recognises Australian television achievement. The Hall of Fame shows a place where the “old boys club” dominates, as does a very strong representation of Channel 9 and 7 alumni. It also shows a relatively mono-cultural view of Australian television. </p>
<p>In 2016, Noni Hazelhurst was added as the second woman in The Hall of Fame. In her acceptance speech she called the establishment’s slow acknowledgement of diversity as “glacial”, but also dug back, saying “the thing about glaciers though, is that if you’re not on them, you go under.”</p>
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<p>The Gold Logie results tell us that the audience has been comparatively much more appreciative of Australian television’s diversity than the industry. This includes almost an equal gender split (14 Gold Logie wins for women; 19 for men – including multiple award winners of both genders), but also performers representing different types of television programming and cultural identities. </p>
<p>Soap operas were acknowledged much earlier and more regularly in the audience rather than in the industry category, as has been young performers during their early careers. The Gold Logie voters seemed to know, much earlier than the industry did, that Kylie Minogue would go on to have a great and varied career: the sparks that Charlene the Ramsay Street mechanic set off were to be lasting. </p>
<p>The audience also seemed to value a different type of male presence on television – with the early 1990s domination of Ray Martin showing the importance of the broadcaster’s careful, considered approach – a quality that had previously gone underappreciated when compared to the flashiness of the Hogans and Newtons and Kennedys. The industry did eventually catch up and on to this, and of course, they kept on employing him, but why has it taken a while to celebrate these alternatives?</p>
<p>To me the most telling, and perhaps most inspiring, was the Gold Logie win of Waleed Aly last year. An academic, a proud Muslim man, a commentator with a “funny approach” who isn’t necessarily a comedian, he is also someone who sits right there in the commercial mainstream talking to a prime time, general audience. Notably, too, he’s not part of the commercial powerhouses of the Channel 9/Channel 7 boardrooms, or the (hopefully still) protected territories of diversity with the public service broadcasters ABC and SBS. </p>
<p>If you compare Aly’s profile to the rest of what the industry has seemed to value, it would have been easy to assume he didn’t have a chance. (Indeed, the industry <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/six-reasons-why-waleed-aly-should-not-win-gold/news-story/b2ea6713f4f78a20878930c40f7c41aa">reasserted</a> those values when he was first nominated.) But there he was. The golden boy, as voted by ordinary, commercial TV watching, Australia. Their “best” and most “popular”.</p>
<p>The difference between the industry and audience awards at the Logies shows us why we should care about the event. The audience vote for variety, while the industry lags, shows where the real Australian “fair go” attitude actually lies. The difference in value systems between the audience and industry also serves as a stark warning. </p>
<p>If the industry is meant to be representing the audience, presenting their stories, entertainment and news, then they need to take seriously what the audience says they value. And what’s great about the audience is that their values clearly change over time. Just look at the journey from Bert to Jana, from Ray to Rove, and on to Asher and Waleed – I can’t wait to see who emerges in this round of nominations. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>The Logies are awarded in April 2017, and voting closes December 18.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69787/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Logies are fantastically daggy, but they let us compare audience and industry definitions of achievement. Looking back, it’s clear the public celebrates new, diverse and varied television.
Liz Giuffre, Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69777
2016-12-07T03:16:01Z
2016-12-07T03:16:01Z
Why are the best shut out? The sorry saga of performing arts funding in Australia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149006/original/image-20161207-13648-1jk48cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>…what is astonishing about this one is that there are nine actors of such calibre and experience. They are performing for a co-op share of the box office takings in a terrific production by Kim Hardwick of a complex and moving piece. Our mainstream theatres should do so well… you come away wondering what is happening to our theatre when such fine actors cannot be paid a living wage for such excellent work…</p>
<p>John McCallum, Theatre Critic for The Australian commenting on the production by Red line Productions of The Shadow Box at the Old Fitzroy Hotel, Woolloomooloo.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When I read these comments by John McCallum a week ago I was struck by the fact that a critic for arguably the nation’s most conservative newspaper should be saying this. </p>
<p>Then last week at the Currency House Creativity and Business Breakfast in Sydney, Yaron Lifschitz, CEO of Brisbane circus company Circa, asserted that if you want innovative arts practice,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Change, regeneration and competition are necessary …A protectorate of the privileged is the opposite of risk… Funding should be investment in our risk, not our certainty</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While it is a truism that funding does not necessarily produce good work, there is something amiss when artistic work that is truly exciting and innovative receives little funding, or none at all, while work that panders to the tastes of a 19th-century Europe, and is often without artistic merit or creative risk, receives the majority of the national purse. </p>
<p>Indeed, while making some insightful critical comments, the recent <a href="https://www.arts.gov.au/sites/g/files/net1761/f/national_opera_review_final_report.pdf">national opera review</a> (commissioned by former Minister Brandis) nevertheless recommended an additional $24 million for that artform in October of this year. </p>
<p>Last week Live Performance Australia released its “Ticket Attendance and Revenue Survey 2015”. As the information is about revenue and ticket sales, it does not give a holistic picture of the state of health of the performing arts sector but provides information about what is most popular for audiences. </p>
<p>Live performance’s Chief Executive Evelyn Richardson <a href="http://liveperformance.com.au/news/live_performance_industry_posts_141_billion_revenue_and_1838_million_attendance">notes that</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>While contemporary music continues to be the largest contributor commanding 34% of revenue and 30.2% of attendance, the sector saw a significant 21% decline in revenue, with a 13% decline in attendance and 10.4% decrease in the average ticket price.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This recording of a significant decline in revenue needs to be taken seriously. As Lifschitz notes, in the case of Circa, their government funding has dramatically declined as a proportion of overall revenue - to just about 20% of their overall income.</p>
<p>While this indicates how successful they have been (their overall revenue is now more than $7 million), nevertheless there is a question here that begs addressing. As Lifschitz puts it, in response to the Opera Review’s recommendation that the Opera Companies receive an extra $24m:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…$24 million of extra funding. That is 34 times Circa’s annual grant base. That would nurture an extraordinary circus sector. It would be transformative.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So there is a major problem when one artform (opera) needs to receive an injection of $24 million to stay alive (when it is already receiving $36.8 million in overall annual national funding), yet the entire medium to small performing arts sector received an annual cut of more than $21 million in 2016. </p>
<p>There is a disparity here that is of major concern. In 2015-16 the <a href="http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/workspace/uploads/files/_aca_annual_report_2015-16_-lr-582161b4b29d1.pdf">major performing arts sector</a> received a total of $107.8 million (68%) from the Australia Council out of a total budget of $159.2 million allocated to grants.</p>
<p>The small-to-medium sector across all art forms received a total of $37.6 million (24%) in various forms. Other strategies and initiatives, that cover all sectors, received $13.8 million (8%). Small-to-medium operators often have a skeleton staff of one or two people, and yet manage to produce, as John McCallum observes above, some extraordinary work. In 2015, according to Opera Australia’s <a href="https://d30bjm1vsa9rrn.cloudfront.net/res/pdfs/opera-australia-2015-annual-report.pdf">annual report</a>, they employed a total of 454 people. </p>
<p>Isn’t it time for these disparities in funding and resources to be addressed? Is it possible, for example, that a major company like Opera Australia could share some of their resources with smaller companies? </p>
<p>If audiences are declining, earned income is declining, and government funding, as an overall proportion of revenue, is also declining, there is likely to be a tipping point. </p>
<p>Cultural scholar John Holden has argued that this widespread decline is a symptom of a <a href="http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/documents/project-reports-and-reviews/the-ecology-of-culture/">cultural ecosystem</a> that’s in trouble. The national government needs to be paying attention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69777/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Caust is a member of the Arts Industry Council and the National Association of the Visual Arts. </span></em></p>
Small organisations are creating Australia’s most exciting art. Yet a recent report shows that even the most popular art-forms are bleeding revenue, while government funding dwindles.
Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/64881
2016-09-05T20:11:12Z
2016-09-05T20:11:12Z
With energy, ideas and cheek to spare, Richard Neville was the boy of OZ
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136554/original/image-20160905-10501-vqd67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pages one and two of issue 31 of OZ magazine.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UPS via Wikimedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week saw the passing of Sydney-born Richard Neville – Australian <em>enfant terrible</em> of the 1960s, editor of OZ magazine (published from 1963-73) and leading spokesperson for the counterculture. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136549/original/image-20160905-25189-1mn5y4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136549/original/image-20160905-25189-1mn5y4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136549/original/image-20160905-25189-1mn5y4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136549/original/image-20160905-25189-1mn5y4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136549/original/image-20160905-25189-1mn5y4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136549/original/image-20160905-25189-1mn5y4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136549/original/image-20160905-25189-1mn5y4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136549/original/image-20160905-25189-1mn5y4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Issue one of OZ. (Click to enlarge.)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In looking at Neville’s life, both in regards to his writing and more importantly his activism and public eloquence, his impact on the counterculture movement is clear, and the times were indeed a-changing, as Bob Dylan proclaimed in 1963. </p>
<p>In the early 1960s, a new tension was arising between conservative norms and a generation of students and disillusioned youth who challenged the status quo. As an arts student at the University of New South Wales, Neville became the features editor of the student newspaper, Tharunka, where he gained a reputation for inciting controversy and developing pranks against the university’s vice-chancellor. </p>
<p>Just a few short years later, Neville suggested the idea for a new magazine.</p>
<p>OZ first hit the streets of Sydney on April Fool’s Day 1963, after Neville and a group of friends had informally founded OZ at his family’s Mosman home. OZ courted controversy from issue one, in its merciless satire of the conservative establishment, and for raising issues considered immoral or taboo, such as abortion and sex. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136548/original/image-20160905-25171-1yk5lbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136548/original/image-20160905-25171-1yk5lbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136548/original/image-20160905-25171-1yk5lbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136548/original/image-20160905-25171-1yk5lbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136548/original/image-20160905-25171-1yk5lbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136548/original/image-20160905-25171-1yk5lbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136548/original/image-20160905-25171-1yk5lbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136548/original/image-20160905-25171-1yk5lbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Issue six of OZ. (Click to enlarge.)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1964, Neville and his co-editors Martin Sharp and Richard Walsh narrowly escaped jail terms for charges of obscenity arising from the cover of OZ issue six, which shows the editors pretending to urinate in the recently unveiled Tom Bass sculpture on the P&O building in Sydney.</p>
<p>The 1960s were the beginning of a radical shift in Western society, the repercussions of which are still being felt today. </p>
<p>The anti-war movement, an explosion in recreational drug use, sexual liberation, human rights, freedom of speech, the lessening of censorship, lampooning of politicians and the political process, music, the environment, and adoption of alternative lifestyles; these matters took hold of Neville and his generation as he was let loose in London at the height of the “swinging sixties”.</p>
<p>In 1967 the London-based OZ was launched in Hyde Park. He wrote of the event: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The new OZ, shimmering gold in its karma-sutra gate fold and celebrating free love and spiritual alternatives, matches the mood of the moment. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Supported by friends such as the artist Martin Sharp, Neville was able to turn OZ magazine into an international beacon of the underground counterculture movement, much to the consternation of the authorities. The subsequent OZ trial in 1971 – again for obscenity – took its toll on Neville and fellow editors Jim Anderson and Felix Dennis. </p>
<p>Although the flame of energetic opposition to conservative norms was diminished, it was never extinguished. Upon his return to Australia after 1972 he met his partner Julie Clarke and turned his life to writing, often promoting the counterculture as many of its elements were adopted by mainstream culture.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136552/original/image-20160905-10541-1e1brpm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136552/original/image-20160905-10541-1e1brpm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136552/original/image-20160905-10541-1e1brpm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136552/original/image-20160905-10541-1e1brpm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136552/original/image-20160905-10541-1e1brpm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136552/original/image-20160905-10541-1e1brpm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136552/original/image-20160905-10541-1e1brpm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Issue four of OZ. (Click to enlarge.) zoomable=</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After several years based in New York writing for The New York Times and other prominent magazines, Neville and Clarke returned to Australia and moved to the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. </p>
<p>The ideas he was attacked for in the 1960s – from championing solar power to talking openly about sex – gradually crept into the national discourse. </p>
<p>Unlike many of his counterculture contemporaries, he wanted to improve capitalist and democratic systems, not smash them. He shaped a new career as a “futurist”: someone who promoted forward-looking alternatives to outdated conventions, from environmental business practices to how the dole supports the arts. </p>
<p>Neville’s original thinking and creative capacity opened new channels for him, making regular appearances on the Mike Walsh Show in the 1980s. He used this rather conservative platform to continue to challenge Australia’s conservative standard – although his very presence was a sign they was starting to change. </p>
<p>Neville was very much of his time, whether it be the smart-alec university student of the early 1960s who launched OZ Sydney; the drug smoking, long-haired hippie of London and the OZ trial during the late ‘60s and early '70s; through to the family man, writer and public speaker of the '80s and '90s. All his manifestations revealed Neville as a Peter Pan-like figure, full of energy, enthusiasm and cheek. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136545/original/image-20160905-25156-9nzcqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136545/original/image-20160905-25156-9nzcqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136545/original/image-20160905-25156-9nzcqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136545/original/image-20160905-25156-9nzcqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136545/original/image-20160905-25156-9nzcqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136545/original/image-20160905-25156-9nzcqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136545/original/image-20160905-25156-9nzcqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136545/original/image-20160905-25156-9nzcqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Wollongong</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>He played an especially significant role in the cultural transformation of Australian society during an extended period of upheaval from the early 60s through to the late 70s. Much of his activity was recorded in his 1995 autobiography <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12123428">Hippie Hippie Shake</a>, edited with the help of his old London OZ co-editor Jim Anderson.</p>
<p>In recent years he had retired to a quiet life with his wife Julie in his Blue Mountains retreat. When the University of Wollongong approached him in 2014 with the proposal to digitise OZ magazine and making it available to students, researchers and the general public, he approached the topic with his usual enthusiasm. </p>
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<p>In an interview the following year he reflected on the significance of OZ and his role on the edge. There was a toll – a number of legal trials, time in a London prison – but there was never any backing away from the importance of questioning the Establishment, putting its activities under a critical spotlight, and using satire to withering effect. </p>
<p>Richard Neville’s death in some ways marks the end of the transformative 1960s. Half a century later much of the spirit of the '60s lives on all around us, though we may be unaware of the debt we owe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Richard Neville was a man of his times: a smart-alec student in the 60s; a drug-smoking hippie on trial in the 70s; to a family man, writer and public speaker in the 80s and 90s.
Rebecca Daly, Associate Director, Collections & Scholarly Communications, University of Wollongong
Michael Organ, Manager Repository Services, University of Wollongong
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.