Blog I Karen Brooks

Blog

Lara Bingle Bungle

Mar 02, 2010

The fracas over the candid picture of Lara Bingle – allegedly circulated by footballer, Brendan Fevola and, according to sources, now on the phones of many a footballer and cricketer, has attracted public censure. Certainly, Fevola has revealed himself to be a prat of the highest order who has no respect for boundaries or others’ dignity. A great deal has been said about him and the type of person who would circulate a picture of a naked ex (whether it was during an affair or not), never mind the people who accepted the photo, kept it and/or passed it on. He’s not the first – and probably won’t be the last.

While I would never condone Fevola’s actions, they’re not, sadly, that surprising. The specific and narrow notion of masculinity that dominates too many of our football codes is shown to be alive and well. Fortunately, not all players follow this, but when something like the photo ’scandal’ erupts, it tarnishes the men, casting aspersions on all players and putting their behaviour in the spotlight. What we see is not pretty. One can’t help but feel for Michael Clarke, Bingle’s fiance – where’s mateship in all this? While Clarke is oblivious (one hopes) to what is being passed behind his back, his sporting peers are having a perve at his lady – a perve courtesy of a sleazy ex. There’s something really unsvaoury about this. I feel for Bingle and Clarke. It’s a betrayal at so many levels.

Speaking of betrayals, not enough has been said about the women’s magazine who saw fit to publish the photo that Bingle is now suing Fevola for releasing. One of our prominent magazines not only published a story about Bingle’s recent public ‘meltdown’ at a 20/20 match, but published the photo at the centre of Bingle’s distress. A magazine that also prides itself on being for and about women. A magazine that offers pages of advice, diet, fashion and medical tips and, of course, the ubiquitous celebrity gossip. A magazine that will put aside ethics for the sake of profit, but dress up what they’ve done in psychobabble and excuses.

When challenged as to why she saw fit to publish the photo of Bingle, in light of the angst she knew it was causing the subject, the editor, in a radio interview with Neil Mitchell of 3AW, cited as her reason the fact it was already being circulated and had been for years. Yes, that’s right. Years ago – in 2005 or some such. Yes, it was – she’s right – among a group of men – not a readership of over 400,000 in 2010. She also defended the decision by saying ‘others had published it’ (the Herald Sun) and it was ‘newsworthy’. When asked if she felt it might not be an ‘unreasonable intrusion’ the same reasons were given. By that logic, if others have done ‘it’, then it’s OK if we do ‘it’ too.

Oh please. Let’s call it what it is and say it’s nothing but a tacky strategy to sell magzines and beat others at the profit game. Scandal and naked photos – particularly ones from a murky past, involving a pretty, popular woman, never mind the blessing of her partner being a cricketer, sell. Usually very well.

This reveals so many women’s magazines for what they are – little more than over-priced publications that feed on women’s insecurities and angst – they pretend to be your friend when they’re your femeny – a female enemy. BUt they weren’t always like this.

In her book, The Beauty Myth, Naaomi Wolf notes that ‘women’s magazines… have been one of the most powerful agents for changing women’s roles…’ for the last century. They function like a social barometer. Initially preoccupied with the home and the ‘housewife, where women were persuaded, through advertising, to become ‘insecure consumers of household goods,’ they slowly shifted focus.

With changing social forces and the rise of feminism, the female body became the object of scrutiny. The ‘natural’ state of women, the naked form, which had never been the locus of these magazines before, suddenly became a’problem.’ Magazines and marketers starting providing a range of ever-changing solutions – from diet, to hair-removal, to how achieve soft skin, to these days, anti-ageing products as well. Arguably, they have taught women to ‘hate’ their natural state and seek radical solutions.

It’s easy to accuse mags with such a focus as being trivial – and it’s a criticism that’s been levelled at them for some time. Focussing on the body, men, celebrities, diet, gossip, sexiness and fashion, these same magazines also reflect the mass culture from which they arise. They are contradictory (publishing photos of Bingle while at the same time decrying the man who initiated them). Wolf believes that ‘Women react so strongly to these inconsistencies since they probably realise the that the magazine’s contradictions are their own.’

In their book, The Great Feminist Denial, Monica Dux and Zora Simic argue that (citing Cyndi Tebbel, the former editor of New Woman magazine), feminism is the single most taboo subject in women’s magazines. This rejection of any type of feminist discourse is based on a fear that it will alienate the readership who it’s believed are only interested in men, clothes, gossip etc. While some magazines are the exception (and there are some good ones), almost all of the others dedicate over 3/4 if not their entire publication to so-called women’s pursuits. Even magazines for teens and tweens do this. They are trivia incarnate.

This persistent focus on beauty, gossip and the darker side of the feminine mystique (which is no longer so mysterious anymore), and other women’s ‘concerns’ both brings women together and drives us apart. We recognise it for what it is and indulge, believing that it’s entertaining, short-term and light. It’s escapism. But is it really? Surely, this kind of narrative, the stereotypes presented and the self-hatred it promotes, eats away at any notion of sisterhood and support. These magazines teach us to compete, to stare, compare and despair – at ourselves and each other. They feed on our insecurities and teach us to kick ourselves when we’re down and seek succour in shopping and bitching. It also teaches us that its OK to kick others when they’re down.

This has now been blatantly exposed, arguably, by the Bingle bungle. An Australian woman’s mag kicks one of their own – someone who has graced their pages and, when called to account, they have no legitimate excuse. That’s not to let Fevola and co off the hook, but it just goes to show to what levels even a peddlar of the ’sisterhood’ will stoop.

Sadly, it’s pretty low.

What do you think?

Posted in General Social Commentary | 8 Comments »

Mother, Marriages and Mourning

Feb 21, 2010

Farewelling my Aunt - that's my mother, holding me in her arms

I don’t know when or how I realised, but I noticed that I didn’t include any photos of my mother, my biological mother, in my photo gallery. When I discovered this, I felt a bit like someone who sends out the wedding invites only to realise too late that they’ve left a really important person from the guest list. Only, this was my mother, how bad am I?
Well, in some ways really awful, but her absence – unconscious – really – is a reflection of our complicated relationship. It was simply love/hate. Were my mother alive, she would be terribly hurt that I’d omitted her, but also laugh and pretend to understand. Then she’d bitch about me to my sister and grandmother. You have to laugh. That’s how it was.

So, I want to make up a little for my dreadful oversight and write about my mother, my Ima, Edna Ruth Rosenthal, who died on August 30, 2006, the same week as Steve Irwin – I know, because I wrote the equivalent of a eulogy for him (for the Courier Mail) the same day I wrote the one for my mother. That was a tough day.

In summary, my mother was a five foot tall, red-haired, blue-eyed, Israeli immigrant whom I lived with for my first 12 ½ years as well as an ex-soldier (medic in the Israeli army), and an ex- wife. Why do I mention that? After all, so many people are exes these days. Well, like most things my mother did, she didn’t do it by halves. My mother was married eight times. Yes, you read that correctly – eight – 8 – times. Marriages that spanned three continents and some very different men – an Israeli officer, Australians (including my dad), we think an Austrian, an American, and a New Zealander. There were religious men, abusive men, kind ones, nasty ones, patient and dishonest ones. She broke some hearts and had hers broken as well. She also had relationships with a couple of women – but they were over and above her marriages. I liked having two mums very much. She was also a shop-a-holic.

As her eldest daughter, I can admit I didn’t know her as well as I would have liked. That was partly due to my mother herself and partly because of the dreadful circumstances that drove us apart and kept us that way for far too many years. That, and the fact she migrated to the USA for the last 16 years of her life.

I didn’t speak to my mother for long periods as I struggled to understand some of the decisions she made around me, my sister and family. It was only as I grew older, wiser and probably more tolerant that I started to see what made my Ima tick – and I found I liked it – not enough to emulate it, but it helped me understand the woman she was. But it took me a long, long time.

Every person she encountered, she had a slightly different relationship with and that meant that each person knew something distinct about her. She was the master of reinvention – she would simply leave out parts of herself that made her uncomfortable or uneasy. She lived in the now. Sometimes, that omission involved me – hence my some of my problems with her. But, what I have also learned is that this tendency to elide or remove parts of her life make it so hard to draw a coherent portrait of my mother: the woman known variously as Edna Ruth Brotzen, Nadler, Adams, Davenport, Woitasec, Pettit (insert two names here- I don’t know them) and, finally, Rosenthal. But I am going to try…
Ima was a young mother – even when she was close to death, and aged by her cancer, she remained young in her heart and mind. Not in any immature way – but in that deliberate way that some people foster to always see life as a glass half-full, no matter what was meted out: divorce, loss of children, pets or husbands. That was Ima. She embraced life and she embraced change with a youthful enthusiasm that was so contagious. This was something my younger sister, Jenny, and I adored about her.

Ima and my son, Adam, 1986

Some of my earliest and happiest memories were tapping into her fountain of youth. I remember as kids, Jenny and I, lounging on Ima’s bed, giggling and eating; watching her get ready to go out somewhere with a boyfriend, her long eyelashes fluttering at us in the mirror while her shoulder-length auburn hair bounced across her shoulders. Our friends all thought our mother was a movie star (keeping in mind, Australia was very parochial in the sixties). She was certainly exotic, different and she had an accent.
It wouldn’t be right not to talk about Ima’s voice. It was so sharp, it could cut through frozen butter. Tending to get shrill when she didn’t get her own way, Ima could dig her heels in and be as stubborn as, well, a contended cat. For Jenny and me, our childhood is accompanied by the soundtrack of our mother’s voice and yes, like any mother, she could nag like a broken record.

I don’t think it’s my place to talk about our mother’s chequered past or what I have patched together through half-stories, rumours and hearsay. Needlesstosay, our mother’s life until she met her last husband, Gary, is more colourful than the beads she could string together and the lurid shirts she’d wear with flair: and that’s saying something. What I can reveal is she met Gary by answering an advertisement in a newspaper in the USA. It was not a classified ad either. There, I have said too much! Let your mind boggle, you won’t even come close!
Jenny and I both had very different relationships with our mother: Jenny and Ima were closer, but that’s as much my fault as Ima’s and do I have regrets about that?

Jenny, Ima and me - Red Rock Canyon, USA 2005

Yes, of course I do. But I’m not convinced that, considering how our lives panned out, it could have been any other way. But Jenny and I (like Ima), never got caught up in petty or silly jealousies over what was simply a fact of our relationship. We both loved Ima in our own way and were loved by her in return.
Ima always valued friends. Like the damned thousands of Boyd Bears (ceramic and soft), she would collect never to discard, even if they gathered some dust of neglect, she’d find her friends again and give the relationship a shine. Not always able to express in words or in emotions she was comfortable with how she felt, she would instead shower friends with gifts. She would purchase them to give as though they were a part of her in ways that others share secrets. I used to think it was a signifier of shallowness. I was so wrong. It was a sign of someone who learned, through her own life circumstances (abandoned by her mother – as she saw it – in Israel at the age of four, with her twin), a different and safer way of communicating. Recipients of gifts, no matter how they really feel about you, will generally show gratitude. She loved receiving that – and thanks: of basking in the glow of appreciation. Gifts (and re-gifting!) were the manifestation of her feelings. In some way, this was more lasting to her than memories, which fade or become warped with time and retelling (or omission!). So, whereas I once discarded her gifts, I now treasure the few I kept, no matter how easily they were given or how often – she meant them as signs of real affection.

I cannot write about my mother without mentioning the word shopping. Our mother pathologised the notion of retail therapy. She was the most wonderful shopping companion who turned what for me is a boring chore into a fun experience. I loved shopping with Ima – so did Jenny – and it will be hard when we’re next in Las Vegas (where she moved from New York) to shop without her. I think we’ll have to visit Ross’s the way pilgrims visit shrines.

Some of my mother's Boyd Bears

I’m sure her spirit is there – or in Walmart – scooping up specials and keeping an eye out for a bargain. For some reason, I imagined her last day on earth as one where she would be shopping in Ross’s and suddenly collapse – a case of shop till she drops. Sadly, that wasn’t to be.
Instead, our mother died at home, with her husband, Gary, not by her side, but on the computer where he usually was. Her cats were there, all her collectibles and, most importantly, her friends who also came and shared time with her – as it turned out, precious time.

My mother had a life that was harder than I think even I can begin to imagine – such loss and denial and such betrayal. Unfortunately, some of that was inherited by the next generation. But, she managed to rise above all that – partly because she never looked back and she refused to ever be a victim.

That’s how I choose to remember my mother; that’s how Jenny chooses to remember her too. Not as a woman with faults, but as a beacon of strength and courage, of endless humour and instant goodwill. She was a fighter and a friend; a wife, a mother and a good listener. As a fashion plate that reinvented the word style every season. She was a great cook (I didn’t know that until I was in my twenties) and a consummate shopper.
My memories are conflicted, but they’re rich and passionate. And so was our mother – rich in what’s important: family, friends, pets, two children that loved her for what in the end we

realised she was; a step-brother, Peter, who adored her,

Ima and Peter - she died just over a month later...

a half-brother, Gideon – still in Israel, a twin, Hannah (Peggy) who also grew to love her and eight husbands who, I’m sure have very different recollections of the woman who made their life heaven and hell on earth.
My mother is no longer with us in the corporeal sense, but her indomitable spirit lives on: in the aisles of Walmart, among the racks of Ross’s, they would be in her various collections, only her last husband sold them so perhaps they’re in what remains of her feisty, beautiful cats, but most of all, she’s in our hearts.
Shalom, my little Ima. I’m sorry about the photo gallery!

Ima and me in her backyard Las Vegas

This blog was inspired by a beautiful blog written by Josephine Penicott on the subject of mothers. See: www.talepeddler.blogspot.com/2010/02/chit-chat-wednesday-and-invisible

Posted in Personal | 9 Comments »

Killing Innocence

Feb 16, 2010

The news that a 13 year old boy fatally stabbed a 12 year old boy, Elliott Fletcher, in the toilet blocks of St Patrick’s, Shorncliffe, has shocked not just the families and community, but the entire nation. As the news broke and, later, the story was pieced together and assumptions made about the reasons for this tragedy, the immediate effect on the families involved, the school community and short-term consequences, people struggled to make sense of how two young people could have their lives ended through such a senseless act of extreme violence. For it’s not just Elliot’s life that finished that day – the young perpetrator’s has, to all intents and purposes, ended as well. A child himself, he now faces the most serious of criminal charges.

It is just so unbelievably tragic, and our hearts and sympathy go out to everyone involved. At the same time, however, many people, and the media especially, are looking to make sense of the senseless, understand what led to this act, and also to apportion blame. That’s what we tend to do during these crises – look for accountability. It helps us reach understanding and, eventually, closure. What’s clear is that this is not a ’school’ problem as one parent stated, this is a ’social problem’ and he’s right. So far, the media, popular culture, parents generally, the rise of violence, and lack of discipline have all been touted as responsible.

But in a case like this, no one person or situation can be blamed. On the contrary, the answer is complex – all of the above have, arguably, contributed to the events in the playground that resulted in one young life lost, another ruined. That’s why it’s important that, as a society, we start talking about what led to this from every angle if, for no other reason, than to try and ensure it doesn’t happen again.

For what it’s worth, I am going to try and do that now. I feel so saddened by this, so shocked and yet, sadly, not surprised.

It’s easy to blame the media for the rise in violence amongst young people. Every day, kids are bombarded with violent imagery from a plethora of sources. One study revealed that by the time a person turns 18, they would have witnessed 200,000 murders and that’s from TV alone. A combination of news broadcasts, even if they’re not actively watched, but passively run in the background, movies and TV shows all portray violence – sometimes in gruesome detail. Does this make our kids violent? Maybe. It certainly exposes them to it and makes the world appear a very scary place.

Just as young girls will look to various female idols and emulate the way they dress and behave, so too will boys. Carrying a weapon, whether it’s through fear, aggression or to assert a particular masculinity, is seen as a way of impressing and subduing peers and would-be foes – or it’s a way of turning someone into a victim and asserting power. Knives and other weapons are being used and reported as being used at an seemingly alarming rate in the media. In February, another Brisbane school boy was knifed. Every weekend, stabbings, glassings and shootings are occurring. Often alcohol fueled, but sometimes it’s just braggadocio getting out of hand. Just last week, a 45 year old Professor opened fire in a staff room, killing three colleagues and wounding three others, allegedly because she didn’t get permanency in her job. If adults can resort to violence to solve their problems, then why can’t young people? There’s the many shootings at schools in the USA and even Europe to contend with and process as well. As shocked as we are about these outcomes, they’re still reported ad nauseam and young minds absorb this.

There’s a strong argument to be made that we’re role-modeling this kind of behaviour in all sorts of overt and invidious ways – through news, music, cyberspace, popular culture and even our own responses to various situations. Think of the rise in ‘rage’ related incidents: there’s ‘road-rage’; ‘trolley rage’; ‘queue rage’ and so forth. If we can’t behave in a civil and respectful manner towards each other, how can we expect our kids to? The thing about ‘rage’ or repressed anger of any kind, is that it’s usually a signifier of fear. Angry people are often afraid. And these days we seem so angry – but perhaps that’s because, deep down, we’re really very afraid. That’s not surprising.

The media has constructed a world, society and local community where terrorists loom large, paedophiles are in the neighbourhood and every stranger is a potential danger. We are afraid of our own shadows – so are our children. Parents are anxious about letting their children leave the house; they worry about leaving them alone. Anxious people turn into scared people, turn into angry people – at any age – only the way these fears and anger are acted out changes and escalates.

But let me return to the media for a moment. What about video/internet games? Many people are holding them accountable for the rise in violence, saying that in these games not only is the violence and death graphic (which it is), but it’s rewarded and at the press of a button, the dead can rise and fight again. ‘Game over’ does not mean ‘life ended’ in these virtual worlds. There are very real concerns that kids can’t distinguish between the real world and the fantasy violence that’s portrayed on the screen.

Experts will tell you that at around the age of seven or eight, kids can distinguish between reality and fantasy. Other experts will tell you that it’s real world violence that a child is exposed to – eg. in the home and from the adults around him or her that will influence their own behaviours far more than anything they interact with on a screen. But there is a problem with this argument… what if a child only interacts with violence every time they turn to a ’screen’ to entertain themselves? What if the time they spend with these screens is disproportionate to the time they spend interacting with other pursuits? What if the only popular culture and media they’re consuming is violent in nature? Surely, that must skew a child’s perception of the world and understanding of how people resolve problems, whether it’s real or imagined ones.

Then there’s the issue of kids accessing age-inappropriate material. So many young kids are playing games designed for the 15 plus market. Rated MA, their parents either buy them for their children or allow their kids to play them, after all, they’re harmless. For a 15 year old, maybe, but an eight year old? They are not harmless. They are yet another piece of a puzzle that paints a specific and scary picture of a world where violence not only reigns but is fun, is the only solution to problems and is rewarded. Parents need to wrest control of what their kids are accessing back from their children, their kids friends and even other parents. They need to set boundaries and stick to them, making sure that their age-appropriate and able to change as the children grow older and demonstrate responsibility.

There are very valid reasons that age recommendations are set around these kinds of violent games, but there’s evidence they’re being ignored. We have to ask, at what cost? Having said that, other experts argue that these types of games, when accessed at an age-appropriate level and when balanced with other activities, can be beneficial – not just for the fantasy violence, but cognitively as well.

And what about the issue of discipline? Well, I am sure when we discuss ‘discipline’, no-one is endorsing beatings and other corporal measures. Rather, it’s about ensuring that if a child does something wrong, there are appropriate consequences. Yet, talk to frustrated school teachers, parents and adults generally and what you find is that kids are not only being protected from consequences when they do something wrong (often by parents who swoop in and refuse to allow their child to be disciplined and/or are in denial that he or she has even done anything wrong) , they don’t even understand that there should be any. We’re raising a generation that don’t know how to take responsibility for their actions. This is what experts also mean when they talk about ‘cotton-wooling’ or kids.

But we’re a confusing old world. On the one hand, we have stringent policies about bullying, we’ve stripped sport of much of its healthy combativeness, we don’t even let little kids play super heroes at day care centres any more and we try to pretend that we all live together peacefully in a great big vat of vanilla yoghurt. But, on the other, we exhort violence as a solution, celebrate it in films, TV and video games. Fights between parents break out at sporting venues; some kids witness their parents engaged in physically and/or verbally very toxic battles. They’re not silly – they also sense emotional and psychological tension – not ‘fighting’ around the children does not work! Much better that children see the adults in their world argue and resolve it in amicable if not loving ways. But it’s no wonder kids are confused. Not allowed to use ‘harsh words’ for fear of upsetting someone or being accused of bullying, they resort to psychological warfare on the internet or mobile phone or extreme violence to express themselves and their frustrations and angst. Healthy expressions of anger, emotional and physical are natural and beneficial in certain contexts – please note, I said ‘healthy.’ I am not talking about abuse. But the ability to vent, to ‘let it out’ is important. I believe we are stifling this in society and it’s NOT healthy.

So, did any of the above cause this shocking tragedy? I don’t know. But it’s hard not to believe that they all didn’t contribute in some way.

We need to be talking to our kids about all this and to each other and seeking solutions to the growing violence in our community. We need to come together, work as one, not let ourselves be torn apart by fear, rage and suspicion. We have to do this now, for the sake of the future, for the sake of our children.

And for the sake of the families at the heart of this tragedy.

Posted in General Social Commentary | 3 Comments »

I’m Too Sexy For a Squirt

Feb 12, 2010

The news that a gorgeous little seven-year-old girl, Julia Lira, is to lead the Viradouro samba parade in Rio de Janeiro seems to have tipped the scales of public opinion. Known for its sexually charged atmosphere, the Carnival is really no place for a child. Yet the father defends his right to give his daughter permission to partake, enjoying the publicity and instant global celebrity the family have achieved by such a decision. Meanwhile those who express reservations or protest are spoken of as wowsers.

The decision to include Julia Lira, despite cultural differences and context, is a symptom of what’s happening with increasing regularity in our world: the sexualisation and exploitation of kids. If it’s not for profit, then it’s with an eye to fame – for the parents as well.

Think about Ballon Boy and the lengths to which those parents went to get their faces on TV. It may have backfired, but they didn’t hesitate to use their children to achieve an end. Similarly, those awful tot and tween pageants that are particularly popular in the USA are little more than an exercise in vicariousness on behalf of the parents (usually mums) who indulge in dreadful competitiveness, dressing their daughters like mini-Lolitas and exposing them to a world that they’re too young to be involved in. Now we have a four year old boy, Kayim-Ali Jaffer appearing on Britain’s Got Talent with a Michael Jackson routine and bringing the crowd to its feet. When is it going to end? In-utero talent shows?

It would be so easy, too easy to blame the parents. But there’s a range of social factors that feed into this push to make kids sexy, display their talents, and have them participate in what was once exclusively adult culture. Social factors which mean these types of scenarios will keep recurring.

From padded bras and G-strings for four and five year olds, to Lolitaesque dolls and fashions, to gyrating, scantily clad music idols ala Lady GaGa, sex permeates children’s culture. Caught in this cycle of must-have or must-keep-up parents and kids are buying into the notion that they must look a particular way and own specific things to ‘fit in’ with peer groups.

Wander into your average department store and you’re likely to find miniature versions of adult couture, replete with plunging necklines, diaphanous fabrics, sparkles, spangles and sexiness for kids to don. There are even high heels for tots, bling to drape around their cherubic necks and the piece de resistance, make-up, particularly lip gloss, to smear across those, as yet, naturally pouting lips. There’s T-Shirts with slogans plastered all over them that announce a way of viewing the owner “Tit Man’; ‘Drama Queen’, ‘Spoiled., just to name a few. Not only are they aimed at under eights, they’re also a mixture of sexual inappropriateness and narcissism. Flaws are now turned into positive traits in a society that preaches the right of the individual. Care about ME and I’m ‘Special’ permeate our culture and are, sadly, notions that are instilled in even very young children.

Phillip Adams called this push to commodify chldhood through sex, “Corporate Paedophilia”: that is, when marketeers deliberately set out to exploit a child’s desire to grow up fast by targeting them with images, products and ideas about sex and adulthood – long before their cognitively ready.

An Australia Institute report that came out in 2007 used Adams’ term as its title. Focussing (unfortunately) on a fairly benign David Jones catalogue to discuss the sexualisation of kids, it prompted outrage. There was also a smear campaign directed at the authors. Accused of ‘reading too much into things’ and for fuelling a moral panic, there was an effort to dismiss the concerns raised.

That is, until thousands of parents and other citizens lodged their disquiet. From this, it seems, a grass roots movement began to swell, determined to call the corporations and advertisers to account and in doing so, protect childhood.

Melbourne Comedian (and mother), Julie Gale founded the Kids Free to Be Kids group,

Young Media Australia, a terrific organisation became very active.

Young Media Australia, (you can get to YMA from KF2BK)

There’s also Melinda Tankard Reist, and many others, who added their voices to the growing throng.

The people behind this aren’t ‘prudes’ nor are they adults wishing to live in an Arcadian past, where girls were made of sugar and spice and poor boys from doggy and creepy-crawly remnants. On the contrary, these are professionals, psychologists, psychiatrists (see also the American Psychological Association’s Report on the Sexualisation of Girls), parents, grandparents, teachers and even young people who are alarmed by the proliferation of sexual imagery and ideas being used to promote and celebrate kinderculture. It doesn’t take Einstein Barbie to understand that not only are their complaints justified, but they may even be far-sighted.

And now, after the wishy-washy Senate Inquiry into the Sexualisation of Children in the media last year, which really failed to deliver, a private member’s bill suggesting a new code of conduct for the media industry may be introduced.

I don’t really like legislation. Being in education, I tend to believe in the power of knowledge to produce change. It may be slow, but it works. It’s also life-long. The earlier it’s instilled and in an age-appropriate way, the better. But it just shows how helpless many adults feel against this onslaught in media and popular culture and are keen to protect their kids and want to enlist official help.

Sometime media commentator, Jane Caro, has criticised the proposed bill. In her comments she does what a few of those trying to silence rather than address concerns do – that is reflect on her own childhood experiences as an example. Now, I don’t know about Jane, but I do think that comparing a childhood of 40 odd years ago to those kids experience today is a bit like comparing a scooter to a spaceship.
She says: “Trying to hold girls back from the natural desire to put on mum’s lipstick, read big sister’s magazines, play with Barbie – who after all looks like a grown woman – I can’t see how that’s going to have any more detrimental effect than [it did] on me and my generation back in the ’50s and ’60s.”

Firstly, no-one that I know is trying to hold their kids back from doing these wonderful things. Secondly, Jane hasn’t read the research, has she? The research that shows a rise in depression, sexually transmitted diseases, body dysmorphia and self-esteem issues in young women and men. Issues that are starting at a younger and younger age (eg. girls as young as six presenting at hospitals with bulimia or expressing a wish to be prettier, thinner etc.) because of the rampant exposure to sexual (not sex itself) ideas and imagery. I think she needs to talk to Dr Michael Carr-Gregg or Dr Joe Tucci. Where she is right is in noting that kids do possess a natural desire to grow-up fast, to experiment with mum’s (or dad’s) clothes and make-up etc. Expressing yourself sexually is natural and normal and wonderful, even in very young children. What’s not right is to have it presented in a package that can be bought and exchanged and performed in public. And this is where the difference between Jane’s childhood and those experienced by kids today, lies.

Once upon a time, practicing being an adult was confined to the bedroom, house or family. Dress-ups, where kids paraded and played in mum and dad’s clothes, were an accepted and endorsed part of growing up. Nowadays, these dress-ups occur in public and very young kids are encouraged to try on a variety of adult identities for size.

Much of this is enshrined in cultural practice where kids are able to enter beauty pageants, idol competitions, and mimic their favourite celebrities at home, but also at school, the street and shopping malls, grabbing crotches, chests and buttocks and moaning, ‘don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?’ Kids are being catapulted into a world of innuendo and titillation long before they’re ready.

We don’t need reminders of petite JonBenet Ramsay, she of the ‘bedroom eyes’, to know there’s something deeply wrong about this exploitation of kids’ natural urge to want to accelerate their childhood. Hence the hue and cry about Julia Lira.

Bombarded with approximately 400,000 images a year, kids cannot escape nor easily unravel the implicit sexuality in advertising, films, TV, music, websites and magazines, that suggest that it’s not necessarily how you look (though that helps), it’s how you flaunt those looks that counts for currency in today’s world.

Barbie, and her nemesis, Bratz, aren’t just in the toy box anymore; their human counterparts are in the school yard, the TV, on the cover of magazines, lunchboxes, panties and singing songs. But while kids might demand the sexy ‘stuff’, ‘look’ and food, and savour the (temporary) results, earning kudos in the playground, it’s adults who have not only created this, but bought it as well: hook, line and sinker.

While adults are also susceptible to seductive messages, it’s their responsibility to become the filters as opposed to the facilitators. Just because the corporations tell us that in order to get ahead in this Microsoft eat Apple world, our kids need to conform to a particular version of childhood to fit in, doesn’t mean we have to literally buy it.

As Julie Gale suggests and Sweden and Quebec (who ban advertising to kids under 12 and 13 respectively) have demonstrated: we can refuse to buy the products and subsequently, the ideas embedded within them, allowing kids to be just that: kids.

Adults must protect very young kids from the notion that sex sells – products and the self. If they do, they’ll be given the time and space to create solid foundations and nurture kids’ imaginations and identities; ones that aren’t contingent upon sex, looks, wining a competition, getting their face on TV, or material possessions.

Believe me I am no wowser – just another voice of concern.

Posted in General Social Commentary | 11 Comments »

Avatar: Oscar Contender?

Feb 09, 2010

I finally made it to the cinema to see the movie that has people talking: Avatar. A spectacular sci-fi/fantasy action movie with an Aussie, Sam Worthington in the lead and the ‘King of the World’ director, James Cameron, at the helm.

I now see why it has people excited. Beautifully shot, using state of the art cinematography and CGI, it transports the audience onto the planet Pandora and into the lives of the indigenous population, the blue-skinned, ten feet tall, Na’vi.

The hero of the movie is a disabled, wheelchair bound marine, a ‘grunt’ named Sully who, in a decision based on economic rationalism, takes his dead brother’s place in a scientific research team. This means, he inherits his brother’s avatar – a ‘native’ grown from human and Na’vi DNA which the marine can ‘insert’ himself into. Not only does he have control of his inert limbs in his new form, but he finds a freedom with the Na’vi and on the planet that his military training (brainwashing) did not allow.

Instead of a patriarchal and capitalist system, Sully finds a culture in tune with its deity and nature – who are, in essence, one and the same. The environmental thrust of the movie is apparent; the significance of the female is too, not at the expense of the male, but working in tandem. Something Sully learns to appreciate. Romance flourishes in this fertile world – and not just between the characters. Audiences will find it hard not to fall in love with the world portrayed and feel protective about what is threatened. I also enjoyed the moral superiority of the scientists… doesn’t happen all to often in this genre!

Eyes and the notion of ’seeing’ are strong motifs and themes in this movie and the central character, Sully, has his eyes opened to a whole new world – literally and metaphorically. So do we. Cameron’s planet, Pandora is a beautiful, lush place, imaginatively realised but, like its namesake from Greek mythology, its colonisation by humans with the intent to profit, opens a box of trouble…

Whether or not Cameron will win a Best Picture or Director Oscar for this film remains to be seen – no doubt, it will get some technical nods. It’s hard to imagine the Academy awarding a film that represents the military in such a negative light or uses the still raw memory of the collapse of the Twin Towers in an analogous manner to evoke a visceral anti-US response.

I really enjoyed this film. What did you think? (Oh, and I know that I am late seeing it – for health reasons – but I still tried not to put any spoilers in – I didn’t, did I???)

Posted in Reviews - Films, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

The Writer’s Ego: Coping With Criticism

Feb 05, 2010

A friend of mine on FaceBook prompted me to write this blog after she felt depressed about feedback she’d received from her writing group regarding a novel upon which she was working. She also felt a little guilty for feeling that way and was kicking herself because, feedback is what writers thrive on, isn’t it? It’s what we need in order to elevate our prose or whatever style we’re writing in to the next level.

Well, yes and no.

Let me explain. There are two types of feedback in this world and both involve the ‘C’ word. Of course, I mean Criticism.

The first kind is that delivered with knowledge and generosity – the knowledge springing from direct experience gleaned from the Critic being a writer and receiving feedback her or himself or from a deep understanding and love a literature generally or both. This kind of reviewer can be professional (as in reviewer is paid for their trouble) and published in newspapers, magazines, websites and other media or simply provided by a lover/fan/practitioner of writing and/or reading. the point being that none of these are mutually exclusive.

The second kind of review is that done with varying degrees of knowledge but most of all it is written with an ungenerous eye.

I know many writers and all of them tell me they have experienced both kinds. While a writer loves nothing better then a positive review, a negative review can be crushing. But it is the ungenerous, mean-spirited and destructive review that nitpicks and uses ad hominen attacks (attacking the person who wrote rather than the writing itself) that leave the worst kinds of scars and, frankly, I fail to see the point except to cause hurt and distress.

One very well known writer friend of mine tells me not to read reviews, that she doesn’t and therefore doesn’t know what’s said about her work (it’s usually always wonderful). But I am not yet ready to take that step. I wish I was. I don’t feel I am experienced enough to walk away from what might, buried in a review, prove to be a really valuable piece of advice or an observation that, whether positive or negative, should be paid attention to in order to improve future works. As a result, I do very occasionally get to read really ungenerous reviews. Interestingly, I can tell in the first line what kind it is going to be but, like an eavesdropper hearing no good about themselves, feel compelled to read on – just in case…

I am relatively thick-skinned when it comes to being criticised. I receive critiques all the time. As a newspaper columnist and feature writer, readers interact with my work on an almost daily basis. I receive feedback that makes me laugh, cry (in a good way), challenges, attacks me as well as some that makes me appalled that someone feels they have a right to make assumptions about me on the basis of an opinion or piece. One time, an article I wrote on Harry Potter caused a newspaper’s online feedback system to crash as readers around the world responded with vitriol to some of my points. They called me ’sick’, spoke of the sympathy they had for my children for having such a mother, questioned my educational qualifications ‘What’s your doctorate in? Stupidity?’ and so on. These comments flew at me from around the globe and were a baptism by fire into the world of criticism. I was heartbroken and quite confused when what I had done was write what I believed was an intelligent, well-researched and humourous piece on what was fast becoming the Harry Potter phenomenon. And yes, my ego was bruised. The fact that I was able to respond with a piece entitled ‘I’m no Rita Skeeter,’ and the overwhelming lovely feedback I received and apologies, did a great deal to salve my wounds, but it also taught me a huge lesson in coping with not only the people who read your work and take it to heart, but the cruel anonymity of the internet. There’s also its immediacy to take into consideration, how anyone and everyone can now fire verbal barbs with the intention to make them stick or just as bad, without thinking…

As a result of this anonymity and speed I have, over the years via email mostly, been invited to burn in the eternal fires of hell, had my patriotism questioned, been told to go back to where I came from (I can’t, my mother is dead), had my sex and sexuality questioned and the list goes on. Strangely, those comments, which are more about me than my journalistic pieces, don’t hurt nearly as much as those which are directed at my creative writing. Hence, I understand exactly where my friend is coming from.

Doing my Ph.D. was an exercise in learning to write for a critical audience as is writing scholarly articles and having them ‘blind-reviewed’ by three peers around the world. Comments such as ‘ugh’, ‘point so lost it couldn’t find its way out of the London Underground’ and so on were relatively common. Even so, I only ever had one article rejected and that was in the first year of my PhD. So, I did get used to harsh comments.

But still, the ungenerous ones stand out from the crowd in a way that tells a great deal more about the reviewer than the piece he or she is critiquing.

Writers, regardless of what genre or for which audience they’re writing, labour over their words, even those writers, such as journalists, with strict deadlines and word counts. What might appear rushed, is generally thought out and edited heavily before someone else gets to fiddle with it and well before the public read it. All angles are deliberated (even if a particular approach is directed), and rejected or embraced. What can appear slap-dash, rarely is – even if it does invite that kind of criticism.

However, when we’re talking about a novel, a completely different set of skills and effort are applied. Generally, time works in the writer’s favour (though not always) and they use this wisely-ish. Every word, sentence, paragraph, character, theme, plot is highly developed and lovingly written and rewritten. What to include, what to exclude; where to allow the reader a breather, where to pick up the pace, where to use prolepsis (foreshadowing) and analepsis (flashbacks) are all are agonised over long before the work ever gets a public guernsey. By the time it reaches publication, all this has been mulled over and rewritten and edited at least hundreds of times and with the aid of professional editors, copy writers and so on.

But the truth is, no matter how much work you put in, it’s never perfect, it will never satisfy everyone – look at works that have sold millions and won accolades around the world. J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, Dan Brown, even ‘untouchables’ such as J.R.R. Tolkein, Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx, receive criticism. Why shouldn’t us ‘lesser’ souls? And we do.

But again, it’s the way the critiquing, the feedback, the review of the work is done that is so important. Most of us can accept that some readers (hopefully, only some) will not like what we’ve written and that’s fine (it’s even better if they keep it to themselves!), but if a reviewer has that reaction (though, I never understand why some media pick people to review genre work who have no experience in the genre! I remember, years ago, a review of one of my books beginning this way: ‘I didn’t like this book, but then, I hate fantasy…’ Go figure. But that didn’t stop them reviewing it – they were doing the job they were paid to do). We can also accept, as my friend did, the well-intentioned advice and observations of people we trust to provide honest, constructive feedback, the kind that comes from a position of goodwill with the motive to help us make our writing the best it possibly can be.

But it’s the destructive, nasty reviews that are hard to take. It’s as if the reviewer takes to heart the notion that critiquing is ‘criticising’ – fault-finding and nit-picking and little else. I mean, I’m sure if we all looked long and hard enough, and examined Mother Teresa and Ghandi with that kind of attitude, we’d find fault as well. But what does it achieve? To read something through the lens of ‘what can I find wrong with this? What flaws can I point out? What mistakes has this writer made? What do I NOT like about this book?’ is not helpful for anyone really. I imagine that it gives that kind of reviewer a sense of power. But over what? Some poor author who has invested a part of their life (and usually their family’s as well), heart and soul into a work of which they’re very proud. And then someone comes along and sinks the boot in – not in a way that is useful, but which is designed to bring that big-headed writer down a peg or two, because of course, anyone who is published must have a huge ego.

Well, maybe one or two do, but in my experience, most writers are quite humble souls who beaver away in solitude, lost in their imaginations. And they tremble at the thought of reviews and reviewers. Hence, they can potentially fall apart at the first sign of criticism – especially vile, toxic criticism. But guess what, they also pick themselves up again and keep going. That’s because they can’t help themselves, they love what they do with passion.

I’m not suggesting that reviewers go easy or soft – not at all! But that when they’re writing they weigh up the pros and the cons and try to point out the good and the bad. Because as the adage goes, one person’s trash is another’s treasure – ever heard of Twlight? That series polarises people faster than a compass finds Magnetic North.

So, I really do understand my friend temporarily floundering under criticism that was generously given. But I admire her for taking it on board and using it in the way it was delivered, to make her work stronger and more appealing. But I also understand why my other friend doesn’t read reviews. The ungenerous ones serve no purpose for writer or reader, rather they do little more than diminish both.

You know, writing a book is like having a baby. It gestates for months, if not years, before being born into the world. But the difference between writing and having a baby is that, while no-one will criticise your human baby to your face, when it comes to your creative one, there’s lots of bastards out there who delight in telling all and sundry what an ugly baby you’ve delivered!

What do you think?

Posted in On Writing | 6 Comments »

Life is NOT a competition – but try telling that to RTV

Feb 03, 2010

I’ll be upfront and warn you that this a bit of a soapbox post (aren’t they all). Seriously. As a teacher and commentator in and of the media, I try and give most shows a try – good, bad, pathetic and thrilling. At least, that’s my excuse for watching far too much television.

It occurred to me lately that with the plethora of RTV (reality TV) shows soaking up screen time (and more set to come), there’s been a shift of emphasis in the overall thrust of the shows. Whereas once they were referred to as ‘fly-on-the-wall documentaries and may have been able, in their initial heyday, to wear that badge proudly (even while deploying aspects of other genres such as soap opera, drama, mockumentaries, comedy and game show characteristics), lately, they’re reduced to little more than competitions.

Now, I’m not talking about your benign Deal or No Deal, RockWiz, Einstein Factor or Too Stupid to be a Millionaire, which are what you see is what you get competitions, or even of the Surivivor, Idol, talent shows or Race Around the World mould. No, this latest batch, brewed over the last four years or so, take competition to new and scary heights.

Instead of drawing on game shows for inspiration, they draw on life and turn it into a game show apropos Death Race 2000: families, relationships, renovating, cooking, travelling, entering countries, courtship and even child-raising (nothing is too important or insignificant) have, through the genre of RTV, become competitor-based. What these programs do by using a ‘winner takes it all’ scenario, is transform the daily grind of life into something, not only far more interesting than it generally is, but also try and persuade us that it’s all right to turn every miniscule second of our realities into dramas with us at the centre or, at the least, into drastic problems that need to be solved. Don’t have the right cheese for your sauce? OMG! Tears, tantrums and abuse are appropriate responses. Mum didn’t get the dress you wanted to wear clubbing dry-cleaned for you? OMG! Tears, tanties and tons of abuse are perfectly acceptable things to hurl at your parent.

The RTV programs seduce us into believing that the minutiae of daily life, our lives, is not only interesting, but so is that of others. And, they do this in the worst possible way, by setting us against each other, as if life is a race that has to be won. You want to be a winner and not a loser, don’t you? They reduce the world into binary opposites of hot/cold, hero/villain, sexy/ugly, smart/stupid, manipulator/manipulated etc. All the time making it clear which side ‘winners’ should be on who, at the least, it’s appropriate to champion.

Of course, the ‘winner’ accrues certain rewards – fame, notoriety, presumably money and a boorish and quite horrible reputation. But many people are thinking that’s a small price to pay if you’re ‘famous.’

Take for example these shows: Firstly, Come Dine With Me, Australia and My Kitchen Rules. Ostensibly about cooking and sharing food with those who consider themselves gourmands, it pits couples or, in Come Dine With Me, Australia, single strangers (or strange singles) against each other in what is transformed into a dog-eat-dog attack fest. Invited to dine together and pull apart the thought and effort that the cook/s have gone into, it turns that all-time favourite between friends, into a competition. It encourages us all to become critics and, like some book and film reviewers, approach the experience with an ungenerous eye and with the primary goal of fault-finding.

Sharing food with friends and strangers has, across many cultures, been a traditional and significant part of the guest-host relationship and a way of breaking down barriers, forging relationships and above all offering pleasure and love through preparing, cooking and partaking in a meal together. These kinds of shows completely overturn all this and make it something superficial and tasteless… but also, and here’s the difficult thing, compulsive viewing! By turning the act of meal preparation and eating into a competition, the viewer also judges the efforts and results, critiques and awards a ‘winner’. The side effect of this is, potentially, that this kind of way of viewing food and dinner parties can be brought across into reality. Come Dine With Me and let’s have a food fight….

Then, there’s also shows that are touted as offering a glimpse into various types of relationships, whether it be The Real Housewives of Orange County, The Hills, or the new kid on the block, Dallas Divas and Daughters. What all these programs have in common is groups of women (and some men) who are shown doing little more than pitting themselves against each other in terms of material possessions, income and relationships and who spend a great deal of every show sinking their claws into each other and agonising over superficial issues. They show the worst side of women and men and in doing so tend to suggest that this is what women and men of that age, area and culture are like. While, logically, we know this to be untrue, at another level, the stereotypes these shows construct become imprinted, making it easy to become critical and dismiss all women from Dallas, for example, as being like that; or all young women or men as vapid and narcissistic. They homogenise and reduce people – diminish them in every one’s eyes – and for what? Ratings, which equal money. As viewers, we’re invited into these so-called lives to also offer judgement, the harsher the better and the more it’s likely to keep us engaged and discussing them.

That people are prepared to appear on these shows and sell their lives and souls so publicly seems extraordinary. Since Big Brother first debuted in Australia in 2001 and at different times in different parts of the world, never mind, Survivor, our knowledge about editing and cutting and the way a producers and directors can control what is finally televised and the way a personality is shaped, is growing. We can no longer, whether audience or participant, plead ignorant as we understand how there has to be a ‘villain’ or ‘bitch’, a ‘hero/ine’, a ‘bimbo’ and even an physically unattractive character so the audience can relate to the various roles and the way they are played and the people who fulfil them. There no ’shades of grey’ in these shows. They juxtapose reductive types and limit representation in the process.

Despite possessing this knowledge, contestants queue to be on these shows, to attain ’stardom’ even if it’s blighted by the ‘villain’ reputation – this is because it accrues those rewards I mentioned earlier. Even if they are brief and a heavy price is exacted. In this celebrity-obsessed world, it’s considered a small one. All for the sake of trying to be perceived as number one, a winner, a star, in other people’s eyes.

Rarely are anything but superficial interactions discussed on camera. Usually, the only emotions portrayed are reactions to others comments or responses to trite situations – such as a meal being cold while really important discussions like having a baby (see The Hills), are shared with girlfriends instead of the husband and cheapened dramatically by also being turned into a competition that, in this instance, pits wife against husband. It’s tragic.

I don’t know where these RTV shows are turning next, but I do know that life is not a competition, rather its a story that we all write together – with its highs and lows and ups and downs. It’s also something we share. I can’t help but think of that old adage, ‘it’s lonely at the top.’ I am sure they’ll make an RTV show about that all too soon…

Tony the Abbott and ‘his’ women

Feb 01, 2010

Today I did something I haven’t done in a long, long time – I bought the Women’s Weekly – the issue with the gorgeous Lisa Wilkinson on the front and the one with the infamous Tony Abbott interview. I wanted to give myself a context for understanding all the brouhaha that erupted last week when our budgy-smuggler-wearing Opposition Leader was quoted as having said ‘women should treat virginity as a gift.’ My knee-jerk response was, ‘You’re a gift, Abbott, with a silent ‘f’.

The interview, which also includes one with his wife, 52 year old Margaret who, readers are informed, runs a Childcare Centre on Sydney’s North Shore, is initially fairly benign and tells Abbott’s story, which is pretty well public property (his religious background, time at university where he thought he fathered a son, the public breaking of that tale, his time in a seminary etc.) in a sympathetic light. Only in the second half does it start to deal with issues in which readers of a women’s magazine might also be interested. Only, in this instance, the questions and Abbott’s answers, attracted a much broader audience.

Abbott, we know, has a very firm Catholic faith. He also has strong views on morality that are largely defined by his personal beliefs and Catholic teachings. There are very few people who would object to anyone having a personal moral compass and trying to raise their family according to that. What many people did and still do object to, however, is the fact that Abbott, as a politician who’s elected and paid to govern the country (or, in this instance, keep the elected Federal party in line), sees fit to offer his personal views as some kind of arbitrary ethical yardstick by which all women, families, relationships and even ideologies should be measured. The most infamous now being that ‘virginity’ is a gift ‘that women should not give away lightly.’ The inference being that many of us do – but surely, how, when and to whom a women ‘loses her virginity, is her prerogative? If we want to ‘throw it away’, that’s our decision, isn’t it? (Please note, I am talking about ‘women’ here – young women and those who, age appropriately, are capable of understanding and freely choosing a sexual relationship).

And why do we say ‘lose’? When a child first speaks, do we say, they ‘lost’ their silence? When a boy first ejaculates, does he ‘lose’ his semen? Interesting that virginity, the act of the hymen breaking and a first sexual experience for a woman, is somehow framed in a negative light.

At one point the interviewer expresses surprise that Abbott continues to answer questions that ‘almost every other politician in the country would have tried to avoid’ – namely, around sex before marriage, contraception, abortion and gay marriages. But Abbott ploughs right on ahead. Perhaps he explains the reason for this peculiar need to conflate personal beliefs and political leadership when he admits he’s always had a ‘a slight tendency to want to draw attention to myself.’

Seriously, Abbott is entitled to his views, he’s entitled to raise his family as he wants and instill in them his faith (which to a degree has failed as he can no longer ‘bribe’ the girls to attend church – but Margaret holds herself responsible for that), but what he’s not entitled to do is discuss ‘women’s issues’ (which in many instances are also men’s issues – we live together in this society), as if they are homogenous, framed by a Catholic or Christian principle, and is if he, with his very narrow and privileged world-view and experiences, holds the answers.

Analysing the interview through the lens of Abbott’s approach to women sheds some rather problematic light on some of his answers.

Let me demonstrate. Firstly, he apologises to the interviewer by saying ‘I have to call my princess’ – this is his term of endearment for his wife. He later refers to one of his three beautiful daughters (they are physically stunning), ‘as my darling angel.’ The use of the possessive is not lost on me, nor are the hyperbolic, if affectionate terms for his partner and daughter. But they are also terms which objectify and place these women on an unstable and very high platform. How easy must it be for a princess to stumble, to behave inappropriately and ‘lose’ that sheen he bestows, or for an ‘angel’ to fall and ‘lose’ (that word again) her halo? Just a thought. I know I wouldn’t want be described in either of those terms – too much to live up to and it also suggests that I don’t live in the real world, but a privileged and somewhat parallel reality. Or at least, Abbott places his women there.

This is taken even further when the interviewer points out to Abbott that many women have a ‘problem’ with him (I don’t know him, so my problem is not with him, per se, but it’s certainly with his personal and public politics – the personal which he continuously makes public). Instead of acknowledging this is probably true, he does what many politicians have a tendency to do when backed into the Truth Corner, they fudge the answer and/or fall back on shaky statistics to support their position. ‘I suspect,’ he states, ‘that it is probably more than 10 per cent, but less than 70 percent’ [of women who resent him]. Probably. That’s a word that crops up again and again – it’s non-committal – it’s an all-too-easy escape clause.

But look at his stats. Why is it so difficult for him, a politician for goodness sakes, to accept that many women (and men) don’t like the fact that he’s so prepared to advise them on their morality, sexuality, bodies and relationships. That he appears to believe that he is morally superior – as if he’s graduated from Catholic seminary. He treats the world as his pulpit and sermonises constantly. And we loathe it. That he wraps it in a quite specific religious rhetoric alienates us even more, as if those who don’t follow the Rule For ‘Clean Living’ as espoused by Tony the Abbott, are morally inferior or already on their way to hell. The road to hell, as Abbott sees it, must be littered with all sorts of ‘fallen’ women – and let’s remember, when you place anything on a pedestal, not only is it easy to fall, but it becomes very damaged once it hits the ground.

But, instead of acknowledging this tendency to disenchant females and/or venerate them as ‘angels’ and ‘princesses’, he further justifies his self-righteousness by giving us a very clear picture of the type of women who do not like his ideologies. He is quoted as saying: ‘…I suspect that [what] we are talking about here is a woman of a certain age, in a certain line of work.’
Wait.. it gets better… he takes it further…

‘I think we are talking about younger professional women, essentially, who, for perfectly good reasons, don’t want to be told by anyone else how they should live their lives.’

Deep breath. According to Tony’s logic, older women, non-professional women (what’s a ‘non-professional women’ anyhow?) and those in certain ‘lines-of work’ (what does he mean there?), might like what he has to say. I imagine they are either ‘angels’ or ‘princesses’ as well. For the record, please note that at least Abbott does admit he has a tendency to instruct women – he states that women ‘don’t want to be told by anyone else how they should live their lives.’

No. We don’t. That’s because, young, old, professional, non-professional, angels or princess, we can actually decide that for ourselves.

You know, in making our politicians household names, that is, beyond their elected roles and beyond the hustings, through interviews, the talk-show circuit, guest appearances on prime time shows, we’ve allowed this bleed of privately held beliefs into the public domain to occur. It’s encouraged as we seek to turn elected leaders into ‘celebrities’ or ‘personalities’. Now, even someone as intelligent as Abbott appears to be, doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. No, worse, he does, but we’ve given him a platform from which to be heard, validated him through the media, and now he believes it’s his God-given right to preach to the non-converted.

Interestingly, for a man that’s surrounded by women – wife and three daughters, closest friend, the private things he keeps preaching about are those which effect women – our minds, our bodies, our potential to have successful professional and personal lives – ’straight’ or ‘gay’, religious or non-religious and regardless, it seems of cultural or socio-economic background and education. For all that he loves his ‘princess’ and his ‘angels’, has a reputation for flirting, and is represented as supportive of women beyond his family – except in actions and words – I can’t help but feel that Tony has a big problem with the opposite sex. That problem centres on his lack of ability to control them and his responses to them. That at one stage he chose to live a religious life cloistered with men is very telling.

Last year, Tony’s daughter, Frances, called him a ‘lame, gay, churchy loser’ – something which he repeated at a public forum. Why? Because it gave him kudos to admit to ‘failing’ in his child’s eyes. It, like everything else that Tony Abbott says, is timed to evoke a deliberate response.

Choosing a woman’s magazine to articulate and ‘explain’ his views on women’s and other controversial social issues was another of these strategies. Even the fallout has been, if not contrived, at least micro-managed in order to give him further opportunity to explain and appeal to conservative (ultra-conservative) views. Working under the premise that any publicity is good publicity, I think that Tony Abbott still fails to understand that when it comes to women, we’re more inclined than ever to think like his daughter.

In this latest interview, Abbott has exposed more then he intended. He’s an anachronism that has no place in Twenty-First Century politics and certainly has no right to preach what he tries (and fails) to practice. Tony, you’re not an Abbott.

Posted in General Social Commentary | 19 Comments »

The ‘Delete’ Button: A Writer’s Best Friend

Jan 27, 2010

As a writer, I am so often asked advice from aspiring ones as to how, where, what to write and how to get published. Frankly, I feel such a fraud giving any! Even though I have written a few books, I learn something new about the art of writing and my own limitations every time I set out to turn a wild idea into a coherent narrative. As for where I write, generally I do it in my study and envy those who can write anywhere, anytime (though I do occasionally receive ideas in the early hours of the morning and fumble around for the pen and notebook which are supposed to be by my bedside but tend to travel around the house. I flick on the lamp and scribble it down. Then, in the morning, I look at what it was that was so important it disturbed me and my hubby, and mostly think it’s equivalent to automatic writing – senseless and belongs in the realm of the dead).

However, I am now over 30,000 words into Book 2 of The Curse of the Bond Riders, which is called, Votive (I’ll write more about this at a later stage) and realised there is a little piece of advice I can humbly offer, though I am by no means the first to do so. That is, as precious as your words are, as wonderful as you believe the story is and the descriptions delicious and relevant, the ‘delete’ button is your best friend – don’t be afraid to use it.

Before I was diagnosed with cancer and had my operations (see previous post), I was fairly romping along with the story. Then I hit a wall. Hard. A few times. Even filled with painkillers, I read over what I thought was good and worthy of keeping at the time and I was a little appalled. So, on January 8th this year, the day I ‘officially’ sat back at my desk and returned to my novel (which is plotted out carefully), I did what any sensible writer would do and I deleted 30,000 words. Just like that. To paraphrase a famous commercial for insect spray ‘one click and they’re gone.’

I felt sick.

Then, I sat down and, apart from the first chapter (which I rewrote seven times from seven different points of view and may do so again), I started all over.

Then I remembered what I’d done and I felt sick again. Word counts are what writers live by.

*Brief aside* – The writer’s day: A very short synopsis.

Sit down at computer.

Check word count

Write

Check word count

Have lunch

Check word count

Write some more

Check word count

Decide to stop

Check word count.

Read over last few sentences.

Check word count.

You get the picture: live by the word count, die by the word count. So, in short, deleting is a BIG deal.

And I had just done a huge one. But, I kept going.

Every day when I return to my novel, I go back over what I wrote the day before, and I delete all extraneous material. I rewrite, edit out mistakes, plot inconsistencies, and strengthen the language. What I do more than anything is delete. I delete all the adverbs that, in a fit of stupidity or distraction I included. I also try to eliminate many of the adjectives. This is because, whereas the ‘delete’ button is your best friend, the adjective is the utterly worst, diabolical, corrupt, malicious and heinous frenemy (enemy that pretends to be your friend) a writer will ever have the misfortune to encounter.

Persuaded by teachers of creative prose in primary and high school, perhaps by our own reading experiences (especially the ‘purple prose’ that dominated for decades and decades), or even writing courses, that adjectives reveal talent as well as an impressive vocabulary, we have a tendency to liberally pepper our works with them. But they don’t do us any favours except to slow down the pace and distract. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t include them but, if we treat them like the culinary equivalent of truffles and use them sparingly, they’ll have a much greater impact.

It’s like the Anton Chekov rule of writing. It is something like this: If you describe a gun on the wall at the beginning of the story (clearly he wrote in a different century), unless it’s fired at the end, get rid of it.

In other words, don’t describe or even over describe something you don’t have to (OK, and try not to end sentences with infinitives either).

Long descriptions of the way a character looks can be so distracting and unnecessary, yet so many writers persist in providing them. They don’t have to – try this for size:

‘As she strode into the room, the red dress swirled around her ankles.’

What hair and eye colour does she have? Is she tall or short? Is she confident or shy? What colour lipstick is she wearing? Is she meeting someone? Who? Is the room at the top of the building or bottom? How did she get there? I’ll bet you can answer one or all of those questions because in that brief sentence a picture was already being formed in your head.

Or, I could have written: ‘As she strode into the room, her blonde hair flowing down her back, her blue eyes sparkling, her scarlet lips curled with confidence, her red chiffon dress that clung to her firm breasts swirled around her slender ankles.’

I know that’s over the top, but I have done all the imaginative work for you. I need my best friend, ‘delete’, to go to work and I have a much stronger sentence, a much clearer picture that the reader can form for him or herself.

Having said that, I generally overwrite in my early drafts and then when I revise, clear out as many extraneous adjectives as I can. You just don’t need them. They don’t make your work luscious, or poetic or demonstrate a great vocabulary, they interfere. They are not a friend, they simply mask themselves as one. They are the enemy and must be deleted!

And really, I have rambled and half this post could be deleted and still get my point across! See, I told you I am not equipped to offer writing advice – but good luck anyway!

Karen

Posted in On Writing | 6 Comments »

THE DAY MY BUM WENT PSYCHO

Jan 26, 2010

(with due and proper acknowledgement to Andy Griffiths from whom I stole the title).

The day the doctor said to me, ‘you have cancer,’ was a day I will not forget in a hurry.

Instead of reliving that moment, I will now insert the column I wrote in the Courier Mail that talked about my diagnosis and subsequent fallout. Please, read it if you wish…

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26267299-5012471,00.html

This post, however, is about what came after. What came after the quite public admission of bowel cancer, two horrible operations (an ultra low anterior resection with reverse loop ileostomy followed by, five and a half weeks later, the reversal of the ileostomy), and what comes while on the long road to recovery.

This is about metamorphosing from being a cancer sufferer to cancer survivor.

I should be grateful; I should be leaping around for joy and smelling the roses and thanking whoever it is you thank for being given a second chance.
Believe me, I am grateful and I want to thank the surgeon, the gods etc. I have, I do and I would keep doing it if I could… and herein lies the problem. I can’t do much. But I can write and sort of think. Here’s what I have been thinking:

While you’re in the cancer stage – before, between operations and immediately after, everyone wants to know how you are, what the prognosis is, what you’ve been through, how you feel, look and what are your plans for the future. There’s also a hell of a lot of paperwork – but that’s another story.

Unfortunately, it’s during that time, when you’re reeling and trying to come to terms with everything, that you don’t want to talk about it. You don’t want to articulate how frail you feel psychologically; physically; how having a bag attached to you is difficult, even if it is temporary (I have such respect for those who live with a bag permanently). How talking about the most negative experience in your life to date is the last thing in the world you want to do. It’s like a bad dream, a nightmare from which you awoke but the memory and sensations linger… you want them gone, not to relive them with every phone call and email.

Yet, even though you feel desperately ill – in body and mind – you oblige and you talk. Sparingly, inadequately (because there sometimes aren’t any words) and deliberately upbeat… You see, though some people ask as if they want to know how you are, they don’t really. Well, they don’t want you to whinge. They don’t want to hear that your self-confidence has been shattered into a million pieces, that you’re afraid the old energetic self will never return; that your mind has gone to mush and the skills that you relied upon to get you to where you are in life have vanished; that you’ll never again feel like a sexual, sensual human being. That’s just too much.

And how would you respond anyway? I wouldn’t know what to say to someone baring his or her soul to me like that!

People want to hear that you’re doing well – after all, you survived. They ripped that cancer out of you and you don’t even have to have chemo! Lucky you – how good is that, hey! They expect you to express your gratitude over and over. So, you do. To them. You talk, you laugh, you hide your real tears and fears. Part of the reason for this is because you know that the day will come when you are ready to talk about all of this, from the perspective of distance, and you want them to come back. I know I didn’t want to be survivor who was also a Nigel No-Friends.

Only, many don’t come back – despite your efforts.

My chemist said to me the other day, as I was filling a script for very strong painkillers – narcotics, actually, which I take twice a day along with other meds to control the pain, ‘I’ll bet you don’t get much sympathy after all you’ve been through.’

I was quite taken aback.

‘Why’s that? I asked.

‘Because you look too good.’

And there’s the rub. I don’t look too bad at all. Please don’t think I am being conceited. I have lost weight and am quite gaunt, but I don’t look like I’ve suffered enough. I don’t look like either a cancer sufferer or survivor. How funny and, in a sense unfair, is that? You have to laugh.

Shit. I’ve had bowel cancer. Grade 3, highly aggressive and lost parts of my body that most of us don’t mention. I can’t return to academic work, I can’t go out except in short stints and I can’t eat before ‘enjoying’ those short stints. My bum has gone psycho, leaving me chained to the house and, in fact the smallest room in the house, often for hours on end as I endure gut-wrenching cramps and terrible pain as my body readjusts. As I have already said, I am going through psychological hell as well as physical… but I look good. LOL!

I guess I should be grateful for that.

I am, I suppose. No, I’m vain. I am glad.

But the thing I am most grateful for is the unending support and love of my kids, and my family and beautiful, amazing friends – including on Facebook. That is, those of you who came back! Also, the readers of my column who have maintained contact with me. Those of you who understand the façade – and not just the accidental physical one I am perpetrating!

Thank you so much for letting me ‘whinge’, be bleak and sad and for not expecting me to shout my survival from the highest hills.

When Channel Seven Sunrise asked me to appear a few weeks ago to talk about John Singleton’s confronting ad campaign about bowel cancer, I really wanted to do it – I believe in it. I think Singo’s done the right thing. But, I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready to face the world. I am now (in tiny doses) and I want to discuss the aftermath of surviving bowel cancer – not just the diagnosis and operation. And that’s partly because there are two people particularly who have allowed me to speak openly and frankly without cringing at my whinging: Stephen, my beautiful hubby whose love and support has been endless, and my darling friend, Sara Warneke whom many know as the fantasy (and non-fiction) writer, Sara Douglass. She also wrote so eloquently about her own experience with cancer in such a frank and moving way. I want to share (with Sara’s permission) this with you as well:

http://nonsuchkitchengardens.com/wordpress/?p=505

Thank you so much, Sara and Stephen, you have been such rocks – and Sara at a time when she needs one, such is her generosity, love and compassion.

OK. Enough said. My bum is still psycho, but it’s mine. I will learn to control it… eventually.

Posted in Personal | 18 Comments »

Blog I Karen Brooks

Archives

Categories

Blog

Mother, Marriages and Mourning

Avatar: Oscar Contender?

The Writer’s Ego: Coping With Criticism

Life is NOT a competition – but try telling that to RTV

The ‘Delete’ Button: A Writer’s Best Friend

THE DAY MY BUM WENT PSYCHO