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Book Review: The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn

Nov 16, 2012

After I expressed a great deal of nerdy fan-girl enthusiasm for the TV series The Walking Dead, a friend of mine asked (a little scathingly) if I’d read the Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn graphic novels. After all, if you were serious about the show, he said, then you should have at least read the source material. I did not and had not. So, being that kind of guy, my friend promptly loaned me his copy of The Walking Dead Compendium – the most amazing, awful and unforgettable graphic novel that spans over 1000 pages.

It’s taken me a while to read it and that’s partly because it’s a simply astonishing piece of work and partly because I have been torn between watching the TV series and learning
what happens next through that medium and been worried about getting too far ahead in and/or of the compendium.

As it turns out, I need not have worried. The Walking Dead Compendium is as different from the TV series as the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris are to the HBO series, True Blood.

The Compendium and series commence in the same world and use the same premise as the TV show: that is, after being shot, police officer Rick Grimes, a loyal, ethical man, wakes up in an Atlanta (?) hospital to find the world as he knew it irrevocably changed. The dead have risen and have not only taken over the cities and much of the country, but mindlessly seek out the living and destroy everything in their path. Life as Rick knew it is over.
The Walking Dead, Compendium 1 Escaping the hospital, Rick sets out to find his wife, Laurie and son, Karl and, in the process links up with desperate survivors who, together, face the unbelievable horrors of this post-apocalyptic zombie-dominated world where the real abomination is not necessarily the living dead, but the humans who have thus far avoided infection.

Civilisation is cast adrift from its moorings and the novel seeks to explore how and even if we can recover it. What does it take to restore, not humans, but humanity?

It turns out to be a huge, complex question…

The TV series is utterly violent, gripping and has wonderful performances from all the cast who make you believe in this gritty, terrifying world and how the most ordinary of activities such as eating, sleeping and travelling are contingent on factors never before considered: they can mean life or death. Blood is spilled regularly; bodies are ripped asunder, flayed, blown up, treated with contempt and disregard. Everything is at stake always, and no-one is spared. There’s no sentimentality in this series – root for the hero or underdog at your own peril. Loss and grief are the default position for everyone – no matter what age or sex.

OK. Imagine that (or recall the series) and then up the tension, awfulness and shocks a hundredfold and you have a sense of what’s in store for you if you read the Compendium. Soaked with nail-biting scenes, unexpected pathos and humour, and meaningful commentary about contemporary life, this harrowing take and the superb and graphic illustrations that accompany it deliver again and again.

Watching the series didn’t spoil the story for me, on the contrary, while the cast are pretty much the same and some of the settings are used in the TV show, reading the novel was a visceral and in many ways even more satisfying experience. There are different fates for some of the characters, new and old ones appear and disappear, and parts of the primary story lines differ. The characters are richly (and sometimes too briefly) depicted, the agony of death and loss, the humanity of the survivors (or lack thereof), the heart-warming moments of connectivity and celebration are all captured, as are the terrible consequences of witnessing and contributing to so much death.

At one stage, Rick Grimes asks his wife if he’s evil because he’s lost the capacity to feel, all the destruction and death he’s either witnessed or been complicit in, the fact he weighs everyone he meets on a scale of whether or not he’d be prepared to sacrifice them for the safety of his family, has him questioning his own humanity. It’s a powerful moment and question; one that underpins the entire book: what or who is evil and how do we know?

Trust is also a huge issue as is faith – not in God or some invisible being – religion has no real place in this world (but there are those who cling to it and persuasively). Trust is about each other.

Another important theme is safety. In this grave new world, it becomes the new currency and there are those who exploit and barter safety in exactly the same way but with even more ruthlessness than any modern day commodity.

The illustrations are black and white and for some reason, this adds to their terror and pathos: suffering and beauty has never been so elegantly or realistically (for a comic-style) captured.

If you enjoy dystopian narratives, zombies and what they signify, or if you love the frisson eschatological stories arouse, then I think you will more than enjoy this.

I cannot wait to get my hands on the next instalment or the next episode of season three either.

Book Review: Feed by Mira Grant

Nov 02, 2012

When going on holidays recently, I asked FaceBook friends for some reading recommendations (this was despite having about forty books in my “to-read” pile). Feed, by Mira Grant was one of them and, why I chose it from the many other wonderful suggestions I received was the way it was “sold” to me by another writer, the lovely Mandy Wrangles. I still remember. She wrote something along the lines of, “It’s a zombie book, only, it’s not. It’s so much more. Don’t let the zombie thing put you off. This is an amazing book, dystopian and about communication, the media and politics and it’s just incredible…”

To be fair, Mandy said it far more eloquently than that, but that’s how I absorbed it and was intrigued. Much preferring zombies on the screen than on the page, I’d resisted anything remotely zombified before, but I was going on a holiday, why not challenge myself? Take a holiday from my usual genres? Am I glad I did. Oh. Boy. Mandy was right, Feed, the first book in the Newsflesh Trilogy, was not what I expected – even with Mandy’s wonderful affirmations, it thoroughly exceeded my expectations.

Set in the very near future, after a zombie plague has basically wiped out a great deal of the civilised world, facilitated the establishment of gated communities, serious and constant health checks, and armed protection services, and seen the mainstream media not replaced, but in healthy competition with bloggers (the reason being that when the uprising of zombies began, the media were in denial and, due to government control and censorship, inclined to perpetuate fallacies – it was bloggers who told the truth and won reader loyalty and trust), this tale centres around prominent blogger, Georgia Mason, who along with her brother Shaun and their IT specialist, win a contract to accompany a candidate throughout the drawn-out presidential election. Overjoyed at such a coup, they quickly accept and join the convoy, travelling throughout parts of the US, being given insights into not just the political machinations of the party and those who belong, but the media and the plots and cunning of desperate men, including the biggest secret of all – the terrible conspiracy behind the infected….

This is a wild, hold-on-to-the-edge-of-your-seat book that, after an ETesque opening (but with zombies, death and destruction on the protagonists’ bicycle tail), immerses you in this post-apocalytpic reality of a country/world torn apart by a mass infection and its consequences. Orphaned at a young age, brother and sister Georgia and Shaun, though they’ve been adopted, have to survive on their wits and intelligence and neither of these are in short supply. Nor is their sense of justice and determination to see it meted out.

Though the zombies (the infected) hover at the edges of the story the entire time, bursting into the narrative at opportune and sometimes unexpected moments, the real story here is the politics – not simply Republican versus Democratic, though that’s there, but personal politics as well. How individuals manoeuvre themselves into positions of power, the politics around the stories we tell, about ourselves, each other – what’s omitted, what’s included, the impression we strive to give and maintain- and the strength of meta-narratives to colour and infect the smaller ones. It’s also about belonging, connectivity, being an outsider – of family, society and beyond. It’s about truth, lies and everything in-between. It’s about when to compromise – morally, physically, intellectually – and when it’s appropriate not to.

As story-tellers with credibility, Georgia and Shaun know how important their job is, how much the surviving masses rely on them to keep the lines of communication open, to spread the “truth” and to provide informed opinion. But story-telling in this world is also big business, and ratings are important. Hence, risks must be taken, not with the truth, never with that, but with reputations, uncovering relevant information and, for Georgia and Shaun, it also means putting their lives (and that of others) on the line.

This never becomes more important or real than when they discover the truth about the zombies…

This is such an original and compelling book. Alternately shocking and heart-wrenching, capable of blood-thirsty scenes and great pathos, the characters are strong, purposeful to a fault, but also ever-so vulnerable, the combination is intoxicating and nerve-wracking. You invest so heavily in both Georgia and Shaun, shout at and with them from the sidelines, revel in their ingenuity and disingenuousness. The narrative twists and flows in ways that are never predictable but always true to the overall arc and intentions of the book – you believe in everything that’s happening and the rationale behind it. An example of this is the reasoning behind why there are zombies in the first place. An interview with Grant (at the end of the book) reveals that she was always frustrated by films and other books that took zombies for granted, that is, the writer/s never explained how they became that way, except to point to biting and contagion through other means as the answer. The origins of the infection and what happens in the body of a human who becomes a zombie is rarely if ever dealt with. Feed addresses this in a scientific and acceptable but never dull way. The explanation simply feeds (excuse the pun) into the logic of the setting and time the author has created. I thoroughly enjoyed this aspect as well.

Whether or not you like “zombies” (what’s NOT to like J), whether or not you enjoy dystopian narratives, this is a great book. But, if you’re looking for well-crafted, tightly written, imaginatively conceived stories that take you on an incredible, high-octane adventure while simultaneously exploring some serious ethical and philosophical issues and offering a critique of modern media with kick-arse, wonderful rich and complex characters and a plot dripping with intrigue, this is the book for you.

Touted as young adult, it’s not. It’s for anyone who loves astonishing novels.

I have bought the second and (er um) can’t wait to sink my teeth into it.

A huge big thank you to Mandy!

Book Review: The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling

Oct 24, 2012

Why is it that when a songwriter or singer changes genres we applaud their daring, write, and speak about how multi-talented they are; how fortunate we are to gain so much pleasure from their creativity? But, when a famous author dares to switch genres, there are rumblings and grumblings and unfair expectations placed upon them – before the work is even published? Warning the marketplace that The Casual Vacancy would be nothing like the Harry Potter books, that it was for adults and quite depressing, Rowling was nonetheless encumbered with criticisms and snubs for having the literary presumption to leave Potterworld. Yet, she was blunt: if you were looking for Hogwarts and wizards, she warned, they would not be found in the pages of her new book. Yet, so many reviewers have come to the novel with the expectation that, for some reason, they should be there, even if just a glimmer, whisper or peek. They practically accuse her of letting readers down, of abusing her position as a world-famous writer instead of giving her the benefit of the doubt and congratulating her for demonstrating such imagination and lexical dexterity.

Frustrated by attitudes, stories and some reviews (which were not reviews because it was clear the book hadn’t been read, rather they were more rebukes) the publication of this book produced, it was hard not to let them tarnish the reading experience. I tried to approach this book as I would any other by a beloved author who decided to try their hand at something different and read and rate it on its own merits – and I was not disappointed. But, as Rowling warned, it’s no Harry Potter: the only magical thing is the writing, which is superb.

The Casual Vacancy is, frankly, brilliantly awful. Set across two English towns, Pagford and The Fields, one with a very acute awareness of its history, the other a by-product of late modernity, they are inhabited by a cast of mostly toxic characters who illustrate, through their small-mindedness and mean-spiritedness, the pettiness that can exist in supposed idyllic English village-like communities. As I read, I kept thinking of a quote about academia that’s been attributed to Henry Kissinger (among others), that “the politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low” – I think this sums Rowling’s book up nicely.

After the death of a member of the local council, Barry Fairclough, various members of the Pagford community vie for his vacant seat. As they do, the reader is drawn into the complexity and ugliness of what should be simple lives, albeit, affected by mourning and loss. Populated by ego-centric, gossiping, classist, racist, homophobic, alcoholic, drug-taking self-interested people, Pagford and The Fields appear to be governed by folk who can barely function in their own lives, let alone make decisions that will affect others. And, as the council move towards another election, it becomes clear that one person’s loss is potentially another’s gain.

Not even the children in this miserable tale are spared the less attractive qualities the adults so readily exhibit, and is it any wonder when the grown-ups are their role-models? The kids have learned their lessons well. Dishonest, thieving, sneaky and risk-takers, they are both effect and cause of the outcomes.

As the story progresses, Rowling demonstrates her uncanny ability to mine a character’s emotions and psychology, to peel back layers to explain even the most unlikely or heinous of behaviours, to provide a context for understanding (but rarely approving). Piecing together the jigsaw of individuality, family and community, she mercilessly flays the characters, forensically dismantles their psyches and leaves them in the equivalent of a mortuary for us to gaze upon in horror.

For example, there’s Simon, violent, bad-tempered and his ineffectual wife, Ruth; their two boys, Andrew (called “pizza-face” by his aggressive, abusive father) and “Pauline”; Parminder, the local doctor, surprised by her reaction to a fellow-councilman’s death and who appears to understand the bodies and minds of all the townspeople in her care but not her own children. Her dashing heart-surgeon husband, Sukhvinder, regarded as a hero by those he loathes, especially the Mollisons – a work of gruesome art – for whom Rowling shows very little sympathy. Empathy is reserved for some of the residents of The Fields as well as the children in the novel who can do little more than suffer their parents and their foibles, until they discover the means to revenge – not served cold, but molten hot.

The race is on to secure the vacant council seat and, as the story progresses, skeletons are exposed, secrets uncovered. Everyone in this novel is damaged – severely and, when terrible tragedy unfolds, it’s only the myopic townsfolk who didn’t see it coming.

The writing is what makes this bleak book. While Rowling does head-hop (a cardinal sin in most author’s hands), she does it with aplomb and there’s a sense in which this becomes a stylistic of the narrative. We drift from one character’s thoughts to another’s, caught in the current of activity, the plots and plans of little men and women. In terms of the tone, I was reminded of Elizabeth George’s marvellous and heart-rending What Came Before He Shot Her, only this book is firmly rooted in the middle classes (though there are those who feature who can no longer claim a place there) and the life decisions that can affect generations. Also, George’s book redeems some characters – see if you think the same happens here. I have also heard, again before publication, that the book was likened to Midsomer Murders. The Casual Vacancy make Midsomer Murders seem like Narnia – before the White Witch.

Drugs, suicide, rape, incest, adultery, criminal activity, violent abuse, shocking neglect, fear, anxiety, OCD, dark fantasies, cruelty, it’s all there – relentless, but darkly fascinating at the same time. Rowling really raised (or lowered) the writing stakes with this book.

No, this wasn’t what anyone expected… but how marvellous is that?

Book Review: Destined to Play

Jul 16, 2012

I have to admit something before I review this book: Indigo is a friend of mine and I have followed her exciting and short road to publication with great interest while shouting support from the sidelines and I am so happy for her. She is so lovely and has worked hard on this (written well before E.L. James became a sensation). OK… My conflict of interest is declared Now, I have another confession to make – I’ve not read Fifty Shades of Grey, the book to which Bloom’s is compared. I also don’t think I ever will. But, I have read Destined to Play amd I read it in one session because I simply had to know what happened.

But before I proceed with my review, I just want to say something about the whole “erotica” thing – as in, erotica, as a genre or as an integral part of a novel has been around ever since Trimalchio first had his dinner party (and even earlier). From Greek writers to the Romans, to Marquis de Sade, the Victorian writers and plenty since, there has been erotic and pornographic fiction. What I am struggling with at present, is the way the “sudden” interest or mainstreaming of erotica is being represented in the media. Terms such as “mummy” or “mommy porn” are being bandied about and female readers are referred to as “desperate housewives” (as they were in a Today Tonight story last week). There is this need to somehow “tame” this interest, control it by corralling it with the use of pejoratives or reminding women of their real role – their biological imperative as mothers, the fact they belong in domestic space, thereby softening their desires and the pleasures they receive from reading erotica and the potential threat to domestic peace this arousal and interest may cause. There’s also been a need to infantilise the interest and the terms used to describe both the readers and certainly the much-touted origins of Fifty Shades reveal this. The fact it started out as Twilight fan fiction, the way readers are often shown as giggling and flushed, like women of the Victorian era who suffered hysteria and were masturbated to orgasm by doctors to make them feel better – yes, really. It’s as if these erotic books are legitimised dildos so we can “get off” and then get back to the important things in life – our “real” purpose as women. The fact reading these books is giving our male (or female) partners pleasure is also emphasised. They serve a purpose after all – it’s what female readers do to others that is ultimately the most rewarding things about these books and why they’re tolerated and promoted – they are constructed as medicinal; as literary relationship therapy!!! The salve to passionless relationships, to putting heat back in the bedroom. Puhleez! It’s been amazing to watch the way, yet again, female sexuality is seen as a cultural threat that needs to be contained, suborned and, above all, controlled. Women do actually enjoy sex and reading about it- they’re curious, sensual and delighted that with the renewed interest in this genre and its mainstreaming, they can openly discuss these desires and more.

That’s one side of the erotica coin. The other that bothers me is two-fold. One is that these books so often feature women who like to be controlled by men – who surrender their agency to a man for his and, sometimes, hopefully, their own pleasure. I find that the most confronting and confounding thing about these books – I don’t get that aspect. But because they’re fantasy and sexual fantasies particularly are all about taboo things and meant to break cultural, sexual, gender and social boundaries, I can deal with it – I don’t have to like it though and that says more about me and the milieu I grew up in the influences around me. The other thing that annoys the hell out of me is that with the popularity of Fifty Shades, we’re now seeing a race to publish as much erotica as we can to grab the readers’ dollars. Publishers are falling over themselves to grab the next EL James. Fine. Go for it. Only, I don’t want to see what happened to book shop shelves with Twilight happen again, but I fear it will. Where once there was a variety of books and genres for readers, we will see sections dedicated to erotica and our choices will be limited. There will be a sex glut. Just as entire section in stores have given over to vampire/paranormal books. On the upside, there’s been some wonderful authors come to light, on the downside, there hasn’t been and haste and the drive to meet a market before it moves on to the next big “thang” has been sacrificed for both quality and variety. As a writer and a reader I despair. Please, let’s not see bookstores fill with erotica at the expense of other great books and their writers. Let’s keep quality over quantity and preserve reading culture.

Rave over. Now for the review

This novel, Destined to Play, the first in a trilogy, tells of Dr Alexandra Blake, mother of two who lives in Tasmania in a stable but fundamentally passionless marriage. Flown to Sydney for the beginning of a few days of lectures and presentations (including one to the AMA), Alexandra’s family are conveniently dispatched to the Tassie wilderness for the duration. In Sydney at the beginning of her tour, Alexandra arranges to catch up with her best friend from university and former sexual partner, the wealthy, smoking (as in divine) George Clooneyesque, Dr Jeremy Quinn – a world leader in his field. When they meet, the old sparks ignite and Alexandra is quickly consumed but, when her former lover proposes that she surrender herself to him for forty-eight hours, leaving every decision to him, trusting him completely, Alexandra finds herself at the centre of a sexual adventure like no other and the subject of an experiment that challenges her erotically, physically, emotionally and, above all, psychologically.
While the sex is graphic and charged (as expected in this genre) what interested and challenged me as a reader most (and this is a huge credit to Bloom) is how an intelligent woman, consumate professional who has a fabulous reputation, who is also a mother and wife (therefore has responsibilities) could surrender herself so readily to Quinn. I struggled with this… But so does Alexandra, and it’s the internal,dialogue she continuously has, as well as her vacillation between the depth of her physical and intellectual responses to Quinn particularly that make the book so fascinating. Just as we wonder why she is allowing things to continue, so does Alexandra. Just as she desires answers, so do we. Taken on this dark adventure with her, we are left anxious, breathless and on edge. Playing Alexandra might be destined to do, but a game has never been so dangerous… Something the final pages of the novel makes all too clear.

Issues such as trust, sensory perception, doubt, anxiety, depression, sex and sensuality are all explored, as are the limits to which a body and mind can be brought. The book certainly pushed me out of my comfort zone, not becuase of the sex – I have read much more graphic material – but because I found it difficult to deal with a woman surrendering so completely to a man under the circumstances that Alexandra does. I also found the manipulations of Quinn to be disturbing even though his notion that motherhood and female sexuality should not be mutually exclusive appealed to me.

This is a book that will, i’ve no doubt, generate a great deal of discussion and be quite polemical. Just what an author wants. If you like erotica or books that challenge you, read this!

Posted in General Social Commentary, Popular Culture, Reviews - Books | 1 Comment »

Is celebrity gossip women’s domain?

Jul 03, 2012

I was drawn to write my column this week on this topic because of something Australian Today show host, Karl Stefanovich said during the segment “Girls on the Grill”. Discussing the recent Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes split, he made the observation that he didn’t know a single bloke who was interested in this story. That comment served to get me thinking. I initially bristled, but then I started to wonder if it was true and then try and balance the positives and negatives of women’s (or men’s or both) intense interest in the lives of celebrities. There are many more reasons than I came up with - and I did only have just over 700 words to get my point across! Yes, that’s a defense

The published piece is here if you’d like to read it, otherwise, the unedited version is below! Would love to hear your thoughts as well!

When discussing the recent split between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Today host, Karl Stefanovic asked why didn’t he know any men who cared about this story.

The implication being that interest in celebrities, their lives, marriages, divorces, children, hopes and dreams was firmly women’s fodder.

Frankly, men don’t give a damn.

Is celebrity gossip something that one sex is exclusively, if not genetically, programmed to heed?

While I wanted to deny that women are the main consumers of all things celebrity and the minuscule trivia of their often-vacuous lives, it was hard.

Celebrity business caters to a largely female audience – you just have to look at the content of major women’s magazines for evidence.

Not that all women relish it.

Celebrity gossip has become not only an industry; sadly, it’s a significant proportion of what passes for real news these days.

There are dedicated news segments, entire shows, magazines, books and websites, never mind careers (spin-doctors, handlers, consultants, PR experts, photographers etc), built upon and reliant on the ever-grinding mill of celebrity gossip. Professor Graeme Turner from the University of Queensland describes it as “the celebrity-industrial-complex”.

As Todd Leopold from CNN.com writes, “like any capitalistic enterprise, [it] only exists as long as interest continues.”

Superstar scandal, when reported, attracts the greatest amount of commentary, emotional investment and online bile – and not just from women.

Journalist and author, John Birmingham, in an article on the changing media landscape last month stated: “most readers are less interested in hard news than they are in complete tosh… A story about a celebrity wardrobe malfunction, especially if it comes with images, will totally bury an item of reportage about, say, hospital closures, or waterfront industrial action, or a review of defence policy or legislation for plain packaging on cigarettes.”

Is this women’s fault alone?

There’s a huge drive by vested groups to persuade us that celebrity stories are not only worthy of attention, but possess intrinsic value – even when a great deal is manufactured to protect and generate sales of a related product (an actor’s movie, book etc.).

While it’s easy to dismiss celebrity gossip and our apparent insatiable appetite for it, it’s useful to try and uncover why this plays such a significant role in our media-driven society and, apparently, women’s lives, and examine if it’s harmless or toxic.

Firstly, discussing celebrities not only functions as a moral yardstick by which behaviour can be monitored, thereby letting others know what’s acceptable and unacceptable among a group and within wider community circles, it’s a safe way to police social and personal boundaries.

If someone you’ve just met loves a celebrity, TV show, or film (or politician) you loathe, or vice-a-versa, you’re given a swift insight into whether further contact – digital or real life – should be avoided or pursued.

Secondly, celebrity gossip is also an anodyne social lubricant. Talking about a celebrity – whether it be they way they look, act, their relationship or parenting, creates a universal language and can serve as an ice-breaker in communal, professional and cyber-situations – hence the importance of “water-cooler gossip.”

Thirdly, and problematically, celebrity gossip tends to focus on domestic issues and appearances, long constructed and naturalised as the realm of “women’s business.”

Reinforced through a variety of cultural devices, such as women’s magazines, this gender exclusive space where celebrity tales reign, legitimates and prioritises concerns that were once dismissed as insignificant – those that centre on home-life.

Discussing celebrities also reminds women that their priorities lie in private space and in keeping their partners happy – whether it’s through appearance, sexual performance, food, how the children behave, or how they maintain hearth and home.

It’s reductive and anachronistic.

But it also provides stories of women (and men) who break the rules, are indifferent to various social stigmas and not only survive, but thrive. Some examples are successful adoptions, gay stars, single parents, and those who experience divorce, loss, grief, disease and myriad other issues.

In this way, it’s liberating and affirming.

The pervasiveness of this culture and its attendant gossip is such that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or woman. We can’t complain about or dismiss it so long as we maintain such a high level of interest and passive involvement.

Anderson Cooper, journalist, author and TV personality sums up most people’s feelings when he states: “The whole celebrity culture thing – I’m fascinated by, and repelled by, and yet I end up knowing about it.”

Posted in General Social Commentary, Popular Culture | No Comments »

Sexiness fails to raunch in music videos

May 22, 2012

This is the unedited version of my column that appeared in the Courier Mail, Wednesday 23rd May 20102.

Music mogul, 60-year old Mike Stock, who was part of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, the trio responsible for producing many hits in the 1980s and 90s, and for launching Kylie Minogue’s career, has publicly condemned the risqué and hypersexual performances of contemporary singers.

In the Mail Online, he accused music artists of using sex to sell when their talent fails. Stock describes the “new breed of rap and Lady GaGa types” as “sluttish.”

He worries that “young girls think they are someone worth emulating.”

Stock is not the first to make these kinds of claims. For years, experts from around the world have spoken of the harm the hyper-sexualisation of pop culture causes young girls and boys. The American Psychological Association even linking it to poor mental health and unhealthy sexual development.

Like Stock, and others, I’m so damn tired of all the pornographic, tasteless and trashy videos littering the current music scene. The use of the singular is pertinent here, because there seems to be only one scene with an interchangeable star.

The lyrics are occasionally good, the melody fine; it’s the visual accompaniment that’s so often boring, predictable and trashy.

Ever since Cher straddled that cannon in “Turn Back Time” and the Pussycat Dolls threw down the “hotness” gauntlet, female artists of varying talents have tried to out-pout, kiss, suck, lick, gyrate and dry-hump (cars, poles, men, women) each other in what passes for music video these days.

I say, enough already.

Even 42-year-old Jennifer Lopez’s video, “Dance Again”, doesn’t incite shock so much as it does a yawn. And that’s a pity for while its lyrics celebrate the elation that comes from loving again after heartache, and the beat is joyous, the clip features an orgy of writhing bodies and limbs, close-ups of the singer’s famous derriere and a carefully choreographed “love scene” with her new beau, 24-year-old dancer, Casper Smart.

It’s so constructed and banal that it failed to “raunch” anything but tiresome sighs that such a good artist can be so unoriginal.

Likewise, Madonna, someone who has proven her talent as well as her cultural and social capital over and over, persists on demonstrating, through humdrum and, frankly, laughable moves and costumes, her “sexiness”.

Age has nothing to do with it really, there’s just something so unsexy and derivative about trying so hard. Rhianna, Ke$ha, Miley Cyrus, are the same.

We don’t want or expect singers to come overall Amish, after all, sexiness and music have long gone hand in hand, but the reductive displays, the fact we’ve seen it all before, makes it so dull and uninspiring.

What’s interesting is that while girls are reduced to “sexy” spectacles in music – whether they’re the principal artist or back-up dancers/props, boys like Justin Beiber and One Direction, for example, have other options.

Dannielle Miller, CEO of Enlighten Education writes in an excellent blog that, “In music video world, all too often the message is: when a young guy wants to show he is now a man, he can get a leather jacket and pout; but for a young woman to show she is grown up, she has to get it all off and grind.”

Miller uses Ricki-Lee’s latest video, “Do It Like That” as an example of what’s become the stock-standard aesthetic for female performers – running around in underwear.

Lingerie, faux nudity, impossibly high heels, torn stockings, and/or a corset have also become normalised. While we’re checking the boxes, there’s the young man/men to fawn over, the pole to grind, the car to stroke, as well as her own body. And don’t tell me this is “empowering”, “liberating” or simply the means by which young women express their sexuality.

I’m sick of the language of feminism being exploited and misused to excuse/defend what’s fundamentally a new sexism and women’s complicity in it. I will not be silenced as an out-of-touch wowser.

Women are no longer simply being seen as sex objects, we’re going out of our way to become them and encouraging our daughters to as well.

In her book, Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, Natasha Walter writes, “When we talked about empowerment in the past, it was not a young woman in a thong gyrating around a pole that would spring to mind…”

I am woman see me whore…

The pornification of pop culture has codified and diminished sexiness, turned it into a parody, a Playboy delusion, and sold it back to us. Too many arestill buying it – copying the images and taking them into the world beyond.

We’ve been short changed.

Sexuality and its healthy expression are normal – stripping it of the possibility of intimacy, connection and emotion and adopting it as a public identity and calling it “liberating” or “empowering”, for either gender, is not.

Posted in General Social Commentary, Popular Culture | 2 Comments »

Double standards for women in the workplace

May 15, 2012

This is the unedited version of my column which appears in the Courier Mail, 16 May 2012.

If there’s one thing our culture is absolutely superb at, it’s promoting double standards. Over the last few days, this has become more than apparent, once again, in the area of women’s appearances.

First, there was the fuss over 64-year-old Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State and one of the most powerful women in the world, having the gall and/or gumption, to appear without make-up when she was addressing an official meeting in Bangladesh.

That her appearance au naturel made global headlines and was labeled “brave” by some is an indication of how much emphasis is still placed on women’s looks.

Why are we so obsessed with this? Photos of stars with and sans make-up sell. While it might be argued that these are offered as an antidote to photo-shopping and function to debunk the unrealistic expectations set around women’s appearances and help with self-esteem issues, they also reinforce these and feed insecurities by continually drawing attention to them.

While “dressing-up” and wearing make-up etc. are associated with certain display-based occupations such as modeling, dancing, acting, and other fields where a woman’s looks are integral to her job, as far as other professional spheres are concerned, it’s been a woman’s performance, her capacity to do her job well, that’s important.

Lately, however, this has shifted.

Last week it was revealed that some of Australia’s top law firms, banks and accountancy companies are not only engaging stylists to “advise” female workers about make-up and dress standards, but providing lists of fashion dos and don’ts by which it’s anticipated the women will abide.

Workers at a Brisbane parking firm received a memo regarding dress codes and changes to rules a few weeks ago telling the women to “wear conservative make-up at all times,” even when they didn’t engage with the public. Confused workers wondered not only what constituted “conservative”, but also for whom they were being asked to do this.

While on the one hand, reasonable dress codes are important and professional firms do have a reputation to uphold, on the other, advising women to avoid lip gloss, dangly earrings, wear matching shoes and handbags, sheer stockings and conservative make-up, appears to be more about asserting control, policing women’s bodies and satisfying the eye as opposed to job criteria.

In response to accusations of discrimination, firms such as Westpac, Clayton Tuz and Pricewaterhouse Coopers defended introducing these codes saying they’re about offsetting the increased “casualisation of the workplace” which they attribute mainly to Generation Y.

In her book The Beauty Myth, feminist Naomi Woolf writes about what she calls The Professional Beauty Qualification, and how many professions in which women have made strides are being “reclassified – so far as the women in them are concerned – as display professions.”

She argues that women continue to experience the “dualistic experience of being ‘feminine’ and ‘business-like’ at the same time, while they do not perceive men experiencing the same contradiction.”

Social commentator, Nina Funnell, states “isn’t there something a little bit patronising about a company that trusts you to manage multimillion-dollar deals but doesn’t trust you to pick out your own earrings?”

There’s no doubt that we literally fashion identities for ourselves through clothing. Whether it’s Peter Slipper reintroducing the traditional regalia of the Speaker and trying to insert some gravitas into his role (and thus onto himself), going to a job interview, dressing for a school formal or donning a uniform for work.

However, this policing and sexualizing of women’s workplace dress and therefore their bodies by specifically dictating what they can and cannot wear potentially sets up different expectations of appearance, accountability and treatment of women – by colleagues and the public – by emphasizing the feminine over and above the professional; a person’s sex over their abilities.

It dresses up conformity and control as professionalism.

It turns the workplace into a catwalk.

Meow.

My grandmother always told me to dress – not to impress – but to respect. Don your daily clothes to show the people with whom you interact, publicly and privately, that you respect them. If you’re attending a function – show your respect for the nature of the event through your attire. If you can’t – don’t go.

But respect needs to go both ways.

While some people may require help with what not to wear, and need to understand that when they’re at work, they’re the public face of a private firm, dress codes must be reasonable and not sexist.

Suggesting or prescribing aspects of a wardrobe or make-up is neither equitable nor appropriate.

These stringent “professional” dress codes are of a concern, just like the negative reactions to Clinton’s “natural” look, not because they reflect a company style, but because they’re about reinforcing a cultural version of acceptable femininity that has nothing to do with a woman’s capacity to do her job.

They tell women that how we look is more important than what we do.

Posted in Appearances, General Social Commentary, Popular Culture | 3 Comments »

Book Review: Aftermath, Peter Robinson

Feb 29, 2012

A friend of mine has long been recommending Peter Robinson’s DCI Banks novels and for some inexplicable reason, I resisted reading them until I stumbled upon an episode of the TV series and thoroughly enjoyed it. After that, I picked up Aftermath and was unable to put it down. About halfway through, I became aware that this novel was in fact the prequel to the one episode of the TV series I’d watched and I knew who the murderer was. Such is the strength of the gruesome yet believable tale of sexual, physical and psychological abuse and its aftermath – how people cope differently with the horrors that life can throw at them and how they identify as either victims or survivors and what behaviors they adopt to cope – that knowing the killer didn’t detract from the tale at all. On the contrary, it added a particular frisson.

The novel opens with a dark and simply awful prologue. You just know as a reader that the understated cruelty and fear aroused in those brief pages is going to explode into the body of the tale… And it does. Skip ahead a decade and to a housing area known as The Hill. Two constables are called to attend a domestic dispute and arrive with reluctance, never expecting that opening the front door of the residence will unleash a rabid and terrible history and too many skeletons – quite literally. Told from the point of view of a female probationary copper, the scene moves quickly into full scale action and tragedy. I was left breathless and appalled. Cut to the investigation and DCI Banks, replete with his unravelling love life, appears to solve this case which is quickly linked to a rapist and suspected murderer dubbed The Chameleon who has been around for a number of years. Drawn into the shocking crimes that are uncovered are residents, friends, family, the media and even the policewoman who made the initial discovery – only instead of being hailed a hero, she is placed under investigation herself. From the outset, along with Banks and his team, you’re questioning who are the victims? Who are the perpetrators? And is it always so clear cut?

This is a violent tale and isn’t for the faint-hearted, but it’s also a fascinating portrayal of violence, sex and gender with sympathetic and monstrous portraits of specific individuals being drawn, offering contrasting and fascinating insights into the cycle of child, sexual and domestic abuse – victims, perpetrators and those who purport to help, support, report and even prevent it happening being offered and held up to close scrutiny. Robinson is brutal at times and gentle at others, but the story is harrowing and yet so well-written you’re drawn into it despite yourself.

I have subsequently watched a couple more episodes of the TV series and loved them, but it’s more of Robinson’s books that I am really looking forward to getting into.

Book Review: Believing the Lie, Elizabeth George

Feb 29, 2012

I would like to file a Missing Person’s Report. Name: Inspector Thomas Lynley, 8^th Earl of Asherton. Description: Approximately six feet tall, blond hair, dark brown eyes, oozes class, intellect and emotional intelligence and an uncanny ability to read people. Inspires loyalty, desire and trust in equal measure from friends, colleagues and strangers.

For the last three Elizabeth George novels, at least, this Inspector, whom we know and love – the dedicated friend and partner of Sargeant Barbara Havers has absented himself. No, that’s not exactly right either – he’s there, but it’s as if someone else has possessed his body and mind and I want him back! The front cover announces his return – I’m afraid the evidence that this is the case is scarce.

OK. Maybe I’m being unfair, but in the latest Lynley novel, Believing the Lie, George seems to have gone even further post-Helen’s death in re-inventing the grieving widower to a point there’s not much of the old boy left. In a sense, the fact he doesn’t appear until chapter three of this book, well after the main narrative is established (sans Tommy), functions as an analogy for the minor part he plays in this current mystery. In fact, Lynley is practically redundant.

Months have now passed since Helen died and Lynley is embroiled in a steamy affair with his alcoholic and neurotic boss, Superintendent Ardery. Quite apart from the fact that I never understood the attraction he feels for his unreasonable and demanding superior, when Lynley is sent to Cumbria by Hillier as a personal favour in order to investigate the accidental death of a friend’s nephew, he’s told to keep it secret. And he does. Not knowing why or where her lover has gone, and with him refusing to breach confidence, Ardery’s insecurities and unprofessional behaviour come to the fore making her more irritating and consequently Tommy’s attraction and efforts to placate her less plausible.

Taking his friends, Simon and Deborah St James with him, Lynley stumbles into a family full of secrets, lies and betrayals that have little to do with the reason he was brought there in the first place. But when Deborah and a reporter from the London tabloid, The Source, join forces to uncover the mystery of the Fairclough family, you know tragedy is just around the corner. Even if it takes almost six-eighths of the book to arrive.

As usual in George books, the writing is sublime. All the other characters are beautifully and, for the most part, believably drawn. Just as she did in What Came Before He Shot Her, George doesn’t steer away from the brutal reality of many young people’s lives and the choices they make and this story is no exception. Scenes are painted realistically – to the point you can smell the fresh air, hear the crunch of gravel underfoot, and smell the Pop Tart Havers is forever cramming down her throat.

For a novel that roughly sits in the crime genre, however, the main crime here, for me, is the absence of Lynley. As with the other books she’s written of late, the main character fades into the background and secondary characters dominate. Again, this might be all right for some, and the story is interesting, but this is a Lynley book and he simply doesn’t step up and wrest the tale or arrest the reader in ways that he used to. In fact, there is something listless and annoying about Lynley that there never used to be. Sure, he’s grieving for Helen, but that doesn’t mean he suddenly has to become all wishy-washy and turn into something he’s not. I can’t explain it better than that except a Lynley mystery this book wasn’t – and nor was it really a crime novel of the sort we’ve come to expect from George.

But, it was fascinating study of sexuality, familial ties and the psychology of a family unravelling. The climax was more anti than explosive as it’s not difficult to solve the puzzle George has tried to construct well before it’s revealed. That Lynley has a minor role to play in any of the action is at odds with his well-established character as well and is a bit of a let down for fans.

The book finishes with two endings (one of which will come as a relief to some) that set the scene for the next book – one that may yet relegate Lynley to the role of support character again. I sincerely hope not. I hope the Inspector is found, along with his mojo, because the series, as well-written and structured as it is, simply isn’t the same with this watery substitute.

Bring back Inspector Lynley – please!

Book Review: A Feast for Crows, George R. R. Martin

Feb 22, 2012

Compared to the first three books in George R. R. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice series, A Feast for Crows took me a long time to finish – I am talking months. Not because it was slow, ponderous, or a boring read – quite the contrary – it is such an accomplishment. I think I took so much time (reading almost a dozen books concurrently) in order to savour and appreciate the new depths and richness of this ever-expanding tale, it’s cast of characters, and the complexities that Martin introduces.

For this novel elevates the plots and cunning of desperate men and women to a new level. We left the action in book three with King Stannis on the Wall, Sansa Stark disguised as Petyr Baelish’s bastard daughter, Samwell Tarly voyaging to distant lands on a mission from Lord Commander, Jon Snow, and Arya Stark now in the East, about to join a strange cult. Then there was the shocking death of Tywin Lannister and Tyrion’s role in that, and the consequences of Daeneyrs ruthless march across the East to contend with as well – and that’s before we consider what all the others characters such as the Greyjoys, those in Dorne and other places were up to.

This book, instead of concentrating on the entire cast of Song, only deals with half of them. Until I reached the end of the book and saw Martin’s explanation for this, I was feeling cheated! But having now read the first few chapters of Dance With Dragons (which occurs concurrently and then joins the timeline and forges ahead) I understand why. Nonetheless, despite the meatiness of this book, there is a sense of a tale half told – and I am not sure, having set up a different mode of telling and accustoming readers to it, that it worked as well.

But I am being picky. Very picky. And that’s because Martin sets the bar so high for himself and our expectations – and, despite my reservations he does deliver. This novel is both about physical quests and the psychological and emotional toll they exact and the inner growth or lack thereof that they facilitate in those undertaking them, and a study of power and its effects: on the wielder and those upon whom it is exerted.

While Feast explores twelve characters in the saga intensively, I felt, Cerei Lannister was the star, possibly because so many of the central characters are connected to or reliant upon her in some way. Now Queen Regent to her eight year old son, Tommen, we see Cersei in her element, and her determination to seize complete power at any cost. Refusing to listen to advisors and the rift between her and the now handicapped Jamie growing, we witness her slow unravelling. Taking terrible measures to protect her remaining children’s future and her fledgling awareness of her own vulnerability, despite the trappings of authority, Cersei’s story is a tour de force of how absolute power corrupts absolutely. I can only imagine what her downfall and comeuppance will be like, for I’ve no doubt, she will receive them in the way only Martin can deliver and not in due course.

The novel also follows the warrior-maid, Brienne of Tarth, and her quest to find Sansa Stark and we grow to appreciate even more her nobility and loyalty to not only Catelyn, but Jamie Lannister as well. Her sufferings, because of her ethics, gender and sex, and determination to continue are heart-wrenching and her outsider status is both highlighted and sympathetically explored. Along with Tyrion Lannister, I think Brienne of Tarth is a rare and composite character who engages with the reader and who arouses both protective feelings and a sense of wanting them to have the opportunity to prove to the world that they are more than they seem and much more than anyone gives them credit for.

The story of Sansa Stark is also fascinating. Now styled as the bastard daughter of Lord of the Eyrie, Petyr Baelish, Sansa tries to forget her origins and assert her new identity and care for the simpering child of her Aunt. It is through Sansa’s story that Littlefinger’s strategies and conniving come to the fore. Sansa would be easy to dismiss as one of the more lightweight characters populating an epic where these are scarce, but Martin lets us know in Feast that to do that would be to underestimate this young woman: after all, she is a Stark.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and the magnificent writing, action and dialogue, I confess, I missed Tyrion and Daeny and wanted to know what was happening on The Wall and in the lands beyond. I also felt that the novel again became bogged in details about minor characters and their political and other allegiances. Though I can appreciate the violent, greedy Greyjoys and the sea-culture that formed them, I find that part of the novel less intriguing than the others and look forward to those chapters ending. That said, I also understand and am in awe of Martin’s ability to construct and manage this unbelievably intricate world and even the parts I don’t enjoy as much do add to the whole, giving it a verisimilitude that is likely unparalleled in a great deal of fantasy literature.

Overall, utterly magnificent. My awe for this writer’s imagination and capacity to create just grows with each book.

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