Is celebrity gossip women’s domain?
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 […]
Sexiness fails to raunch in music videos
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 […]
Double standards for women in the workplace
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 […]
Does My Kitchen Rule in “Foodie” World?
This is the unedited version of my column that appeared in the Courier Mail, 8th Februrary 2012 (I took the mistake out!). Glancing at the major commercial networks prime-time offerings Monday through to Thursday you could be forgiven for thinking we’re a nation obsessed with food. From 7pm nightly, viewers get to choose between My […]
Property Porn
This is the unedited version of my column which appears in the Courier Mail, Wednesday, 30 November 2011. There’s a new obsession threatening to takeover our airwaves: Property Porn – and we can’t get enough. Switch on free-to-air or Pay TV and you’ll find countless shows about real estate (not forgetting websites, sections in print […]
Happy Sever After? Snow White and the enduring power of fairytales
This is the unedited version of my column which appears in the Courier Mail, Wednesday 23 November 2011 Capitalising on the publicity generated by the second last film in the Twilight saga, Breaking Yawn, I mean, Breaking Dawn: Part One, the trailer for Kristen Stewart’s forthcoming film, Snow White and the Huntsman, has been released. […]
Celebrity Chefs
For my column this week, I wrote on celebrity chefs and reflected on whether or not they ran the risk, through over-exposure, of going past their use-by date. If you’d like to read it, click here: Karen\’s Courier Mail column 27 April 2011 Interestingly, back in 2003, I wrote a quite risque piece on the […]
Paper Giants and Women’s Magazines
‘Paper Giants, the birth of Cleo’, which screened on ABC Sunday and Monday nights, told the story of how, against a background of emergent feminism, the victory of the Whitlam government, and the Packers’ shedding part of their media empire, the talented Ita Buttrose was made editor of a new and controversial magazine. Against great […]
Review of TV show: Winners and Losers
Last night, the much-hyped Winners and Losers screened on Channel 7. The story of four chums, reunited at their surprise ten-year high school reunion, replaced the spot left vacant by the incomplete season of the hit family show, Packed to the Rafters. The idea behind taking Rafters off air and replacing it with a new show […]
Harry Potter, Popular Culture and Education
When, in the opening pages of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Professor Minerva McGonagall predicts that one day, the orphan boy will ‘be famous – a legend… there will be books written about Harry – every child in our world will know his name,’ I’ll bet neither the character nor her creator, J.K. Rowling […]