Comments Off on Faithless Adaptations: A Critique of Little Women (2019)
Adaptations are a tricky business for any filmmaker. Regardless of the text you are adapting, there will be a dedicated fan base for the original source material who will be both the first in the cinema to watch your creation, as well as the ones most eager to tear it apart. I found myself in this position after reading Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age novel Little Women.
In typical bildungsroman fashion, Little Women follows sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March from childhood to adulthood. Originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, the story was heavily inspired by the author’s own childhood and family. Since its publication, the novel has been well loved by readers for its honest portrayal of sisterhood, love and self-discovery.
In 2019, the novel was once again adapted into a film by renowned director Greta Gerwig. At the 92nd Academy Awards, Gerwig’s film was nominated for several awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Naturally, I was very excited to watch this so-called masterpiece.
However, I was sorely disappointed. Gerwig made considerable changes to the structure of Alcott’s novel and to her characterisation. While changes are inevitable in transplanting hundreds of pages of writing into two hours of screen time, they have to make sense. If a change is nonsensical, it risks undermining the authenticity of the adaptation and calls into question the adaptor’s understanding and interpretation of the text.
One major change in Gerwig’s Little Women was the decision to alter the timeline of the book. Instead of beginning during the sisters’ adolescence and ending during their adulthood, Gerwig’s film flits between two narratives; the childhood sequences serve as flashbacks to the main adult storyline. This, I believe, renders mute the major themes of the novel: family and growth. As readers, we watch the March sisters grow and develop as the eponymous “little women”. Many of the chapters in Part One of the novel involve the sisters learning moral lessons through their mishaps and misjudgments. For instance, in “A Merry Christmas”, the sisters are exposed to the value of sacrifice. In “Amy’s Valley of Humiliation”, Amy faces the consequences of disobedience and conceit, while in “Jo meets Apollyon”, Jo is shown the importance of patience and self-control. This depiction of personal growth is undercut by bringing the adult storyline to the forefront. The girls’ childhood is not meant to be merely fodder for character development; it is integral to who they are as women. Their familial and sororal bonds are the driving forces behind their entire existence.
In a similar vein, Marmee — the mother of the March sisters — is horribly characterised. During the years of the American Civil War, she is the main caregiver of the girls as her husband is serving as a chaplain for the Union Army. Alcott’s Marmee is the guiding light for both her children and the reader; she epitomises all she preaches. She allows her daughters to make mistakes and then helps them learn from the error of their ways. She teaches them what is important and good and right in a way that makes them (and the reader) want to (or at least try to) obey because they know they will be all the better for it.
Gerwig’s script is written in such a way that Marmee, despite being played by the incredibly talented Laura Dern, fades into the background in every scene instead of being the central force that her daughters gravitate towards. Her dialogue is reduced to backhanded quips at her husband for a reason that is difficult to identify. Perhaps this is Gerwig attempting to add comedy or perhaps it’s her not knowing how to subvert a relationship that is already quite subversive. The marriage between Mr and Mrs March is meant to be one of love, devotion, adoration and equality. Alcott’s Marmee is imbued with agency and wisdom; she is respected by all who meet her. The essence of her role in the family is established in the very first chapter as Marmee reads aloud the letter sent by Mr March: “They all drew to the fire, Mother in the big chair with Beth at her feet, Meg and Amy perched on either arm of the chair, and Jo leaning on the back”. Gerwig seems to believe that Marmee cannot embrace these principles in a film set during the 19th century so she must resort to making sharp retorts to whatever her silly husband says to assert her authority.
The film also makes the mistake of attempting to adapt Little Women in line with contemporary standards of feminism, ignoring the fact that the novel is already subversive for the time period and place in which it was written and set. In one of the film’s early scenes, Jo responds angrily to Friedrich Bhaer, a German professor who is staying at the same boarding house, when he criticises her writing. Jo’s reaction, while stemming from hurt, is illogical. Jo is writing ‘sensationalist’ stories for a newspaper to make money; importantly, she elects for the stories to not be printed under her name. In the novel, she hides this occupation from her mother because “she was doing what she is ashamed to own”. Jo does not need to ask Bhaer his opinion because she shares it already. She eventually quits writing sensationalist stories, musing “I almost wish I hadn’t any conscience, it’s so inconvenient. If I didn’t care about doing right, and didn’t feel uncomfortable when doing wrong, I should get on capitally.” The director instead appears to have re-imagined this scene from a “feminist” lens; Jo can write whatever she pleases, Gerwig seems to be saying, and how dare Bhaer judge her when he knows nothing about literature! This representation has no footing when we take into account that in the source text, Jo and Bhaer’s views on the matter are aligned.
Just because Alcott’s novel does not embody that which we perceive as feminism today, does not mean that it is not a subversive representation and examination of womanhood. The sisters were never restricted by their gender, at least not by their parents. They were not forced to conform to societal standards of womanhood. They stayed true to who they were. The novel centres on familial love, it promotes empathy and compassion, it encourages the reader to — like the sisters — to be the best version of themselves. It is very empowering to read a novel about four sisters who love each other dearly and who have a strong maternal figure that cares exclusively for their happiness. Marmee does not need to assert her authority by shaking her head mournfully at her husband’s idiocy, and the “tom-boy” sister does not need to prove her agency by disagreeing with something that she fundamentally agrees with.
Gerwig also struggles to authentically represent the progression of Amy and Laurie’s relationship from childhood friends to two young people in love. In one line, Amy contends that she has always loved Laurie. However, none of the flashbacks in the film even hint at a romantic affection harboured by the young Amy. Similarly, the two seem to be just pushed together and suddenly declare their love for each other. This fails to capture the mutual respect and adoration that develops while the two characters write letters to each other while in Europe. Jo’s rejection of Laurie also fits awkwardly within the narrative, creating an uncomfortable love triangle. After Beth’s death, Jo reveals that if Laurie were to ask her to marry him again she would say yes. She even writes him a letter, but hurriedly removes it from his mailbox after discovering he has married her sister. Here, Gerwig misinterprets the effect Beth’s death has on Jo. The death does not suddenly make Jo realise that she does in fact love Laurie or that she desires to get married. Instead, the loss of her sister opens herself up to experiencing a different kind of love that she has not yet felt.
A novel worthy of an adaptation is naturally loved for what it is, so the question stands: why do filmmakers make these changes? In May, George RR Martin wrote a post on his “Not a Blog” blog, titled “The Adaptation Tango” that appeared to answer this question. He makes excellent observations from the perspective of an author who is no stranger to his work being adapted (and butchered). He states, “Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and ‘make them their own’.” Regardless of who the author is or how great their work is, he says, “there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and ‘improve’ on it.” He finishes with: “They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse.”
Gerwig’s Little Women has been enjoyed by audiences, and for that I am glad, especially if they felt the same joy as I did reading the novel. Yet, I cannot help but feel that it is almost disrespectful to mischaracterise an author’s creation for your own monetary gain.
Of course, Gerwig is not alone in this. Adaptations have been criticised, crucified, and torn to pieces for years past, and will be in years to come. Netflix recently announced that they were adapting Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece, The Picture of Dorian Gray, but instead of remaining true to his queer construction of Basil Hallward and the titular protagonist, the characters are instead to be made siblings. This seems particularly troubling as Wilde was imprisoned for homosexuality, with excerpts of the novel used as evidence to convict him. Emerald Fennell is also set to release her own adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Victorian gothic, Wuthering Heights, although no details on that project have yet been revealed. It appears that as long as the written word remains, the adaptation tango will too keep on going.
Whenever we drove to Cooma to visit my grandmother, I would always pester my father to put on Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) for our drive. Something about the tinkling glockenspiel and jolly tones of Papageno’s comical arias was charming, even if I couldn’t understand all the words yet. I would always get upset when we arrived just as the Queen of the Night came on to sing her famous aria. My father would never leave the car running for another mere two minutes to let me listen to the Queen trying to emotionally blackmail her daughter into committing murder.
While watching this opera a few months ago, I registered an interesting theme that was present in it, a theme that is also present in many of the fairy tales and stories so many of us grow up with. Even while basking in pure joy at seeing this beloved opera performed, I recognised the villainisation of strong, independent mother figures — those powerful women with no husband or no man directly in their lives. I noticed how their wickedness is starkened when cast as the dark shadow to their glowing, virtuous daughters or stepdaughters. The Queen is a prime example of this, a paragon of jealousy and vengefulness. Her assigned archetype of antagonist is her eternal punishment for daring to try and keep her daughter, Pamina, out of the clutches of her nemesis Sarastro, the rational and just leader of the enlightened Temple of the Sun cult.
But is the Queen justly cast as jealous and irrationally vengeful, and Sarastro fairly hailed as just, rational and enlightened? It is important to recognise the origins of the opera, which was written by men, and which premiered in 1791 — a very different century in terms of gender equality than that with which we are familiar with. Villainising a woman in a patriarchal worldview would hardly have been blinked at, as shown by the continued acceptance of the villainous nature of the Queen throughout the opera’s history. But how does the trend of strong women being punished manifest not only in this old opera but follow through to also exist in the stories we are so familiar with today? Bear with me, I know opera isn’t everyone’s thing (actually, it isn’t really mine either, and this is the exception), but the Queen and her relationship with her daughter is such a perfect lens through which to view this common theme that is tangled into so many of the stories we are raised on.
The opera starts when a handsome prince, Tamino, is rescued from a fearful serpent by the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, who can harness the Queen’s immense power. The Queen then sets Tamino to rescue her daughter, Pamina, from the clutches of the evil man Sarastro, who heads the Temple of the Sun. Tamino embarks on this quest, with the promise of Pamina’s hand in marriage if he succeeds, with his companion Papageno, a cheeky and disobedient bird catcher also indebted to the Queen and her ladies. However, instead of rescuing Pamina, both he and Pamina herself see the “error” of the Queen’s ways and instead convert to join Sarastro in blissful and patriarchal “enlightenment”. Endings to the opera vary, some with the Queen receiving the ultimate punishment of banishment, others with the Queen reluctantly accepting her daughter’s choice and Sarastro’s undeniable wisdom.
The Queen is certainly no hero, as is obvious enough from the aforementioned emotional blackmail of her distressed young daughter. Offering one’s daughter to the first man who can save her is also questionable, though Pamina is conveniently quite pleased with the arrangement. However, the same abhorrence that infests the Queen’s actions does not do the same to her motives. She is a woman who refuses to bow to powerful men in a blatantly misogynistic world, as is evident from the lyrics of multiple arias — not surprising when considering the fact that the opera was written by men for a patriarchal society.
In the middle of the opera, we learn that the Queen’s husband died many years ago and that she refused to then relinquish her power and bow down to Sarastro. Fair enough, why should she? In Sarastro’s opinion: because she’s a woman, of course, and women are irrational and threatening to the values of justice and truthfulness when they have no man for guidance. Pamina, recently traumatised and vulnerable from her mother demanding Sarastro’s cold, dead body, is receptive to this message as he embraces her and tells her the gentle truth as he sees fit. And she enacts this “truth” she had been told, suddenly convinced that the idea of life without her own man, Tamino, is quite unbearable. It is surprising Disney never took up the story, as the Queen has such potential as a wicked stepmother and Pamina is the perfect inspiration for another princess who is given no purpose by the writers other than a prince as a means to happiness.
This corruption of Pamina, then, is the first punishment Sarastro, and as an extension, the librettists, enact against the Queen. Her daughter has fallen into the trap the Queen so desperately wished to keep her from, and the prince she thought she could rely on, a compromise to save her daughter, has likewise been ‘enlightened’ by the sexist, domineering Sarastro. Yet she continues to be punished. Throughout the opera, she becomes a trickster. At the beginning of the opera, she is portrayed as the hero, a mother desperate to get her kidnapped daughter back from a man she doesn’t trust. Yet, by the end, she has become a vicious and jealous woman who is unreceptive to reason. Her initial virtues are cast, then, as nothing but a trick, her name, and as an extension, the name of other women in a plight that refuse to conform, slandered forever.
Yet the punishment that stings the most, of course, is her banishment at the end. The ultimate punishment is a warning of what happens to women who reject the notion of male guidance and prefer to live their own lives and raise their daughters as they see fit. To the modern-day woman, Sarastro’s solemn arias about how women are not to be trusted are rather amusing, and we tease each other in the intermission about being hysterical. But to the Queen, and perhaps any women watching this performance throughout its two-and-a-half century existence, her fate is a cruel reminder of the society in which they live, where the presence of a man in their lives is the only guarantee of survival, where any desire or quest or attempt to live independently or semi-independently of men will be scorned and punished. The Queen’s fate is common in many fairy tales, where the mother figures (often a stepmother) act cruelly but are in a similar position of a dead husband or a second husband to ensure their survival. They are pitted against their daughters, their daughters sweet where they are bitter, gentle where they are harsh, submissive where they are authoritative. Being a woman is a nuanced business, but these dichotomies insinuate that there are only two ways to go about it — be good or be evil — a lie through which male dominance has historically consolidated its grip on humanity. So next time you watch a Disney movie or read a fairytale to a young cousin or sibling, or perhaps even go to the opera (not that the Canberra opera scene is particularly active), lend an extra thought to the wicked mother, and whether she is truly wicked, or merely forced by the writers of the past to be wicked through her actions.
Are you struggling financially, on a low income or stressed about affording parking due to the significant increases?
If you have a Low Income Health Care Card (LIHC), you are entitled to support available from the ANU and the government. This list compiles the support services available to LIHC card holders.
A LIHC is used to prove financial struggle. It is a simple process and applications typically take about 30 days to process. Instructions on how to apply for a LIHC can be found here.
To be eligible for a LIHC you must:
Make less than $783 a week.
Be 19 or older (Under 19 eligibility is possible if you’re deemed independent or eligible for Family Tax Benefit).
Be an Australian Citizen or Permanent Resident (some visas are accepted — check here).
ANU INITIATIVES
(For some reason, you must be a domestic undergrad student to access any of this. Ridiculous.)
Students can apply for ANU initiatives here. They include:
Free student life surface parking permit at ANU
$150 textbook grant a semester
$150 student support grant a semester
Free 12 months ANU Sport membership
Free Griffin Hall membership (off-campus students)
Access to Community Connect Food Relief
GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES
Free Ambulances
Free public transport off-peak: on weekdays from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm, after 6:00 pm, and all day on weekends and public holidays
100 per cent off the registration fees of your motor vehicle registration (roughly 50-60 per cent of the total amount)
Greater access to bulk-billed GPs
Access to Canberra Health Services Public Dental
$200 spectacles subsidy from participating optometrists
Access to concession rate co-payments for PBS scheduled medications ($7.70 instead of the usual $31.60 maximum cost)
PBS Safety Net reduced to $277 from the regular $1,694 (this is how much you pay for PBS medications). After you’ve spent $277 with a LIHC — further PBS medication is 100% free.
THIRD-PARTY INITIATIVES
Concession fares for Neuron scooters
P.S.
Services Australia will give you a physical card — it is made from paper. You can access a digital card from the Centrelink App.
Resources like the Community Connect Food Relief and Parking support are likely limited, so bear this in mind if applying without genuine need.
Comments Off on What arts degrees are really costing us
Upon making the ever-predictable switch from the flashy PPE degree to the humble Bachelor of Arts at the end of my first semester of university, the typical reaction — after a cursory glance at my outfit, followed by a quip that I ‘look more like an Arts student anyway’ — was that of good-natured derision: ‘studying unemployment, then?’. After all, as one jokes, I may as well have taken several tens of thousands of dollars and tossed them in the creek. The disdain towards arts degrees as endeavours of childish passion or directionless experimentation is one which I have internalised since learning of their existence and the attitudes they elicit, and one which has been perpetuated for generations. The idea that the BA is professionally futile sits smugly in the minds of Australians, young and old, not budging for any desperate attempts by arts students (myself included, of course) made to polish its colloquial reputation. They’re unemployable, plain and simple!
Adding fuel to the fire for the status of arts degrees is the ever-looming rise in their prices, a lingering hangover from the Coalition government’s 2021 implementation of the ‘Job Ready Graduates’ (JRG) scheme, which increased student contribution to humanities degrees by 113 percent. 2024 is the first year that the average arts degree costs a student over $50,000. The scheme has been subject to heavy criticism by Australian universities but nevertheless forced the tightening of their budgetary belts to respond to the withdrawal of government funding to the humanities. Close to home, several Bachelor programs such as Development Studies and Middle East and Asian Studies have been struck off the ANU’s degree offerings in light of the changes.
The JRG scheme has, however, proven a failure, with the subsidisation of ‘in-demand’ non-humanities degrees making negligible changes to interest in the arts. The Labor government is soon set to reflect in new policy a need to reconstruct the scheme and its fee arrangements ‘before it causes long-term and entrenched damage to Australian higher education’, according to education minister Jason Clare.
However, the impacts have already been felt. Pre-existing notions of arts degrees as futile, unemployable ventures have snowballed, with their emergent association with financial irresponsibility and privileged pretension. All this against the backdrop of the cost-of-living crisis and persistent HECS-HELP indexation has led to the warped image of the BA as being accessible exclusively to those cushioned by wealth and guarantees of stability.
This image is not innocuous, and threatens not only a new arts student’s fragile ego but the essence of the study of humanities itself. Studies of politics, literature, history, anthropology, development and sociology rely inherently on diversity of perspective and challenge the structures that govern human interaction to foster the critical thinking skills required to maintain it. For as long as arts degrees are believed, understandably, to be lying behind significant social and financial barriers, the arts degree will fall victim to the fatal flaw of any area of study: homogeneity.
ANU’s status as the university with the lowest proportion of low-income students in the country makes this all the more apparent. The mere fact that the typical ice-breaker question in the first tutorial of Introduction to Philosophy was which inordinately expensive residential hall each of us resided at was evidence enough that diversity of background and perspective is, for the most part, not the forte of the arts cohort. The reality remains that for many prospective students from low socio-economic backgrounds, these expensive courses are cast as a rich kids’ playground, where ideas from well-funded high school philosophy classes are recycled and jargon is revered. Admittedly, epiphenomenal consciousness can have even the most avid wordsmith’s eyes rolling. Still, it is the critical thinking skills that humanities courses seek to attune that are the victims of the stereotype of pretentiousness that surrounds them.
The development of literacy, critical analysis and communication skills — emboldening the idea that more than one solution to a problem exists and that subjectivity holds value — are the arts degree’s overt strengths and those its defenders eagerly spout. However, as far as their usefulness is concerned, for every prospective student who refrains from pursuing tertiary education by virtue of its financial impossibility, the quality of these skills diminishes.
Suppose there are not wide ranges of perspectives and criticism in the classrooms of these courses. In that case, they will never truly serve to develop the ‘adaptability and ability to help shape change’ proclaimed by our university as the degree’s purpose. What’s more, at a time when artificial intelligence has thrown the replicability status of human critical thinking and retrospection into question, to hike the prices of the courses designed to foster them such that they are confined to the realm of academic indulgence, rather than the accessible mainstream, is irresponsible. It only acts to give arts degrees unique futility.
In a time where HECS no longer universally cushions young people’s tertiary education decisions and university education maintains its culture of exclusivity, a costly course thought to be undertaken by those with the assurance of employability and financial stability is ‘useless’ insofar as it remains restricted and stained by elitism. Change to the JRG scheme is imperative; job readiness is never achieved through punishing students’ pursuit of passion, but by opening opportunities to bring invaluable diversity of attitude and perspective to the classrooms, training the future (very employable, thank you very much) professionals of Australia.
At any given moment in time, there are countless ripples travelling through spacetime, traversing the very fabric of our universe. These ripples are known as gravitational waves, and were first predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916 in his general theory of relativity.
Almost a century later in 2015, direct evidence of gravitational waves was finally obtained when the Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) detectors, located in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana, USA detected the long-awaited signal.
The 0.2 second audible signal, which was described to resemble the “chirp” of a bird, was actually the product of a black hole collision. This event occurred more than 1 billion years ago. Two massive black holes merged into one, warping the fabric of spacetime and sending ripples through the universe which were eventually detected on Earth as tiny vibrations.
The successful LIGO experiment sent its own waves through the science community. The search for gravitational waves had consisted of decades of unrelenting hard work by over a thousand physicists around the globe and billions of dollars of investment, so the news was both extremely exciting and highly anticipated.
Now you might be wondering what is next for gravitational wave research. After all, the amazing detection of gravitational waves was already accomplished in 2015.
However, in reality, the exploration of gravitational waves has only just begun as researchers continue to use LIGO and a growing network of detectors around the world (e.g. LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration) to investigate the nature of our universe. In exciting news, the ANU, as part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), will play a central role in this global venture.
Last year I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview Dr Lilli Sun and Dr Jennie Wright, astrophysicists from ANU’s Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics to gain some further insight into the current field of gravitational wave research and ANU’s new LIGO remote control room.
Firstly, could you explain what a gravitational wave is in simple terms?
Jennie: A gravitational wave is a sort of stretching and squeezing of spacetime itself. When we have mass in the universe, it causes spacetime to curve, as explained in the theory of General Relativity. A gravitational wave is like a ripple instead of just a curve that stays still.
Lilli: You can also think of an analogy like a water wave – for example, dropping a stone in water and then seeing ripples spreading out. When we have something very heavy, like black holes that collide, they trigger those ripples in spacetime.
What are your specific research focuses and what are you currently working on?
Lilli: I do mostly astrophysics; using gravitational waves to study black holes, neutron stars, and even searching for dark matter. I do a lot of data analysis to see what the gravitational-wave signals tell us – e.g. whether it tells us that Einstein and his general theory of relativity is right or if there is something unexpected.
One of my projects is about searching for dark matter particles using gravitational waves – we don’t know if they exist or not, but analysing gravitational wave signatures is one possible way to look for them. I also work a bit on detectors, working with instrumentalists like Jennie.
Jennie: What I work on is somewhat related. I’m an instrumentalist as Lilli said, so I’m an experimental physicist and my job has two parts. Half of my time I spend at ANU, working on technologies that we can use to improve gravitational wave detectors of the future. We’re making them more sensitive so they can see further out into the universe and also can see a wider range of signal frequencies. And so, I work on developing technology that basically tries to distinguish things near the detector that look like gravitational wave sources, but actually aren’t – like a truck breaking near the detector, or just air moving near it.
The other part of my job is to help improve the current detectors. Since we use light in the gravitational wave detector to measure the stretching and squeezing of spacetime, we want to have as much light in there as possible. But, because mirrors and optical systems aren’t perfect, we sometimes lose quite a lot of light, so I look at those diagnostic measurements to try to figure out where we’re losing light.
Now that gravitational waves have already been detected, what is next for the field of gravitational wave research?
Lilli: There are many aspects actually: the 2015 discovery was only the beginning. The 2015 event for two black holes colliding into each other and the famous 2017 event for a two neutron star collision are very highlighted events, but now we are collecting many more of them including some special systems. The large number of detections will bring us important information of the population.
There are other types of gravitational waves. For example, we are looking for very faint gravitational waves from a single spinning neutron star. Neutron stars are not perfect spheres, so when they rotate they can generate very weak gravitational waves, which is something we are searching for. Another example is to probe dark matter using gravitational waves. So, we need more sensitive detectors and more of them in the network.
Moving onto the ANU remote control room, what exactly is a control room and how specifically would the remote control room work?
Jennie: So, a control room is usually a room you have next to a lab with an experiment in it: usually one that needs to be in either a really clean environment, or a slightly dangerous environment. So, you set all the physical parts of it up, so you can obtain electronic signals through to your control room that tell you what is happening. And then you can do all the data-taking and analysis from that control room.
In LIGO, they have the control rooms right next to the detector because they don’t want to be walking around next to the detector while it’s running, as they might introduce noise to it. They also have a whole bank of screens which decipher how each sub-system is working.
About the remote control room: whilst we don’t have a gravitational wave detector in Australia, many Australian scientists have been involved in gravitational wave detection from the start, and so this allows us to participate in improving the detector remotely. So, you can see on some of the screens here, I have a read-out of the different sub-systems and if they’re working correctly. For example, green tells us that they’re observing data and red tells us that they’re down and need to be fixed. And this is all in real time.
That’s really useful, because before we had this, we just had the little screen on our computers, and you had to try to view everything simultaneously and it was quite difficult. My colleagues and I will also occasionally do shifts when the detector is running, because we might have to call up people in other countries. If there’s an exciting gravitational wave event, we sometimes need to announce things to other astronomers, so they can point their telescopes to certain parts of the sky.
Lilli: Although it’s a ‘remote’ control room, you can still control some of the sub-systems of the detector. It’s just that we need to be very careful, especially during observation. There will be someone in charge in the real control room, and we can collaborate with them. The advantage of having the remote control room is that it makes it much easier for Australian colleagues, as we are not close to the detector, but we can read off the real-time information in a much more convenient way, on the other side of the world.
So, the detector isn’t always on all the time?
Jennie: There’s a trade-off between the physicists who work on improving it, and the astronomers who want to collect data using it. If you improve the sensitivity, you’re more likely to see really exciting events we haven’t seen before. But if you increase the time the detector is on for, you’re also more likely to see more events. So, there are sometimes periods where we’re not touching the detector for around 18 months, and periods where there is no data collection for a year, and maintenance and upgrading occurs.
From a bigger perspective, what role is Australia and ANU playing in the further research of gravitational waves?
Lilli: Australia is one of the major collaborators in the large international LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA collaboration. There is a large group here working on gravitational wave astrophysics and detector science. These days, Australian scientists also want to propose and work towards building an Australian detector in the future, which is pretty exciting.
Right now, we are also thinking about the next generation detectors – like what kind of design and technology is needed that can give us a one-order of magnitude increase in sensitivity, which can get us much deeper into the universe. Australian colleagues are working on both the existing science of gravitational waves, but also the future.
Jennie: In the past, Australia has developed sub-systems which are now used in the detector, contributing mirrors for example. Also, Lilli is in charge of the calibration group for LIGO, and that’s just an example, but we have a lot of staff in Australia who are leading some aspect of the LIGO scientific collaboration’s research. We’ve also been instrumental in the design of something called the Squeezer which is used in LIGO to improve its sensitivity, making the detectors the quantum instruments that they are.
Lilli: Regarding astrophysics and data analysis, there are quite a few large groups from different Australian universities within OzGrav working on the data being collected these days. A lot of studies are carried out in Australia, but we also work very closely with international colleagues.
What are some benefits of these large-scale projects, e.g. do they help bring countries closer together and encourage international cooperation?
Lilli: I think yes, definitely. These days, it’s getting difficult to do small narrow research projects by yourself. With projects like gravitational wave detectors, you have large instruments, and that involves many different aspects: you need to work with engineers on different sub-systems, theoretical physicists to understand how the astrophysics work, software engineers and data analysts for dealing with huge amounts of data, and also astronomers who do different kinds of follow-up observations. All these people are playing important roles, and they come from different countries, different parts of the world. Close collaboration is critical.
Jennie: I think it’s really useful to have these big projects, because any falling out between countries can get in the way. It also definitely broadened my horizons, as I’m from Scotland, which isn’t as multicultural. Without science, I definitely wouldn’t have travelled and experienced different cultures as much.
Last question, what’s your advice for students looking to get into this field or just interested in your research?
Lilli: I think there are lots of chances for students to talk to us and do small projects. If they’re really interested there are lots of ways to get into the field. We do lots of summer/winter projects and we also teach undergraduate courses, where we discuss gravitational waves at a more basic level. Many students are interested, and we have extended discussions and they come to us for small projects or Honours and end up staying for PhD.
Jennie: I think definitely the best way is just to email someone who works in the fields. Academics love students being interested in their research, otherwise they wouldn’t be working at a university and teaching. I’m really happy whenever a student asks me, and I think that’s how I got involved in the field too.
Lilli: Yes, definitely talk to academics and lecturers in the field if you’re interested.
Jennie: And I think that’s the same in all areas of science as well, people are super keen to tell you about their research, you just have to ask them.
Photograph of some of the screens in the control room.
Dr Jennie Wright (left) and Dr Lilli Sun (right) in the remote control room.
A huge thank you to Dr Lilli Sun and Dr Jennie Wright for taking the time to do an interview and for so generously sharing their knowledge.
Comments Off on Eight Years Later: Schmidt’s Legacy
On the last day of the mid-semester break, campus is quiet when we sit down with Brian Schmidt. The brown brick Chancellery building is not a hub of student activity, and as we walk over it appears a bit like ANU’s own Battersea power station. Inside, it has been done up in traditional Australian colours: rusty red, muted orange, yellow here and there, brown wood panelling, and a soft sense of beige. As we wait in the lobby, the building feels a bit empty, except for when someone walks through and jumps into the elevator.
The tranquillity is pierced, but not broken, by ANU’s departing Vice-Chancellor and Nobel laureate, Brian Schmidt. He is not loud, but passionate, and he has a lot to say on a lot of things. But most notably, he is an arm-waver. As he speaks, every concept is given a corresponding gesture. Dwelling on the aim of an inclusive community, he swings his arms out wide, and when he waves off criticism about large capital purchases, he points to where the two purchases sit, beyond the office and the gum trees outside.
In February this year, at his State of the University speech, Schmidt announced that this year would be his last in the role and that he will be returning to research and teaching. It is hard to know if Schmidt’s status as a cultural icon comes from who he is, or from his last name, which has proved endlessly punnable for ANU students.
Having spent eight years in the top full-time position at the University, he is tired of the work.
When we ask him about his pay, which is less than most other Vice-Chancellors in the country, he is clear that he would never be a Vice-Chancellor at another university, and that he did this for the ANU. Of course, he is still paid in the ballpark of $500,000. He argues there would be a “disequilibrium” if he were paid less than the people he hires, and the people he hires are paid around that much.
Schmidt is distinctly American as well. Listening to this thick accent while tall gum trees sway outside, with classic Canberra pollen in the air, feels slightly anachronistic. It extends beyond his accent though. When he speaks of his aims as Vice-Chancellor, it is about putting ANU in the same league as other word-class institutions. The first that comes to him is Harvard. When he discusses inclusion on campus, he does so in a distinctly American liberal tone: disagreeing with what may be said, but defending people’s right to say it.
As we begin to ask Schmidt about his time at the ANU, the first thing that becomes apparent is his candour.
He wants to talk about the areas where the ANU is not doing well.
We open by asking him if he is excited to return to a quieter pace of life, and he is quick to describe the job as relentless, throwing his life out of balance. There is, he says, a lot of unpleasantness to it. To explain further, he uses what sounds like a frequent anecdote: 20,000 people come to the ANU everyday, and most people work 20,000 days in their life, meaning that everyday is bound to be the best day of one person’s life and the worst day of someone else’s. And he estimates they deal with one out of ten people who are having the worst day of their life. Throughout the interview he returns to the issue of sexual assault, and it seems he sometimes has to address events like this. He admits that this includes executing the procedural fairness of the university.
The Long View
With a mammoth institution like the ANU, it is difficult to know what gives it momentum and what can push it to change course. Schmidt says his focus has always been on students, despite the expectation that as an academic he would focus on research. In his eyes, his impact has been to give the campus and the University’s research “the foundation of a vibrant student community,” including a distinctly Australian undergraduate experience. ANU, he believes, may lack the “gold plating” of Harvard, but he maintains that
“if you get a degree from ANU, it’s as good as a Harvard degree.”
Schmidt attended Harvard for his postgraduate and then taught at the ANU, so he is better placed to comment on the two universities than most. But ANU did slip this year in the Global QS rankings, suggesting that the gold plating may not be the only thing ANU is missing. Schmidt has clearly thought about this or at least had this discussion before. He rejects the methodology of rankings, like QS or Times Higher Education, arguing they don’t reflect the ANU’s mission. He says the focus should be on students’ experiences on campus, and that Quilt surveys show that ANU students have good experiences on campus, better than most other Australian universities. He also questions the methodology, asking rhetorically how something like QS can measure satisfaction better than Quilt. The value of ANU lies in breaking people out of their “high school clique” and exposing them to the diversity of Australia. Schmidt believes on-campus life and ANU scholarships and programs achieves this.
Some ANU students may reject this characterisation of the on-campus experience. ANU has one of the lowest enrollment rates for low socioeconomic students, and the interstate move for many students presents a cost barrier not often found at other major universities. On-campus rent is itself more expensive than off-campus, further alienating the people who Schmidt wants to include. But, this may also reflect the growing cost of tertiary education in Australia, as higher inflation means that HECS has now become an important, if not crippling, debt for many young people.
The government, in Schmidt’s eyes, is not doing enough to support inclusivity and diversity across the sector, but to him ANU is doing more than most,
in an area where it matters more.
When he talks about inclusion, Schmidt means more than just making students feel included. He chastises the idea that certain people should not be allowed to speak at the ANU, and he is clearly frustrated when he brings up the example of Michele Bullock’s address. Bullock, now the Reserve Bank Governor, gave an address on campus which was briefly interrupted by students who said that if unemployment had to increase to reduce inflation, Bullock’s job should be the first to go. Holding an enlarged Jobseeker application form, the students walked past the stage, yelling with a megaphone, before being escorted out. As he explains his philosophy on free speech, he echoes historian Evelyn Hall’s famous quote, often attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Schmidt’s line of thinking fits into the broader issue of free speech on university campuses across the anglophone world. In Britain, the US and here, many controversial speakers have had events brought to a standstill by students protesting. The subject matter of the speakers has ranged, from Malcolm Turnbull at the University of Sydney, to transphobic speakers and academics. Schmidt wants students to ask hard questions, not stand up and shout, or to protest outside the event. Of course, a student asking a question gets probably half a minute of airtime, someone like Bullock gets the full hour.
More Recently
Serving as Vice-Chancellor for eight years – two four year terms – Schmidt has gone round the block more than a few times. His second term, though, was dominated by COVID-19, which presented a short-term and a long-term challenge. With one of the largest on-campus populations in the country, ANU administered its own lockdown. This presented immediate issues, from food provision for students living with communal kitchens or eateries, as well as the money spent on Rapid Antigen Tests and personal protective equipment. Part of the ANU lockdown involved Senior Residents distributing food to rooms, something they were not paid for and which led to protests, especially from Burton and Garran Hall. He noted the pay freeze agreed to in early 2020 as an example of a hard decision he had to make about the University’s staff: had staff not agreed to it, he says he would have had to make 90 more staff redundant.
In the long term, COVID-19 tightened the belt of ANU, and Schmidt has found that the financial constrictions stemming from the pandemic have impacted everything they do. “It’s one thing,” he says, “just being flat, but
it’s another thing having pressure to become smaller and… it’s not an easy place to be squeezed.”
There is, for him, no easy way to make things work. With staff enterprise bargaining having concluded this year, one of the centre points of the debate was how much the ANU could afford to pay.
Schmidt, from his own description, was not a diehard unionist before he became Vice-Chancellor, he only took note of union opposition to hiring young researchers, chiefly because he was a young researcher. However, he now sees the value in having the views and values of staff represented, because otherwise “there’s no one to talk to and you can’t actually get a sensible agreement.” But, he follows this up with an admonishment of what he calls “the theatre of the strike…
call it whatever you want, it’s theatre from my perspective.”
He doesn’t see the cause for the half-day strike, which, with around 300 participants, was one of the largest protests on campus in the last few years. He claims that it didn’t matter in the end, as the bargaining ended up where he wanted it to, although he would have taken the first deal: a payrise of about 16% over five years (compared to the 18% in the final deal). He believes that on casualisation, he was offering terms that were “far more exciting” than the language “that the Melbourne union office was using.”
Key Issues
Another recurring challenge for him, and for university administration across the country, has been sexual assault and harassment (SASH). Last year, the National Student Safety Survey (NSSS) found that ANU had the second-highest rate of assault in the nation, and the highest of all Group of Eight universities. This year saw the establishment of the Student Safety and Wellbeing Committee (SSWC), which Schmidt points out is the only committee of its stature – reporting directly to ANU Council – in the country. Last year the University also established the Student Safety and Wellbeing Team to provide assistance for students and to walk them through the often quite complex processes of the University. These are two key student demands that the ANU has met, and Schmidt is now “much more comfortable” with the position and work that the University is doing on SASH.
Sexual assault in the university sector is more likely to happen the more people live on campus, and Schmidt both understands that ANU has substantial work to do, but also thinks that ANU’s on-campus nature contributes to its poor performance. However, this is not an excuse for him, and he believes it only increases the University’s responsibility. With the SSWC reporting to the Council and having both students and sexual violence experts sit on it, it is likely that ANU is entering a new era in reform around SASH. Whether the University takes up the committee’s recommendations, will be the work of the next Vice-Chancellor. Earlier this year, Woroni reported on the ANU’s failure to progress its Disability Access Plan; it remains to be seen if the University has learnt from its mistakes.
Another alleged mistake the ANU, and Schmidt personally, are often charged with is the purchase of large capital assets to be developed in the future. In 2021, he oversaw the purchase of a $17 million disused bus stop from the ACT, and this year he announced another similarly large purchase of a parking lot to build a new health sciences precinct on. Schmidt denies that the purchases are too expensive, noting that the cost of the acquisitions are amortised to be paid over a number of years and that the land will be used to realise the University’s long-term goals. He also says the purchases were a drop in the ocean compared to the pay rises the NTEU demanded.
The conversation next turned to the ANU’s involvement in AUKUS, which Schmidt denies: “It’s news to me.” Schmidt made a point not often discussed by students which is that the ANU, as the national university, ought to meet the educational needs of government policy. Hence, if there is to be a nuclear-powered submarine program, and Schmidt does not express his views on the alliance itself, then the ANU should provide the requisite education. It’s a reason which doesn’t seem to always be applied evenly at the University, which attempted to cut its Bachelor of Public Policy (BPP) last year, a degree which surely aligns to the government’s interests, even if broader society may not care. Of course, the BPP does not map onto any specific government policy, but one can imagine that if any university is to teach it, it should be the ANU, along similar lines to Schmidt’s thinking.
Education and research into nuclear energy and nuclear-powered submarines is also part of successful nuclear stewardship, Schmidt believes. This argument is a bit more familiar to students, with speakers at the student union arguing that there is a space for nuclear research. However, the controversy revolves around the conditions of any AUKUS-related scholarship that the Department of Defence offers. Will recipients be expected to work on AUKUS submarines, and what steps will be taken to ensure the education can’t be easily applied to nuclear armament? Without more details, these are moot questions, and we will have to wait until the scholarship program is formally announced.
No one person can accomplish everything, so what would Schmidt like to have achieved as Vice-Chancellor but never did? An academic overlay in on-campus residences, something he promises he’ll work on after his term, and hence tells us to stay tuned for. The second aim is more equity scholarships. The goal “is that every person who needs a scholarship in first year should get one.” ANU has a growing asset pool, and it may be that, like Harvard, Schmidt wants to fund equity scholarships from this pool. He doesn’t pull his punches though, and says the federal government could do more to fund tertiary education.
Looking Forward
On Tuesday the 26th August, ANU announced that Professor Genevieve Bell would be its 13th Vice-Chancellor. She will be the first woman in the position, and Schmidt mentioned his passion for a more equitable hiring as Vice-Chancellor. Bell, like Schmidt, comes from the ANU, however she has worked as the Director of the School of Cybernetics, a more administrative role than academic. But, her experience in computing and anthropology makes her well-poised to lead the University in the age of AI, or at least the age of paranoia around AI.
Schmidt’s advice for Bell is clear: “Get out and talk to people, talk to students, include the students in the decision making that affects them.” At the conclusion of our interview, Schmidt mentioned that he doesn’t want to be an “alien overlord” believing that Vice-Chancellors must be “a part of the community, not an alien overlord.” Schmidt can be seen around Kambri fairly frequently, including in the queue at Daily Market. Having provided the name of ANU Schmidtposting, the ANU community’s largest online community, he is in a sense, instantly recognisable, and understood to be a part of the ANU. Whether he seems like a member of the ANU community is up to the reader.
Comments Off on ANU Arts Revue: Sending Brian Back to Kansas
Arts Revue opens with a joke. Not a skit, a single joke. The keyboard player gets up, walks to centre stage, and announces that he’s going to tell a joke that’s ‘okay to say’, because he heard it on the radio.
“How does a pornstar get paid?
Income.”
(Get it, because it sounds like in-cum?)
It wasn’t a bad joke – it was fine, it got a laugh – but we were left confused. Who was this guy, who didn’t appear in a single skit after his one joke? Why was this the opener? Were they stalling while they sorted out technical issues? Did he just really want to be a part of it, while also playing his keyboard?
Arts Revue left all of these questions unanswered, but it gave us a great show to make up for it. The just-fine pornstar joke is thankfully followed by an excellent ‘Life is a Highway’ parody, ‘Life is a Parkes Way’, full of jokes about the perils of driving in Canberra. This was the first of many solid parodies. A special shoutout to ‘Love is an Open Door/There’s Vomit on the Floor’, an ode to a scenario many a Senior Resident has faced on a Thursday night, and a long but funny and oddly heartwarming skit where the Phantom of the Opera joins the Backstreet Boys. Though these were all good, the highlight had to be the number about society keeping Miss Piggy and Kermit apart. The costuming – a frog suit, a dress and a cheap wig – was exactly what you’d expect, and Georgia Mcculloch’s performance as Kermit was especially moving. From Kermit to Brian Schmidt’s American accent to the practised cadence of a newsreader, Mcculloch’s unique talent for impressions – ie. ‘doing funny voices’ – meant she never once broke character.
If a powerful, poignant anthem about the enduring power of frog-pig sex doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, then Arts Revue provided plenty of ANU-related comedy for the average revue enjoyer. A breakup between ANU and Schmidt, where his Nobel Prize is the other woman, captured the heartbreak of Schmidt’s departure. Even the Devil himself, accompanied by a grovelling minion he had an insane amount of sexual tension with, visited to announce his plans for a new and improved ANU. These ranged from not-that-bad-maybe-an-improvement-actually (sinking Wamburun into the depths of Hell) to downright evil (quadruple-factor authentication for every sign-on).
Not all of the skits were this good. A few were just drawn-out puns. A woman goes to the doctor about a lump on her arm; it’s Taylor Cyst, a cyst that plays Taylor Swift songs. Bird watchers make jokes about seeing nice pairs of tits. The latter does get points for walking right up to my co-writer and implying they had thrush, though. Excellent audience participation, almost as good as the bit where they turned off all the lights and ran a guided meditation, lulling us all into a false sense of security so that they could steal our belongings. Thankfully everything was returned after the show – no need to press charges.
Charlie Joyce Thompson deserves a special mention for bringing an extra laugh to every skit he starred in. His delivery, accents, acting and improv were fantastic and he had us keeling over, whether he was playing Miss Piggy or a South African High Court judge.
We saw Arts Revue on the opening night, so we were ready to forgive any tech issues. Which is good, because there were a fair few of them: lights going up randomly during scenes that were supposed to be dark (at least we think so), Taylor Swift playing during the devil’s speech and the wrong Powerpoint playing during a student presentation skit – somehow, this last one was still kind of funny.
Nonetheless, Arts Revue proved a funny, well-coordinated, well-acted performance. Its strengths were its actors and its parodies and musical numbers, each one somehow better than the last. It ended with a bang: a parody of ‘I’m Just Ken’ to the tune of “I’m Just Brian” and mashed up with even more Backstreet Boys. A fantastic way to the end night, and a charming and funny end to the revue season.
I grew up in the Western Suburbs of Sydney, a place not many ANU students are from. Looking back on high school there, even though it wasn’t the best period in my life, it made me feel like I somewhat belonged. There was always a new club for me to join and I had a great group of friends, who never made me feel isolated for the things I found interesting. Maybe it was because of all those American college movies I had watched growing up, and all those YouTube videos I had watched in anticipation, but I believed that university would be the place where I became more confident and grew into myself. I assumed university would make me feel like I completely belonged.
I had two weeks of the ‘University experience’ before COVID-19 hit, but it was nothing like I expected. That first week of uni, I remember printing out my resume and immediately applying for every job in sight. I assumed every student was doing the same. I was sorely mistaken.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, only 40% of people in tertiary education are working part-time. I was surprised when I found out that some students at ANU have never had to work, and will not have to work throughout their entire degree, to take care of themselves. This made me feel like an imposter at ANU, acutely out of place at such a prestigious university.
My first tutorial at ANU also made me feel like I was out of place. The way tutors speak is something that still perplexes me to this day. I felt like I was sitting in a Master’s program for International Relations, not my first ever uni class. I believe lots of ANU students have felt this, as I often see it plastered all over ANU Confessions. Some lecturers do not know how to teach and they can often make the course feel inaccessible. It became even more difficult over COVID-19 when everything was online; it was even harder to learn. For example, I took a French Introduction course, thinking it would be a pretty simple class. I had taken a little French in high school and thought I would have an advantage, – I was wrong. The lecturer attempted to teach a whole year of high school French in a few weeks!
There seems to be a pervasive expectation at ANU that University is our only priority, and ANU continually fails to take into account the complex and busy lives of its students. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, in 2017 – 2018, 15% of people ages 18-24 had experienced high levels of psychological distress. With the impact of COVID-19, I know that this would have increased. As a student who works part-time and suffers from psychological distress, I can attest that the help provided by ANU is minuscule. Because of this, it is so easy to feel like you do not belong, or feel out of place. That first year of university impacted how I saw myself. The thing about imposter syndrome is, everything you feel about yourself is tipped on its head. The way you perceive yourself and the people around you is completely different. You internalise it and feel like you are the only one feeling this way – as if you are the only person who is in the wrong place.
Imposter syndrome also makes you feel like you are in a constant race to keep up, and ANU reinforces that toxic narrative.
Have you ever noticed that most tutorials seem to be during the middle of the day, making it difficult to work and study at the same time? Some lecturers, even after COVID-19, still expect students to go to their lectures in-person and you may even lose participation points if you do not attend. I do not have time to go to a three-hour lecture on a Monday morning, especially when it’s a day I work. ANU perpetuates the pressure to keep up with your peers, you need to graduate when everyone else graduates, you need to get HDs, and you need to be prefect, mentally and physically
When you break them down, though, none of these goals make sense. When it comes to graduating ‘on time’, people change their degrees, I know, shocking! When you do that, you often end up extending the time you need to study before graduating. Many people also do fewer courses to work or take care of their mental health, which also extends their degrees. It feels like to finish your degree perfectly in three or four years would mean that you didn’t work, and never had a mental breakdown, ever!
Moving on to pressure to get all D’s or HDs, not all courses are the same, also shocking! Unless you have done the course already, you do not know what to expect. Your tutor might be a harsh marker and maybe the last exam is really hard for no reason. When you take a look again at these societal expectations that make everyone feel like they are doing something wrong, you realise that they do not make any sense. Many students take time off here and there, many students are working multiple jobs to afford to stay in Canberra and many students are simply trying to pass their courses and survive.
The one thing imposter syndrome has taught me was that it is easy to idealise everyone around you and look down on yourself, what is more difficult is to treat yourself with kindness and remember that this path in life is your own and no one else’s. Tertiary systems also need to look at every student as an individual and provide more financial and mental resources. While I do not believe that uni will ever get easier, especially if ANU continues to forget about the welfare of their students, I do believe that the communities students have created, such as ANU Confessions and ANU Schmidtposting will continue to bring us comfort, so we never fully feel alone.
Comments Off on Editorial | Support your teachers, support the strikes
On Thursday of Bush Week, the 27th of July, ANU staff will strike for better pay, working conditions, and to reverse the casualisation so rampant in the tertiary sector. The students of this University have an obligation to stand in solidarity with staff: we must support our teachers, we must support the strikes.
One of the most important jobs in society is educating future generations. And yet, our society pays the most socially useful jobs, some of the lowest wages, and lecturers and tutors are no different. They are underpaid, under-supported and overworked. Burdened not by our assessments, questions, and debates, but by the ever-increasing administrative work of the University. They are stretched thin, and to add insult to injury, they are screwed over by the ANU.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has brought several key demands to the bargaining table. Some have seen success, as Woroni has previously reported. But, where university management remains most intransigent is exactly where change is needed most. Our teachers deserve to be paid more, more because of how valuable their work is, more because of how difficult it is, and more because of the cost-of-living crisis that they must struggle through.
The ANU recently revised its previous paltry pay rise. Despite the overall increase this still includes an administrative pay rise from earlier this year, and ignores the pay rise due from 2022. The University has remained stubbornly opposed to giving casual employees – often fellow undergraduate and postgraduate students marking assessments and teaching tutorials – clear paths to permanent work. Casual research assistants are often paid from research funding grants, and the dilemma between claiming the full hours worked and eating into the research budget of a supposedly research-based university is real. Such casual work is rife with exploitation.
Capitalist ideology preaches the ultimate freedom of the market. The ultimate freedom of the worker is to strike for better conditions, to stand in solidarity and withhold the most valuable part of the production process: human labour. But capitalism does not practise what it preaches, and industrial action is increasingly curtailed, while corporate freedom – from profiteering to monopolisation and downright fraud – remains untouchable. In this climate, every strike reiterates the importance and power of workers, even as those workers are straw manned as “intellectual elites.” ANU staff should strike, so that they can reassert their power as the foundation of this University.
Students are familiar by now with the paradox of apparently being the customer of the University, and yet constantly having their demands rejected, their voices ignored. When we stand in solidarity with staff, we remind the University that it is not run by vice-chancellors or deputy vice-chancellors who want to cut degrees. We remind them that hardworking teachers and students are the lifeblood of this University. The relationship between the student and the teacher is the nexus of learning and education, this relationship cannot exist when teachers cannot live off their wages.
Our University’s status is slipping. We’re no longer amongst the top-ranking universities in Australia, and our research funding has fallen, driving lower revenues. Our University increasingly leans into predatory, exploitative systems of revenue generation. From dodgy financing deals leading to drastic rent-increases to prosecuting students over parking fines, it is creating a conflict between the institution and the person, whether they be student or staff. Higher pay and better support for staff is going to improve learning outcomes, not spending $17 million on a health precinct when the researchers to work there are not paid enough.
The corporatisation of the University goes hand in hand with poorer working standards. As managerial and finance-sector thinking has infiltrated the tertiary sector, staff have seen themselves lumped with more and more administrative work. Even as the genuinely helpful administrative work, such as special considerations and accessibility concerns, is still considered voluntary.
Woroni is a proudly independent media outlet, but on this, we agree with ANUSA: staff working conditions are student learning conditions. If we won’t stand in solidarity with teachers out of principle, then we can at least support them knowing that the better paid they are and the more flexible their work is, the better it will be for us.
Take just one example: assessment marking. Often, casual staff are paid per assessment marked, or paid per hour with the expectation that they mark a certain number of assessments in that time. Both practices drive markers to spend less time on each assessment, increasing the likelihood of unfair marks on students. The NTEU demand for pathways out of casualisation can help ensure markers are not pressured and exploited, and that students’ assessments are not rushed through.
And in turn, solidarity begets solidarity. Rent for next year has increased again, meaning that the cheapest student accommodation now exceeds the average rent one person pays living in a three bedroom sharehouse. We are seeing continued cuts in degrees and changes to the curriculum that remove the flexibility so many students desire. ANU has the highest sexual assault rate of any Group of Eight university. If we stand with staff, they will stand with us at our next protest. Stand with no one, and no one stands with you.
It is unclear how the staff strikes will progress from Bush Week. In other, more corporate universities like the University of Sydney, the strikes continued for months. Since the ANU NTEU branch announced its intent to strike, the ANU has moved forward on some issues. But, if management digs its heel in, we may see strikes throughout Semester 2. We may see picket lines and multi-day strikes and as frustrating as some may find these, it is our obligation to support better standards for educators. Staff will already be under pressure to compromise and give in to the University’s demands. Students have an obligation to stand with staff, to remove the guilt-tripping and emotional argument and say that no, strikes do not negatively impact students, not in the long run.
Support your teachers, turn out to the rally on the 27th of July. Don’t complain when class is cancelled because of industrial action, let your striking teachers know you support them, that you want this too. Remind the University who really matters.
Support the strikes.
The students of this University have an obligation to stand in solidarity with staff: we must support our teachers, we must support the strikes.
Comments Off on Interview with ANU alum, director and producer of The Giants, Rachael Antony
Few figures have had as powerful an impact on the course of Australian history as Bob Brown.
Currently showing in cinemas, The Giants is a feature length biopic directed and produced by ANU alumn Rachael Antony, exploring the life and accomplishments of Bob Brown alongside a stunning portrayal of the history of the Tasmanian forest and landscape. The documentary reveals his journey from doctor in Tasmania, to eventual leader of the first Greens party, and hero of the Australian environmentalism movement.
The Giants skilfully traces the achievements of Bob Brown as champion and protector of the Tasmanian forest and Franklin River, beautifully interwoven with the lifecycle and stories of the forest itself. While much of Bob’s life has been subject of public interest and knowledge, The Giants takes viewers behind the curtain. The film explores Bob’s private world and the important figures who have continually supported him behind the scenes. Showing the parallel life stories of Bob and the forest he treasured, side by side, The Giants invites viewers to come to know the trees as Bob did; wise custodians of the land and complex beings with their own history to tell.
Seeking to both entertain and educate, The Giants explores the horrors of clear felling and logging that plague the Tasmanian forest. While tracing the journey of Brown’s courageous fight to save both the trees and the Franklin River, viewers are reminded of the willing ignorance of political figures against whom Bob fought, showing (as if Australians needed further reminding) the sheer greed and recklessness of private interest and political parties’ historic, blatant disregard for Australia’s natural treasures. This destruction continues to this day. I suggest readers check out the Bob Brown Foundation Instagram to follow the journey of Lenny who is currently attached in protest to a cable logger, protecting the forest around her from logging, which is a critical habitat for Swift parrots.
Breathtaking drone shots, archival footage, and intriguing animations work together to create a stunning cinemascape for viewers, bringing the trees to life and immersing viewers in the world that Bob fought so hard to protect. For aspiring activists, those interested in the origins of Australian politics, or any lover of the natural world, The Giants is a worthwhile watch.
I sat down with Rachel to chat about making The Giants, the inspiration behind the film, and why more people should put Tasmania on their travel lists.
To start off with, I’d love to know a little bit about you and your background, and how you came to be directing and producing this documentary?
Long story short, I studied in Canberra. I studied anthropology and politics. And even though I didn’t work in either of those fields, I found that they were really quite helpful because I think both anthropology and politics ask you to question your assumptions and to ask questions of the status quo, and that’s really the starting point of any storytelling, I think. Later I studied journalism at RMIT. So I started out as a writer, and then I guess as time has evolved, and video has evolved, I’ve branched into different mediums and worked in TV and online video.
Originally the idea was to get people off screens and get them engaged into events, but based around the screens, I guess. So one of the things that came out of that was we wanted to do this big event for the anniversary of Cathy Freeman’s win at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. So we want to do that in 2020, and then what happened was everybody loved this idea, but we couldn’t get any money. Then we ended up getting some funding from ABC to make a documentary and that was the best possible thing that could have happened because September 2020, everybody was locked down, stuck at home watching television. Yeah. So that’s how that came about.
So then once we finished Freeman, I guess we were thinking about telling stories about people whose stories are bigger than themselves. Because I think, while people can be fascinating individually, the stories that they tell in terms of the way that their life is, and the messages, the bigger that is, the more compelling it is.
We were thinking about other people who we felt were really interesting and to be honest, really only one name came up and that was Bob Brown.
I think one thing that we were quite concerned about was the messages we’re getting about climate change. We have a kid ourselves, so we have this very tangible link to the next generation. Which is not to say that we wouldn’t have cared otherwise, because we did. Then of course, with the bushfires, what we saw was a massive amount of our native forests destroyed. And then soon after that, you know, while native animals were being pushed to the brink of extinction, we saw state logging operations coming in and conduct salvage logging, so removing old dead trees from the forest that – if they had just been left – would have served as habitat because various species of birds or possums can live in dead trees, and it gets them off the ground away from predators.
At this point, we just felt this was taking things too far, humans will never have enough. We’ll never say ‘no, we’re done now’. It’s always about more, things are really out of balance. We thought ‘this is crazy’, and around the same time we have been getting really inspired by some of the reading we had been doing. So we’ve been reading the Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard, and they’re making us start thinking differently about forests and trees and also realising how crucial they were.
We made this film pretty quickly, so it’s hard to remember exactly how it all came together. But what we came up with was telling the story of Bob Brown, intertwined with the life of trees. The reason we did that is because we felt that by embedding the forest into the film from the outset, it sort of explained Bob’s worldview and why he’s worked so hard to save these forests and why we should all care about this as well. We also wanted to show the majesty and beauty of these places. Keeping in mind that, you know, Australia is one of the few places left on earth that does have primary forest. In Europe, they basically have no primary forest. So this is a very long story, but um, an answer to your question ‘how did it end up producing directing?’ well, a whole lot of life events.
One of my favourite parts of the film was the way it wove together Bob’s personal life with the hidden story of the trees and embedded his story within the story of the forest. I got the impression of so much richness and depth to Bob’s life. How did you decide which aspects of Bob’s personal life you were going to kind of focus on?
So we decided we would tell the story of Bob, intertwine it with a life of trees, everybody said that was a good idea. Nobody said ‘you’re crazy, how are you going to put Bob’s life into 45 minutes and the trees into 45 minutes?’ And so the answer to that is, we didn’t.
The film was at an hour and fifty three minutes, we could not get it any shorter. Our first cut was three hours, and we hadn’t even finished making the film. So to answer that, we really had to be quite brutal. I guess, because we had intertwined the life of trees, we had meeting points for both. So that gave us a trajectory, from you know, seedling, childhood, to sapling, maturity, and grandfather elder, if you like.
So we knew where we were going, then we needed to figure out which things to put in, which not. In the end, we had to get rid of a lot of stuff that’s actually pretty fascinating. Bob tried to pass gun control in Tasmania, years before Port Arthur happened and both Liberal and Labour parties shot it down, figuratively speaking. We didn’t put in the fact that he and another bunch of environmentalists were sued for $20 million by the Gunns wood chipping company in Tasmania.
We didn’t put in the fact that Bob once took out a mortgage to pay the ransom of an Australian pirate who had been kidnapped in Somalia.
So I know this is so much more, so what we had to do is this broad brushstroke story that connected as much as possible with those key convictions. He talks about optimism, he talks about defiance and he talks about compassion. So we found those stories, the ones that told those stories most strongly, or pointed into the direction of the forest, are the ones that we went to. So it was really quite a heartbreaking process. Also, obviously Paul [Bob’s partner] is a central character, but I’m sure if you’ve seen the films, you know that at every step there’s this amazing woman, right in there, doing exactly the same thing, he doesn’t do it alone. Each one of those women has a whole backstory. Basically we could have made a mini series, but we didn’t, we’ve made a film. So yeah, so the answer is, we just took the bits that told the story the best, and then we had to kill our darlings, so to speak.
Obviously we were always going to talk about his relationship with Paul, and then that became a slightly bigger part of the story, because while we always wanted to present that essentially as a love story, obviously it was complicated by the legal and social context of the time, so we needed to provide some background to that. So we have Paul, who was involved in gay law reform in Tasmania, tell that story about the movement that was headed up by people like Rodney Croome. So that did become a little bit bigger, but I think it also became stronger because of it.
When you were envisioning the documentary, how were you hoping people would feel walking away from it? Was there something in particular that you wanted people to feel or be influenced towards?
We felt Bob was an interesting character because he’s a baby boomer, but his interest in his message is so contemporary. We felt that a lot of the dialogue around climate change has pitted one generation against the other: the generation that’s old and has benefited from everything and stuffed it up for the younger generation. And a lot of that is true, but not entirely true. We felt that the best way to tackle these issues was in a cross generational way, whether it’s on action or voting, or whatever it is. We thought that Bob, because he’s an older person, but he speaks to younger audiences, we felt that he was potentially a unifying person in some ways. What we wanted people to feel was wonder and marvel for our forest and our natural heritage, which is so extraordinary. Most Australians know about the Redwoods, but I don’t think many people know about the Eucalyptus regnans. People would be horrified if they thought ‘oh, you would just pulp the redwoods for toilet paper’, but that’s apparently okay in Australia!
But it’s not, because 70% to 80% of people want native logging stopped, they just don’t understand what it really entails. People think it’s been used to make fine furniture, but it’s not, only 2% is used for long term wood products, 60% of it is left on the forest floors, and it’s set on fire. It transforms from a carbon storage facility of a forest to carbon emissions. It’s just insanity.
So we want people to feel a wonderment about the forest, but we also wanted them to feel hopeful and galvanised, if that’s possible. We didn’t want to make a depressing documentary. We can’t watch depressing documentaries and definitely can’t spend two and a half years making one. So while some of the subject material was challenging, I think overall it’s a hopeful film, and I think overall, Bob is a hopeful person and you do need hope right now.
We just need to stay focused on the idea that if we are hopeful and if we act, then change will come. And as Bob says, it was a long campaign to save the Franklin, eighteen months before it was saved, it looked like it was doomed. So eighteen months isn’t a long time, it’s not even two years. So what we think is, let’s talk about native forest logging now and let’s finish it now. Because if we’ve got money for submarines and football stadiums and tax cuts for very rich people, then we have money to stop this industry that’s costing us money and to make meaningful action on climate change.
There’s some absolutely stunning shots of the Tasmanian landscape throughout the film. How did you balance trying to get those shots with trying not to disturb or harm the ecosystems and wildlife where you were filming?
We worked with a team called The Tree Projects in Tasmania. They’re professional tree climbers, and they helped to rig cameras high up into the canopy. So the opening shot that you see is not a drone camera. We showed the forest in a number of ways. One was using cameras, one was using drones, and one was 3D scanning of the forest working with an organisation called TerraLuma, at University of Tasmania. Then sending the data to Alex Le Guillou who’s a French animator, and he turned it into point cloud animation. The animation you see in the film is actually an actual tree. So what we did was actually cast three trees like you would do three characters. Eucalyptus regnans, which are amongst the tallest plants from the world; Huon pines, one of the oldest lived and myrtle beech in the Tarkine, which is one the most diversity rich trees. One of the people we spoke to described it as a ‘great barrier reef of trees’ because it’s covered in lichen and algae and stuff. Very interesting trees. So in answer to your question, for instance that tree in the Tarkine, it’s just inside an area near a clear fell. So basically, the Bob Brown foundation stopped them logging it, otherwise it wouldn’t have been there. They’re really taking direct action, using whatever means they have to protect the Tarkine and to protect native forest in Tasmania, as are, you know, groups across Australia. And it’s really thanks to their direct action that we could film that tree, because literally, it’s next in line.
Speaking about some of the other groups that are operating in Australia, while you were making this documentary, I think it was at the same time that Blockade Australia was taking action that was very reminiscent of Bob’s methods, these really direct, not aggressive, but impactful stages of a protest. How do you kind of feel about that? Did it give you any similar hope, reflecting on those young people doing such similar work to what Bob did during his life?
I didn’t think specifically about Blockade Australia, but, obviously, we’re all very well aware of the school strikes and all those other environmental grassroots movements, and also youth movements. At the time, I remember just before COVID-19, when there were these massive street protests, and there was debate over whether kids should be on the street or not, and my personal feeling was always to say “when there’s kids on the street, it’s a symptom that adults haven’t stepped up and done their job, so this is the only means left to them.” They can’t vote, they don’t have other means of power. So for me, it was really a symptom of adult failure. I guess we wanted to contribute to that.
I think that when you think about climate environmentalism, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed. But ultimately, everybody can do something.
When I interviewed Christine Milne, she said something very interesting, which was that environmental movements need everyone, they need people to protest, sometimes they need people to get arrested, but they also need graphic designers or web people. Ultimately, the world just needs people who can just have an environmental frame of mind.
Maybe you can’t protest, but maybe if you’re in health or education or departments, you often have within yourself the power to ask questions to make changes, and these can add up to quite a lot. I think when you look at Bob Brown and all he’s achieved in his life, him being one person alone, but making that decision is just really the fundamental start.
Something I really loved about the film was how it wove archival footage of the protests on the Franklin together with recent footage of Bob Brown. What was the process like of finding that footage?
It was really massive because Bob Brown has basically put on fifty years of activism, so he’s been in the public eye for that time. So, we had an extraordinary amount of material to work with, but that was also the problem as well, because there was so much to work through so we did a number of things. We got a lot of news, archived from the ABC, and probably most of what you see of the Franklin is that, but the more recent Franklin footage was sourced from other places.
One of the reasons why we showed modern footage of the Franklin is that the older footage, I think, fails to capture the beauty because it feels a bit faded and it doesn’t quite have the aesthetic quality of contemporary footage. So we wanted to really show, ‘actually this is how it looks and it is really spectacular’. Also access from the National Library of Australia, they have Bob Brown’s personal archive there, which is again, massive amounts of boxes, and we were able to go through that to get childhood photos and reports, and letters and get up the idea of who was crucially important in his personal life, and then there are a number of documentaries as well that we could source material from. So, let us say that we have an archive producer who basically has this spreadsheet from hell, so it’s a huge job.
When you were going through the process of filming, you said it was over two and a half years. Was there a particular memorable or special moment either with Bob Brown or maybe just with the trees, that stands out to you from your time making the film?
Well, so when I say two and a half years, that’s not filming, that’s doing everything so you know, producing, scripting, and post production everything. We did the shoot in Liffey, at Bob’s farmhouse and it was really, I guess, interesting, because he had talked about this house as like this companion and this friend. So it was interesting to go there and see how it was, and suddenly just to be struck by the warmth of that environment and how beautiful it is. Because you’ve got the farmhouse, you’ve got the mountains, you’ve got the river and all the elements are in place, and I feel like there’s something in that landscape that really balances Bob’s idea, which is like you’ve got this little human space, which is the hut, but there’s space for nature all around it. And that for me sort of encompasses the way he looks at the world. We should take up a little bit of space but let everything else flourish.
What’s interesting is the Tarkine where we filmed, it’s really 30km away from Cradle Mountain National Park, which is one of the biggest tourism draw cards in Tasmania. So you could literally go there and just drive along [to the Tarkine], and that would be like the perfect tourism adventure, but it’s just being logged and Tanya Plibersek is yet to rule on whether that forest will become a toxic waste dump for a Chinese mining company. So really, the more people who go to the Tarkine and talk about it, the better, because this is an absolutely astonishing rainforest and the Bob Brown Foundation has this encampment out there sometimes and you can go and meet people and find out about the place.
When you stand in that forest, it’s weird, it’s like you’re not standing on ground. You’re standing on this sort of spongy surface. It’s like millions of years of organic matter beneath your feet and it’s so quiet, it’s just really unworldly. So I really encourage people to go there, as Bob says, the Tarkine is a very arresting place.
THE GIANTS is now screening at Palace Electric Canberra, find all screenings: https://www.thegiantsfilm.com
There will be a National Day of Action for Native Forests – including Canberra on August 19. Details here: https://defendthegiants.org/events/
Few figures have had as powerful an impact on the course of Australian history as Bob Brown.