Do you remember being an adolescent? Did you wake up on your 13th birthday and feel like everything had suddenly shifted? Acne. Periods. Voice cracks. Mind racing, body changing, 13 was big. It was the year you were made painfully aware of how different girls and boys were. Suddenly, you were told to act differently around the guy you’d been sharing lunch with since kindergarten. 13 was messy: so much happening inside your head and under your skin, and absolutely no manual on how to handle any of it.
I remember the weirdness. I remember boys being loud, rude, sometimes mean, teasing girls for fun. I remember starting to feel self-conscious. But I do not remember animosity. I’ve always thought it was just awkwardness that comes along with growing up, coming to terms with ourselves and others, nothing more.
Unfortunately, 13 isn’t what it used to be anymore.
And this is what Netflix’s 4-part series is all about.
Adolescence is no murder mystery. From the very first few minutes, we know that this 13-year-old boy has killed a girl not much older than him. What’s the show about, then? you might wonder. What prompts this review? you might think. It’s about the why.
Why do men hate women?
Why do YOUNG BOYS hate girls?
How is this hate developed?
I wish we didn’t have to ask these questions. I wish we didn’t have to sit with the weight of it. I wish, on watching this show, this review and our thoughts could end at the brilliance of the craft: the staggering performances, the haunting cinematography, and the technical feat of shooting each episode in a single take. I wish we could just fixate on how Owen Cooper (Jamie) delivers a performance so raw it makes your stomach turn; his first-ever role, and somehow already one of the most chilling portrayals of a child on screen. I wish we could talk only about the eerie stillness of certain scenes, the razor-sharp pacing, the sound design that pulls you into bedrooms, classrooms, and silences you didn’t expect to sit in.
But alas, that would be a bit of a cop-out, wouldn’t it? Because this show doesn’t let you look away. It doesn’t let you retreat into aesthetics. It drags you, gently at first, then all at once, into the dark corners of the internet where kids get lost. Where a search for confidence turns into content on “alpha energy”, and before you know it, your sweet, awkward 13-year-old cousin is quoting Andrew Tate like it’s holy scripture. It sounds dramatic. But Adolescence shows you how undramatic it really is. How terrifyingly casual it is. How it’s just one video, one thread, one “harmless” joke.
Across four episodes, we watch Jamie spiral, not because he’s evil or broken, but because he’s bruised and online. And that’s what makes it hit. He’s not an outlier. He’s familiar. He’s the kid next door. He’s someone you knew. He’s someone you thought you knew. And that’s what’s haunting about the show. It doesn’t give you villains. It gives you people. Real, painfully real people. And it forces you to ask the questions you’ve been dodging: How did we let this happen? Why were we so busy laughing at the red-pillers that we didn’t notice how many kids were actually listening? Why are we still so scared of talking to boys—really talking to them—before the internet does?
“I read an incident in the paper and it was about a young boy killing a young girl, stabbing a young girl to death and then not long after that I saw on the news on the television that you know it happened again in a different, completely different part of the country and a young boy had stabbed a young girl and if I’m really honest with you, both of those incidents really hurt my heart in a way and it just made me think what’s going on…”
Creator, Executive Producer and Actor Stephen Graham speaking to Yahoo UK
The first episode starts with a brigade of police officers swarming what seems like this perfectly normal, loving family’s home. The horror is that they’re here for the boy. They think 13-year-old Jamie has killed Katie, a girl he went to school with. You don’t know the why, when, or how; all you see is this scared kid sitting alone in his room, looking completely lost. He’s peed his pants. He’s shaking. And you think, no way. It’s difficult to reconcile this image with the crime he’s accused of. Surely there’s been some mistake. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe someone’s lying. One minute, this family’s going through their usual weekday routine, breakfast and backpacks. Next, their home is being torn apart, and they watch helplessly as their little boy is being called a murderer and dragged to the police station.
By the end of the first episode, all doubts shiver and crack. There’s no speculation, no ambiguity: Jamie killed Katie. Then you see his father laying flowers where she died, while Through the Eyes of a Child, sung by the girl who plays Katie, plays in the background. And suddenly, it’s all real. A girl is dead. A boy killed her. And nothing will ever be the same.
It’s the third episode—short clips from it, I’m sure, have flooded your feed—where Jamie meets with a psychologist. We’re tossed in a brutal wave of horror and disgust. Now, with each layer being stripped away, you’re left to face the bare truth. A 13-year-old boy, bullied and isolated, pulled into the ugly corners of the internet, kills a girl simply because she didn’t like him back. And the hardest part? He probably doesn’t even fully understand what he’s done. Or maybe this is what you want to believe. That he doesn’t understand. Because that would make it all just a little less sickening.
And that’s the most concerning part: you want to blame everyone but him; society, parents, school, anyone but Jamie. You don’t hate him. You’re terrified of him. Terrified of how social media twists kids today. You’re disgusted when he tries to justify it, claiming other boys would’ve done worse. But hate? No. I hated that I couldn’t hate him. A boy who thinks so little of women that he kills a girl, and still, I can’t hate him. All I could feel was pure shock.
And you hear these stories every single day: women stalked, assaulted, raped and murdered. But you never expect that kind of rage from a teenage boy. Still lanky, still growing into his voice, still figuring out algebra, and yet filled with that much hate. You never expect the misogyny to run so deep, so young. But it does. In a world where the manosphere thrives on TikTok algorithms, where influencers spew bile dressed up as confidence and success, where boys are fed a steady diet of “alpha” nonsense, where podcasts teach that empathy is weakness and women are objects to win or punish—a digital underworld festers. Where masculinity is measured in control, cruelty, and silence; where boys are handed scripts that tell them being human is pathetic, and rejection is humiliation worth avenging. Maybe we should’ve expected it. Maybe we haven’t been paying enough attention.
And this isn’t about villainising men, because of course not all men, but it’s too many and too often. It’s about confronting a culture that’s failing them and, in turn, failing us. It’s about the quiet radicalisation happening in bedrooms behind closed doors. And it’s horrifying, not only because a girl is found dead every now and then, but because we don’t know how to stop it.
And you see the family wrestle with this, too. They know they went wrong; they just don’t know where or how. They did everything by the book: they were present, supportive, and loving. And yet, right under their roof, a boy learned how to kill. Jamie’s dad blames himself. Maybe if he hadn’t pushed him into football. Maybe if he’d shown him that gentleness is also strength. Maybe then Jamie wouldn’t have ended up here. Maybe then he’d have had a better blueprint for what it means to be a man. And that final scene, the parents collapsed in each other’s arms, grieving something they don’t have a name for, leaves you gutted. Because it asks the question no parent wants to face: how do you raise a child in a world like this? How do you keep them safe from what seeps in through the screen? From voices louder, meaner, and more convincing than yours?
Adolescence is raw, it’s intimate, and it is unflinching. It forces you to confront the discomfort, the grief, the rage, the confusion; not just of what happened, but of how easy it was for it to happen. It isn’t easy to watch, and that’s the point. So, if there’s one thing you can watch, let it be this. If there’s one thing you can ask your parents, your brother, your boyfriend, your guy friends, any man you know, to watch, let it be this. Please.
Comments Off on Signs of Damage: In Conversation with Diana Reid
In March 2025, Diana Reid, author of Love and Virtue, released her third novel, Signs of Damage. It follows the Kelly family on their idyllic French holiday, which is interrupted when Cass, their thirteen-year-old guest, goes missing. She is found alive and well several hours later, and those present dismiss the incident as a harmless blip. Sixteen years later, at a funeral for a member of the Kelly family, Cass collapses. As the past and the present begin to collide, secrets are brought to light and old doubts creep in. What really happened all those years ago, and could it reveal what is wrong with Cass now?
Set between two timelines, each with their own mystery, the novel investigates the difference between trying to explain other people and actually understanding them. I had the wonderful opportunity to ask Diana Reid some questions about this new book and her writing career.
Brooke Corkhill: I am such a fan of Signs of Damage! The ‘summer noir’ juxtaposition between dark events and idyllic settings is a powerful, eerie backdrop for the novel. Did you do any specific prep work to build this? What were your sources of inspiration?
Diana Reid: Thank you! My inspiration was novels and films that I love — all of which feature the eruption of violence in idyllic settings. It was only when I was halfway through writing Signs of Damage that I realised there was a term for it: summer noir. Those texts include the novels Swimming Home (Deborah Levy), Never Mind (Edward St Aubyn) and the French film The Swimming Pool, as well as Luca Guadanigno’s more recent remake, A Bigger Splash.
In terms of specific prep, I didn’t actually go to the south of France, which I regret. (It’s subsequently been pointed out to me that I could’ve had a tax-deductible holiday!) But I did a lot of research online: there is a specific villa on Booking.com which is where I imagine the Kelly family spent their holiday.
BC: The nuanced ensemble cast was so engaging to read! How did you create each character? Did you conceptualise their dynamics before their individual personalities?
DR: I never conceive of characters in isolation: the first germ of an idea is always a relationship between two people or groups of people. In this case, I thought about a wealthy family on an idyllic holiday with a few outsiders or ‘guests’ orbiting around them. Specifically, I started with the patriarch, Bruce Kelly, and his oldest friend, Harry: a single gay man. Thinking about characters in terms of dynamics — especially of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ — is always interesting to me because it enables you to explore their insecurities. Character, then, is not just about the surface-level of how people appear socially, but also about interiority; what they’re embarrassed by, what they’re trying to obscure, how they’d like to appear.
BC: The past and present timelines, each containing their own mystery, weave in and out of different perspectives. Did this pose some plotting challenges? Did you enjoy the process, particularly as it differs from the structure of your first two novels?
DR: ‘Enjoyed’ would be putting it too highly but I definitely found the process rewarding. Inspiration, for me, lives at the outer edge of my comfort zone. I never want to go to the desk and mechanically repeat what I’ve done before. I always want to feel a bit of fear: to wonder whether I can pull it off. So this more complicated narrative was stressful initially because, as you say, I’d never done it before and it certainly took a lot of wrangling. But then it’s very rewarding when you prove to yourself that you can do it.
And it was also rewarding — not just in the ‘craft’ sense of expanding my skills as a writer — but also artistically, because I think this structure suits the story. In Signs of Damage, the characters are trying to understand the significance of a holiday they all shared 16 years ago. The events of that holiday are interwoven with the present-day. The reader, then, is undergoing the same process as the characters: they’re dipping in and out of the past, trying to identify patterns and draw connections between events.
BC: What did you want to explore around the themes of voice and storytelling, particularly as you feature competing narrative voices in this book?
DR: Signs of Damage is a novel about storytelling — about the stories we tell ourselves in order to make sense of the world around us. So I always knew it wouldn’t have an omniscient narrator. Instead, I wanted to emphasise the limitations of an individual’s perspective: the impossibility of ever seeing the whole story. The bulk of the narrative is told in several competing perspectives in the third person, which allows the reader to decide who they believe. Then it’s framed (in a prologue and an epilogue) by one character’s first-person perspective. This was to deliberately frustrate the reader. I wanted to cast doubt on the “truth” of the whole story. Is it, perhaps, a projection told by one character? Does that matter? Does this story — does any story — need to be true to have emotional resonance?
BC: Your Guardian article, “The trauma plot: how did culture get addicted to tragic backstories?” is a powerful extension of your novel. I was struck by your question “why do we keep looking to trauma as shorthand to better understand character, when it invariably proves such an unsatisfactory tool, one that flattens and obscures where we rely on it to clarify and complicate?” Do you have any theories about this? What made you want to explore and subvert the trauma plot?
DR: No doubt the ‘trauma plot’ has gained so much cultural purchase because it is a useful tool for understanding other people. Most people are shaped, in some capacity, by negative experiences and learning about these experiences can provide deep psychological insight. However, if I have a theory, it’s that being able to tell our own story about our lives — to decide for ourselves the significance of certain events, be they positive or negative — is the cornerstone of autonomy. This was also a big theme in my first book, Love & Virtue, so it’s clearly a preoccupation of mine. I see curiosity about people’s core wounds or formative traumas as very natural — even, empathetic. But I’m interested in the point at which that curiosity becomes a fixation. To my mind, that shift occurs when we stop listening to someone else’s story and start imposing our own, taking the events of their life and fitting them into narratives that we’re familiar with, like the trauma plot.
BC: Do you practice any other art besides writing? If so, does that art ever tie into your writing, or is it entirely separate?
DR: It’s hardly an art because I have no flair with it, but I do love to cook. I think of it almost as an antidote to writing. When you’ve spent a whole day labouring over words that you might hate and delete in the morning, it’s nice to get to dinner time and ‘create’ something to completion.
BC: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
DR: I always wanted to be an actor. Writing for theatre was actually my first experience of creative writing: I wrote plays and sketches at university. In fact, I took a gap year after university and deferred a graduate job in corporate law to try to make a career in theatre work. That was in 2020 so lockdown put an end to those plans and I wrote Love & Virtue instead. I realised then that a lot of what I loved about acting (wondering what it’s like to be someone else; the rhythm of good dialogue, etc.) could be found in fiction.
BC: If you could give any advice to aspiring writers, what would it be?
DR: Don’t worry about whether it’s any good! If you just write it, you can always go back and edit it later. But if you let perfectionism or the fear of what other people might think paralyse you, then you’ll never write anything.
Signs of Damage is out now and certainly worth a read, if you’re looking for a suspenseful, nuanced thriller.
Comments Off on 40 Hours of Film — A Celebration of Ingenuity and Cinema
In the beginning, there was Méliès, and from Méliès, magic. That first conjuring of cinema has evolved into something astounding, a democratic art form available to anyone with a camera and a dream. The International Arts Competition, 40 Hours of Film, harnesses that spirit, asking a simple question:
What happens when each year, you give college students three prompts: a prop (an umbrella), a phrase (“Thank God it’s Friday”), and a location (a bench), and then ask them to make something over 40 sleepless hours?
In celebration of this year’s incredible films all being recently uploaded to YouTube – let’s see how this question was answered!
Yukeembruk:
Yukeembruk’s film is a kaleidoscope of ideas all stemming from a satirical talent show: a black-and-white flashback universe, a brawl choreographed like a glorious Blazing Saddles homage, an RM dressed in something best left undescribed. There’s a Red Riding Hood spoof, a Julie-Bishop-is-a-lizard-person joke, and a final beat featuring a beautiful shot of a crispy Badger bev.
But, somewhere between these wild shifts in tone, the film might be said to lose its compass. Perhaps best described as an anthology, the sound was at times frustratingly quiet, and unfortunately, the truth is that the gags didn’t all land. Still, one has to admire both the ambition and the occasional visual poetry. In film, as in life, a swing and a miss is always more memorable than never swinging at all, and Yukeembruk managed to hit the ball at least once or twice.
Glam Bots and Sandwich Shots / 10
Wright Hall:
With “The Benchwarmer”, Wright Hall delivers college comedy that not only winks at its own absurdity but embraces it like an old friend. The film opens with a lovely time-lapse of our titular benchwarmer, sidelined in every sense, until a Thursday night party spirals into surrealist sabotage.
Shot with flair — GoPros, Ferris Bueller style fourth-wall breaks, and slick lighting — the film becomes a loving tribute to sports tropes, campus antics, and hypnotising your friends into thinking they actually do ‘have that dog in them’. While the film is undoubtedly quite funny, the ending brings unexpected emotional weight: maybe sitting out isn’t so bad after all?
Maybe the Real Disc Was the Friends We Made Along the Way / 10
UniLodge:
Ninety-nine per cent of the time, a bench is just a bench. But not in UniLodge’s slasher flick, where the bench is none other than a mutated possessed killer! Think Christine meets IKEA. The film delivers its carnage with campy glee — quick cuts, low-budget stuffed animal gore, and a line destined for cult status among those spoken by genre giants: “It doesn’t have knees, bitch.”
While the Looney Tunes-style umbrella battle maybe overstays its welcome, the concept never outstays its charm. This is a film that knows its genre and plays it off just right.
No Knees / 10
Ursula:
Set in the cramped confines of Ursies, this mockumentary turns the college dining hall into a mafia battleground. The interviews are shot with surprising polish, and the humour — dark, absurd, delightfully self-aware — manages to land more often than not.
A detective in the bath under an umbrella; an intellectual classicist named Shaque Spear; and an arrest for “breaking the risk assessment management plan.” This film is rambunctious and a feast for the eyes, The Office meets Knives Out.
Not Bad From a Small Hole With Too Many Mouths to Feed / 10
Burgmann:
Burgmann’s “Thank God It’s Friday” dazzles with production value. It opens on a heartbeat, bursts into a drumbeat, and lands us inside the best-looking student talk show you’ll ever see. The colour design on set is intentional and beautiful — burnt oranges and moody blues — and the story moves with confidence, transporting us as witnesses to a great weatherman and an even greater duck migration.
There’s satire here: of morning shows, of celebrity drama, of the line between entertainment and truth. An umbrella drag performance set to Rihanna closes the film with such visual gusto that it leaves you grinning. While the plot could be viewed as a little messy at times, in light of the many, many other strengths of this production — the brilliant editing, powerful sound design, and stellar cast performances — it is no wonder that this film scored so highly among the judges.
Cumulonimbus Deserves His Own Show / 10
Wamburun:
In “Hunt for the Canberra People”, Wamburun gives us a protagonist on a pilgrimage, wandering from academic panic to spiritual awakening through interactions with the city and its weirdest inhabitants. Think of a tinfoil-hat-wearing dropout, a pint-sized political candidate, and Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ himself, who turns water into wine in the backseat of a car.
It’s funny, sweet, and surprisingly grounded for such a bizarre premise. The visuals sometimes suffer from inconsistent colour grading, but its heart never wavers, and it never fails to do the road trip genre justice. In the end, we’re reminded that sometimes the best way to survive uni is to leave, to get out of the bubble and breathe.
The Youngest Australian Political Candidate Since Will Roche / 10
Burton and Garran:
Leave it to BNG to get culturally savvy and turn the filmmaking process into both an elaborate joke and a genre exercise. Their entry is a meta-slasher-comedy-documentary hybrid, complete with stereotypes like the tortured editor and the diva actor, countdown tension, and my personal favourite, a very fun Scooby-Doo chase.
There’s a wonderful scene involving a live band, TikTok bench podcasters, and an outrageous final standoff where characters yell film clichés like spells: “Dutch angle! Dolly zoom!” It’s like that episode of Community where the study group attempts to create a commercial for the college, if it were made with all the same passion, but only 40 hours and zero budget. A little rough around the edges, nonetheless, BNG’s film this year is a great watch.
Scooby Doo Chase Scenes Are Never Boring / 10
Griffin:
In “No Time to Dry”, Griffin Hall delivers a spy spoof that’s as self-aware as it is stylish. From its opening tableau — two agents on a bench under an absurdly endearing rain effect — the film establishes itself among that canon of spy spoofs you vaguely remember watching in your childhood but will die by to this very day. The McGuffin of the hour? A humble umbrella, spirited away before our hero even realises its importance. What follows is a feverish scramble involving biometric scanners and an unintentionally spicy confrontation featuring a tie-grab worthy of a soap opera.
The comedy lands with an Uber rejection joke drawing some of the biggest laughs on the screening night, and the showdown amid Inward Bound runners — complete with a gorgeously low-budget blood spurt and a one-liner so outrageous it had me feeling like I was back in Avengers Endgame — is pure cinematic glee. Yes, the plot is maybe a little thin, but that hardly matters when it rains this much charisma.
When The Sun Shines, It Shines Like This Film / 10
Bruce:
Bruce Hall’s entry is a hypnotic, black-and-white dreamscape that marries meticulous cinematography with delicate emotional storytelling. From the first haunting piano notes and drone shots of campus choreographed like a metronome, it’s clear this is not your typical Interhall flick. The umbrellas here go beyond the prop requirement to be metaphors — for routine, for alienation, for the quiet rebellion of human connection.
The film’s lovers — divided by colour-coded umbrellas and rigid societal machinations, united by an unspoken gravitational pull — pass each other like shadows, until at last they meet in a poetic climax underscored by swelling classical music and divine choreography. Their final dance, set simultaneously by the bus stop and by Sully’s, is breathtaking. Some might call it pretentious — but it’s pretension earned. A display of brilliant craftsmanship, intention, and emotional weight — this was my favourite film of the bunch from this year.
David Lynch Would Be Proud / 10
Fenner:
Fenner’s film is all style, all swagger, all neon-drenched, motorbike-revving love story. From the opening Baby-Driver-esque one-take stroll through Fenner, to the most cinematic footage that must have ever been shot inside a Coles — yes, a Coles — this is cinema with a capital C.
The narrative? Murphy is dating Friday. Friday gets kidnapped. Murphy responds by revving up his motorcycle. The shots are stunning, and though there were some issues with the music drowning out the dialogue, when you’re watching a man throw dog food at thugs in a garage showdown choreographed like Oldboy… you tend to forgive everything. The ending, as the couple watches the sunset in warm light, feels earned and restful. Is it fair to say their gear was unfairly better than everyone else’s? Yes. Did it deserve to be crowned the best film of the bunch? In my opinion, probably not. Is it still rad as hell? Absolutely.
Shot on iPhone 16 / 10
Johns:
Disqualified? Maybe. Legendary? Definitely. Though Johns was disqualified for arriving forty minutes late, it becomes clear upon watching the film why. You simply cannot rush perfection. I feel as though I have nothing more to say on this film other than it joins the greats like Casablanca and Star Wars in the pantheon of films which changed cinema forever. The one thing I ask of you is that you go ahead and watch it for yourself.
Martin Scorsese Reaction GIF / 10
Conclusion
In the end, this year’s 40 Hours of Film Competition was an absolute triumph of creativity, technical flair, and genre-bending imagination. From Griffin’s side-splitting spy spoof with its slick shots and killer one-liners, to Bruce’s hauntingly beautiful umbrella ballet through existentialism and romance, each film carved out a distinct voice and vision. These films didn’t just show off the incredible talent bubbling under the surface of the ANU’s colleges — they proved that even with limited budgets and a tight theme, student filmmakers can produce work that is clever, moving, hilarious, and more often than not, genuinely impressive. Whether you were there for the aesthetics, the action, or the absurdity, this year’s films gave us all something to laugh about, cry over, and quote for years to come.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Perhaps my ambivalence is a defence mechanism. If I am not certain of anything that I do or say, then I do not have to take responsibility for anything. I wish.
Oscar Wilde, in one of my favourite books, wrote, “to define is to limit.” This line was said by Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray, whom I would not recommend viewing as any sort of role model. Dorian Gray does and it corrupts him. Unfortunately, I too seem to carry this philosophy to a fault.
I like to keep my options open. Instead of committing myself to one thing, I allow room for variation and unforeseeable changes or for another opportunity that I had predicted, and may have wanted to keep as a plan B.
My ambiguity certainly has its drawbacks. Indeed, it has gotten me into a number of very uncomfortable predicaments. By not definitely saying “no,” I am not saying “yes” – but people have either misunderstood, or taken advantage of this propensity for ambiguity.
Without trying to, my fluctuating decisions frustrated family and friends. It’s difficult to make plans by replying with “maybe,” instead of “yes,” or “I’ll try to get there in the evening,” instead of “I’ll be there at 6.”
Although I try to be punctual to appointments that I commit myself to, it is difficult for me to first commit myself to said appointments. On more than one occasion, I have shown up late to an event, not out of choice or fashion. Rather, until the very last minute before I had to leave, I was still flip-flopping over whether or not I should attend at all.
This uncertainty does not bring me pleasure. Quite the opposite. Never being able to make a decision for fear of making the wrong decision, in fact, can heighten my anxieties about almost anything. Going outside or meeting new people or eating a certain food or submitting an assignment or something else entirely. These worries make me more uncertain, which makes me worry even more. It’s a positive feedback loop, which is not as nice as it sounds.
I usually do not even realise that I am being indeterminate until someone points it to me or parodies my way of speaking. Once, I was making plans with a friend, deciding where to go and what to do. I cannot remember at all what I had said, but his response has reverberated around in my head ever since; “Oh my god, so vague.” He did not mean to be mean, at least that was not the impression I got. He was merely voicing his reasonable frustration about me not being able to stick to any sort of decision.
I do want to improve, though. If I don’t make my own decisions, I fear that I will end up merely drifting along, with no clear purpose or reason. Or worse, someone else may try to make these decisions for me. While that would take away a degree of the responsibility that I so fervently try to avoid, I do want to live my own life.
This year, I will try to be more certain. No, I will be more certain. Maybe.
Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 2 ‘To Be Confirmed’
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Comments Off on Jean-Michel Basquiat: Darling of Corporate America
You either die a tortured artist or live long enough to see your work printed on sneakers and phone cases. Unless you are Jean-Michel Basquiat, in which case you’ll do both.
More than thirty years after his premature death at the age of 27, the work of Basquiat remains highly visible in our society, particularly through consumable items. Should you wish to purchase an original Basquiat, you may find the $110.5 million price tag too steep. For a cheaper, more commercial equivalent you could turn instead to Casetify, Uniqlo, Urban Outfitters, Converse, Dr Martens, Supreme, Coach, or Yves Saint Laurent amongst others. All of these corporations have in recent times collaborated with the Basquiat estate on merchandise. It is invariably claimed such products demonstrate shared values between the late artist and their own brands.
The connections made between brands and Basquiat are tenuous and highly debatable. The narratives spun by marketing executives attempting to justify the appropriation of a highly critical body of work for a tote bag will always be ones which leave a sour taste in the mouth.
Tiffany & Co.’s most recent ad campaign, ABOUT LOVE, starring Beyoncé and Jay-Z and featuring Basquiat’s Equals Pi is one such egregious misappropriation of his work.
Equals Pi has been owned by private collectors since it was first displayed in 1982. Since then, it has been visible to the public only through magazine covers, where it was used as a prop for the cultural clout of its owners. Tiffany & Co. acquired the piece in August 2021 and then themselves placed it nonchalantly in the background of their ad behind Beyoncé for eight seconds total. Again, using the work as a piece of mise en scene, a mere prop for cultural clout.
The most outrageous element of Basquiat’s inclusion in this campaign occurred when the executives claimed the colouring of the painting was an intentional homage to Tiffany & Co. by Basquiat. His assistant Stephen Torton, who mixed the colours for Equals Pi, called this claim “absurd” and noted:
“They wouldn’t have let Jean-Michel into a Tiffany’s if he wanted to use the bathroom, or, if he went to buy an engagement ring and pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket. We couldn’t even get a cab.”
As Torton explained, corporations like Tiffany & Co. “speculate and monetize, commercialize and manipulate every manifestation of this rebellious genius … leave deciphering his message to those who know or leave it alone.” Reader, now I will make it so you are one who knows.
In 1978 Basquiat undertook his first organised venture as an artist. SAMO (short for Same Old Shit) was a graffiti moniker he adopted as a late teen with classmate Al Diaz. The duo had something to say and the walls and subway tunnels of Manhattan acted as a megaphone for their provocative and satirical messages. On the project, Diaz said: “[SAMO’s] art was meant in part to be satire on corporations.”
“SAMO AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO MASS-PRODUCED INDIVIDUALITY”
“SAMO AS AN END TO MINDWASH RELIGION, NOWHERE POLITICS AND BOGUS PHILOSOPHY”
“SAMO FOR THE SO-CALLED AVANT GARDE”
Following a falling-out between Basquiat and Diaz, in 1980 Basquiat scrawled SAMO IS DEAD across the walls of SoHo. This signalled the death of the partnership and the birth of Basquiat’s solo career. Two years later, following bouts of homelessness, Basquiat would make his first acquaintance with the deep pockets of art dealers and buyers. His first solo art show was hosted by the Annina Nosei Gallery in 1982 and he made $200,000 in one night. His profile and praise in the art world multiplied from this point onwards, however, so too did his critics.
No level of success as an artist relieved him of the oppression he faced as a Black man living in America in the 1980s. Systems of inequality had long been his inspiration though, and racism and class inequality featured heavily in his work at all points of his career. Basquiat’s art celebrated Blackness and frequently depicted Black protagonists in a world saturated by white artists and their white subjects. The stories he told centred around the experience of Black people in America, exploring the legacies of the slave trade, Jim Crow laws and police brutality. I highly recommend inspection of pieces such as The Guilt of Gold Teeth, Irony of the Negro Policeman and Untitled (History of the Black People).
His novel subject matter led sceptical critics to claim that Basquiat’s success was due to virtue signalling by the art world. In a time-honoured racist tradition, Basquiat’s success was attributed to the kindness of white people, rather than his own talents. According to his critics, Basquiat was not brilliant but rather was fetishised by the liberal-minded elites of a world he had no business being a part of. He was not a great artist, nor a pioneer of neo-expressionism, but someone whose “contribution to art is so miniscule as to be practically nil,” says Hilton Kramer.
The allegation of virtue signalling and this dismissal of Basquiat’s merit represents an incomprehensive assessment of his personal history. Basquiat came from a middle-class family and received an extensive education in art and art history, both from his mother and from institutions for gifted children. He spent his childhood in galleries and museums and was keenly aware of the cultural moment that his work was situated in. He took every opportunity afforded to him by SAMO, and his work both as graffiti and on canvas offered sharp political commentaries.
He was defined simultaneously as too much of a ne’er-do-well outsider to contribute any meaningful culture to art institutions; and too much of an insider to middle-class privileges to offer any meaningful critique on inequality. His critics diminished the extent of white saturation in art and culture and decreed thus that Basquiat had no licence to be as critical as he was. Both of these characteristics represent a minimisation of the oppression faced by Black Americans in the 1980s. Their absence and exclusion from art institutions only furthered this erasure of the Black experience, a subject featured frequently in Basquiat paintings.
The fact that he walked in both worlds, simultaneously as an insider and an outsider to high art institutions, was consistently ignored. Basquiat’s lived experience as a subject of oppression and his knowledge of art and its history made him uniquely situated to pioneer neo-expressionism. He reinvigorated the art world. His pieces were highly referential to both high and low culture, ranging from ancient poets to cartoons, and were always deeply critical. The success of his work represented an important step forward for American society. He pushed the struggles of Black people and the working class in front of the eyes of American cultural elites
His audiences could no longer look away from his art or the stories that the canvases told.
And yet now it seems we can, and we do.
The Guilt of Gold Teeth is a painting which offers the exact critique you would expect from the title. In November 2021 it was sold to a private buyer for $40 million. Troublingly, none of the involved parties seem to appreciate the nauseating irony of such an arrangement. Like Equals Pi, The Guilt of Gold Teeth will sit in someone’s home or personal archive for many years to come. You and I will likely never see either of these paintings in person and their cultural impact, having been hidden away, will be blunted if not entirely nulled.
Lucky for us though, corporations have got us covered and there’s a good chance we could buy a t-shirt with Irony of the Negro Policemen printed on. Or we can check out that eight second feature in the Tiffany & Co. ad to see the deferential treatment of a great artist!
Perhaps the commercialisation of Basquiat is the most offensive because of how exclusive his work is in the modern day. The majority of it exists in private collections, where it is inaccessible to the eyes of the public. Only the incredibly wealthy owners of these paintings will get to appreciate their message through the visceral and unfiltered medium of human eyes. His critiques of inequality cannot inspire us from within the walls of white mansions. We have to settle instead for capitalist bastardisations.
How does hiding away his work allow us to learn from Basquiat’s genius? How can any piece of cheap merchandise or eight second feature ever honour such a brilliant man?
Basquiat grew up wandering the halls of museums and galleries and gazing upon works either made by white artists, or stolen from artists of colour in the violent processes of colonialism. During his lifetime, thanks to the proliferation of reductive narratives about his merit, he did not get to see his art hung up on such prestigious walls. We cannot learn from his work as he learned from the work of others when it is hoarded and hidden by private owners. The use of his work now as a non-contextualised prop or eye-catching print on merchandise, does not do justice to his radical creativity.
Originally published in Woroni Vol.72 Issue 1 ‘Evolution’