Category Archives: Cultural Comment

Waiting for Fry – Beckett’s Last, Greatest Play

Posted on by
1

I sometimes wonder whether Samuel Beckett lives and whether Twitter conversations are actually his last, greatest and never ending play.

WAITING FOR FRY

Estragon: While we wait, what’s next?

Vladimir: I could mansplain something.

Estragon: Mansplain?

Vladimir: Let me put it simply in terms you can understand.

Estragon: Don’t be patronising.

Vladimir: You’ve got it.

Estragon: Got what?

Vladimir: Mansplaining.

Estragon: Oh, I see. Can only men mansplain?

Vladimir: Yes, only men can mansplain.

Estragon: Mansplaining sounds like fun. What happens if a woman or a transgender person wants to mansplain? Is there personsplaining?

Vladimir: Don’t be absurd.

Estragon: Maybe we could subtweet.

Vladimir: I can’t see what you mean.

Estragon: Make comments about people without actually referring to them by name. We are known for liking to wear hats. We could say “gee, hat wearers are pretty stupid for standing next to trees”.

Vladimir: But who would read these subtweets?

Estragon: People. People who know who the “hat wearers” are.

Vladimir: Why?

Estragon: For a knowing 3 second guffaw. People like knowing 3 second guffaws.

Vladimir: How long could we subtweet for?

Estragon: For as long as the subject of the subtweets provides material.

Vladimir: What happens if the subject finds out?

Estragon: Then you have won the game of subtweeting. The subject feels bad.

Vladimir: Reminds me of somewhere.

Estragon: Yes, school. School was fun.

Vladimir: Not for me. People used to look at me and point. I never knew why.

Estragon: I hope Fry responds to us soon. It’s been a while.

Vladimir: Has he ever responded?

Estragon: I know someone once who received a response.

Vladimir: Who?

Estragon: A friend of someone who knew someone who wrote a song once.

Vladimir: Which song?

Estragon: Maybe it was a retweet. Or a response. I don’t know. It was a while ago.

Vladimir: Then there is hope then.

Estragon: Yes. Always hope that Fry will respond.

Vladimir: I know. Let’s do some feelpinions.

Estragon: What purpose would that serve?

Vladimir: It would pass the time. Let people know what we feel about things.

Estragon: People? Which people?

Vladimir: People who might be interested.

Estragon: There are people interested in our feelings?

Vladimir: And opinions based on those feelings.

Estragon: Sounds like a good way to waste some time.

Vladimir: You’ve done it again.

Estragon: What?

Vladimir: Used the word “waste”. It’s a shut down word.

Estragon: Shutting down what?

Vladimir: People. When you say you are “wasting your time” on something, then you are denying that person’s words aren’t important. That they should be spending their time on “better” things.

Estragon: There are better things to spend time on than feelpinions?

Vladimir: Certainly not.

Estragon: With feelpinions, what happens if the person writing them in earnest and serious about them. Cares deeply about them?

Vladimir: Who are these people? Are they mad?

Estragon: Someone must have felt genuine feelings and not be so insouciant once upon a time.

Vladimir: Can’t remember. And who is Earnest?

Estragon: No-one of importance.

Enter Pozzo, accompanied by Lucky, dressed like a bird, on a chain

Pozzo: Are you two still here?

Estragon: Clearly. But I don’t believe we have met.

Pozzo: We have. We meet every day. You two are waiting for a response from Fry.

Vladimir: No – we have just arrived and thinking about the day we are to have.

Pozzo: It’s the same day. Every day. Waiting for the New Outrage.

Estragon: And what is today’s outrage?

Pozzo: The same outrage as it is everyday. People don’t agree. One person’s point of view is more valid than another’s. Just comes with a different word.

Vladimir: What is today’s word?

Pozzo: Don’t know yet. Yesterday’s word, yet again, a popular one, was privilege.

Vladimir: Who has privilege?

Pozzo: Depends on who you ask.

Vladimir: In what sense privilege?

Pozzo: In the outside world, there are social groups, privileged groups, disadvantage, oppression and so on. Real things. Everyday.

Vladimir: The privilege of background?

Pozzo:  Yes. That’s the outside. There is now a chamber of words where the notions of privilege become warped and bounce around, so people accuse each other of being privileged in order to win.

Estragon: Sounds fun. Is there a prize?

Pozzo: A smug smile for 3 seconds.

Estragon: I would like to have one of those. (attempts a smug smile)

Pozzo: No, you can’t win the prize.

Estragon: Why not?

Pozzo: Because you don’t have a smug smile. The key to winning is the ability to desire a smug smile and know the pathway towards it.

Vladimir: You know this pathway?

Pozzo: Oh, yes.

Vladimir: Do you ever use it?

Pozzo: It is my life to see it.  And then draw things about it.

Estragon: You draw? What things?

Pozzo: Cartoons.

(At this, Lucky stirs and moves and makes a noise)

Vladimir: He doesn’t seem happy.

Pozzo: He’s never happy. But he’s useful. He’s coming up with today’s word.

Vladimir: He comes up with the word?

Pozzo: Yes. That is his purpose for being.

Estragon: Sounds like a waste… ah, curious spending of time.

Pozzo: Time is what we have. And a good word can be sustained for more than a day. There are certain words that can cause outrage for days on end.

Vladimir: Don’t people care deeply about things? Don’t they get hurt?

Pozzo: Yes. But that’s not my concern if they are too serious and earnest. They have no place being in the chamber.

Estragon: Cartoons only? Anything else?

Pozzo: I walk into a building with the word “Institute” on the door and write things of no consequence or care for what goes on as a result.

Estragon: Can anyone walk into an Institute?

Pozzo: Oh, yes. Especially if there’s secret people paying money.

Vladimir: What people pay for words like that?

Pozzo: People. I don’t know who. I just write the words.

Lucky stirs and looks at the others.

Lucky: I am tired of explaining the difficulties of what difficulties there is in a life full of  qua qua qua and what seems to be the case is that really don’t want to understand and shut down the burgle burgle burgle of the privileged frizzle. Men like to mansplain because they are men and like to mansplain due to the participle of their mainframe and I have created a new way of thinking because everyone needs to be free why serious man person feelpinion Dexterpinion goat pinion kattergoat secretariat greg you missed the stop sign giants swans roos buddy bla bla bla sport.

Pozzo: It’s sport! The word is sport. A regular guest.

Estragon: What is interesting about sport?

Pozzo: Sport is always interesting. It’s a game. This chamber of words is a game.

Vladimir: But who wins?

Pozzo: Time wins.

Vladimir: What of the outside world. Don’t these things matter?

Pozzo: They do out there. Here, not at all. Here is all posture and echoes.

The Giants – A Continuing Eggshell Walk

Posted on by
3

Those who know me and my writings about sport will know of my interest and reasons for supporting the GWS Giants. Today was hard, sitting amongst the dismal crowd of 5,300, watching what was possibly the worst performance in the time I have been following the team.  I can’t say my supporting life is as hard as that of long suffering Bulldogs, St. Kilda, Richmond or Melbourne supporters – the latter currently writhing in despair.

It’s still hard though. 5,300.  Loss by 130 + to a team that probably won’t make the finals. I walked very slowly to my car.

It was clearly also tough on the coach, Kevin Sheedy, whose post match press conference revealed the pressures brought to bear on the club that has so many millions of dollars riding on its long term success.  In the press conference, as outlined here, he isolated two key concerns for the club – its growth as a playing group and growth of a supporter base.  They are the main issues affecting the club and will be for the next five years.

For passionate Melbourne based football fans, Sheedy’s comments will echo loudly in the next week. He places the blame on the current performance of the Giants at the feet of existing powerful clubs unwilling to let go of existing stars whose presence at a club like the Giants would make an immediate and profound difference. As can be seen by the presence of Gary Ablett Jnr at the Suns, as well as the work of Chad Cornes last year at the Giants, experience and body development count a great deal towards the success of a team in AFL. You just can’t build a team entirely on the promise of 19 year olds.  From where I sit, if there were two more experienced players in the back, two more experienced players in the forward line, the difference would be marked.   You will hear, however, on the SEN talkback in Melbourne that clubs “shouldn’t be giving up players they developed” from a range of passionate fans.  I can understand their point. The idea of transfer, however, is a feature of most football codes in the world, but is considered sacrilege by many in AFL.

This is a key difference between the on field success of the Western Sydney Wanderers and the Giants. The Wanderers had players of varying levels of talent and experience – with key outstanding players like Ono, which helped to create a team that was quick to mature and blossom. This is why their sudden success of the year shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as it was.  Soccer (I will call it soccer here, as distinct from Australian Football) easily transfers players from other clubs, it’s part of their game.  In AFL, it is a major, painful sticking point.

What we will also hear is reaction to his other comment – already he is being accused of being a racist.

“…That was probably a reminder of what the Swans have been telling us. (Sydney chairman) Richard Colless says you’re going to do it hard early.  So it just tells everybody how tough it’s going to be to build the club. We don’t have the recruiting officer called the immigration department, recruiting fans for (successful A-League soccer club) Western Sydney Wanderers.  We’ve got to start a whole new ballpark and go and find fans.”

It’s a silly comment, a clumsy, insensitive attempt at humour and should not have been made. What I suspect Sheedy was trying to say was that soccer has a wide following from people who come from overseas to Australia while AFL, being home grown, doesn’t have that natural, from birth support. It is an accurate observation to make, especially when we consider that the soccer mad UK is the source of the third highest number of migrants to Australia.

DIAC Source Country for Immigration Statistics, 2011 - 12

Source Country for Immigration Statistics, 2011 – 12 – from DIAC.

It is also the case that soccer’s supporter base in Western Sydney was well established amongst various British, Irish and non – British migrant communities long before the Wanderers came along. This explains why the Wanderer support base was quick to form. Due to that heritage, I still think Western Sydney should have had a soccer team before Sydney.  I was a supporter of the Parramatta Power back in the NSL days.  That the Wanderers was a hurried afterthought was an indictment on the A League’s founders.  However, maybe because it was an afterthought that it’s been a success.  Perhaps, if there had been more planning, Parramatta Leagues club might have stumbled in and repeated the mistakes they made with the Parramatta Power.  Due to the fact almost all games are played at Parramatta, the Wanderers are little more than a reborn Power, but this time with genuine grassroots engagement, as opposed to top – down control.

Thus, what Sheedy should have said in the press conference is that AFL doesn’t have the same cultural roots in Western Sydney as sports like soccer and rugby league and this makes it a hard, long sell.  But he didn’t, thus leading us to what will be a bit of a storm on which the media will feed for a while.

Sheedy did come out and explain his comments on Twitter later in the evening, which fit into what I suspected he meant -

Sheedy Tweets

What he will find very quickly though, that it’s a thorny field, talking about immigration and Western Sydney.  Accusations of dog whistling are always quick to form whenever immigration is mentioned.  It will be interesting to see where this issue heads. Soccer fans will be furious, saying that it shows that Anglo Celtic people like Sheedy see soccer as “wogball” and only played by European migrants. Yet others will see it as sour grapes because the Giants haven’t built the support that the Wanderers have.  In truth, I don’t think Sheedy should have mentioned the Wanderers at all in comparison to the Giants. They play at a different time of the year for a start and the codes don’t necessarily compete for juniors.  The two junior codes play on a different day – Saturday is soccer day, Sunday is AFL day in Sydney.

Ultimately, Sheedy should have focused on the fact there’s still work to be done on the team and on the poor mother’s day scheduling. It would have been less controversial and not make it into an us and them issue. The Giants and the Wanderers should not be fighting against each other, no matter what journalists will ask and write in their articles comparing the two codes.

As for what might happen next, I think we will see Sheedy on the TV in Sydney a bit this week, apologising, showing how he likes the cultural diversity in Western Sydney as well as soccer.  In Melbourne, however, he will be quizzed about “stealing” players from the successful clubs.

For me, though, it’s just been a hard Sunday. The Giants have a long way to go, in terms of team and crowd development. I sincerely hope these comments don’t make people think Giants fans and staffers are all racists and that we hate soccer. I just want to see better efforts from the players and more people to be part of what should be a great AFL club representing one of the best – and most misunderstood – parts of Australia.

TedX – Hillsong for Atheists?

Posted on by
4

Many people in the business world like going to conferences. They are often subsidised by their employers to go, stay in a nice hotel, listen to some ideas, schmooze and go home recharged – either by the ideas, the schmoozing, the hotel or a little of all of the above.  Teachers, too, like conferences, though they are often less swish than the business ones – and often pay their own airfare and accommodation.

These conferences have a various array of themes, concepts and types of presentation tools being used. Powerpoints were the rage until recently, replaced in part by videos and the swooshing of Prezi.  While business conferences are usually closed door affairs, however, teacher conferences are marked these days by the lines of teachers tweeting what is being said so that their PLN – Professional Learning Network – can read what is being said.  These teachers are more than aware that there are many teachers who cannot make conferences, due mainly to cost and family commitments.  They tweet so those colleagues and friends can keep up to date.   It is not, as many other teachers used to say at such conferences, a “rude thing to do”. It’s the opposite.

I say this because there is another strain of conference concept emerging – the TED talks. Teachers are aware of TED, largely because there’s not a term goes by where teachers see a TED talk being transmitted during an inservice day. This is not a bad thing – TED talks are often excellent, informative and can be inspiring.

What is intriguing, however, is how regional TED talks are organised and run. In 2012, the first TED talk in Sydney (at least, the first of which I was aware), was held at Carriageworks, in Redfern – a relatively low key venue for the ideas being spread. It was a free event, but one had to “apply” for entry with an interesting biography. Each potential audience member had to prove just how interesting they were to be provided entry to the event. The deciding panel therefore became some kind of doormen outside the hottest thought club in town. I wasn’t cool enough – I thought back and realised I should have just made something up. Something like this:

I am a cutting edge thought leader and shaper living in one of the most culturally intriguing parts of Australia’s most cosmopolitan city. I believe ideas are the key to unlocking the potential all of us have in continuing the cultural conversation and defining the paradigms of our age.

On the day, I put the question out as to whether those of us too uncool for entry could at least read the ideas from the comfort of our lounge rooms. I was told that the TED organisers were not allowing tweeting from inside the room from audience members. This astonished me, considering that the whole philosophy of TED is “Ideas Worth Spreading”. Ideas worth spreading, but not as individual people.  It seems from this policy that the way they practice their “Ideas Worth Spreading” idea is through their website. And to the cool people in the room.

Flash forward to 2013 and TED in Sydney has graduated to the Sydney Opera House – a much more expensive venue to hire. There was also, this time around, a ticket cost – $120 – for those who got in. I don’t know if they still had the Thought Club Doormen this time around. You would have thought so, however – TED seemed to be the hottest ticket in town for people interested in Thoughts. If you’re on the outside, you can watch the live stream at home or the videos afterwards.  But not reading tweets.

The cult of TED has been interesting to follow – and I think summarised pretty well in this Twitter conversation between the President of the NSW Independent Education Union, Dick Shearman, radio and newspaper veteran Mike Carlton and I:

Screen Shot 2013-05-05 at 12.28.09 PM

The adherents of TED do sound a bit like evangelical Christians after emerging from a particularly inspiring church service – high on the propagation of simple, effectively communicated ideas.  You also don’t hear many dissenting voices TED being broadcast – restricting the tweets would certainly do that. It is also a bit Hillsong in that they do like to have the flashy, highly attractive venue and control over the material presented.

This is not to say TED is a bad thing, or that all of the presenters and their ideas aren’t excellent – I was pleased, for example, that Lisa Murray, the City of Sydney Historian, was appreciated for her work during yesterday’s event.  Her work, and that of other presenters, needs celebration and profile.  I do wonder, however, whether people who saw her talk would have gone to the other talks that she would deliver around the City as a part of her role, or just went because it was TED – and therefore cool.

I would be interested, too, whether the organisers of TED would ever contemplate a TEDxPenrith, where ideas could be propagated by a range of people to an audience keen to engage with ideas. This is because there are people who live in the region interested in ideas about society, the planet, education, history and the rest. The cynic in me guesses that it will never happen – TED seem to want the big flashy settings for the videos to get the clicks from their audience. You would wonder too if they would attract some of the Thought Leaders of our Age to make the trip out west.

Less We Forget, More We Fret About

Posted on by
2

ANZAC Day this year had its predictabilities.  Much of it showing lacking an understanding of history and context. Catherine Deveny firing off her contrarian fireballs, tweeps getting fired up about people typing “Less We Forget” on their social media posts, declaring the death of education, football becoming the focus on more debate on whether football is grabbing the goodwill created by ANZAC Day and making it into some kind of commercial gain.  Debates like this lose a touch of context and we, as a population, seem to choose to invest all sorts of wider, deeper meaning into these things for fervent analysis on Twitter and in blogs, only to forget them all the next day – or worse still, hang onto the memory until it becomes more and more bitter.

Also predictable, symbolic and as ephemeral was the reaction to an interview conducted the night before by Leigh Sales of the aspirant Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. Abbott seemed to be much better prepared with his asinine talking points and circular logic than previously, and being in a studio where he didn’t have to look Sales in the eye seemed to also help his ability to appear to deflect close scrutiny.  The interview made him look like a robot who was barely remembering his purpose and come out with the absurd line “I’m growing” – even though he has spent more than three years in his current role.  It was Abbott as his most Lathamesque – I’m talking the sanitised “no crudity” Latham. The Latham who seemed to have been force fed a diet of an electronic Beethoven’s 9th before he was put on stage.   The reaction was predictable in that the crowd of Labor megaphones crashed in on Sales for not eviscerating Abbott. One of the more dignified variations of this criticism came in the Labor leaning Australians For Honest Politics blog project, where Peter Clarke, after a fairly thorough deconstruction of every question Sales gave, concluded with questions such as these :

In short, what is actually happening behind the scenes at 730 to leech this program of its effectiveness just when we need it most to do its fourth estate job effectively without fear or favour?

Has the constant drumbeat of partisan attack on the ABC generally and Sales personally ultimately had the “desired effect”?

Like a lot of what we are seeing as media scrutiny from the Labor leaning news sites, these loaded rhetorical questions and the conclusion of the piece featured more than a whiff of conspiracy theories about the downfall of the ABC as a bastion of truth, justice and the progressive way.  Who is “we”? How did Sales “let down” “we” with her questions. The “we”, I suspect, are those who wish Abbott to be taken down by the likes of Sales.  As for the concept of “partisan attack”, I am assuming Clarke is referring to the conservative attacks by the likes of Chris Kenny and Gerard Henderson. Reading Twitter, however, that concept of “partisan attack” is a two way street. I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t.  As for “desired effect” – again, I assume Clarke is referring to a conservative desire.  It sounds more like conspiracy than based on known evidence of any kind of actual instructions issued to Sales.

This agonising examination of the ABC by progressive commentators is painful and self defeating – as is covered so well in this blog post. It misses a wider point – that obsessively analysing single interviews misses wider shifts and movements in the election.   Most people from the areas in which I have lived and worked – where this election is being fought – especially a lot of swinging voters, don’t watch the ABC very much. My Kitchen Rules would have been where a lot of them would be watching TV at the time of the Abbottbot interview. Or maybe, earlier on, they were The Project, if they were interested in politics. If they are to watch the ABC at all, it wouldn’t be this far out from an election.

These things pass. Less We Forget was more evidence of the fact we as a community don’t use the word “Lest” in everyday conversation and in our media – it usually only exists for most people in the phrase “Lest We Forget”. I’m not saying it’s a good thing that people have misheard the word and are getting it wrong – I dare say most of those people have now learnt their lesson or will do so soon enough. It doesn’t, however, show the downfall of civilisation, as much as misplaced apostrophes doesn’t show the incompetence of our education system.  Anyone expressing genuine outrage and judgmental attitudes towards “Less We Forget”, revealed quite a bit about the people getting outraged at something so trivial.

Catherine Deveny, too, exists as an outrage lightning rod – she’s not unique in having an outrageous opinion – but she does like to speak what is often unspoken and is uncompromising in asserting her right to express them.  Deveny’s tweets are to ANZAC Day what the Queen’s Message is to Christmas. People don’t have to watch. The chief difference is that people these days don’t put themselves through the act of watching the Queen, just to be outraged by what she says.

As for the idea of football on ANZAC Day, which Wednesday night’s Mad As Hell (it’s at the start of the episode) lampooned so beautifully, the ANZAC Day game was just an idea Kevin Sheedy had in his garden – thinking that an ANZAC Day match might be a nice way to commemorate soldiers who fought at war and Bruce Ruxton, the Collingwood loving RSL head, agreed.  A way for people to enjoy some football after the commemoration of war. It’s not a hijack of the ANZAC legend for a football game – though the awarding of the best on ground for “best exhibiting the ANZAC spirit” is fairly absurd. That is unless someone has shot some Turkish soldiers, been shot at, has contracted trench foot or has devised an ingenious retreat whilst playing the game.

Sometimes it’s good to just forget and move on from obsessions. I understand why the Labor megaphones both on Twitter and in blogs get frustrated. The ALP have not had a great run from various media outlets, especially News Ltd.  That’s why there’s been the need to establish “Independent” media outlets that act as anti- News Ltd. They are good pressure valves.  I understand the excitement that a 730 report appearance by Abbott instils in people. But they forget the long game and the hectoring, blatantly partisan nature of the tweets and blogs have the effect of turning off a number of people in the same way as The Australian has to non rusted on Liberal supporters.  It should be reassuring for them that there will be more TV appearances for Tony Abbott. More importantly, he will also have to appear on commercial TV, where he has been less than convincing at times.  Plus, if he wins the election, there will be three years of having to step around the landmines that Abbott perceives every time he appears on TV.

In the end, there will also be more occasions for daily, largely impotent outrage. We should be forgetting about the ephemeral and trivial nonsense arguments that are so easy to fall into on Twitter. The less we forget about what is truly important, however, is something we should consider.

Sport Writing and Access – Time for a New Voice

Posted on by
1

I like watching sport. Shocking, I know. Many people don’t like it, which they will state on Twitter whenever the feeds are filled with weekend sport watching.  The argument many make about sport is that it’s helping to dumb down our society and culture, make it just about watching people kicking a football a long way or making a good dummy and flick pass. When these critics watch the coverage and culture related to sport, it’s easy to agree with their objection – from Brian Taylor’s “wowees” and 1970s style “humour”; to Tom Waterhouse being as welcome a visitor to rugby league coverage as Frank the rabbit is to Donnie Darko; Ray Warren and Phil Gould speaking against poker machine reform on behalf of their employers, Channel 9; those inane ads for VB and merchandise during cricket coverage – and whenever Ian Healy speaks; Footy Shows featuring a range of outrageous activities, from thinly veiled racism, overt sexism, homophobia and picking on pretty much anyone who is an easy target. It’s also easy to find supporting evidence of one of the most accurate charges – that sport reports are little more than recounts of games, repeated gossip, trivia and “insider talk”.

Not all sport reporting is breathless gossip and small stories exploded into massively vital ones. There are notable exceptions in terms of excellent sport writers and broadcasters – people like Brad Walter, Neil Cordy, Richard Hinds, Gideon Haigh, Jarrod Kimber, Francis Leach, Deb Spillane, Caroline Wilson and Malcolm Knox (there are more, fill in the gaps…).  These writers and commentators have a way of fitting sport into a wider context, showing why it should matter to us why things happen in sport.  Most sport writers, however, don’t.  Part of the issue for sport writers is that of “access”- which is often used as a way of justifying an amount of what is written.

Access to all available players and sporting officials is a key claim towards authority for sport writer – we often read “I was at Whitten Oval today, and…” or “Deep inside Panthers, I was talking to Phil Gould about…”. It’s often mentioned in an irrelevant context – such as when a piece on A League starts with something David Gallop texted Phil Rothfield.  This question of access is also often used as a defence of their articles by the sport writers on Twitter – the “I talked to X, I saw Y, you didn’t” approach.  It’s a similar phenomenon to whenever we hear from Canberra Press Gallery journalists about their level of acces to those notorious “anonymous sources” from the ALP. That level of access raises various questions:

1. Does being too close personally to the figures involved affects the level of objectivity and clarity of the author?

2. Does the level of access renders all “outsider” commentary on sport irrelevant and without authority

3. Does access render the articles as being “safe”, due to the fear of the journalist losing that level of access that allows him or her to write their pieces?

4. Does close access reduce sport commentary and writing to the detailed reportage of intimate details of day to day activities in the sport?

The insistence on “access” (often called “unprecedented access”) as well as experience in sport is something we see dominating sport coverage and commentary. This is why the AFL dedicated channel on Foxtel, is filled with former players or newspaper writers who have “access”.  Or Eddie McGuire (there can’t be many Chairmen of any organisations that would be allowed to their own TV show – imagine “Rupert Murdoch Tonight” or the “Alan Joyce Show”). Even the Supercoach Show, a show for people who like playing fantasy football, is now hosted by a former footballer, Brad Johnson, who doesn’t seem to know very much about the Supercoach game.  The result is that we have the same talking heads, with their unparalleled access, treading the line of being uncontroversial and largely uncritical of the game or the wider cultural impact of the game.  An exception to this is the ABC program “Offsiders”, which is often controversial – even if the panellists are Insiders with Access.  It will be a while until we see a Fan Forum show on Fox Sports, where people with no access will be able to discuss issues and comment on the game.

When it comes to be experienced or someone with access, this also shuts out and marginalises a significant sector of sport fans, commentators and writers – female fans, commentators and writers. Fox Footy is like the Marylebone and Melbourne Cricket Clubs of eras past – men only.  Women aren’t anywhere to be seen, even the week where it was Women’s Round in the AFL was advertised as “Christmas in July” on the channel. This means that sideline commentators like Barry Hall, when speaking about the “unprecedented access” the channel had to Port Adelaide’s preparations for their March 31 game, said “the women will be disappointed we haven’t got cameras in the change room”. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink…  This theme of marginalised female sport fans, commentators and writers is a continuing one. They can be poor “victims” of a partner who likes fantasy football, removed from TV commentary in the case of Kelli Underwood, or the idea that women are best employed writing about women’s sport.  Women in commercial football seem to be best employed as readers of sporting odds or as the giggling sidekick – a role Fifi Box played for a while in the NRL Footy Show – or as a target of disgusting activities undertaken by Sam Newman in the AFL Footy Show with a Caroline Wilson mannequin.  The exception to this is the ABC, with Underwood doing commentary for them, the continuing presence of Simone Thurtell and Karen Tighe on Grandstand, as well as Deb Spillane both hosting Northern Grandstand and her “Hens FC” panel show.

A solution to all of this – as it has been for the political news community, is for the blogosphere to pick up where traditional sport media leaves off and create blogs and media hubs that provide honest, varied views about sport and the wider context of sport.  One about various sports, no matter the gender of the sportspeople. Where a range of good writers write about sport in a meaningful way – but without being fussed about “access”, “exclusives” and other old media methods of excluding readers and possible contributors. We don’t have many templates for such a site.

The US has Grantland, which is an ESPN project. One of the best features in that was one that demonstrates the issue of being a journalist with access as against being a sport fan and member of society demanding the truth, explored by the creator of Grantland, Bill Simmons.  None of our sport broadcasters present such a forum.  I’m also not talking about Bound for Glory news, which is a commendable attempt at alternative sport writing featuring a range of writers, but is limited, in that it mainly concerns itself about AFL and that world.  I am speaking about a sport version somewhere between The Drum or Ausvotes 2013, which has a clean, accessible front page as well as writers who are free to contribute their pieces, no matter their “background” in sport. Not sure whether this will ever happen, but it would be nice if it did.

It’s All About The Numbers – Fantasy AFL

Posted on by
2

While Twitter and the blogosphere has been gripped by the rolling maul of Ruddmentum (and to me, the much more amusing Crean – Get On Top movement) these past weeks, I have been gripped by a much more difficult activity. As a generally non sporty person, though as an avid sport watcher, I occasionally try to work out what goes on in the world of sport, get initiated into places that are almost foreign to me. This year, it has been plunging into the (mostly male) world of Fantasy Football – in my case, AFL Dream Team and Supercoach. As with politics, it’s all about the numbers.

Being in a NSW workplace as I have been all my life, I am the only person I know who plays AFL fantasy football. I am fully aware that if I was a teacher in Victoria, I would have had to develop a pretty sophisticated understanding of the workings of the comps, both to keep up with Monday morning staffroom conversations, but also have something to talk about down at the pub on a Friday night. A female teacher friend of mine, in order to have something to talk about, decided to have fun with the concept some time ago and selects a team each year that contains players selected entirely on the basis of their names being a double entendre. Hence, Sidebottom, Suckling, Swallow (x2), Goldsack, Ryder, Plowman, Johncock… (you get the picture). For me, though, it’s a case of having no pressure to be some kind of King of the Staffroom, it’s purely diverting and fun.

In order to help fuel the obsessions, there’s a whole internet community dedicated to the numbers and machinations of the two fantasy football competitions. Amongst the best of these are Dream Team Talk, which features the occasional Youtube show with three friendly blokes talking at a pub; Supercoach Paige, which features one of the few women who talks fantasy football; a page with an amusing title picture, Sargeant Supercoach and probably one of the more interesting projects attempting to emulate 1970s football language, Jock Reynolds. These weeks have been spent trying to work out what all the numbers mean. That’s why my Twitter feed has me following a range of DT and SC experts, all talking in a foreign language. That’s why I’ll have commentary on which sauce bottle Rudd has shaken followed by cries of “Broughton isn’t rebounding the ball in the NAB Cup game”, “Ross Lyon really hates DT coaches”, “This game in Renmark has produced awesome numbers for Port”, “Swan is a definite lock”, “What do you mean Tom Mitchell isn’t playing???”, et cetera. As with any concept foreign to me, it fascinates with its coruscations.

Despite the best efforts of members of this very friendly and helpful Twitter crew (especially fellow Giants member and Dream Team Talk contributor, @RLGriffin85 and that outstanding AFL news source, @janinemcglynn), I still don’t entirely understand how the numbers work. This includes the differences between Dream Team and Supercoach. Both use quite different statistical formulas. All I have worked out really is that some players touch the ball more and get involved in the game, which gives them more numbers. But champion players like Adam Goodes and Nick Malceski aren’t really all that good for the fantasy competitions. Even my favourite player in the AFL, Kieren Jack, is barely mentioned. Apparently it hurts him to be playing with other champion players. What I have learned, however, is that the games are actually outstanding learning activities – especially in terms of providing a workout in terms of statistics, mathematics and speculation based on evidence. This is why parents shouldn’t get too worried if their children like a bit of fantasy football activity.

As an exercise in attempting to understand this world of numbers, statistics and the like, I decided to select two teams in each competition. One is my regular all sides team – the one where I have attempted to listen to all of the advice and tips from the various sources. The other is my Northern States team, consisting of players for the Sydney Swans, GWS Giants, Gold Coast Suns and Brisbane Lions. This is partially because I wanted to track how players from the Swans and Giants go in the competitions, and partially because I am very fond of any team operating in the “league states”. This is why the DT / SC crew like giving me advice on my all sides team, but are sometimes profoundly puzzled by the Northern States team. They possibly don’t understand what it’s like for a Western Sydney boy to have four sides north of the Murray to watch. Plus, they have the torrent of “coaches” asking questions about their legitimate teams. “What about Fyfe?” is more pressing than “why don’t any of these teams have cheap rookies that will get a game?”

Here are my Northern States teams – the Northern States teams are both named in honour of the Flamboyant Icon of Northern States AFL, Warwick Capper.

Dream Team

Dream Team Northern States

Super Coach

Northern States Supercoach

Then there is the All States team, built from all of the rumours, comments, research.

Dream Team

Dream Team Regular Team

Super Coach

Allstates Supercoach

Summarising the gap between my political Twitter friends and the Fantasy Footyheads, almost no-one took up my invitation to join my “Flamboyant League”, also named for Mr. Capper. That is to be expected though, the worlds have almost no intersection.

Today is the big day for Fantasy Football chat and last minute panics as the numbers of changes that can be made becomes restricted. The Crean Bun Fight barely rated a blip yesterday in their world. Brad Crouch’s non selection for Adelaide made more of an impact. I hope they all remember it really is just fun rather than a reflection of their abilities as people. But maybe that’s just the view from an isolated Sydney person. Ultimately, however, I’m glad this type of thing exists. Otherwise, we’d all just be more than a little depressed about the state of play in this country.

Society is the Biggest Loser – The Lowest Point on our TV Schedule –

Posted on by
2

I catch a train most days to and from work. Every so often the train is pretty crowded. The other day, there was a carriage that was full, except for one seat. The middle aged professional man in front of me baulked at going down the steps to sit in that seat. I looked to see why. The window seat had a larger woman sitting in it. I thought “you bastard”. I had no hesitation taking the seat – even discovered that she is a current student at Sydney University and was delightful and friendly.  The situation, though, reminded me of something that is shameful in our society – discrimination against people who are overweight.

It happens everywhere. Stupid jokes, stupid photos, catty comments in TV shows, offices, wherever.  It’s something that should be stopped, along with refugee demonising and racism.  Problem is, unlike those things, this kind of shaming is given tacit approval in many places and, worse, promotion on what ranks as the worst “reality” show on Australian TV – The Biggest Loser.

It’s difficult to ignore the presence of this show – you could be sitting there, enjoying a decent show like Mr and Mrs Murder and there the ads come on, dripping with slurry music accompanying people saying they feeling “ashamed” of the way they look, saying that basically their lives have no meaning because of their weight.  The show then approves this sentiment by having some shouty personal trainer with Personality Deficiency Syndrome (PDS) shouting at them at some “Fat Camp”, “Loser Central” or some inane name.

There are multiple stories about the ridiculous lengths these people go to at Fat Camp to make massive weight loss their goal – as well as the cheating that went on behind the scenes of the show. That’s not the whole point, though – the show itself is an abomination that should never see the light of the day.  Telling people that they are worthless because they are above a certain weight, plus encouraging weight loss more than 1kg a week (considered by many to be a sensible weight loss goal) is irresponsible.  The kind of spotlight that is put on these people wanting a bit of shame fame (goodness knows why) is just cynical manipulation by TV execs wanting to spin some money from the embarrassment of others. As with Big Brother, I’m not convinced that the contestants on these shows know exactly what kind of post – show life they are in for.  For each person that actually gained some happiness, there would be still others forever known as “Biggest Loser Contestants” in a negative way.

The problem is, though, that people watch this stuff. Week after week, getting emotionally attached, going on “the journey” with them. It’s hard to blame people for getting hooked – TV watchers like intense drama – this show is full of such confected, slow motion tear jerking – and many of the viewers would also have weight “issues”, as the magazines would put it.  But it doesn’t reflect well on our culture when what we are watching on TV is people on treadmills being shouted at by PDS suffering prison warden wannabes in lycra.

There are people, however, who will be blogging about it, tweeting it and it will appear, no matter the muting and list management one can do. On will flash some kind of comment about how “wonderful” someone finds the “journey” to being thin.  Nothing, however, about how their personality or ability to communicate to others will be improved. Nor how stupid it is that their friends and people around them will talk to them differently because they a different size.

This show flushes out, however, those people who do like to discriminate according to size. You’ll hear them talking around the water cooler about this show, admiring the weight loss and talking about those who can’t lose weight in a negative way. These same people are often incapable of talking about things other than their bodies, clothes and how they lost weight with x diet. They are the people who don’t need The Biggest Loser to watch every week, smugly looking down on those who struggle. They need another show altogether.

Frankly, what I want to see on TV is The Biggest Gainer. Find people larger people comfortable with their body image who know things about things other than being weight obsessed. Then get a whole group of personal trainers and teach them to appreciate and engage with culture – art, literature, music, etc. Stop these trainers from wanting to spend all their lives on a treadmill, jogging around in circles and shouting at people – instead have them want to read, listen to Beethoven and talk about things. Gain something worthwhile, instead of turning our TV culture into a wasteland of narcissistic finger pointing.

There are those who are filled with horror with the kind of narcissism, egotism, social segregation and self centred grasping that an Abbott Government would encourage. They should be watching The Biggest Loser and see that it’s already happening, every week. Then stop watching. And never refer to it again.

The Fuddy Duddy Classy Nation – Discreetly Hiding Our Diversity

Posted on by
6

Often, people like to think Australia as a nation is pretty funkily and nattily dressed. Every week, though, events occur that shine a mirror onto ourselves that show that’s not the case.  Two recent events have shown this – one is the request by middle aged breakfast TV host David Koch for women to be “discreet” about breast feeding; the other Parramatta Council asking an LGBTI support organisation to take down a sign at its “Rediscover the River” festival.

The one that is attracting the most comment currently is the reaction to David Koch’s comments about breastfeeding on Sunrise.  I won’t add much to this discourse, because there have been plenty of very good posts about it, such as this one in the Hoopla and Kat Gallow’s succinct post. It speaks volumes for where we are as a society that such a person’s statements are given the credence and space in our discourse.  One can imagine the conversations happening today in our workplaces, restaurants, on Facebook and in comments sections, such as this one in The Punch.  Having been in such conversations at my previous workplace, I have an idea of what will be said. There will be all varieties of the concept of “classy”, “discreet”, “women should just find a room” and that sort of thing – from men and women.  The fact that breastfeeding in public is lawful and shouldn’t really be anyone else’s business doesn’t seem to come into this a great deal – women are being made to feel as though the natural act of breastfeeding is somehow shameful and needs to be done with approval by society. That’s why TV clowns and other people are allowed to throw words like “classy” and “discreet” into a discourse on how women can act in public.    It shows that when the mirror is held up to us on this issue, we seem to be wearing whatever conservative middle aged Anglo-Celt man clothes David Koch has on.

David Koch

The other issue that should be attracting outrage (but, in comparison to the Koch issue, currently isn’t) is the move by Parramatta City Council to ask LGBTI advocacy group Twenty10 to take down an “offensive” sign put up at the council’s “Rediscover the River” festival on Thursday.  This is the sign.

Twenty10

It’s a sign advertising support services for a group of people in western Sydney who are frequently marginalised, discriminated against and made to feel shame for their sexuality and gender identity.  The services of Twenty10 are desperately needed by those in western Sydney who have experienced homophobia throughout their daily lives, both in public and at home. To my eyes, at least, it can be seen in no way as offensive to anyone (unlike, to me at least, many banners in the same region that degrades women or advertises gambling services).  The event was advertised as a family day, with events that were meant to show the diversity of the area. However, the organisers of the event asked the Twenty10 organisers to take down the sign because people at the event found it offensive.  Originally, a Twenty10 organiser interviewed by Linda Mottram on ABC 702 believed it was the Lord Mayor of Parramatta, John Chedid, who made the complaint – but this has been countered by Parramatta City Council in this official Facebook statement.

Parramatta City Council Statement

“Numerous complaints made by members of the public”.  Members of the Fuddy Duddy Nation.  The organisers of the event should should have told these complainants that their complaints are noted and then ignore the homophobia, rather than feeding it by giving in.  The same goes for workplaces and public spaces where the fuddy duddies complain about breast feeding mothers. It would have also been a good move for the organisers to consult with the council on the issue.  This is because councils and other bodies should just be saying that “it’s legal and it’s right” to those complaining – but it is easier and less complicated for them to just give in to the Fuddy Duddy Mob.  The mirror shown to us in response to the cave in by the organisers of the Rediscover the River event shows that there are people near us with “We Don’t Have Gays Around Here, So Why Do They Need Support” badges. I find this acceptance of continuing homophobia more disturbing than the Koch silliness.

These events show that the Fuddy Duddy Nation is not discreet or classy in its open discrimination against breast feeding mothers and the LGBTI community.  They hold all the cards, all the power.  The battle continues against their draconian ways.

Xmas at Home – Continuing the Momentum

Posted on by
4

Last year, Stephanie Philbrick, Dr Samantha Thomas and I had a conversation that turned into Xmas at Home (I blogged about it here). It was a campaign that asked people to contribute to a hashtag that sought to offer company and companionship to those at home on Christmas Day – one of the loneliest times of the year for many people.

The success of last year’s campaign saw people connect in a variety of ways – tweeting comedy, music, pictures of pets – as well as spark conversations about things in common. The hashtag #xmasathome was what bound it together – that way, people discovered others on Twitter that normally they wouldn’t meet in their usual day to day life.  That stories about it reached news outlets was a good thing – if only to make people aware of the campaign, even if it was after the fact.

One of the difficulties of Twitter is that hashtags and campaigns disappear as soon as they appear.  I do hope, however, that people remember the publicity from last year and that we can this year’s #xmasathome as successful at last year’s, in terms of helping people find connections at a time where a lack of family connection is felt at its most acute level. It would a nice way to help close out the year – confirming that Twitter isn’t necessarily just the home of ranting, complaining and trolling. It can be used to reach out as well.

Spinning Around in Their Reality – Austereo Following the PR Playbook

Posted on by

The last days since what is now called the “Royal Prank Tragedy” has been curious, but not entirely surprising. Not in the least that I have had Gerard Henderson, of the Sydney Institute, basically writing a similar argument about radio pranks as I articulated in my previous blog post. Rarely have the Sydney and Preston Institutes agreed so heartily.  I had other responses from various people, including a former employee of Austereo who spoke of a headquarters “decorated from material that looked like seconds from the Death Star” and likened working for them to this scene from The Dark Crystal:

Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) itself hasn’t covered itself in glory either in the last days, with a number of gaffes that seem to show that they haven’t any intention to change their culture or their macho approach to corporate responsibility to society.

1. Blame the Hospital for Not Answering the Phone.

Rhys Holleran, the CEO of SCA, said that the station “tried to ring the hospital” to gain permission to play the stunt.  Not only has this been denied by the hospital, it shows a complete misunderstanding by SCA of their culpability. Instead of trying to avoid censure from ACMA for not following the Commercial Radio Code of Practice, what they should have said is “we should never have run the prank, having not been able to contact the hospital”.  It sounds like the program director or whoever was responsible for the show said something like “oh, well, it’s just a great prank, let’s just get it on air and sort out the legals later”.   It comes out as blame shifting, rather than taking responsibility.

2. “It Can’t Have Just Been Our Prank That Did This”

Austereo’s Sandy Kaye, when speaking to the New York Post about the tragedy, said what a number of people around water coolers – and even the presenters on The View – have been saying for the past few days -

“Surely, there’s a lot more to suicide than a prank call where a woman has [done nothing more than] put through a phone call…  Perhaps the hospital should have known about that. If that turns out to be the case and they knew about her fragile situation, then why would you leave her on the front line?”

While this kind of speculation isn’t surprising amongst people away from the media and even on a public water cooler discussion show like The View, it’s astonishingly insensitive when coming from a spokesperson from the company directly involved.  It’s more blame shifting – inferring the King Edward VII should not have nurses working at their hospital if they are “fragile”. After all, as we know, it wasn’t usually her job to answer phones – she was a nurse on station at 5.30 am, who just happened to answer a phone.

Then there were the PR playbook moves that shouldn’t have been fooling anyone – but probably are.

1. Parade the Hosts On Tightly Controlled Media

Many people saw the tearful interview with the two hosts in question – it is not surprising that they feel great remorse and regret. Interestingly, they absolved themselves from an amount of responsibility from what happened after the call was made – which shows that this was indeed an Austereo blame shifting culture problem, where hosts are encouraged to make such calls, but then pass responsibility onto others.  The interview was intended to make viewers sympathise with the hosts, probably with the hope being that it distracts possible anger towards their bosses that foster the culture.

If Austereo were serious about having remorse for their action, the station staff directly responsible for co-ordinating pranks and allowing the material going to air should be interviewed – and not by a friendly, sympathetic interviewer like the ones found on ACA or TT. Or, maybe they should get the kind of treatment that “dodgy welfare cheats” get from those programs.  Doubtful, considering SCA is a major purchaser of advertising on Channels 7 and 9.

2. Suspend Advertising and Cancel the Show

This is the trick 2GB played when Alan Jones was receiving negative publicity after the Died in Shame incident.  They suspended advertising for two weeks – and now the advertisers would be knocking on the door, knowing that Jones’ ratings have increased since the incident. Austereo have done the same – it will be interesting to see how long that lasts.  The show, the Hot 30, has been cancelled, which is an odd decision, given that it’s mostly a music show, with the latest popular songs with a bit of banter between them. I can’t think 2Day won’t have a show like that again.  Again, more spin from the company.

I don’t agree with Tum Burrowes of Mumbrella that Holleran should resign. This would be yet another token sacrifice that companies do when they want to deflect criticism and don’t want to change their culture. This is why I suspect that he will probably resign soon enough.  What should happen is a root and branch review and a cancelling of pranks that target the bystanders.  I don’t think this will happen.  If The View is anything to go by, there is still a belief that such pranks in themselves are harmless and a bit of fun – as I have been told by many outside the Twitterverse in the last couple of days.

Little doubt this will story will continue to play out and then finally fade away, leaving behind the tragedy and the family involved. It can’t be easy to have a loved one’s mental state being speculated upon by American TV shows.  Ultimately, the executives of SC Austereo will survive this.  They will continue to live in what the former Austereo employee who talked to me called their alternative reality.  For those people trying to change their macho, rigid self belief, the phone message they will receive would go like this – “The reality you are accessing is no longer in service. Please contact your local reality provider.”