Australia

Betrayer

annette — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

What things come from Australia? Lots of bitey poisonous things. The fabulous and flamboyant movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. AC/DC. Australian Toaster Biscuits (do you remember Australian Toaster Biscuits? I do. They were amazing.) The On Fires also come from Australia. Are The On Fires as amazing as Australian Toaster Biscuits? Do they wear shorts all of the time like Angus Young? Can they do a mean Gloria Gaynor impression, while sporting a dress made out of flip-flop sandals? Perhaps most importantly, can they wrestle lots of bitey poisonous things like Steve Irwin? These are all questions I would like to have answered.

First things first: are they as amazing as Australian Toaster Biscuits (A.T.B. for short)? The amazing thing about A.T.B. is that they are sweeter and more substantive than regular English muffins. So the real question here is, are The On Fires sweeter and more substantive than English muffins? The closest English band to an English muffin would have to be the Spice Girls, for their rather dense exterior and the air-filled emptiness at the center. I would have to say I prefer The On Fires to the Spice Girls. The On Fires have a certain level of sweetness; on tracks like “Without”, that are both emotion-filled and packed with energy. Similar to A.T.B., The On Fires also have a certain level of substance that is lacking in their English muffin counterparts. They obviously are influenced by bands like The Mars Volta and Social Distortion, while the musical influences of the Spice Girls are clearly more along the lines of The Archies, if The Archies wore sexy pants.

Question number two: Do they wear shorts all of the time like Angus Young? The answer appears to be no. I see a sherpa hat on their guitar player in the liner notes, but no shorts. Which brings us to the question can they do a mean Gloria Gaynor impression, while sporting a dress made out of flip-flop sandals? As I have yet to see them in concert, I cannot say whether they are capable of such a feat. However, according to their website, their previous band name was “Asleep in the Park” until a fan shouted “you’re not asleep, you’re on fire!” so I can only imagine that they have quite a lot of enthusiasm on stage. In addition, their song “Melancholy” is obviously influenced by Queen, which clearly indicates they are at least friends of the family, if you know what I mean.

Finally, the most important question of all: can they wrestle lots of bitey poisonous things like Steve Irwin? Again, it doesn’t appear they wear shorts all of the time, so I cannot be sure they can match the awesomeness of His Royal Majesty of Crocodile Hunting (R.I.P.), Steve Irwin. They do have plenty of punk-rock swagger on tracks like “Coming Home,” which I suppose would be needed when faced with certain death at the fangs of something bitey and poisonous. However, they do a riff on the Ventures’ tune “Wipeout” during the song, which is probably not something you want to hear when faced with wrangling a death adder or a blue-ringed octopus. So, I suppose, the jury is out on the answer to this question.

I hope I have sufficiently answered these questions regarding The On Fires and various elements of Australia. In closing, I would have to say that they are far more enjoyable than Silverchair, and not nearly as enjoyable as AC/DC, although they do have a fair amount of rock and roll attitude. Just one more question, though: Why do people from hot climates wear sherpa hats?

Written by: Emily S. Dunster, April 21st 2011

Kill Your Darlings: Issue One

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Edited by Rebecca Starford

Kill Your Darlings has a lot to live up to. In its inaugural issue its editor, Affirm Press’ Rebecca Starford, says the journal’s mission is to "reinvigorate and re-energise" Australia’s literary scene. She quotes editor Rob Spillman as saying that most journals are "good for you, but they taste awful." Kill Your Darlings intends to redress this—to shake up the medium and "publish literature that bites back." A big, bold statement.

First let me say that I love the title of this attractive new journal. It is an apt reference to the advice that writers are so often given. The bit you love the most is the bit that has to go. Editing your own work is a ruthless business, and cutting your ‘baby’ up can feel like murder. So, Kill Your Darlings is a perfect choice of title that is edgy and attention grabbing, and therefore sure to help with marketing. Moreover, the cover design is striking, the layout clean and readable, and the standard of editing (so often lacking these days) is high. In short, it’s a pleasure to curl up on the couch with.

The journal opens with Gideon Haigh’s biting (yes, they’ve succeeded there) assessment of the current state of reviewing. I suspect some may view this essay as deliberately provocative, but he makes some valid points about what he describes as the generally "lacklustre" fare on offer characterised by "its sheer dullness and inexpertise." He attributes much of the problem to timid reviewers who fear future retribution when their own work comes up for review, but also to newspapers and magazines who pay poorly (if at all) for reviews and begrudge the space they occupy. The critique has already sparked debate, which can only be a good thing.

On finishing reading this essay I, of course, turned straight to the review section at the back to see how Kill Your Darlings' measured up. There are two brief reviews, which surely for their length alone would paradoxically be lambasted under Haigh’s criteria (he quotes George Orwell’s opinion that 1000 words should be the "bare minimum" for any worthwhile review). Nevertheless, snappy reviews do serve a purpose and it’s good to see them included here alongside two much longer reviews. Starford’s consideration of Mary Gaitskill’s Don’t Cry certainly falls within Orwell’s ballpark, and makes a serious attempt to examine this latest offering within the broader context of her body of work. And there’s a lengthy review of The Wire, which Anthony Morris claims is "the best television drama series ever made." (I’m not convinced.)

But back to the ‘commentary’ section. I found Tracy Crisp’s reflective story about the elusive nature of inspiration and the difficulty in trying to write and mother simultaneously compelling. How to be the kind of writer she wants to be and the kind of mother is a conundrum to which I can relate. Then there’s Clementine Ford’s wryly amusing article on internet dating, and Paul Mitchell’s moving and funny account of guiltily bonding with his tweenage daughter over shopping despite his anti-consumerist principles.

It’s great to see an article by former Canberran Justin Heazlewood (aka The Bedroom Philosopher) featured. His commentary on the death of the album and his dad-like resistance to it makes for entertaining reading. The desire for musos to hold their own album in their hands (and not just on their iPod) is surely one to which many authors can relate (the desire for a beautiful object not just a file on an eReader). Ultimately, though, resistance will surely prove futile.

The only disappointment was Georgia Gowing’s commentary on the derby phenomenon. As a regular roller derby-goer I wanted more. For me, it didn’t entirely capture the electric energy and drama of a derby match and, other than a few interesting soundbites from the girls themselves, it failed to offer any fresh insights. Perhaps delving into links to punk culture and third wave feminism might have afforded it greater depth.

The fiction section includes seven short stories of which Patrick Cullen’s is the standout. "Carver’s Unkempt Lawn" imagines a meeting between four famous American writers in the home of Tess Gallagher and Raymond Carver, who is dying. The subtle elegance of this beautifully crafted story had me captivated. I also admired "Clinching" by Emmett Stinson, which throws us into the futile struggle of an emotionally disconnected couple—characters who leap boldly and vividly from the page. And then there’s Chris Womersley’s "Theories of Relativity," which opens with an arresting first line and just gets better from there. It is an unsettling tale of a dysfunctional family seen through the eyes of its youngest child who doesn’t discover the shocking inner world of his family until his twenty-first year. Womersley reveals the story in layers, masterfully leading us towards the final brutal punch. I haven’t read his first novel, The Low Road, which won the 2008 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction, but I’ll certainly be seeking it out now.

I must confess that I was initially skeptical about whether Kill Your Darlings could live up to its own hype. Well, dear Reader, I was wrong to have doubted. Issue one is a damn fine read. I look forward to seeing what the next one brings.

Cross-posted from Overland

Written by: Irma Gold, April 26th 2010

30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account

admin — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:36:00 +0000

By Peter Carey

Bloomsbury Press

Peter Carey’s 30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account is one of the most accurately named books that I’ve read recently. This book is not a traditional travel narrative, and it gains so much from that. The twists and turns inherent in Sydney’s history and people are developed throughout the book not only in the words, but in the style of the book. It is indeed a wildly distorted account, and an unapologetic one. We are along for the ride with Carey’s spin through Sydney, a city he once lived in.

Carey starts the book saying that he originally wanted to research the Earth, Air, Water, and Fire of Sydney, but he continually gets off track. There isn’t a clear and focused direction to the narrative; instead it’s a lovely and intense stream of consciousness. The tale wanders through streets and history of Sydney in a delightful and inspiring way.

Settled as a town for prisoners from Europe, Sydney has a complicated relationship with its own past, particularly considering that there were already people happily settled and living in the area before Europeans arrived. The balance between the white settlers and the indigenous people is still a precarious but not often discussed issue in Sydney. The issue of land rights is touched upon, in a way that doesn’t beat a point over the reader’s head, but allows the reader to think for himself or herself.

Carey looks at the landmarks of Sydney as he brings the story back (on occasion) to his specific focus of the four elements. We get to see Bondi Beach; we’re taken along a trek in the Blue Mountains; we survive a high intensity brush fire; we manage to survive a deadly storm on the bay.

The culture of the area, including the corruption and scandal that is quietly endured and overlooked, is also highlighted in the book. Carey fully admits that there is no real way to accurately and adequately describe Sydney to someone who hasn’t lived there, but he does an incredible job of trying.

Don’t pick this up if you are looking for dry facts and a straightforward narrative; pick it up if you want to be enchanted with Sydney, with history, with people and with story-telling. The book is a part of the Bloomsbury “Writer and the City” project, and I cannot wait for the next release in the series.

Written by: Kristin Conard, April 25th 2009

Natalie Tran - CommunityChannel

admin — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:33:00 +0000

By Natalie Tran

Natalie Tran, a 22-year-old Australia vlogger, has created a small sensation on YouTube. The reigning queen of Australian YouTubers, she is a young, fresh-faced woman with self-deprecating humor who picks on the mundane snags of life that often get under our skin. It's a Seinfeld approach to humor, except this channel features a smart-mouth Vietnamese woman who begins each video with a quirky wave and smile.

The videos are often short, less than five minutes, with mild irreverence and profanity scattered throughout. Her satirical style is engaging, highlighting comments she receives from viewers and labels that portion of her videos "Comments/Porn Music Time," which is befitting of her overall "your mum" jokes and "ugly word of the video" persona.

A community channel with nearly 200,000 subscribers, Natalie's place is dubbed the site where "bandwidth commits suicide and cool goes to die," and has been embraced all over the globe, deeming her the number one most subscribed Australian channel on YouTube.

In some comments there are references and comparisons to HappySlip, another popular Asian comic female vlogger based out of New York, who stamped her Internet fame with the Filipino flag and primarily focuses on the Philippines and Filipino American culture.

Both have strong followings, but the difference between the two is target audience. Tran, who came on the interwebs in 2006, utilizes YouTube without an independent website, and appeals to a wide variety of viewers, but has a younger flavor to her videos. She speaks on the fly and grounds her 130 videos (and growing by the week) in casual humor relating pop culture, sexuality, Australian temperatures, and everyday grumbles.

Christine Gambito from HappySlip, who also launched her comedic career in 2006, has fewer sketches (eighty-one videos), and her skits play on the safer but still hilarious side of web entertainment. Topics range from her personal connection to the Philippines, to a friend passing away, to Facebook etiquette. Unlike Tran, she steers clear of any sexual innuendo and often showcases her musical talents. With her own domain and easy to navigate website, HappySlip has a more mature feel than Natalie’s community channel, which works in Natalie’s favor.

Natalie’s appeal to a young generation has spread far and wide and her success story proves that YouTube remains the hotbed for raw talent and creativity. Her popularity has skyrocketed so quickly it will not be surprising when a global linguistic trend begins to take hold; when "yeh" replaces "yeah," while "man" and "mate" are tagged at the end of sentences.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 4th 2009

Ten Things I Hate About Me

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:33:00 +0000

By Randa Abdel-Fattah

Orchard Books

I was excited when the book Does My Head Look Big in This? came out a few years ago. In that book, author Randa Abdel-Fattah tells the story of Amal, a young Australian Muslim woman who decides to wear hijab and navigates the challenges of expressing her identity as an Australian Muslim. Books about young Muslims in the West (a political and not geographic definition, obviously, given that I’m including Australia) aren’t exactly common, so it’s always exciting when these things do come up.

Abdel-Fattah’s second book is Ten Things I Hate About Me. Unlike Amal, Jamilah, the protagonist of this book, works hard to keep her Australian identity separate from her Lebanese-Muslim identity. At school, she is Jamie, and with her bleached hair and coloured contacts–no one knows that she is Arab or Muslim. The novel takes us through the stress and anxiety that Jamilah faces in keeping her culture and religion hidden, and her eventual path towards finding a sense of comfort to be able to express all elements of her identity.

I’ll say right now that this book is not an especially amazing literary work. The plot is interesting but somewhat predictable. (Fair warning: there are some minor spoilers ahead, but nothing that you wouldn’t have guessed yourself while reading the book.) A lot of the characters are fairly one-dimensional and seem to be there just to make a point: Jamilah’s father immigrated to Australia from Lebanon and has a Ph.D., but works as a taxi driver; her sister Shereen wears hijab (often in the form of scarves decorated with political slogans) and spends all her time out at political rallies and other activities related to social justice. (A religious woman in a scarf who’s really active and vocal? Amazing!)

I guess it’s useful to have these characters there as a way of challenging some of the stereotypes that readers may have, but as Melinda wrote about in relation to Does My Head Look Big in This?, sometimes it felt as if the novel was banging us over the head with its attempts to challenge stereotypes. I would have liked to see some of these characters be a bit more subtle and complex.

That said, the novel still raised a lot of themes that are worthy of discussion and reflection. The story begins with a conversation about the anti-Arab riots that happened on Sydney beaches in December 2005, with one of Jamilah’s classmates (himself a Muslim of Arab background) talking about the injuries he received while fighting against the racist mobs. Some students are supportive of him, while others taunt him, suggesting that the people rioting were right; one student, Peter, complains that “Man, you ethnics and Asians are always complaining... Oh, help me! I’m a victim of racism. The white people are out to get me. Get over yourselves!”

These racist remarks (complicated by the fact that Peter is one of the most popular guys in the school and spends a lot of the book flirting with Jamilah) continue throughout the story. I appreciated that Abdel-Fattah didn’t hold back on describing the racism that Jamilah was facing: it’s not simply a story of multiculturalism where everyone is happy and things like racism are an exception to the harmonious norm, but rather a more raw (and, I would argue, more truthful) portrayal of some of the ugly racism that does exist in Western societies. There is also an argument made about Muslims and Arabs being held accountable for the actions of other people from their communities in ways that other groups aren’t: in one conversation with her aunt, Jamilah argues that:

"When those teenage boys gang-raped girls in Sydney, it was the boys’ Lebanese-Muslim background that was put on trial. I went to school and I watched Peter Clarkson cross-examine Ahmed for a crime he did not commit. I read headlines describing the crimes as ‘Middle Eastern rape.’ I’ve never heard of Anglo burglary or Caucasian murder. If an Anglo-Australian commits a crime, the only descriptions we get are the colour of his clothes and hair.”

Along with this is a really honest portrayal of the effect that racism has on Jamilah. To explain why she hides her background at school, she says:

“I don’t have the courage to be up-front about who I am. I’d rather not deal with people wondering if I keep a picture of Osama bin Laden in the shape of a love heart under my pillow. Call me crazy, but I’m also not particularly excited about the prospect of having to stand accused every time somebody who happens to be of Lebanese background commits a crime.”

This silence, however, takes its toll. When she later talks about another moment where Ahmed stands up against racist comments, she reflects that, “The same prejudice and bigotry that silences me, vocalizes him. And even though my silence protects me, I’m the one walking with my head down.” When the aforementioned Peter tells Jamilah (or, perhaps more accurately, Jamie) that he likes that she is not self-absorbed, she thinks to herself, “”News bulletin: I’m not obsessed with the sound of my own voice because I don’t have a voice. I’m stifling it beneath layers of deceit and shame.” Jamilah’s sense of vulnerability and shame is palpable throughout the novel, and conveys a strong message about the personal impact of racism.

Although my own background is very different from Jamilah’s, there were several moments where I felt that I could really identify with her struggles to juggle several elements of her identity that are so often portrayed as exclusive to each other. Even when it’s not about actually hiding our identities, the fact of belonging to multiple communities that are often understood as separate can be complicated and difficult to handle. The extent that Jamilah goes through to keep some aspects of her identity hidden might seem a bit extreme, but the idea of downplaying certain parts of our identity in certain spaces definitely resonates. Add in the social pressure of high school (which, actually, I did find a bit exaggerated in this novel, but it’s relevant nonetheless) and the need to fit in becomes even more intense. As our protagonist says, “The Jamilah in me longs to be respected for who she is, not tolerated and put up with like some bad odour or annoying houseguest. But it takes guts to command that respect and deal with people’s judgements. Being Jamie at school shelters me from confronting all that.”

Her confusion about how to understand her multiple identities comes out in several places throughout the book. I like the way she illustrates the juggling metaphor here:

“All I want is to fit in and be accepted as an Aussie. But I don’t know how to do that when I’m juggling my Lebanese and Muslim background at the same time. It’s not like juggling an orange, and apple, and a banana. They’re all fruit and all fruits are pretty much equal, right? But the way I see it, juggling Aussie and Lebanese and Muslim is like juggling a couch, a mailbox, and a tray of muffins. Completely and utterly incongruous. How can I be three identities in one? It doesn’t work. They’re always at war with one another. If I want to go clubbing, the Muslim in me says it’s wrong and the Lebanese in me panics about bumping into somebody who knows somebody who knows my dad. If I want to go to a Lebanese wedding as the four hundredth guest, the Aussie in me will laugh and wonder why we’re not having civilized cocktails in a function room that seats a maximum of fifty people. if I want to fast during Ramadan, the Aussie in me will think I’m a masochist. I can’t win.”

As the story progresses and Jamilah’s hold on the strict separation of her Australian and Lebanese-Muslim identities beings to weaken, she begins to realise the effect that this separation has had on her and on her relationships to the people around her.

“All I want to know is what place I have in this country I call home. It all comes down to emotional real estate. Finding your place, renovating it as you go along (a haircut here, a university degree there), and having neighbourly relations with other property owners. So far, I’ve figured that dyeing my hair blonde, poking my eyes with contact lenses, and living a lie at school all guarantee me a share in the Australian property market. But I’m starting to realise how empty my bit of ‘place’ is. It’s got no soul. The cosmetics are fantastic and would look great on domain.com. But you can’t smell life. It tastes like stale cookies and sounds like socks on carpet.”

Cheesy? Well, yeah. And perhaps a bit simplistic, given the racism that was discussed earlier. It’s not as if just deciding to be yourself is necessarily going to make for an easy ride. But the sentiment is interesting, the idea that her attempts at self-preservation in fact become a form of self-destruction and self-silencing, and ultimately prove to be unsustainable.

The personal impact of this silence is also strongly felt at points. Since not a single person at her school knows about her religious and cultural background, Jamilah’s friendships at school remain stunted and superficial, prompting this reflection:

“I don’t have a proper relationship with my so-called closest friend. We’re like the two sides of a train track, each comfortable in our parallel existence. We don’t intersect or touch each other. But sometimes you need to collide. You need to crash and make an impact just to feel your friendship is alive. To feel that it’s more than passing notes to each other in class and sharing fries at lunchtime. I don’t have any collision scars from this friendship. And as deliberate as that is, it’s not something I’m proud of.”

The novel also addresses family issues in interesting ways. Jamilah’s father is very strict with her, and much less so with her brother, who goes out clubbing and drinking. Jamilah’s frustration at this double standard is expressed throughout the book. At the same time, she is very conscious of how this could be seen from the outside, and of not wanting to perpetuate a stereotype of Arab Muslim families as inherently sexist and oppressive. When her friend Amy asks if she’ll be coming to a party, she pretends that she’ll be going, because:

“I’m too embarrassed to tell her that my dad won’t let me go. I don’t want her to pigeonhole me as a poor, pitiful, repressed Lebanese girl. I know that my dad’s strictness is cultural and religious, but I also know it has a lot to do with my mother’s death as well, and the fact that he’s bringing us up alone. I don’t understand him. I don’t always agree with him. But I know that I’m not a stereotype and I’ll do everything in my power to protect myself from being seen as one, even if that means lying to my closest friend.”

The “I’m not a stereotype” idea comes up also in her conversations with “John,” an online friend to whom Jamilah has revealed more about her life than she has to her friends at school. When she mentions that she would be “dead meat” if she ever had a boyfriend (and, more importantly, if her father found out), he responds by asking, “Are you serious? Like those honour killings you hear about?” Jamilah’s frustrated response is to tell him, “No, you space cadet. Sheesh, this is why I hate opening up to people about my family! Can’t I be metaphorical without having my dad equated to a Taliban warlord?”

Okay, so the family stuff isn’t exactly subtle. The book is really clearly trying to make a point that families can be conservative and strict without filling the kinds of stereotypes that non-Muslims might expect. Although the lack of subtlety doesn’t make for amazing literature, I do have to say that the point is a good one, and it’s nice to see something that tackles these stereotypes head-on. Moreover, Jamilah is ultimately able to convince her dad to make small concessions: after some persuasion, she is able to get a part-time job, and after much persuasion, she is even able to go to her school’s formal. I think these changes speak louder than the direct points that she makes, since they demonstrate that her family’s rules are not carved in stone, and that restrictions can be resisted from within, without requiring some kind of saviour from the outside. I’m hoping that readers will understand that, by extension, other cultural rules (and resistance to them) can be equally dynamic, even when they seem monolithic and repressive from the outside.

Religion plays a fairly minor role in the story; Jamilah identifies as Muslim, but this isn’t the focus of the novel (this is actually pretty refreshing—someone can be Muslim while also having lots of other dimensions to her life! Who knew?) Various family members demonstrate different levels of religiosity, which is presented as something normal. Even the hijab is—shockingly—not a major issue. Jamilah’s sister wears it, but it is talked about more as a fashion and political statement than a religious one (although it is acknowledged as both.) There are a few more direct conversations about religion (again with obvious points that the author wanted to convey, like when Jamilah’s aunt argues that, “The Koran has been manipulated and abused to exploit women”), but it was nice to see a story about a Muslim girl that didn’t only revolve around the fact that she was Muslim.

I wasn’t thrilled with the cover of the book. The cover features a strip of photos of a girl, alternatively wearing hijab and not wearing it. This annoys me, because although a lot of the book is about Jamilah trying to balance her Muslim-Arab cultural-religious identity with her Australian identity, she never talks about wearing a headscarf. Her Lebanese culture is talked about in terms of music and food, but not at all in terms of hijab, and it’s annoying to see that on the cover as the representative picture of Jamilah’s Lebanese-Muslimness. Moreover, what does this say about the picture where she’s not wearing hijab? Is that the picture where she’s “Australian”? Can’t she have her head uncovered and still be seen as Lebanese and Muslim as well as Australian? If the whole point of the book is to demonstrate that these identities shouldn’t be mutually exclusive of one another, it seems problematic that there is one way to “look” Arab and another way to “look” Australian.

Overall, while it was often trying too hard to make its points, this book was an entertaining read, and an interesting look into the life of a girl trying to balance her cultures and religion, to cope with the racism and sexism that she faces, and to find a space where she feels at home.

Written by: Krista Riley @ MMW, March 17th 2009

Bra Boys

admin — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:06:00 +0000

Directed by Sunny Abberton

Berkela Films

I have to say, I thought I would hate Bra Boys. A documentary about the much maligned surfing gang of the poverty-stricken Maroubra Beach community in Australia, made by the _Bra Boys _themselves, I expected a lot of glorification of violence, sexism, and machismo. Instead, the film portrays violence negatively and only to be used in self-defense, promotes tolerance and acceptance of all cultures, and tells a very compelling story about how surfing saved a great number of boys in Maroubra from broken and abusive homes, drugs, and prison.

As for the overt sexism, there wasn’t any. There were also no women in the film whatsoever, except for the saintly grandmother of the Abberton brothers, the brothers being the primary filmmakers and storytellers of the movie. Perhaps there was some kind of freak sewage spill, and no female children are born in Maroubra anymore? I don’t know. The lack of females is that extreme. I’d like to know, if the boys have surfing to save them, what do the young women of Maroubra have to save them from poverty, violence, and a surfing culture that entirely excludes them.

At any rate, Sunny Abberton tells the story (with help from some totally unnecessary narration from Russell Crowe) of how the Bra Boys were formed, how the police came to hate them (not their fault), how they fought with other gangs (the other gangs started it), how one of his brothers, Jai, came to be charged with murder (naturally, not his fault), and how they have helped to mend racial tensions in the area (they want credit for that). This is where the line between PR piece and documentary becomes blurry; these are some seriously unreliable narrators, after all, which does not entirely detract from the film.

There is a lot to be said about the power of those who have been disempowered getting the chance to tell their story with cameras in hand, a chance to redress wrongs by showing the systematic oppression of a population. Despite the shaky handheld recordings, the overly long running time, and the very narrow point of view, there is a really strong, affirming message underneath about banding together, the beauty of surfing, pride in one’s community, and overcoming some very formidable obstacles. Also, the footage of big, scary waves and incredibly daring surfing are just really fun to watch.

So, Bra Boys exceeded my expectations, and I spent a fairly entertaining hour and a half watching it (although I can’t promise the only real reason I was entertained was because it was decidedly better than I thought it would be). There are weaknesses here, yes, and they can make for a frustrating viewing, but the surfing and the waves, dude, on the big screen, they are just awesome.

Written by: Arin Brenner, April 19th 2008

Making Sex Work: A Failed Experiment with Legalised Prostitution

admin — Thu, 10 May 2007 11:37:00 +0000

By Mary Lucille Sullivan

Spinifex Press

Mary Lucille Sullivan attempts to tackle the world's oldest profession, but provides more questions than answers. When the State of Victoria in Australia became one of the first governments in the world to legalize prostitution in 1984, both residents and the rest of the world wondered how this radical law would affect women's role in this underground, but very active workforce. Making Sex Work: A Failed Experiment with Legalised Prostitution investigates whether the ladies of the night in Victoria are expanding or diminishing the sex industry. With politics and morals to divide and conquer, Sullivan leaves her readers more confused than enlightened.

Sullivan, who holds a PhD in political science from the University of Melbourne, has previously explored this forbidden topic in What Happens When Prostitution Becomes Work: an update on legalised prostitution and contributed to Not for Sale: Feminist Resisting Prostitution and Pornography. Sullivan's clear, direct and well-polished language offers no flowery, hidden messages for her audience to interpret. Like a true professional, she lays down the facts as she sees them, in most cases anyway.

The main downfall of Sullivan's lengthy text is the lack of supporting data, which is a must for any researcher. In "Setting the Framework," she begins to explain her purpose for studying prostitution in Victoria. She states, "'Sexual services ranks highest of all personal service industries in terms of revenue (reaching as high as 80 per cent) and drives the overall growth of this economic sector in general." There was no explanation of where this information came from, whether it only affects Victoria, how recent is the research or what kind of "sexual services" was she referring to. Did I also mention that this is all in the first chapter? Yes, she does raises questions about legalized prostitution, but also leaves readers wondering in places where they shouldn't be.

A more shocking example that begged for facts was her perspective on "sadomasochism as torture." Sullivan studies Susan Hawthorne's own research in S&M/B&D for lesbians. She explains, "Throughout her work, Hawthorne has documented the horrific treatment of lesbians who are tortured in families, in prisons and in mental asylums, explaining how in many countries being lesbian still carries an immediate jail sentence." Where was the evidence that either the author or Hawthorne backs up to prove that bondage play is indeed a danger to lesbians? Which women claimed to be tortured? How does S&M affects Victoria and most importantly, what does sadomasochism have to do with legalized prostitution? The list of questions keep growing, but there are no answers.

Sullivan's determination to explore prostitution laws in Australia should be applauded. However, her lack of necessary data makes her come off as a prude, amateur researcher publishing a first draft that others will mistake as a scholarly text. If she would have just backed up her theories like anyone else in her field, Sullivan's book wouldn't have fallen short from its true potential.

Written by: Stephanie Nolasco, May 10th 2007