The best ever debate on Australian television
This is the best debate ever on Australian television.
It concerns a serious issue discussed seriously by knowledgeable people. None of them resort to platitudes or sarcasm. There will never be a debate in any Australian Parliament this good. No episode of Q&A, nothing ever said or written by Laurie Oakes or Michelle Grattan, no dialogue with Sister Geraldine from Our Lady of the Doogues will ever resist the urge to be snide, patronising or solipsistic as in this debate.
I wish it weren't true and that Australian politics and media could lift its game. And even though it can't, we deserve better and I'll always be pissed off that we don't get the media-politics we deserve.
I also thought it was a fascinating debate, but an article by Liz Conor in The Age rightly points out that the inspiration for the ad was a woman, but the whole discussion was done by men.
ReplyDeleteBut something else went out of Hunt's head when he spat his beer — gender. His male friend had made a joke about a passing woman. Somewhere in his deftly but overdrawn equivalence between shape discrimination, racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism, he lost sight of the simple fact that these jokes are mostly fat-chick jokes.......
But, smart and critical as they are, they are still men. Sure, that is no reason for them to miss the connection under their noses between gender and shape discrimination, but they do, and they would have been less likely to had there been women among them.
True enough Guido.
ReplyDeleteOne of the regular columnists on 'The Gruen Transfer' is Dan Gregory - yes, a man, but one who'd know all about fat pride/discrimination. Fat may be a feminist issue but it would have been interesting to hear from him.
Thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteBut was it actually on television?
(I thought the point was the ABC pulled the segment/ads from any broadcast, but to the producers' credit the show went ahead with a long panel discussion for online consumption).
I'm sure it was visible on a television at some stage. I didn't view it on a television myself, and it might not have been publicly broadcast, but it was certainly intended for television rather than other media.
ReplyDeleteI'll do the smartarse routine around here thanks Graeme.