Tapping into the media allows you to access the Zeitgeist of nations and internations and to elicit what’s really on the world’s mind, if it has one.
Obviously, though, this week was for icon Weltschmertz. Deceased icons and legends, dethroned kings and fallen angels, toppled Twin Towers of Hollywoodland and caused Google to melt down (http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/jackson-queries-cause-google-meltdown-20090627-d06w.html).
Then there was damage control. The world had to lose all jokes about Wacko Jacko’s noselessness or about anything anal. Good on media-baiting Sascha Baron-Cohen Brueno for excising a Jackson skit 12 hours before the film was premiering – there’s a fine line between unfortunate timing and dire taste and it sounds like there’s enough bad taste in this movie to satisfy that other Jackson, eh Peter, how’s the NZ Film Commission?
But tacky rather than bloody bad taste.
Good on him for tactful LaToya-editing but bad on Sascha’s Brueno entourage for having the scaffolding holding up man-sized marketing materials for the movie’s Friday premiere over Michael Jackson’s star, sending mourners to another star off Hollywood Boulevard, Michael Jackson, DJ, a false idol by accident.
New Zealand’s media meanwhile managed to lurch between tragic murders with David Bain’s repeat performance of Arthur Allen Thomas giving way to Kung-Fuing wifeslayer Nai Yin Xue, in turn yielding to the unspeakably sad and gruesome Sophie Elliott case, redolent of Ford’s bloody revenge tragedy ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, and now the Porirua slaying of two women witnessed by two toddlers. What will the world think Kiwiland is? A land where there are so many crims that luxury jails like the Milton Hilton are full and surfeit crims have to live in makeshift container crates with makeshift dunnies?
Fascinating to see the struggling defense in the Nai Yin Xue case suggest lonely murder victim An-An Liu may have died in the sort of incomprehensible multi-partner auto-aspyxiation that may have taken the life of David Kung Fu Carradine in a Bangkok hotel closet – or perhaps there was fowl play. I mean foul play. Perhaps Michael Hutchence was involved too. The media almost cannibalised itself there for a moment.
In NZ’s murderama, there was, in between, the bizarre exorcism expurgation killing in a Maori community. And probably several more bodies in the Avon River in underbelly city Christchurch- who’s counting now?
And Melbourne has its own art imitating life with the Moranic Underbelly slaying organised by the Mafioso wife, and Sydneysiders were appalled by the notorious, possibly-gang-related KFC shootings where a wrong-place-wrong-time truckie was shot by (mis)chance, echoing last year’s Macdonalds’ drive-through – or was it drive-by? – slayings. California of course had the pizza parlour gun-down (http://www.theage.com.au/world/three-gunned-down-in-pizzeria-car-park-20090629-d1gd.html). What next, the great Burger King massacre? Sounds like the Zeitgeist is ready for Johnny Depp as both Dillinger and the Mad Hatter.
I’m sad that the worst of these Kiwi killings happened Aramoana-like in unhappily-wintered Dunedin. Blame it on the water supply? Lack of vitamins from the sun? The curses or ghosts of Larnarch and Cargill?
It’s almost as if these cases happen to power the media along and give people diversions away from the big picture of … Perhaps, what John Key was going flying Jetstar anyway when he got fog-logged in Queenstown. Perhaps truly conspiratorial swine flu stats, true data about what seems to some the recession instead of journalised case studies about how hard times hit the poor and the executive equally. Perhaps it is a smokescreen to hide what the Keyed up government is really doing, or not doing. Like, in Kiwiland’s case, overtly not paying all adults $300 Aussie stimulus package style, not giving promised tax-cuts for the monied (unlike Aussie I might shamefully add), and not increasing subsidised places for Polytech students, not getting sufficient anti-porcine nonovirus till 2009 (unlike well-stocked Aussies I might further add, and boy do they need it). And spending 8 million on anti-smacking referenda and 80 million on prime waterfront rugby party venues – see NZ Herald for other whinings.
If you’re not looking, they can get away with it, and suddenly it’s fait accompli.
And in Aussie’s case it’s all a smokescreen not from bushfire mismanagement (the benefits of hindsight) but from a minor scandal known as ‘Ute-gate’ involving politicians misappropriating motor vehicles and sending fake emails and ending with calls that ‘X must reign’ and then no action (ee http://www.theage.com.au/national/utegate-police-speak-with-turnbull-20090628-d0ub.html and if you follow it, let me know). Sounds like something Dr. Don Brash in NZ might have done several leaders of the opposition ago. Avert you eye, and life still goes on as usual.
But I suspect the Keyed-up, Uted-up ones themselves created the smokescreen. To hide the fact that _ nothing _ interesting _ is _ actually _ happening.
But Michael and Farrah (and briefly David) diverted us, and a psychologically necessary double (not triple) pin-up legend icon angel-making process is underway a la Diana (Spencer not Ross). Soon there will be musicals or operas based on their lives and statues erected alongside Diana’s.
Meanwhile, back down to earth from the emptied firmament of stars, in Melbourne a man falls from a roof and fights for life (http://www.theage.com.au/national/man-fights-for-life-after-roof-fall-20090626-czps.html) while in New Zealand a roof falls on people and ends their life. A bit like the squished-by-Dorothy’s-house Wicked Witch of the East in 1939′s The Wizard of Oz. Featuring tragic pill-popper Judy Garland who died at 47. Reminding me that Michael Jackson was in the blaxploitation remake The Wiz circa 1978 with Diana Ross who looks like young pre-Moondance Michael in the movie and whom Michael resembled later in the more cosmetic section of his life. But there are some things about everyone best forgotten.
It’s time to head off to see the culture in Melbourne, the time-warping Dali and the time-stopping Pompeii. And I hear there’s a travelling, pink Barbie doll museum in town. And that there’s Wicked Witch of the East Barbie, but no Farrah Barbie. I’d love to market memento mori Barbie.
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Media Watch
June 27, 2009
Tapping into the media allows you to access the Zeitgeist of nations and internations and to elicit what’s really on the world’s mind, if it has one.
Obviously, though, this week was for icon Weltschmertz. Deceased icons and legends, dethroned kings and fallen angels, toppled Twin Towers of Hollywoodland and caused Google to melt down (http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/jackson-queries-cause-google-meltdown-20090627-d06w.html).
Then there was damage control. The world had to lose all jokes about Wacko Jacko’s noselessness or about anything anal. Good on media-baiting Sascha Baron-Cohen Brueno for excising a Jackson skit 12 hours before the film was premiering – there’s a fine line between unfortunate timing and dire taste and it sounds like there’s enough bad taste in this movie to satisfy that other Jackson, eh Peter, how’s the NZ Film Commission?
But tacky rather than bloody bad taste.
Good on him for tactful LaToya-editing but bad on Sascha’s Brueno entourage for having the scaffolding holding up man-sized marketing materials for the movie’s Friday premiere over Michael Jackson’s star, sending mourners to another star off Hollywood Boulevard, Michael Jackson, DJ, a false idol by accident.
New Zealand’s media meanwhile managed to lurch between tragic murders with David Bain’s repeat performance of Arthur Allen Thomas giving way to Kung-Fuing wifeslayer Nai Yin Xue, in turn yielding to the unspeakably sad and gruesome Sophie Elliott case, redolent of Ford’s bloody revenge tragedy ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, and now the Porirua slaying of two women witnessed by two toddlers. What will the world think Kiwiland is? A land where there are so many crims that luxury jails like the Milton Hilton are full and surfeit crims have to live in makeshift container crates with makeshift dunnies?
Fascinating to see the struggling defense in the Nai Yin Xue case suggest lonely murder victim An-An Liu may have died in the sort of incomprehensible multi-partner auto-aspyxiation that may have taken the life of David Kung Fu Carradine in a Bangkok hotel closet – or perhaps there was fowl play. I mean foul play. Perhaps Michael Hutchence was involved too. The media almost cannibalised itself there for a moment.
In NZ’s murderama, there was, in between, the bizarre exorcism expurgation killing in a Maori community. And probably several more bodies in the Avon River in underbelly city Christchurch- who’s counting now?
And Melbourne has its own art imitating life with the Moranic Underbelly slaying organised by the Mafioso wife, and Sydneysiders were appalled by the notorious, possibly-gang-related KFC shootings where a wrong-place-wrong-time truckie was shot by (mis)chance, echoing last year’s Macdonalds’ drive-through – or was it drive-by? – slayings. California of course had the pizza parlour gun-down (http://www.theage.com.au/world/three-gunned-down-in-pizzeria-car-park-20090629-d1gd.html). What next, the great Burger King massacre? Sounds like the Zeitgeist is ready for Johnny Depp as both Dillinger and the Mad Hatter.
I’m sad that the worst of these Kiwi killings happened Aramoana-like in unhappily-wintered Dunedin. Blame it on the water supply? Lack of vitamins from the sun? The curses or ghosts of Larnarch and Cargill?
It’s almost as if these cases happen to power the media along and give people diversions away from the big picture of … Perhaps, what John Key was going flying Jetstar anyway when he got fog-logged in Queenstown. Perhaps truly conspiratorial swine flu stats, true data about what seems to some the recession instead of journalised case studies about how hard times hit the poor and the executive equally. Perhaps it is a smokescreen to hide what the Keyed up government is really doing, or not doing. Like, in Kiwiland’s case, overtly not paying all adults $300 Aussie stimulus package style, not giving promised tax-cuts for the monied (unlike Aussie I might shamefully add), and not increasing subsidised places for Polytech students, not getting sufficient anti-porcine nonovirus till 2009 (unlike well-stocked Aussies I might further add, and boy do they need it). And spending 8 million on anti-smacking referenda and 80 million on prime waterfront rugby party venues – see NZ Herald for other whinings.
If you’re not looking, they can get away with it, and suddenly it’s fait accompli.
And in Aussie’s case it’s all a smokescreen not from bushfire mismanagement (the benefits of hindsight) but from a minor scandal known as ‘Ute-gate’ involving politicians misappropriating motor vehicles and sending fake emails and ending with calls that ‘X must reign’ and then no action (ee http://www.theage.com.au/national/utegate-police-speak-with-turnbull-20090628-d0ub.html and if you follow it, let me know). Sounds like something Dr. Don Brash in NZ might have done several leaders of the opposition ago. Avert you eye, and life still goes on as usual.
But I suspect the Keyed-up, Uted-up ones themselves created the smokescreen. To hide the fact that _ nothing _ interesting _ is _ actually _ happening.
But Michael and Farrah (and briefly David) diverted us, and a psychologically necessary double (not triple) pin-up legend icon angel-making process is underway a la Diana (Spencer not Ross). Soon there will be musicals or operas based on their lives and statues erected alongside Diana’s.
Meanwhile, back down to earth from the emptied firmament of stars, in Melbourne a man falls from a roof and fights for life (http://www.theage.com.au/national/man-fights-for-life-after-roof-fall-20090626-czps.html) while in New Zealand a roof falls on people and ends their life. A bit like the squished-by-Dorothy’s-house Wicked Witch of the East in 1939′s The Wizard of Oz. Featuring tragic pill-popper Judy Garland who died at 47. Reminding me that Michael Jackson was in the blaxploitation remake The Wiz circa 1978 with Diana Ross who looks like young pre-Moondance Michael in the movie and whom Michael resembled later in the more cosmetic section of his life. But there are some things about everyone best forgotten.
It’s time to head off to see the culture in Melbourne, the time-warping Dali and the time-stopping Pompeii. And I hear there’s a travelling, pink Barbie doll museum in town. And that there’s Wicked Witch of the East Barbie, but no Farrah Barbie. I’d love to market memento mori Barbie.
Like this: