Media Watch

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.

River Walk

Easter Day was a clear blue autumn day, perfect for a river walk. Here are today’s Yarra walk experiences, from Hawthorn to Abbotsford to Clifton Hill to Fairfield and back.

Tribute to Manu

I remember as a small child the image of the family portrayed through the rather eclectic range of toys on PlaySchool on TV. Both English and Kiwi PlaySchool has a Big and Little Ted and a Humpty. I recall Little Ted’s was decapitated in an explosion on the last day of filming after 15 years of service. English Playschool certainly had Jemima a gangly rag doll, an image of girlish awkwardness, and the Kiwi one replicated her. What I recall most about the Kiwi one is Manu, the Maori doll, and learning about diversity and tokenism from a very early age.

There is, it seems, no Manu on New Zealand’s Top Model, tabloid pulp for the Barbily-inclined. There is, it seems still tokenism afoot, in the form of a slender, warrior-like Sudanese woman, by far the beauty of the bunch, a figure out of a Leni Riefenstahl photoshoot on the Nuba.

This has become a media issue in New Zealand, where the appearance of diversity is a matter of cultural safety. Miss New Zealand 1962, Rotorua District councillor Maureen Waaka, who is of Te Arawa and Tuwharetoa descent, argues that the 2009 Top Model contestants do not represent New Zealand’s diverse culture (See <a href=”http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10565124)”>. Where are the Pacific Islands models? Where is Grace Hobson? Where is Manu?

The presiding comment would be: why, choice of hair colour aside, do all of the Jolie-lite pouting white girls look exactly the same? Where, in beauty, is individuality? It, too, has become mass-packaged, like Barbie or Paris Hilton herself.

“Pongolian” Ali Bongo

Manic, mad-professor-haired “Pongolian” magician Ali Bongo was part of my early, English childhood along with The Magic Roundabout, Bill and Ben the flowerpot Men, Hector’s House and The Woodentops. His Zocco and cartoon carnival was one of the highlights of the viewing week and included many American cartoons embedded in it, all emanating from his psychadelic magic machine. He was far less scary than Ken Dodd and the Diddymen, known to terrify very young children. His Arabian Knights get up and Dame Edna glasses marked him as a pantomime refugee and his shows always reeked of Brighton Pier. His magic shows happened at frantic pace, with Pongolian absurdities like “hokus-pokus fishbones chokus” dotted throughout to befuddle and amuse audiences. In 1972 he was The Magic Circle Magician of the Year and in 2008 became its President.

Ali Bongo, who died yesterday aged 79, was born William Wallace and he did indeed claim direct descendant from the Scots warrior. Raised in India, his father was a regimental sergeant major. His Pongolianisms continue to amuse.

Poping By Numbers

Benedict’s Age: 81
Benedict number: XVI
Temperature in Angola, Africa today: 31 degrees celsius
Language he spoke in: Portuguese
Subject of his address: Converting witches to Catholicism
Number of people in the sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV: 22,000,000
Population of Angola: 16,000,000
Percentage who are Catholics: 65
Percentage who are Christians: 80
Years Angolans have practiced Roman Catholicism: 500
Number of Luandans lining up today for a blessing from Pope Benedict XVI: 30,000
Number of police officers employed to control the crowd: 10,000
Number of people taken away in ambulances at the Pope’s Angolan rally: 20
Number of people given medical assistance on site: 10
Number of people who were stampeded to death at the Pope’s Angola Rally: 2

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10562999

Sorrento

The limestone Hotel Sorrento, the oldest commercial building in this historic town, overlooks Port Phillip Bay on Mornington Peninsula and has been an escape from Melbourne for 150 years. It was built by John Farnsworth in 1872 for P. J. Martin, the owner of the Australian Brewery and after many transformations through the ages has latterly been returned to its original condition. Originally an escape by sea, it’s now attainable by a 90-minute drive, or 100 if you choose the scenic route along the Southern Peninsula blessed with the best north facing beaches in Australia. Sullivan Bay in Sorrento was, in 1803, the site of Victoria’s first European settlement. It was also the site of this weekend’s drive in the country.

Talk and Die

We all know the teacher’s evil eye. It fixes the over-verbal malefactor or miscreant with a cruel sternness that says ‘talk and die’.

This week google has gone mad with people fascinated by the cause of Natasha Richardson’s death. In traumatology, it is “a clinical presentation in acceleration-deceleration brain injury, which may cause massive cerebral edema, that may have a latency period–eg, 48-72 hrs, until death. Cf subarachnoid hemorrhage” (medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com).

People suffering from “Talk and Die Syndrome” may appear fine at first, talking and acting normally as Richardson was, only to slip slowly into unconsciousness, coma and even death as blood floods the brain.

As we know from the many reports, Natasha Richardson was reported to be “fine at first” after she hit her head in a skiing accident, but the 45-year-old actress’ health began to deteriorate within an hour. The press reported her dead before she actually was, spread a fascination with talk and die syndrome, and have now elevated the actress to Heather Ledgerian ‘too young to die’ posthumous immortality. The media covered her accident, not death, death, tributes, funeral, organ donation – the full grief process of her family – in full view despite the family’s and Neeson’s desire for ‘privacy’. There is a new term for this: ‘grief porn’ (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10564063). Natasha Richardson (Redgrave Neeson) died on March 18, 2009.

She was lovely, intelligent, a Tony-award winner (“Cabaret”, 1998), a Redgrave and so a Royal, Liam Neeson’s beloved partner and, like Princess Diana, a mother of two fine boys. She was wonderful in The Handmaiden’s Tale (1990) and The White Countess (2005), a Li-lo and a J-Lo costar and now she is elevated beyond what she achieved in her career. All tragic, and now we all know what talk and die is.

It is not the wish that occurs in your brain when someone talks and talks ad infinitum without letting another person get a word in edgewise.

Who wants to be in TV?

Television New Zealand’s axing of 17 current affairs and news staff and on-camera journalists’ jobs may bring dangers. I wonder if they will use their powers and insights conspiratorially to tell the inside story about life in troubled TV-land? Will they be bound by the secrecy clauses their contacts no doubt have? These up-front in-the-public-eye job cuts are just 17 of the umpteen, up to a hundred, expected to be sacrificed up to mammon and the depression within the next week. Those behind-the-scenes workers might not be the faces of New Zealand, but they still have media power, and those in media can unite to tell the truth.

The story to be told is about managers, who, in troubled times, are not taking pay cuts. Senior Reporter Lisa Owen, supported by other senior reporters, questioned why managers weren’t taking pay cuts, why the company was not considering Key’s nine-day fortnight, and how the news operation could be sustained after two sets of redundancies in two years. (Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10562865).

The story to be told is also about perks and extravagances by these same managers. Staff perks are also in the firing line: TVNZ will no longer pay for non-work-related taxi trips, cellphone bills are being capped, and clothing allowances audited. No more free lunches, hundred-dollar taxi fairs from Auckland airport into congested inner Auckland, three-thousand dollar outfits for newspeople or unlimited calls to France. Honestly, you do have to wonder where the true story lies.

Particularly with all of the news in Australia about the government’s intervention in the handing out of obscene golden handshakes in ‘business’ and ongoing evidence that those self-same managers are giving themselves massive pay hikes while laying off hundreds of staff:

Former Pacific Brands chief executive Paul Moore, received a bonus $3.5 million retirement payment when he stood down halfway through 2008 financial year despite the company floundering.

Pac Brands axed 1850 workers in February 2009. It was revealed new CEO Sue Morphet had her pay lifted to $1.86 million from $685,775 during the same period the company was considering the sackings.

(See: http://business.theage.com.au/business/swan-to-curb-obscene-salaries-20090318-91kw.html and http://business.theage.com.au/business/where-to-after-the-fall-20090320-94ko.html). There is in all of this a real story: the true origins of the depression.

As a result of this and the resultant public outcry, Professor Allan Fels, the former head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, has been appointed to inquire into the issue of executive pay: “There is very strong community feeling about this matter, particularly when failure is rewarded.” Shouldn’t failures get, well, the axe, and not a golden handshake? Where’s Madame La Guillotine when we need her?

Greed may be what motivates contestants on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? too. New Zealand’s version, made in Melbourne because the set is too big for any local studio and for copyright reasons it can’t be compacted, is also under threat of the chop. Along with being barred live access to the rugger, Kiwis might also be denied their favourite fantasy-ordinary people using their brains (or their knowledge of trivia) for pecuniary gain. But look harder, the problem is deeper. The show’s production company pays airfares for host/ fop Mike Hosking and about 60 contestants and their friends, as well as providing hotel accommodation for three days. Each of the 60 received A$60 ($73) for lunches and dinners. I come from the university sector. We goon conference and skimp. There are no longer per diems. We pay for our own steamed rice when we are sent to China for our jobs.

Isn’t there a pattern in all of this that it might not take a news expose by a redundant reporter to reveal?

The firing line

The not so great ‘OE’

The current generation of High School leavers are being deprived of one of the great prerogatives of Kiwi Culture. Where England and Australia have their ‘gap year’ social phenomena, New Zealand has the unofficial ‘great OE’, Overseas Experience, a major rite of passage where young people trapped in the world’s most far-flung and isolated nation with a ‘z’ in the title like ‘Zanzibar’ or ‘Zululand’, get a chance to escape. It’s not a matter of partying at Ibiza, though some probably do. Most go to Sydney, ‘Auckland for Beginners’ in local lore, or London, and some venture to New York. Those with an eye to the Dragon might try Shanghai, Singapore or Seoul after they’ve got their RSA Cert in English Teaching.

Some are returning to the places of the ancestors; others are finding the parts of themselves they’d be unable to find in New Zealand, where everyone knows you and what you’re up to.

The recession means that many now are coming back broke from England, jobless but undaunted and returning prodigally to the bosom of the family and ebb and flow and Pohutakawas of Takapuna Beach. The number drizzling ritually to Australia is also way down this month, according to the Herald’s monthly report on how many Kiwis are ‘crossing the ditch’. (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10562784). Seems it it now no better there, especially as Mardi Gras is done and winter approaches.

February 2009 saw a peak as Kiwis tried to escape recession, and those school leavers unable to get jobs fed into the demographic. Last month a huge 48,500 Kiwis migrated to Australia on a permanent or long-term basis, with only 13,100 coming the other way. The trend is starting to reverse and soon the number of people coming back into New Zealand, hopefully a bit wiser than when they left, might even outweigh those who are leaving for either OE or a job opportunity that doesn’t involve sheep. Like a university education, the great OE there will be for those who can afford it.

NZ’s ‘meth use the highest in the world’

Celebrities spearheading causes is, due to value ascribed to fame and the familiar today, likely to result in more successful outcomes for the cause, and more visibility. The Angelina Jolies and Leonardo Di Caprios have their pet causes, and these days in the entertainment industry, everyone believes in something and gets photographed wearing this or that coloured ribbon. Gone are the days where celebrities could merely endorse Lux or be the face of Revlon and that was their community engagement. Engagement with the world’s issues is required too, and a good thing too. It won’t remove obsession with those celebrities or stop paparazzi attacks, but it might allow them to gain publicity of a civic nature. Of course there are wags who call Jolie Womb Raider and try to debase cynically those who might be United Nations Ambassadors, like Audrey Hepburn or her modern equivalent Natalie Portman.

The closest New Zealand has to celebrity like this is, let’s face it, little stuttering Paul Holmes, whose daughter P has been a ‘P’/ ice/ methamphetamine addict and very much an object of obsession in the public eye, particularly in a country thirsty for real news that’s not about murder and retrials, the building of motorways or road accidents.

So let the the newly-formed Rotary-based ‘Stellar Trust’ hold their charity dinner at Sky City on May 16 to raise funds for its campaign against P. Let them tackle full on “tackle New Zealand’s dubious reputation as one of the biggest P-using nations in the world”.
(See http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10562788).

Believable if probably photoshopped

The Trust came about out of a serendipitous union of motivated people at the same time and in the same mental space. Paul Holmes went in with Mike Sabin, a former policeman who campaigns full time against the spread of P. He calculates New Zealand’s meth use ‘as the highest per capita in the world’. Another dubious claim to fame for the nation that was once endless green hills, celestial rivers, towering glacial mountains and 66 million sheep.

Trust chairman Alistair Burry was pushed to the brink by New Zealanders’ sheep-like taking to P. “All the family violence that you see, all those poor babies and young kids that are being bashed. You’ll find that nine times out of ten there’s P in the home or in the environment. How long is this country going to allow this kind of thing to continue?” The country has waited an extremely long time for something concerted to happen via government intervention. Maybe fundraising for education and awareness of major social maladies can be seconded to the charitable, philanthropic and not-for-profit sectors? Or even outsourced to India?

Want to help out? Tables of 10 cost $3262. You buy a table for eight and bid for two celebrities like Lyn of Tawa’s Ginette McDonald, newsreader Simon Dallow (thankfully without Wendy his Punch and Judy partner), satirist Tom Scott or the Mad Butcher Peter Leitch to join you. There’s no word on whether you could bid for Millie too. To book a table go to www.coneystanleyevents.co.nz