Australian TV Guides I hate you too rant:

Angry. Season 4 of delicious True Blood is being written up in guides. Should be a moment to enjoy pictures of the gorgeous cast and squeal with delight at a witty pithy write up that gets you all excited about tuning in and returning to Bon Temps. No. Instead, Angry. TV Week (page 10 August 8-20 issue) says: "After spending most of the past few seasons in relationships with unsuitable men, Tara (Rutina Wesley) finds herself mixed up in a witches coven, ..." and SMH  The Guide (August 14 -2) says: "Tara (Rutina Wesley) has run away to become a cage fighter ..." Neither publication thought it necessary to mention TARA HAS A GIRLFRIEND, and though (i'm only up to ep 4) she hasn't given herself a label IS PROBABLY A LESBIAN or BISEXUAL or QUEER or something. No, it's only a really queer show all about out-ness and examining prejudice... it would make far too much fucking sense to mention the developments in Tara's sexuality, wouldn't it? Fuck Australia. Fuck making lesbians invisible. Fuckety fuck fuck. Angry.

Love,

Ridiculous.

P.S. Lots more to say about True Blood. Interesting. Another day...

July 2011 rant:

 

Our daughter’s daughters wont adore this piece of shitty theatre rant, AKA the ways in which the current (fucky) Cameron Mackintosh infected version of Mary Poppins mangled my childhood and broke my heart rant:

(Warning spoiler alert for the crap-ness of the Mary Poppins stage show)

Where do I begin? Theatre means a lot to me. My childhood means a lot to me. My mother and my brother mean a lot to me. And Mary Poppins means a lot to me. So you can imagine the sort of nostalgic, bubbling, excited, mess I was as I stood in the foyer with my mother and my brother (my brother dressed as Bert in a beige striped suit, combed hair and red bow tie) waiting to see the much raved about production of Mary Poppins (which, god knows why, swept the Helpmann Awards on Tuesday night.) I was giddy. I was also a little bit theatre foyer tipsy. I paid for an overpriced alcoholic slurpee just because they’d named it Rum Punch, cos that’s the kind of nostalgic sucker I am. And can I point out, that the exact kind of nostalgic sucker I am is the exact kind of bums on seats that are shelling out 90+ bucks to have their dreams mangled and shoved back in their face. These fuckers are counting on people like me and our hearts full of memories, we’re the ones desperate to find something, re-live something… so I find it offensive and absurd that we get fucked with, that we get the short end of the stick. I need to start with the most offensive of the litany of changes that Mackintosh took it upon himself to make to perfectly wonderful, and loved, text. Consider this number for a moment:

We're clearly soldiers in petticoats

And dauntless crusaders for woman's votes

Though we adore men individually

We agree that as a group they're rather stupid!

Cast off the shackles of yesterday!

Shoulder to shoulder into the fray!

Our daughters' daughters will adore us

And they'll sign in grateful chorus

"Well done, Sister Suffragette!"

From Kensington to Billingsgate

One hears the restless cries!

From ev'ry corner of the land:

"Womankind, arise!"

Political equality and equal rights with men!

Take heart! For Missus Pankhurst has been clapped in irons again!

No more the meek and mild subservients we!

We're fighting for our rights, militantly!

Never you fear!

So, cast off the shackles of yesterday!

Shoulder to shoulder into the fray!

Our daughters' daughters will adore us

And they'll sign in grateful chorus

"Well done! Well done!

Well done Sister Suffragette!"

Who, in their right mind, thought it was a good idea to cut this song and re-write Mrs Banks as a subservient little wife-ey character? (and write her an atrocious, subservient little wife-ey character song?) On what planet is this an okay thing to do? The song is empowering. Important. Euphoric. It situates the story historically and centres the story. The story is about a strong woman. A strong woman who inspires and excites and reinvigorates a household. Mrs Banks, not as outwardly strong as our hero,  was closeted-ly fighting for womens right to vote and hiding her sashes when her husband got home. Her subservience to Mr Banks was ironic and comical and heartbreaking all at once. It was a really important dimension to the film. And at the very end of the film, you might remember, she does come out, she attaches her political sash to the end of Michael's kite “A proper kite needs a proper tail,” and they all go fly the kite, with ‘womens right to vote’ proudly flapping in the wind below the kite, with the family proudly flying it together. I can’t stomach the idea that this isn’t a relevant detail to leave in the story, seeing as it is a period piece… but even if you were to argue something ludicrous like, that considering women’s (debateable) relative equal-ness to male-folk nowadays, the song doesn’t fit, then there is no fucking excuse for turning Mrs Bank’s character into a subservient wifey character, who, when at the end of the show is offered the opportunity to chase her dreams (which are acting, not politics) she replies that she never really was a good actress and there is a role she’s much more interested in. BARF BARF BARF VOMIT VOMIT!!!! Fucked eh? How fucking dare they. So Ridiculous was a pretty cranky punter and that, sadly, wasn’t the only balls up. They screw around with all the songs. None of them really remain the way you remember them, which is okay, but kind of tiresome. We went there wanting something and weren’t given it and kind of made to feel rude for wanting it cos there’s this wank floating around that we shouldn’t expect it to be like the film… it’s something new… more based on the books… wank wank wank… Which is just rubbish. Like I said earlier, their banking on us with our film imbued childhoods wanting to come see it and give them all our cash. They’ve used the iconography from the film, they’ve got fucking 100 dollar umbrellas for sale in the foyer with a fucking parrot head handle exactly modeled on the one you see in the film. Don’t give me any rot about it being a separate piece of art from the film. (And don’t give me any shit about it being based on the books, if it’s based on the books, where the fuck are John and Barbara, the other two children? Huh?) It’s not. It’s based on the film all right, just that some megalomaniac got his hands on it and decided to fuck around and fix what’s not broken. Fucking fuck wit. (sorry I’m so mad I can’t stop swearing.) It’s kind of like when you go see an old band you used to love and they refuse to play all the songs you love and instead play you their new album, that no-ones heard, cover to cover, and it’s a gross noise experiment. It’s wanky and pretentious and you look ungrateful and not a true fan if you don’t take what you’ve been offered with a smile and shut up. It’s irritating, for no reason I can decipher, the readings on the measuring tape aren’t the ones we remember, the tunes are similar but they sing different words. There is a ghost in our hearts as we’re watching an instead of our little ghost being able to whisper the words, it gets trodden on. They don’t jump through chalk drawings, they don’t laugh and take tea on the ceiling… They do sing Let’s go Fly a Kite, thank heavens, but they sing it in the middle of the second act. You cry/bawl anyway. The song does all the things it always did to you. And if you’re sitting there with your brother-dressed-as-Bert and holding your weeping mother’s hand, and sipping another Rum Punch, it’s pretty damn emotional… but you assure and comfort yourself that they’ll sing it again, they’ll bring it back for the closing number, surely. It is the closing number. No such luck. Apparently, a new song needed to be written for the close, and apparently we don’t need to see the kids fly their kite with their daddy, cos that isn’t the whole damn point of the story or anything… don’t fucking worry about it… Ugh! And apparently dad buying Michael a new kite, not fixing it for him was the solution all along… fucking ugh! And apparently it is more interesting if Banks gets offered his job back cos he made a great investment and earned the bank heaps of money instead of cos he shedded his conservatism, found his sense of humour and joy in life and cracked a great joke that made the senior partner die of laughter… no that ending would be too damn well lovely wouldn’t it? We have to have a more plausible, greed-filled ending don’t we? Have I mentioned how fucking shit the show was? Despite everything though, the cast do do a great job and the sets are incredible. It really is a shame bout the writing. It really could have been quite a magical show, with a little bit of backbone, homage and imagination. I also, despite everything, had a theatre moment full of magic and electricity. Mary Poppins flies out over the audience and disappears. Seeing her, inches from my face, flying, the actress, in character, staring into my tear soaked eyes, seeing my dreams streaked across my face and knowing that her performance was moving people, moving me, was one of those delicious edge-of-artifice moments that I spend my life hunting for and I have to begrudgingly admit that I found it amidst a truly disgusting rendition of my favourite childhood musical. There you go.

Other bits of theatre rant:

I think the only other show I saw in July was Emily Eyefinger, the latest offering from gorgeous children’s theatre makers; Monkey Baa. Super cute. It’s fast and funny and bright and colourful and silly. Everything you’d want out of children’s theatre. Dannielle Jackson is a superb Emily, full of bravery, wit, charm, and generosity. Sandra Eldridge and Tim McGarry are also really great. Funny and pun-ny. If you have little ones and the tour is near you go see it. Get your kids hooked on theatre!

Art Rant:

So, my friends Kelly Elkin and Betony Dircks, (who just launched their PJ Label: www.alasthelabel.com ) had a show at Gaffa  for the Sydney design whatchacallit. I know so very little about fashion but I liked it. They upcycled (a verb I only just learned existed) a bunch of outfits and made a huge pyramid of clothes to highlight their distress about the amount of clothes that end up in landfill. Their designs were super trendy and rad, and if I bought clothes I’d definitely be up for shirts made out of pants and what not. I was impressed. Kelly has also been blogging about ethical fashion designers for a while now. Check out her blog if that sort of thing interests you. http://www.transparentseams.blogspot.com/ My friend Rob Yee also had a show in July. I didn’t make it to opening night cos I got hit down by a crazy flu that was going round but I did pop by and check it out. His work was good, as always, but I was largely unimpressed and frustrated. This man is super talented and has one of the most amazing imaginations of anyone I know but when he comes to pick works for his solo shows he always seems to pick the most bland examples of his work. I was disappointed. I can’t wait till he’s too famous to be curating his own shows and someone objective does it for him. He also has a blog. See what you think: http://theavocadomoshpit.blogspot.com/ I checked out the latest offering from White Rabbit Gallery, Year of the Rabbit I think it was called (they’ve just taken it down and are installing a new show. As always it was fucking amazing. Such a stupidly wonderful asset to the community that damn place is! So much exciting and sensational art. Well hung, well organised. For free. In a wonderful space. If you’ve not yet visited you must must must. I swung by and had a look at The Real Story of Superheroes at ACP, which was an exhibition of Photographs by Dulce Pinzon exploring the lives of hardworking Mexican immigrants in the US. Pinzon, wishing to pay homage to these everyday heroes who work incredible hours and send their savings home to their families, dressed his subjects in superhero costumes and filmed them in their workplace. I found the premise gorgeous but the actual photos a little repetitive. Interesting though. Lastly for my arting-outings was the Pre Raphaelite exhibition at AGNSW. Yum. If you like the PRB, or if you like drawing, or if you like art really it’s a must see. Really interesting collection of drawings I’d never seen before. Such a gorgeous exhibition. It’s still up for a bit, so go, now.

Ok, that’ll do for my July round up. Mary Poppins made me vomit and I inhaled a bit of art.

Love,

Ridiculous.