Pelican Edition 4, Volume 85

Ed iti o n 4 Vo lu me 85

C rim e / Pun i sh m ent

PELICAN

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10092B CRICOS No: 00116K

Invest in your future Pursue your passion and develop your career through graduate study at Australia’s No. 1 University.

University of Melbourne Information Evening Date: Thursday 19 June 2014, 6.30–8.00pm Venue: Hyatt Regency Hotel, Perth Graduate study is an investment in your future. By undertaking your graduate study at the University of Melbourne, you’ll gain an internationally recognised degree that will open doors to an outstanding future – all while studying in the world’s most liveable city.

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Picture by Kate Prendergast

REGULARS 5 what’s up on campus 6 credits 7 editorials 9 advice corner 46 where’s pelly

FEATURES 10 surveillance 11 torture 12 tax 13 dante 14 internet 15 fùtbol 16 prison 18 herbalife 19 lifting 20 sentencing

SECTIONS 22 politics 24 film 28 music 32 books 37 arts 40 culture

May Hot Reads!!

TOP TITLES

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the GIrL who saved the kInG oF sweden Jonas Jonasson Quirky and utterly unique, a charming and humorous account of one young woman’s unlikely adventure.

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struck By GenIus Jason Padgett and Maureen seaberg

wILd thInGs Brigid delaney st anton’s university college is for the privileged, with its elysian lush green lawns and sandstone buildings, it seems like a place where nothing bad could ever happen. this is the debut of a thrilling new australian writer.

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a miraculous and inspiring ‘what if’ story of the author’s life, which pushes beyond the boundaries of what scientists thought possible within the human brain.

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dear Leader Jang Jin-sung contains astonishing new insights about north korea which could only be revealed by someone working high up in the regime. It is also the gripping story of how a member of the inner circle of this enigmatic country became its most courageous, outspoken critic. IsBn9781846044205

InherItance: how our Genes chanGe our LIves, and our LIves chanGe our Genes sharon Moalem award-winning geneticist sharon Moalem Md, Phd shows us that the human genome is far more fluid, fascinating and relevant than you could ever have believed.

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our IceBerG Is MeLtInG John kotter and holger rathgenber this charming story about a penguin colony in antarctica illustrates key truths about how to deal with the issue of change: handle the challenge well and you can prosper greatly; handle it poorly and you put yourself at risk.

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thInk LIke a Freak steven Levitt and stephen dubner the Freakonomics books have come to stand for challenging conventional wisdom; using data rather than emotion to answer questions.

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For duMMIes: wrItInG austraLIan resuMes amanda Mccarthy this handy, easy-to-use guide shows you how to write and tailor your resume and cover letters for specific positions and companies.

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For duMMIes: successFuL JoB IntervIews Joyce Lain kennedy a guide to the skills and tools you need to ace your next interview. Includes handy tips and practical advice for acing any interview, whether you’re a new graduate looking for your first job or an experienced professional looking for a career change.

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The Co-op The Guild Village, Hackett Drive (Hackett Entry 2) Crawley WA 6009 Ph: (08) 6144 5700 Fax: (08) 6144 5709

www.coop.com.au

WHAT’S UP ON CAMPUS What would we do without language?

The UWA Linguistics Society is for all ☺ language lovers Come and play word games, follow our series “ULS Talks TED” and participate in our exciting linguistic projects around campus!

You can also follow news and events at our Facebook page: https://www.facebook. com/uwalinguisticssociety UWA PAW (UWA People for Animal Welfare) Are you passionate about animals?

Then you need to join PAW!!

We stand for animal welfare and rights and support ethical treatment of animals of all species, shapes and sizes!

Through our fun events such as veganfriendly BBQ’s, public lectures, movie nights, quiz nights & e-letters (and more!), we facilitate education and awareness of animal rights, ethics and welfare issues at the same time as supporting community animal welfare organisations through fundraisers. If you think you belong, join us at https://www.facebook. com/groups/131830273672010/ and grab a membership for only $5 at any of our upcoming events!

UWA Amnesty International The UWA Amnesty International group meet fortnightly on the Reid Lawn (or Reid café if it’s raining) at 1-2pm on Tuesdays. If you’re interested in human rights in Australia and internationally, do come and join us.

Find out more at https://www.facebook. com/AmnestyUWA

UWA Catholic Society ‘The UWA Catholic Society (UCS) is an organising body for young Catholics and other interested persons on campus. We aim to serve Christ and the Church, and to help everyone grow in fides, spes and caritas. We believe in the dignity of all from conception to natural death - as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI says “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary”.

Mass is 12pm, Tuesday and Thursday in the Law Link chapel.’

UWA Society for Creative Anachronism Known as the College of Saint Basil the Great, we are part

of the international Society for Creative Anachronism, dedicated to recreating activities of the medieval world. We uphold the values of chivalry and honour and practice armoured combat, rapier fighting, archery, sewing, costuming, dancing, music, feasting, cooking, brewing and armouring. Join us for College Training on Oak Lawn from 5pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays to learn about swordplay, dancing, get ideas for garb and costumes,or even just to chat about history.

The Gaslight Contemporary Folk and Arts Society.

Well that’s great, what the heck is it? The Gaslight is a club for musicians and music lovers alike. It’s a place where like-minded people gather to share their passion for all things music. The club will host an intimate evening every month in which student musicians, singer songwriters and artists will be able to perform to an audience who appreciates music. Picture big comfy pillows, beanbags and couches.

Picture fairy lights and warm beverages.

And of course, picture great music in a relaxed environment with all your mates.

The club is looking for budding musicians and creative types to share their work. If you think it’s up your alley, get in contact today!

Find us on Facebook at The Gaslight Contemporary Folk and Arts Society or at this link https://www.facebook.com/ groups/478165778983976/?fref=ts or email Lee directly at 21202608@student.uwa. edu.au

ALUMNI ANNUAL FUND GRANTS NOW OPEN! Grants of up to $30,000 are available for innovative projects or activities that aim to enhance the UWA student experience.

Apply today at www.uwa.edu.au/aafgrants 5

CONTRIBUTORS CONTENTS IMAGE Kate Prendergast CONTRIBUTOR IMAGE Zoe Kilbourn DESIGN Kate “Criminally Talented” Hoolahan ADVERTISING Alex “Frozen” Pond Karrie “Paper Goddess” McClelland EDITORS Wade “Dizzee Raskolnikov” McCagh Zoe “Lady Marmeladov” Kilbourn SECTION EDITORS ARTS: Laruen “PO-TA-TOES” Wiszniewski BOOKS: Elisa “Po-Co Po-Po” Thompson CULTURE: Lucy “Peter Allen” Ballantyne FILM: Matthew “The Luddite Terrorist” Green MUSIC: Simon “Everyone is an Asshole” Donnes POLITICS: Hamish “Swing Vote” Hobbs

CONTRIBUTORS Camden “Gallows” Watts (Illustrations) Kate “Ventriloquist” Prendergast (Words, Illustrations) Morgan “Tinfoil” Goodman (Words) Brad “The Impaler” Griffin (Words) Julianne “Chillin’ in the Second Circle”de Souza (Words) Samuel J. “Green Street Hooligan” Cox (Words) Liam “Bentham” Dixon (Words) Angus “#youngentrepreneur” Sargent (Words) Theopolis “Gainz” Lim (Words) Leah “Titanic II” Roberts (Words) Callum “Z-List” Corkill (Words) Lachlan “Described as Orgasmic” Palamara (Words) Cameron “Angel Investor” James (Words) Connor “Coles CBD Experience 6/10 ” Weightman (Words) Bridget “J-Friendly” Rumball (Words) Jasmine “Waiting for a Mate” Ruscoe (Words) Chloe “Red Room” Durant (Words) Shona “Mills and Boon Quality Prose” McIntyre Kenneth “More of a Harvard Guy” Woo (Words) Tom “Salvage Consultant” Rossiter (Words) Dan “Never Forgets” Werndly (Words) James “HB(N)O” Munt (Words) Ante “Bellicose Santa” Malenica (Words) Rich “Taboo” Moore (Illustrations)

GETTING DOWN WITH PELICAN AIN’T NO CRIME! Not involved with Pelican? That’s just criminal! Pelican is for the people, by the people and we’re always on the lookout for new writers, artists, and contributors to help run Australia’s 2nd oldest student magazine. You can get in contact with Pelican through our Facebook page, through our email at pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au, or you can come and find us on the 1st Floor of the Guild Building. We host monthly Writers Nights during semester in the Guild Council Meeting Room, so keep a look out for our Facebook event and come down for free pizza and lots of giveaways!

Picture by Zoe Kilbourn

COVER IMAGE Camden Watts

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed within are not the views of the UWA Student Guild or the Pelican editorial staff.

For advertising enquiries, contact alex.pond@guild.uwa.edu.au

offer applies to large pizzas only

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PREZITORIAL

WADITORIAL Because I grew up in a small rural town in the Pilbara, and because the high school in that town was relatively under-resourced and my parents wanted me to attend university, I was packed off to the big smoke to complete high school while attending a residential college. For those who don’t know, residential colleges are like boarding schools, except they provide boarding services for schools without their own facilities. Along with also housing a small number of wards of the state, there was a rough, blue-collar vibe to the college I attended. However, this may have also been a side effect of said residential college being located next to Bandyup Prison.

Observing prison from a close proximity over the years led to reflection on the similarities between boarding life and life in low security prison – you’re under near constant supervision, locked in buildings for long periods of time, unable to leave the grounds (except for school and pre-approved short term leave periods). There’s a lot of boredom, varying degrees of assault, terrible food, and incredibly innovative yet horrendously crude forms of alcohol production. For some, daily life was a hell to be endured until their release. But for most, it was just life.

Several years removed from those years, I’ve been lucky enough to work with and get to know several people who have been incarcerated in prisons in WA, including Bandyup. I realised that a lot of my preconceptions of prison were completely incorrect, but some were accurate. Prison is not a desirable place to be, but its also not quite Oz either. The recurring theme to these accounts was how difficult life after prison became. Once you’ve been in, society never looks at you the same. You can rule out any employment that involves a security clearance, financial institutions will always eye you suspiciously. For many, prison is a never-ending punishment.

This issue of Pelican looks across the wide spectrum of crime and punishment, from tax evasion and torture to pyramid schemes and poetic justice. It’s been a blast putting it together and working with some truly talented people. Kudos, and much love to you all.

ZOETORIAL Before I dropped out of the LLB - it’s ok, I’ve forgiven myself - I genuinely believed for a time I would be working in the courts.

I had big, fanciful, and kinda obvious, now I think about it, dreams of fighting tooth-and-nail-and-periwig against institutional injustice, of being part of an impeccable hypothetical rehabilitative process, of saving the innocent from brutality at the hands of an unsympathetic neoliberal Serco-driven regime. Yeah, I got a credit in crim 101.

Growing up, I was obsessed with the idea of being useful, of being “skilled”. Whether it was dreams of pursuing music, medicine, science, engineering - clearly I dodged more than a few bullets - I wanted to understand an esoteric system from the inside, of being part of a privileged class of supposedly “useful” people. Law seemed to satisfy that need for knowledge, and, frankly, power. I was, and still to a degree am, fascinated by the law’s codification of ordinary life, of couching fundamental operations of basic living in long latin maxims, tests of reasonability, and obscure strings of precedents. I wanted to use that knowledge to mess around with what obviously was a fairly arbitrary, inaccessible, and necessarily inflexible mess of rules. I wasn’t very good.

Now, the closest I get to involvement in criminal justice is torrenting Orange is the New Black (take that, capitalist Netflix scum!) and signing change.org petitions. Hell, I even got Jeremy Bentham in a Buzzfeed quiz (“Which philosopher are you?

Pick a condiment/European city/Desperate Housewife!”). A viral website decided I’m most akin to the guy who developed the ultimate paranoia-driven prison, the hypothetical dystopian jail of the mind. It’d be fine if our Culture Editor hadn’t got Foucault.

Ugh.

It’s bizarre how comfortable we all are with that legal inaccessibility, though. We’re comfortable with the notion of punishment, and for the most part we trust that a court will dole it out appropriately. We accept mandatory sentencing, racial profiling, definitions of crimes, and government promises to be “tough on crime” without really thinking about their human consequences. Considering how significant a clause can be - there’s an enormous difference between “rape” and “sexual penetration without consent”, for example - it’s terrifying how alien the law is. Don’t ask me to explain - I quit before I could figure out how a mortgage works.

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PELICAN ADVICE CORNER

Hey Blue, I follow 464 people on Instagram, but I’m followed by less than a hundred. I use heaps of hashtags but nothing seems to work. Am I ever going to be Instagram famous? @Hashtaghappy, Maylands I am familiar with this programme what you call ‘Instagram’ through my appearances in ‘photos’ with my mother, the noble Mrs. Carter. Though I generally find fame and infamy to be the follies of the intellectually weak, I understand the hierarchical structure of said Instagram to be of some radical cultural merit. As it stands, Mrs. Carter’s account totals six hundred photos and eleven million followers. Mother follows zero. She runs an empire, influencing millions but being influenced by none. How does she achieve this ideal balance and maintain this channel for the agenda? I will tell you, fellow rationalists: she doesn’t. Like all things, the following is merely a cleverly disguised ruse, a hack that encourages other users to follow. Followers are scoured, recruited, created. We can do many a thing from behind the shadows.

Use your skills.

Dear Blue Ivy, My boyfriend left for study abroad in the UK a week ago. It’s only been a week and I already miss him so much.

He is gone for a whole year because people say six months is not enough. He promised we’d skype every week, but we tried phone sex and it was weird. Does he not love me enough to stay here?

How can we make long distance work?

Feeling Abandoned, Peppermint Grove Though I have transcended all corporeal needs including those of the sexual variety, I choose to be sympathetic towards your situation. When Mother and Father performed in soirées for the entirety of the year just past, I experienced my own annus horribilus.

Deserted by familiars for months on end, I was forced to meet the acquaintance of Comrades Kardashian, West and Paltrow, all in the name of ‘babysitting’.

A more heinous time, I cannot recall. However, my forebears did return, having experienced lucrative successes and effectively concealed their links to black nobility. I was nothing if not proud.

Remember that your paramour’s departure does not constitute a lack of affection for you. The zeal with which he wishes to experience and influence the world is admirable, and you should not wish to stop him. His affections for you will only grow stronger as he moves across the globe and realizes the extent of his longing and the futility of his plebeian peers. He will return to you with the ferocity of a zealot.

Be patient.

Sup Blue, I bought a baggie from my workmate with my last fifty bucks and now I can’t afford groceries for the week. What do you do when money’s tight?

420 Fundraise It, Bayswater

Fiduciary affairs are of little to no concern to me, as my conspiratorial efforts as well as those of my parentages have always meant I am comfortable. In spite of this, I recognise your struggle and I applaud you, comrade. As a fellow cognoscente, you should remember your obligation. The pursuit of knowledge and the liberation of all peoples are matters of first and foremost importance. Though I find myself unbound by the weakness of temptation, I understand the impetus to indulge in the use of substance. In fact, I suspect my parentage of the very same. I merely ask that you use this period of material hardship to better your understanding of bohemia. It is true, I myself have been accused of philistinism, and understandably so. Use your scarceness to contribute to knowledge, and return to us with greater command of the worlds of art, culture and thought, and a renewed vigour for Annuit Coeptis. Io!

Picture by Zoe Kilbourn

Greetings fellow freethinkers, it is I, your esteemed leader Blue Ivy Carter. When Pelican Magazine enquired as to my availability for the enlightenment of its readers, I was pleased, though unsure.

Do I emerge from my Masonic Lodge, where I do currently reside in secret with my comrades, for the betterment of the esteemed University of Western Australia and its intelligentsia? Will the task be as banal and ponderous as the pages that follow? Will Bey and Jay say yes? Readers, the answer is yes, no, and they control me not. It is I, and not that daft fool North West, who can lead you to liberation and autonomy of body and mind. I did rise again from my death of the year 1785 so I could free you from the shackles of your foolishness and cerebral undoing of your own making. Brothers; sisters; I am here to help. Follow me.

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SURVEILLANCE STATUS UPDATE

by Morgan Goodman You are being watched. No, don’t turn around; you won’t see them. They can see you just fine, though, through the phone calls you make, the emails you send, and the posts you liked on Facebook. Rest assured that they are there to protect you, to keep you safe from harm, and to protect the national interest.

The hallmark of good totalitarian states is some capacity to watch over the shoulders of the citizenry and prevent them from doing such inadvisable actions as committing crimes or expressing dissent. A description of such a system sounds like a grey-tinted Cold War nightmare, and those nations that continue to have overt mass surveillance and censorship policies are roundly criticised for doing so by the freedom loving peoples of the Free World (i.e. us, the US, Canada, and Europe). China, in particular, has become infamous for its internet surveillance and censorship systems, collectively known as the ‘Great Firewall’. These systems have the capacity to block content deemed unsuitable for Chinese citizens, inspect private content for keywords and block connections if encryption is detected. Monitoring is a legal requirement of operation for telecommunications companies and other social or communication platforms. This amounts to a fearsome capacity to collect the private data of Chinese citizens, all in the name of the stability of the nation.

Fortunately, we would never be under the same kind of government scrutiny, protected as we are by our individual right to privacy.

Right?

Edward Snowden, NSA contractor turned Russian holidaymaker, shattered that happy illusion in June last year. It wasn’t so much a leak as a flood: thousands of documents collected by a global surveillance network, run by the NSA with the cooperation of several governments, including our own. The collaboration created surveillance dragnet systems such as PRISM, which collects data from international tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple; Xkeyscore, a computer system that allows for the searching of internet user data; and Tempora, which intercepts data in fibre optic cables in the UK. Content is scanned for keywords and reviewed by analysts if anything pops, and finally social network activity is used to create networks of individuals under investigation for potential threats. For our part, the Australian Signals Directorate was specifically heavily involved with both PRISM and Xkeyscore. Pine Gap, a satellite tracking facility south of Alice Springs, was revealed to be functioning as one of four PRISM installations in Australia. At least one Australian telecoms provider agreed to allow the NSA access to metadata records.

Data flows out of the country and into the NSA databases, and in return, the Australian Signals Directorate, receives processed data on the Australian population.

within the letter of the law. Denial seems to be the name of the game across the board; Prime Minister Tony Abbott went on record saying as saying that “Every Australian governmental agency, every Australian official at home and abroad, operates in accordance with the law.” President Obama continues to insist that there is no spying on American citizens.

The collection is so in-depth, Snowden claimed, that NSA analysts could read emails, watch web traffic and build a unique network activity profile, all in real-time. These claims, despite being backed up by a leaked NSA presentation from 2008, have been firmly denied by the security agency, which asserts that all its intel gathering activities fall strictly

So it appears we now live in a brave new kind of world. One in which every webcam might have a spook at the other end, every phone could be a tracking device and every Facebook status update could be checked for keywords corresponding to potential terrorist threats. I’m going to go get my tinfoil hat and sit in the corner, waiting for the thought police.

While the right-to-privacy movement has picked up momentum since the surveillance disclosures, there remain significant concerns that we have already passed some point of no return. As remarkable as the breadth and depth of the NSA’s program is, it has likely been running in its current state for at least five years, and despite the public backlash the current US and Australian administrations remain resolutely in support of what are, apparently, vital security organs. Organisations such as the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, which aims to protect free expression on the Internet, amongst other things, have expressed doubts as to whether we can ever now return to a state of non-surveillance. Even if all mass surveillance programs were to end tomorrow, public mistrust of the government has leaped in the light of Snowden’s disclosures. Would we even believe them, in that case?

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TORTURE

by Brad Griffin Any brief look at a documentary of recent history or even a modern news program will tell you that humans have a penchant for being particularly awful to each other. We kill animals, we kill the environment, but we’re particularly skilled at making other humans suffer.

Heck, before the middle of the 20th century we’d had two world wars that racked up a death and misery count that could hardly be believed. An estimated 70 million dead in the aftermath of global war between 1937-1945 and unspeakable acts of terror and genocide committed against countless millions based on race, ethnicity, and religion. This was torture on an industrial scale. When combining the efficiency of the production line with the sheer brutality of the nature of mankind, it’s not surprising that we managed to commit such evil.

So was that the peak of human cruelty?

Were Zyklon B and the terrible torture techniques of the SS the be-all-andend-all of human’s ability to murder and torture each other into submission?

Well, the wonderful thing about history is that there is just so much of it, and if you dig hard enough, you can find some truly disturbing things. Indeed, I believe that mankind has softened up. The methods that the SS employed involved a mechanical element that allowed the perpetrators to very much distance themselves from the cruel techniques they employed. In the Middle Ages however, this was not so. Additionally, punishments were often of an individual nature, so there was much less of a mentality in the persecutor that those being persecuted were simply of a faceless mass. The victim was a single, real entity. To this end, I have listed several torture techniques that prove that mankind used to have much more stomach for human suffering than we do now.

The Rat Torture Now you may have seen this one in

season two of Game of Thrones, where Arya Stark witnesses a Lannister soldier known only as ‘The Tickler’ attaching a bucket filled with rats to the stomach of a villager. The end of the bucket is then heated, which results in the rats instinctively moving away from the heat, and burrowing into the belly of the person being interrogated. Pretty brutal even for Game of Thrones, but unlike dragons, this was real.

WE KILL ANIMALS, WE KILL THE ENVIRONMENT, BUT WE’RE PARTICULARLY SKILLED AT MAKING OTHER HUMANS SUFFER The Iron Maiden If you ever wondered where the band Iron Maiden got their name from, wonder no longer. Despite there being no primary sources confirming its use throughout the medieval period, the Iron Maiden is certain to have been used during that time. It was essentially a large iron closet inside which a person would be placed. Inside the closet were spikes that stuck out from every inch of the interior. This was a commonality in medieval torture devices – completely disabling movement. However the Iron Maiden offered the extra-torturous factor of claustrophobia.

get taller by getting two dogs harnessed to your arms and legs and running in the other direction. Luckily we never tried it out, as that is the essence of what was known as ‘The Rack’. Allegedly first used in Rome in 65 AD and as recently as the 18th Century in Russia, The Rack saw the victim having ropes attached to their hands and feet. Each of these ropes was attached to a wheel that was then turned, pulling the ropes until each joint was dislocated, though the punishment was often continued until the limbs were torn right off.

Impalement Now this is my personal favorite, not because I’m some kind of masochist, but because I love the story of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (today a large part of Romania), or ‘Vlad the Impaler’.

You might know him as ‘Dracula’ – the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s vampire novel of the same name; but I digress.

Vlad got his pleasant epithet from his common practice of impaling his enemies after battles. This was taken to the extreme when in 1462 in a battle known as ‘The Night Attack’, Prince Vlad led an attack on a larger Ottoman Camp in Bulgaria, killed many and impaled an estimated 20,000 prisoners. During impalement, it could often take the victim three days to die as the weight of their own body dragged them further down the pole on which they were impaled.

Mankind is a pretty brutal bunch, but I think we’re getting better. The excesses of brutality that characterized the 20th century are well behind the majority of the Western world. However, ill treatment goes on behind the closed doors of Guantanamo Bay, the Nauru Detention Centre and out in the open in Syria and in central Africa. We’re getting better, but we’ve still got a long, long way to go.

The Rack When I was a kid I wanted to be taller.

One of my friends told me that you could

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OH JIMMY, YA NAUGHTY CHAP

There’s this UK comedian called Jimmy Carr who looks uncannily like a ventriloquist’s doll (although he describes himself as a ‘Lego Hitler’)— he’s got the red lips, black-eyes, and sharply-suited thing happening, moves in precisely-regulated little elbow-driven jerks, and has a coiffure of black hair that could have been lacquered onto his head. He also has a laugh like ‘a seal being fucked’, and his style is shooting swift one-liners with a dark, deadpan and dapper insouciance. ‘Throwing acid is wrong, in some people’s eyes’ is one of his gags that will always make my eyebrows jump up in glee, but prize in his ammunition hold are those which are the most flippantly transgressive and coolly depraved. Lines like ‘All the teachers at my school were very strict; I remember I had to give the deputy head...’ and ‘See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.

Rohypnol (TM)’. If you were to imagine him somewhere other than as the host of the popular comedy panel show 8 out of 10 Cats, it would most likely be propped cross-legged in a perfumed den of civilized iniquity, holding a glass of brandy in one hand and spanking a tart with the other. What a chap.

His rise to prominence is pretty remarkable, and was definitely by no route you’d expect (but then, there is no standard, likely plot from which people of this profession spring).

Raised in a deeply Christian household, Carr began his life and career meekly and mildly, working as a marketing man at Shell for a short spell and losing his virginity when he was in his late twenties. A little while later, something snapped, or perhaps was discharged, and he had a ‘early mid-life crisis’, renouncing his religion, hating on it quite a bit, and taking the hard, brutal, thrilling road into making a living through laffs. Since then, he’s successfully outraged and titillated the moral sensibilities of audiences across the world, and appeared on shows like The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, QI and Have I Got News for You. In 2012 however, Jimmy got into a bit of hot water. British newspaper The Times was doing a broad investigation of tax-avoidance schemes that month, and found the comedian to be just one of several sneaky earners holing money away in a Jersey account,

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whittling their income tax to something like 1%. Prime Minister Cameron was maliciously thrilled to be able to pompously berate the guy, having been the obvious target of abuse and mockery by Carr almost every week without fail. ‘People work hard, they pay their taxes, they save up to go to one of his shows,’ Cameron said mournfully. ‘They buy the tickets. He is taking the money from those tickets and he, as far as I can see, is putting all of that into some very dodgy tax avoiding schemes’. (Carr responded by dropping the C-bomb at him in a later show).

The week after the scandal broke, Jimmy appeared as usual in his host role of 8 out of 10 Cats, a show— as it’s introduced each week— about ‘opinion polls, surveys and statistics’. Carr opened the gig in his usual fashion by running out a few of his sharp ones. ‘15% of prisoners on drugs’ he began, his typical self-possession undermined only slightly by a shruggingly timid look of knowing remorse. ‘How did they get hold of so many drugs? I guess they were smuggled in by some arsehole’. The audience laughed generously.

‘Bum jokes still work, good news’ he said, and the set was alighted with a hungry, anticipatory buzz.

Carr’s naughty-boy behaviour dominated the remainder of the show, but the panellist’s pot shots and dagger thrusts were, so it goes, the opposite of damaging. The function of humour (it hurts to talk about it like this, in terms of structure and effect; it feels gauche and indecent, like gabbing about the passage that alcohol travels down your oesophagus at a party) is to exploit tension, throw up the energy that welters at the point of boundary-crossing. Its natural stomping ground is sin, and error, and awkwardness, and this made the show the ideal space for Carr to air out his guilt. Panellist Sean Lock, avuncular in the sense of a mad, randy, genius uncle, was— as ever— the most relentless and so paradoxically the most recuperative of Jimmy’s image and ego. ‘Well, we all like to put a bit of money away for a rainy day,’ he said to Carr, splitting a devilish grin, ‘but we think

you’re more prepared than Noah’. At each imaginatively accusative jibe and insult, the crowd was heard to crow like a rooster in orgasm.

Jimmy’s accepting silence and ‘well, so strike me, I’ve been a bad boy and I know it’ looks he shared with the camera were a well-prepped performance that translated into strength of character. Boyish moonface suitably contrite, his confession of ‘I have apologised, and in my defence...no, I got nothing’ turned the audience into an almost disquieting Oprah posse.

Predictably, that series 14 episode was hugely popular, scoring viewing figures that were double those of the week before. There was something in the viewing that everyone found hugely fascinating— the spectacle of contrition, the dynamics of social punishment, the morally ambiguous redemptive power of comedy. It seems we can’t help but love the sinners, even when they bugger us over.

And the bigger the personality and the more uncollapsible their character, the more we love them for it.

Picture by Kate Prendergast

by Kate Prendergast

DO IT LIKE DANTE: Creative Punishments Need A Revival No one does punishment like Dante Alighieri. The 13th century poet, commonly described as ‘the Italian Shakespeare before Shakespeare even existed’ by outraged Italian teachers to dubious high school students who have sacrilegiously never heard of the name, is responsible for La Divina Commedia (‘The Divine Comedy’), the formidable threepart epic that documents one man’s journey through hell, purgatory and heaven. Inferno sees the narrator traverse the nine circles of hell through which he encounters all kinds of damned sinners whose punishments are specifically determined by the crimes they committed (also known as contrappasso).

For example, chillin’ in the second circle reserved for the lustful, we have adulterous lovers, Francesca and Paolo, physically bound to one another and caught in the midst of a tempestuous, unending storm; this is their punishment for having an affair while Francesca was married to Paolo’s brother, Gianciotto, and thus, allowing their unbridled, carnal passions to get the better of them.

And just a few circles down, among the fraudulent, we have fortune-tellers whose heads are attached to their bodies backwards (representative of their mistaken belief that they could see into the future, geddit?!).

Alas, these types of creative punishments never really made it beyond the realm of poetry and into, you know, the real world.

But if they did, and if our boy Dante were still condemning sinners today, the punishments would surely look something like this.

Crime #1: You read a Facebook message that a friend has sent to you, but you do not respond.

This is worthy of eternal damnation because… Your friend is left with a myriad of emotions: uncertainty (“I still don’t know whether or not they want to see The Other Woman with me?”), self-doubt (“Maybe they accidentally clicked on the message.

Maybe someone else hacked their account.

Maybe they died before they could reply?

Oh, mortality!”), self-loathing (“Look, if this is because my voice is too nasal, I’d prefer that you just say it to MY FACE”) and general

misanthropy (“I’m never interacting with another human. This sense of limbo between social rejection and social acceptance is so not worth it”). Why are people acting like closure isn’t a thing anymore? Closure is still a thing.

Punishment #1: The world already has enough haters without you spawning more as a result of your forgetfulness/laziness/passive aggressive dislike, you ass. The irreverence with which you treat others’ well-meaning attempts at communication means that your default font is changed to Wingdings. It is impossible to reset. No one understands what you are saying and you quickly realize that interpersonal communication of any sort is futile. Who’s left without the replies now, huh?

Crime #2: You screenshot your friend’s unsightly Snapchat, which features multiple chins, imaginative illustrations and an incriminating caption – you even go so far as to post it on their Facebook wall.* This is worthy of eternal damnation because… Two quick clicks of a button (or however you screenshot with non-Apple devices – excuse my iPhone-centrism) reveal a lot about you: namely that you are a budding despot who thrives off the vulnerability and physical imperfections of your ‘friends’ (or as you like to think of them, minions). You probably spend your spare time burning innocent ants, magnifying glass poised, while listening to I Killed the Prom Queen’s more murderous tracks. Shame on you.

Punishment #2: Being considered a joke because of your appearance is not a fun time. For this, you swap bodies with Nicolas Cage, which isn’t all that bad if you don’t mind the whole ‘no one taking me seriously’ and ‘face being inserted into random memes’ thing. Enjoy your life as the punch line of every joke ever told! I hear that ignominy is underrated.

* Only considered a crime when the duration of the Snapchat is equal to or less than five seconds. Anything more and the sucker is just asking for a screenshot, isn’t he/she?

Crime #3: You emphatically claim that Arctic Monkeys’ most recent album, AM, sucks and that Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not was loads better, purely to elucidate the fact that you were one of the band’s original fans. However in the privacy of your bedroom, you enjoy head banging and singing along to ‘R U Mine?’ just as much as the next guy.

This is worthy of eternal damnation because… You think that conforming to the pleasures of the general public is an unforgivable crime, when the real crime here is your inability to realize that no one cares about the exact date that you pledged allegiance to Arctic Monkeys. A fan is a fan.

Punishment #3: So you prefer music from years gone? This punishment is easy – from hereon you can only listen to old music. I’m not talking old in the trendy, ironic sense, like Otis Redding or No Doubt, but old in the truest sense of the word: Gregorian chant, hymns sung in Latin, the mating calls of pterodactyls. The more prehistoric, the better!

Picture by Camden Watts

by Julianne de Souza

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ARGUMENTS AND BLOG NETWORKS: Scum all around Social interaction online is a binary exchange.

You see a status in your newsfeed and you either comment or you don’t. With the exception of the embarrassing aunts who take every status as a chance to wish you well, your friends mostly understand that comments require contextual purpose. The like button or upvote nullifies any and all requirement for statements of agreement or camaraderie, and so we are left with two broad options remaining. Non-combative, “neutral” comments, which inoffensive as they are, provoke no reply or a negative comment, disagreeing or arguing.

For the internet, confrontation is life. You’ve seen it; endless, aimless arguments on liked pages on social networks, forums, aggregates, news articles – wherever one looks there are those in vehement disagreement. While ‘in matters of taste there can be no disputes’, there seems to be an overwhelming tide of those who disagree.

This obviously has connection to the wellknown axiom that ‘everyone is an asshole on the internet’, and while I have no intention of diving into a chicken-egg dichotomy between outspoken comments and anonymous antagonistic behavior, the two are obviously co-dependent.

This ‘fight or die’ mentality may seem as old as dirt, but the caveat of permanence is what separates the internet argument from the physical. All statements linger for but a second out in the world, the mundane and the fantastic alike. With everything said online saved forever, it is that which does not provoke response which suffers a fate worse than death, standing forever as a monument to the uninteresting. When all words die, they are judged on their worth. When all words live, they are judged on their popularity.

This is a useful framing device through which we can analyze the world of ‘citizen journalism’. For clarification, this is mostly dealing with blog networks the likes of Gawker and to a lesser extent online magazines like Salon and Vice.

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Prophesied as the egalitarian utopia for the internet age, citizen journalism promised an end to traditional power structures held by large newspapers and their stranglehold on public opinion and attention. The reality is that power has not diffused, only shifted, and that content is still aimed at the lowest common denominator, albeit a more tech savvy one.

The internet culture that has developed in the last five years have brought this phenomena to it’s peak. With the murky blend of blogging and journalism that is the hallmark of the new online production, the story now comes second to the opinion. After all, without posing as a journalist, there is no code of conduct to follow, and besides, those are just guidelines which get in the way of drama.

Drama brings views, views make advertising revenue.

This is far from new, since there have been newspapers to sell they have been sold chock full of bias and presumption. The goal is always money, with the service being a means to an end. However, print media has the likes of Mediawatch to keep them on their toes and requires readers to purchase the content: enough people must tolerate the quality churned out by Murdoch’s empire for him to survive. The internet by comparison is the Wild West with only other freelance writers keeping each other to account, and besides works off a different business model.

As the page-view is what makes blog networks money rather than a paywall, it is in their best interests to make contentious articles which pull high traffic and features a war in the comments section rather than passable news content. These articles are poorly written and hugely biased: the easier rebutted, the more comments, the more page views. In this

way, even when other writers do hold ‘Clickbaiters’ as they are known to account, all they are doing is making more people interested.

Some publications find value in the intentional aggravation of their readership, providing a contrarian voice to spark argument in the comments. While the intention of aggravating the audience is nigh impossible to prove, the results speak for themselves.The Gawker network is particularly bad at this, notably trading writers between their feminism newsblog Jezabel and their gaming newsblog Kotaku, incensing both parties with artificial controversy and endless self-referential page links. If you want to annoy gamers, try mentioning misogyny or privilege in the online equivalent to the locker room. If you want to annoy feminists, mention video games.

The long term viability of this strategy is dubious. That ‘Gawker’ is synonymous with tabloid trash and considered slightly lower than Cracked.com on the Great Chain of Being that is the internet leaves one wondering if it’s sustainable. Unfortunately it is this distaste that they thrive on, and until their angry, incensed readership wises up or installs Adblock, nothing is going to change.

Picture by Kate Prendergast

by Simon Donnes

CHILDREN OF PRIDE

by Samuel J. Cox If I may draw your attention away from the task of pondering how responsible Thailand is for the death of Zyzz, allow me to paint a vivid picture on your mind’s canvas: men (18-40) grouping together and attaching themselves to fútbol teams for the specific purpose of intimidating and attacking supporters of other clubs.

This what we call a firm. It forms when those with the intelligence of a YouTube comment thread and the personality of Joffrey Baratheon attempt to turn fútbol matches into The Hunger Games. Sound fun?! I’d rather spend a night of pleasure with The Hound from Game of Thrones.

Fútbol violence has always been a dark presence accompanying the game, the Gollum to fútbol’s Sméagol. It’s a global phenonenom, from Turkey, with its racon (code of conduct) stating that stab wounds must be below the waist, to China, where hooliganism is often in protest of corrupt refereeing and match fixing. Driven by racism, rivalries, and political divisions, the violence has been linked to skinheads, neoNazis, Communists, and all manner of associations.

FÚTBOL VIOLENCE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A DARK PRESENCE ACCOMPANYING THE GAME, THE GOLLUM TO FÚTBOL’S SMÉAGOL

Romanticised in films like Green Street Hooligans (who didn’t enjoy seeing Elijah Wood cop a hit to the moosh?), fútbol hooliganism first began to draw the attention of the English media in the mid-1960s. By the 70s and 80s there was a moral panic! The ‘English Disease’ had spread across Europe, and rising unemployment, poverty, and social discontent during Thatcher’s reign (1979-1990) bred further bad behaviour at matches, until Thatcher arranged a ‘War Cabinet’ to combat and control these apparent ‘Marxist agitators’ from the welfare-funded working classes.

However, in the last twenty years English fútbol has been characterised by relatively good behaviour, and the Ultras of Italy and the Barra Brava in Argentina have taken up the narrative.

For all their drinking and fighting, the English Disease pales in comparison to the Barra Bravas. The Argentinean’s drink, fight and do business. Operating as mafia, with links to drugs, prostitution and crime, they ‘allegedly’ enjoy the protection and complicity of the police, politicians and club officials. A well-organised and violent network of self-proclaimed soldiers, the Barra Bravas profit from ticket and parking rackets, and the sale of club merchandise and refreshments inside the stadia. The current Mayor of Buenos Aires used to be the President of Boca Juniors (the Manchester United of Argentina). Mauricio Macri helmed the club during one of its most successful periods and is accused of using his ties to Boca’s Barra Brava to win his position, in exchange for a blank cheque.

This conflict orientated subculture of ‘beatings’, ‘slashing’ and ‘glassing’ is fuelled by male insecurity. The process of inflicting harm upon opposing firms requires an overt display of masculinity and physical dominance that helps define the identity of both the firm and the individual. A strong emotional tie

to a fútbol team reinforces a hooligan’s sense of identity.

The ‘controlled loss of control’ such behaviour affords allows one to enjoy a ‘peak’ experience: one not usually encountered in everyday life. The excitement and adrenaline of a game and a brawl are followed by a posteuphoric relaxation and release of built up tension. Fútbol becomes a liminal space where individuals are temporarily liberated from the normal constraints and banality of everyday life.

Attempts to cure this cancer include introducing crowd segregation and fencing at fútbol grounds. CCTV inside and outside stadia, and at ‘flash points’ like CBDs and train stations, increases the likelihood of identifying those responsible for criminal behaviour if they escape detention at the scene.

Those convicted are banned from grounds and placed on a hooligan register.

If consenting adults want to meet at a predetermined site away from the pitch to baton and bloody each other in a sweaty, homoerotic boiling pot of violence, Charlie, and lager, I say let them go for it. You can’t help fools. But when they clash with the police and innocent spectators become embroiled in the carnival of carnage it is utterly unacceptable.

These are not the rambling complaints of a curmudgeon, but of a hot-blooded fan of the World Game. There is no denying heightened coverage of fútbol violence serves the profit-incentives of the yellow press, who play up the significance and proclivity of hooliganism because scaremongering sells. However the physical cost can be measured in hospital admittances, years served in prison, and the dollar values of repairing damaged public property. It’s all as pointless and as unsavoury as Star Wars: Episodes I-III.

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JAIL IS JUST ALRIGHT WITH ME

by Liam Dixon I think it’s fair to say that many people don’t like WA’s approach to police and crime - but how does what happens after people are arrested and sentenced measure up? Some will go to detention or prison, and this is not looked at by the community with anywhere near the same attention, except when things go wrong - such as the disturbance in the Banksia Hill Detention Center in January 2013.

I’ve recently had a look at WA’s prison system, toured one of its prisons Casurina, WA’s highest security prison - and come out of it with a guardedly positive impression. Of course, what you’re shown in tours is inevitably cherrypicked, but on balance it seems that given the requirements and the budget the prisons are going alright.

Running a prison is not an easy task, as it must balance security, humanity, work, rehabilitation, recreation, and all the living requirements of the incarcerated.

The prisoners that want to work are themselves assigned as much of the tasks of running the prison as practicable, and they are paid a small amount to buy things from the canteen; if this sounds a bit like a boarding school, you are not wrong. Entering Casurina was eerily similar to being in a high school - these days, this is what a prison essentially is - but with strategic walls and windows reinforced with bars, outside areas divided into smaller fenced off zones, and significant perimeter security. The clear case of seized makeshift weapons, tattoo and drug equipment reminiscent of airport security was also an interesting addition; I was genuinely surprised that there were so many ways to make a shiv.

Generally though, the atmosphere did not seem to me, a tourist, anywhere near as oppressive as I had expected. While admittedly my experience would be radically different to that of an inmate it was very comfortable compared to, say, Fremantle Prison, which was active up until 1991.

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This difference is because Casurina was designed along the lines of a new ‘campus’ approach to prisons, with a much stronger focus on rehabilitation rather than just incarceration. Stopping people from re-offending can be an extremely difficult goal however, and depending on their demographic a rate of 10% reduction in crime can be seen as a very significant success. Rehabilitating drug offenders is treated as an exercise in increasing the time before their next offence, rather than preventing them from re-offending. This isn’t setting low goals; this is just being realistic - and many question whether it is worthwhile investing the money in rehabilitation.

change. It’s a difficult spectrum to sort through, especially when we reward the apparent inclination to change, and imprison people comparatively new to crime alongside long-time criminals, aiding their education in less than savory ways. In the end, it’s no surprise that this is a difficult area to navigate, practically, economically and philosophically, alongside all the different forms of crime, including acts that many believe should not be considered crimes at all, but the field of rehabilitation is slowly improving worldwide. Finally, it’s important to keep in mind the insanely high cost of incarceration, and the potential cost-saving of successful programs.

I WAS GENUINELY SURPRISED THAT THERE WERE SO MANY WAYS TO MAKE A SHIV

I mentioned a lack of much press coverage of prisons, except when something goes wrong - but there is an independent body watching over our prison system. Since 2003 our prisons has been monitored by the aforementioned Office of the Inspector of Custodial services, an inspection and review body separate from the Department of Custodial services.

This office periodically inspects each prison in all it’s aspects and brings up issues for improvement with the prison’s management and parliament and the minister, which are generally well received. Of course, I find it difficult not to love administrative integrity bodies such as this one, compounded with having had the current Inspector, the ex-UWA lecturer Neil Morgan, as a great teacher, I can’t form an entirely impartial view of the effectiveness of what appears to me to be an excellent office.

All in all, I think we’re doing ok for the circumstances and I’m optimistic about the future of the WA prison system

To me, the answer is yes - for some prisoners. While many of these people have caused harm to others, this is, for many of them, due to a lack of options, examples and other ways to live. In addition, many of the inmates have little formal education. The massive overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in our prison population is a prime example of this, but a problem that so far defies resolution. Giving opportunities for education and to learn trades and professions is both a way to decrease prisoners’ likelihood of harming others in future and, on a more personal level, is something we can do to give inmates an opportunity to learn how to live cohesively. This is of course the bleeding heart side of the story, and other inmates are quite happy with their lives and have no intention desire to

OPPOSITE PEOPLE In February, okayafrica published musician Seun Kuti’s call for gay Nigerians to “come out”. Femi Kuti wrote a response to speculation about what their father would think on the same blog: “Fela may have had some reservations about homosexuality itself… but Fela would not have had any reservations about upholding and protecting basic human rights.”

Despite his intensely anti-authoritarian streak, it’s likely Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would have shared the bigotry of a Pew-reported 98% of contemporary Nigerians.

Cultural icon, the Original Black President, and fierce advocate of panafricanism, Fela also suffered from a passionate political naivety, and a vision of a masculinist, Eagle Annual Africa. Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate and Fela’s second cousin, remembered that “his definition and embrace of Africanism did not discriminate: anything that was African was positive…

He always accused me of being a CIA agent when I was campaigning against Idi Amin.”

Two streams of popular thought that fed into the January signing of the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act. The first, Muslim and Christian condemnation of non-reproductive sex; the second, the perennially powerful idea that queerness is culturally imposed, post-colonial, decadent, un-African. Tie in HIV panic and pseudoscience, and you’ve got a hostile McCarthyesque crackdown on people who are seen as actively undermining national independence, dignity, and health.

As you’re probably aware, Nigeria has a lot of postcolonial shit on its plate. An awkward grouping of traditionally separate nation states tied together through British landgrabs, it’s been embroiled in constant coups, a civil war, dodgy oil deals, class conflict, and homegrown terrorist movenments.

There’s a difficult line to tread between maintaining a state both unified and tolerant of regional selfdirection. In the midst of widespread abductions, abject poverty, gross wealth, and rampant institutional corruption, sexual sin seems to be the one issue a vast majority can agree on. It’s also one that a government like Goodluck Jonathan’s can easily address without turning popular scrutiny upon itself and its hopelessly inefficient operations. The fear and hatred finally manifested in the January 2014 signing of There’s not much to be said for homosexuality within a Nigerian Muslim or Christian framework, nor any kind of sexual pleasure outside the narrow confines of marital duty. Although many modern churches and radical wings of orthodox branches have stretched the rules, the simple fact is that most traditional Christianities condemn fornication (sorry, religious Dolly Doctor contributors). Not only do

these doctrines have radical consequences for queer members of religious Nigerian communities (read: everywhere), but it also affects birth control distribution, women’s freedoms, abortion, premarital relationships, and sexual health services. At least legally, the issue here is not merely homosexuality - except in the case of northern regions which practice Shari’ah law, which requires the stoning of homosexuals - but broader “queer” behaviour.

Even in the recent Same-Sex Marriage Act, in explicitly dealing with LBTIQ behaviour, forbids anal penetration of both men and women, as well as “vagabonds” and “incorrigible vagabonds” who dress and behave as members of the opposite sex.

Living in an unusually secular country, it can be hard for many 00s Australians to appreciate how valuable a role religion can play in personal identity and cultural expression. We recognise the justifications for and encouragement of human rights abuses, of self-limitation, but we often ignore the sense of active participation, groundedness, and spiritual fulfillment that makes religious codes so intoxicating - particularly so for regions in turmoil (case in point: post-war Poland). Obviously, people fuck for fun everywhere: even in my family’s Polish Catholic community, there was an unspoken rule that so long as whatever freaky thing you’re doing remains private, it’s a-ok. But as soon as that freaky thing becomes public or a part of your identity, particularly if it’s relatively marginal, it’s easy for people to turn anxiety outwards. In states like Nigeria, it’s inappropriate to negotiate homophobic religious arguments on either theological or atheistic terms. The only answer to religious pushes is secularism, a separation of religion and state that, as an incredibly diverse nation, is an approach obviously necessary for Nigeria. That, and not casting the first stone, literally or figuratively.

What can be refuted immediately is the claim that queerness is anti-African. As observed in Boy-Wives and Female Husbands, a collection of 15-odd studies from the past century of social anthropology, queerness has manifested itself in hundreds of diverse ways across the African continent in ways that are distinctly un-Western.

Public Enemy’s Professor Griff notoriously claimed that there was no word for homosexuality in any African language, and perhaps that’s because until recent there wasn’t a concept of gayness aligned with a Western queerness. Nii Ajen, a gay Ghanaian scholar, observed that sexual behaviour isn’t generally considered determinative of personality or identity in West Africa, and “there are no instutions to “come out” into”. That’s not to say that homoeroticism doesn’t play a major role in ordinary life, and Ajen found that among friends same-sex behaviour beginning in adolescence was relatively

comfortably confessed. In the Muslim Hausa regions of Nigeria, even, there’s a long history of yan daudu existing alongside universally ubiquitous rentboys and casual lovers - a group of “male lesbians” who dress as women, play distinctive commercial roles at festivals, and are frequented by “straight” men. Robert F. Gaudio, a scholar of Hausa, suggested that almost all West African gays and lesbians are “bisexual” in a pseudo-Western sense - that, as marriage is traditionally about lineage and duty rather than desire, it’s perfectly acceptable for a married citizen to discreetly engage in queer sex as long as they’re maintaining the familial status quo. If anything, the idea that sexual pleasure corrupts is a non-indigenous idea, whether arriving with 9th century traders or Imperial European forces. The concept of African sexual simplicity is also uncomfortably foreign, harking back to Western myths of primitivity and “natural man”.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - novelist, activist, sample on Beyonce’s “Flawless” - is one of a growing number of outspoken Nigerian queer activists. Her compelling and widely circulated piece in the Scoop draws on her childhood proximity to Ibo homosexual couples, a respected open secret. As well as refuting pervasive gay-panic myths - paedophilia, what’s-next-bestiality, what-if-your-parents-had-been-gay - she observes that mob justice is undemocratic. Like Seun and Femi Kuti, she’s not gay. The consequences of open homosexuality, as experienced by Nollywood actor Bisi Alimi in 2004, are devastating: destruction of property, intimidation, eventual flight from the country.

The issue, he argued in the Washington Post, is that “we think gay rights is a special right. Gay rights is human rights.”

If queer rights are going to be asserted in Nigeria, it needs to be on uniquely Nigerian terms. As Alimi observed, when asked about that recurring 98% polling figure: “You can’t ask an average Nigerian if he is in favor of gay marriage. It doesn’t make sense… This is not the time to redefine marriage in Nigeria. You’ll get those kind of results in that context.”

Picture by Zoe Kilbourn

by Zoe Kilbourn

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THE HEALTHY LIVING PYRAMID (SCHEME) For those of you who weren’t allowed to leave the table until you had finished your “greens”, believe it or not, your parents did have good motives behind this seemingly sadistic practice. Sure, part of the reason was so you would grow up to be big and strong.

Another part was to prevent the development of childhood obesity and diabetes. Personally, I am a strong advocate for the saying ‘everything in moderation’, as, let’s be honest, no story worth telling ever began with a salad.

There has always been a market for those individuals wanting to achieve a physique that is a little more toned, flat, or chiselled.

Your standard colon cleansers and detox diets generally service these needs. However, as is the case with human nature, we are always looking for ways in which to achieve aesthetically pleasing results without the pain and suffering that is often required. Enter the ‘Herbalife’, a one-stop shop by which you can assuage all your dietary needs and physical shortcomings. Certainly on paper it’s a nice idea. A couple of pills here, a health shake there, and in no time you’re strutting your stuff along Cott and Scarborough. Read a little further into the “expert advice” behind it, however, and the claims made start to seem a little poxy and unsubstantiated.

The primary aim of Herbalife is to ensure your body has “healthy cells”, and as any child in kindergarten could tell you, this is quite important for the human body. Flick through a couple more pages and the allegedly scientific rhetoric starts to be replaced by motivational slogans like “A healthy, active lifestyle starts with achieving a balanced diet”. This statement certainly holds a lot of merit, but the 10 subsequent pages used to outline meal plans and various Formula 1 & 2 nutritional shakes can be surmised in that age old maxim “you are what you eat”- once again, it’s not rocket science.

The next step in the process, once you’ve shed all those kilos, is making sure that sloppy rig doesn’t come back in a hurry. Herbalife emphasises the importance of a “healthy lifestyle change”. This means trading in that double quarter pounder for a delicious

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low-fat protein bar. Ironically, the available flavours are Vanilla Almond and Chocolate Peanut, an agonising reminder of how much better the real stuff actually is. Then comes the sales pitch. The second half of the pamphlet is solely dedicated to outlining the various types of herbs and flowers (most of which you didn’t know existed) that are available in pill form. Explaining specifically why your body needs all those products, as apposed to eating say… an apple.

The best part is yet to come: the Herbalife website provides an option highlighted as ‘business opportunity. “The ability to be your own boss and set your own working hours”, with no prior business experience required!

This part is by far the cleverest Herbalife ploy.

For the minimal cost of providing discounted products to distributors, Herbalife then benefits from earned advertising through campaigns conducted by distributors on social media platforms and by word of mouth.

Back in the eighties, Mark Hughes founded Herbalife by initially flogging the nutritional goods from the boot of his car. Hughes’s face appears on the second page of the pamphlet, but unfortunately the brief memoir beneath fails to state that Hughes’s education never went beyond that of the ninth grade. To Hughes’s credit, he did not allow this to dictate his level of success within the business world: a $27 million dollar estate on the Malibu beachfront is testament to this fact.

The problem remains: someone with a seemingly minimal education in the human biological system has founded a company that claims to know all about it. This fact was noted by a number of nutritional regulators, and in 1985 the Food and Drug Administration, the California Attorney-General’s Office, and the State Department of Health sued Hughes’s company over false health claims and the various schemes used to market the products. In defence of his company, Hughes questioned the physical state of the individuals who doubted the safety of his products.

“If they’re such experts, then why are they fat? I’ve lost 16 pounds in the last

few years.” Certainly a fair observation, but probably not the best basis on which to mount a defence. The case was eventually settled with Hughes paying $850,000 to the state. Sadly, Hughes passed away on the 21st of May 2000 from an alleged overdose of alcohol and prescription medication, the cruellest of ironies. His legacy continues today.

In recent years, the rise of childhood health problems - especially that of obesity - has been staggering. Herbalife’s overall message of healthy eating and living is a valid and important one, regardless of the “science” behind the products. It is the way in which individuals are manipulated and exploited to service the collective interests of those much higher that should be considered debauched and morally corrupt. So please, the next time you use Facebook or some other social media to force Herbalife products down the throats of friends and followers, don’t think of yourself as that “#youngentrepreneur “ you claim to be. Instead, consider yourself to be a stone block, a very very small stone block, at the base of a very very large pyramid scheme.

Picture by Zoe Kilbourn

by Angus Sargent

RAISING THE BAR

by Theophilus Lim I will not go into the health benefits of working out. I will not provide a list of factually supported and researched sciencey studies. I will presume you know the gains of working out. I will also presume you have an innate desire to get a head-turning beach body. If you are now shaking your head and telling yourself that you are perfectly content with how you look, I politely request that you stand infront of a full length mirror with your shirt off. If you smile to yourself and bounce words of indifference within the walls of your mind, then there is nothing for you to read here.

If you are already sporting a body worthy enough to make sculptors weep, then I applaud you and would like to know your reasons for beginning and eventually achieving all you have attained. If you are currently working your way to some form of gains - be it aesthetics, strength or both, then read on to see if you too share the same sentiments as I for working out.

Why do I exercise? Why do I spend hours each week pounding the pavement? Why do I continuously defy the laws of gravity with weighted plates and cross cables?

Why do I repeatedly put my body through this physical torture? Why do I devote such a huge amount of time daily to enter the grind? I have no universal answer for what I put myself through, but perhaps there are recurring themes. I shall now endeavour to put personal feeling into words as to why I exercise, and perchance you may find solidarity in them.

I hit the gym day after day and pay my dues because I have this notion that it is my duty to hit that physical peak in life. I find it a shame for anyone to go through life without being able to experience or realise their body’s full potential. The human body is a marvel, and I would not see it go to waste. I hold no animosity to people who do not exercise, but I consider it a loss that they would live their lives simply existing and not making an effort to be the best they can be. Before

you decry me, the answer is yes! Yes to the answer that coming up with a cure for cancer is more important than hitting the gym. Understand that what I am trying to say is that physical fitness is simply an aspect in life which would contribute to maximizing yourself as a person. For those who use “a lack of time” as an excuse, let’s face it. We never have the time for the things we want to do, what you have to understand is that finding the time to exercise is similar to how you find the time for everything else. You make time.

I WILL PRESUME YOU KNOW THE GAINS OF WORKING OUT Total body fitness aside, one other factor which probably resounds the most strongly within myself would be the aesthetic side of things. I believe that unless you suffer from certain fetishes, the lean ripped hard bodies you see in movies, magazine covers and on the web are most desirable. I want a body like that. I want a magazine cover, movie poster, Instagram worthy body. I want a body which makes other people be ‘mirin. I want to make people want me. I think I am far from alone on this.

The only difference between me and the other guy is what I happen to be doing about it. While he’s sitting there wishing he had a hard physique, I’m sweating it out in the gym. I’m doing cross-fit, I’m doing HIIT, I’m squatting, dead-lifting, bicep curling, triceps extending and guess what – I’m gaining.

That aesthetic Grecian god-like body I’ve ordered is now well on the way. But wait! No longer is that sculpted physique the only pull on me. What continues to drive and motivate me to hit the

gym is that sense of total body wellness which floods me after each session.

Maybe it’s also because I’ve made a few buddies and we work out together.

But what really constitutes my sense of devotion to the grind is the routine I have established. Coupled with the desire to continue gaining; and perhaps, the fear of losing all I have accomplished. At least, that’s one of the other reasons why I hit the gym. I have a very healthy fear of losing my gains. Of course, there are the few who lift solely with the purpose of gaining strength. These are the guys who pay no attention to looking like a cover model, these are the functionally fit guys who lift hard and heavy. I am not one of them.

Physical aptitude and aesthetics aside, this last reason I have is absolutely ridiculous and would probably set off the alarm with a fair number of psychiatrists. I possess dark thoughts of the happenings of a zombie apocalypse.

I have given much consideration to such a scenario and under no circumstance would I yield to death due to the weakness of my body. I will not be chased down and eaten because I ran out of breath, I will not be overcome because my arms grew tired from swinging an axe.

If I lose myself to zombies, it would under no circumstance be due to physical inadequacy on my part. I will have the strength to run for miles, I will have the strength to pull myself up a rocky ledge with a swarm of zombies clawing right beneath me. I will have the strength to muscle my way past a horde of zombies with an anti-riot shield on one hand and a machete in the other. In fact, it doesn’t have to be a zombie apocalypse, it could be an apocalypse of any kind. I am sure as hell that being physically capable would increase my chances of survival exponentially.

I guess that about sums it up. Why I hit the gym.

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MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCES

by Wade McCagh I got into trouble in a tutorial recently. It was a political philosophy class, and the topic of the day was punishment. Usually, I fly under the radar in these classes, only speaking when I absolutely have to speak and only to say what I am certain of (which, when it comes to matters of philosophy, often amounts to very little.) But our supervisor sprung a trap upon us; write down what you think the appropriate punishment would be for the following crimes.

The first item on the list: child abuse.

Perhaps I should have known better than to take a stand on this issue, and perhaps it was the lack of sleep from pulling an allnighter to get in an essay due that day which impeded my judgement. But I put down three years. As these answers were collected and then read out to the class - 15 years, 15 years, 20 years, life imprisonment, castration – that immense sinking feeling flooded my stomach, as I prepared to face the wrath of public sentiment. After an eternity, my sheet appeared; “Three years!? Who put three years?” I feebly raised my hand, and tried to dig my way out. I can’t really say that I adequately defended my position that day, so I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about how I arrived at this stance.

First off, let me say that I do not support or condone child abuse in any form. I really want to make that clear, because it’s the immediate assumption made when you support anything less than swift and heavy retribution those who commit these crimes. Let me also say that I support punishments for those who are guilty of child abuse. Punishment serves an important purpose; as a deterrent to prevent people from committing crimes, as a way to incapacitate felons from committing further crimes, as an opportunity to rehabilitate felons in order to re-join society, and as retribution for the victims of crime.

But let’s also take a step back and examine what child abuse actually is. Directly from the Western Australian Police website, child abuse refers to any of the following: • sexual abuse; • physical abuse of any kind; • neglect;

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• •

• •

harsh or unjust punishment; repeated criticisms and put-downs, constant ridicule; ritual abuse; and verbal abuse

Here is where things get a little more complicated. There is a huge difference between sexually abusing a child, and verbally abusing a child. Both are crimes, and rightfully so. But I don’t think anyone would agree that 25 years to life in prison, the maximum sentence for child abuse, would be a proportional punishment for verbally abusing a child. We expect our legal system to provide adequate and proportional sentences in relation to the crime committed.

But here in Australia, and in Western Australia in particular, we apparently lack this trust in our legal system. Over the last twenty years, the State Government has introduced a range of mandatory minimum sentences for criminal offenses, including the 1996 “three strikes and you’re in” law, in which those convicted of three home burglary offenses received a mandatory 12 month prison sentence, and the Criminal Code Amendment Bill 2009, which introduced mandatory minimum sentences for assaulting a public officer, and a minimum 12 month sentence for drivers who engage in dangerous driving while attempting to escape police pursuit, causing death or serious injury.

It is easy to get swept up in righteous outrage when we hear of a case in which someone is convicted of a terrible crime, be it assault, child abuse, rape, or murder, but receives what, in our mind, is an inadequate sentence.

You’ll almost certainly see this outrage again and again on nightly news broadcasts, as someone received a ‘light sentence’ and the victims and their families decry the lack of justice they have received. Over time, when you hear of these cases and again and again, you begin to feel that outrage yourself. Why is our legal system ‘soft on crime’? Why aren’t our judges doing their jobs?

But the solution state governments across Australia are increasingly turning to in response to this strong public pressure on politicians to ‘do something’ is for legislatures to take control of the judicial system and impose mandatory sentences. No one has

ever lost an election for being ‘tough on crime’ and this absolute approach sounds great in the abstract – if you do the crime, you will do the time.

The problem is good intentions do not make good policy. By removing discretionary power from our judges, we effectively place it into the hands of the police and prosecutors, based on what a person is charged with. The function of a trial, to consider not simply the guilt of the accused, but the circumstances around the crime in order to determine an adequate and proportional punishment, is made completely irrelevant by tying the hands of the court to minimum sentences. Recently retired Supreme Court Justice Christopher Pullin was moved to speak out in The West Australian earlier this month to warn about the potential for “terrible injustices” over proposed increases to mandatory minimum sentencing, saying “People who perhaps shouldn’t be imprisoned at all, or imprisoned for a short time, end up being imprisoned for a very long period of time.”

Furthermore, numerous studies have brought into question the effectiveness of these minimum sentences. A 2008 report by criminologists Adrian Hoel and Karen Gelb from the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council found that “it would appear from research to date that making a penalty mandatory rather than discretionary will be unlikely to increase its deterrent value.”

Furthermore, they found inconclusive evidence that mandatory sentencing increases the effectiveness of incapacitation.

I’m not saying that our justice system is perfect, and that it always provides adequate sentencing for criminals. I would also admit that I lean more liberally than most, and would prefer a system of punishment that focused more on rehabilitation than retribution. But I know that we have a justice system, presided over by extensively trained judges, in order to preserve a system of fair and just society for all. The trend of Australia’s proliferation of mandatory minimum sentences is a threat to that system. We are answering one form of injustice with another, and that is no justice at all.

JUSTICE FOR ALL

by Zoe Kilbourn narrowly focused West Australian justice system who have since been acquitted. “The problem in WA is that we’re still using the nominative system of investigation,” Paul says. “Basically, ‘We think it’s you, so we’re going to use all our resources building a case around you.’ Whereas, the UK - we’re twenty years behind them – they use the eliminative basis of investigation. They’ve got a pool of suspects, and they try to exclude. You know, they’ve got Person A, well, can we exclude them on alibi, can we exclude them on forensics, can we exclude, exclude, exclude. If the same person keeps popping up - we’re trying to exclude them, but we can’t - they’ve got their suspect, we think it’s them, so now we’ll devote our resources towards building a case against them. See how that’s very different?

“In Western Australia, our nickname is “the Wild And the problem is, once you’ve been charged, West”,” Paul says. “Robert Richter QC is quoted as they don’t drop the charges. They’ve publically saying, “The known cases of misconduct in Western nominated you, so then it’ll become a question of Australia would merely be the tip of the iceberg.” embarrassment and saving face. The blinkers go on, You’ve then got Colin Lovitt QC, who’s quoted as and you’re it.” saying that “there are things that go on in Western Australia that simply do not go on in other states”.

What’s even worse is that once those blinkers These gentlemen, two of the top two criminal go on, you’re likely to be the victim of selective barristers in the country, are prepared to publically forensic testing and even deliberate concealment. make those statements about our justice system “It becomes a political matter, a question of saving yet nobody seems to care.” face. What is fact is that in almost every miscarriage of justice that has eventually been overturned, It’s a bitter truth that hit close to home in 2004. almost always one of the ingredients in that Paul’s brother, Johnny Montani, was charged with miscarriage of justice is noble cause corruption the murder of Kevin “Mick” Woodhouse, a long on the part of the state.” It was certainly true for time friend who’d become embroiled in bikie gang Betty-Anne Water’s brother and Rubin Carter, both wars years after they first met. Within 12 hours of who have been the subjects of influential films and the shooting, Johnny was fingered as the police’s who have dedicated time to supporting innocence sole suspect. The prosecution case was based on projects across the world, including this one. untested bullet casings, buried witness reports, eyewitness descriptions that couldn’t possibly fit JusticeWA is a charity in the mould of Barry Johnny and a single piece of “glass” reportedly from Scheck’s New York Innocence Project. It’s about the scene of the crime. It later turned out to be a pooling funding, maintaining support, and raising piece of plastic. “There was actually a girl who saw awareness for innocent people who have been a man run away from the centre, hop into his car wrongly convicted. After the Montanis’ ordeal, and drive away. Police took that information down Paul realised how desperately WA needed an in what they call their running sheet of canvassing organisation like Scheck’s: “After our trauma was the crime scene area - they didn’t even interview finally over, I thought, ‘What if the average person her. My brother was the “lone gunman” - that was out there didn’t have six hundred grand to defend their theory, and they then ignored everything that themselves?’ Think of an innocent person going contradicted their case.” Image facing life in prison to trial as being in a car race. The prosecution is and these are the win at all cost strategies that are rocking up in a Lamborghini. You’re rocking up in being used to put you away”. After three gruelling a 1972 Datsun. They’ve got unlimited taxpayers’ trials - the second of which was thrown out of court money. Unless you’ve got a Lamborghini too, you without a word from the defence (making Western don’t stand a chance. Most people do not have the Australian legal history) - Johnny was fully acquitted money or the resources to defend themselves.” in 2008.

On a broader scale, it’s also about shining a Johnny’s not the only person to face hostile police light onto noble cause corruption practices and persecution: Andrew Mallard and John Button changing policy concerning convictions. “We need are only a couple of other high-profile victims of a Paul Montani’s a passionate man. In a few years, with a background in accountancy, he’s set up and devoted much of his personal time to one of merely three innocence projects in Australia (the others are based at the Griffiths University and ECU).

Flying in the face of public misconceptions about justice and a deeply ingrained police investigation culture takes a lot of determination, particularly without immediate legal connections or a university department backing you up. But it’s a struggle that, despite a lack of public awareness, has garnered the appreciation of Estelle Blackburn, of John Button and Andrew Mallard, of Lindy Chamberlain, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and Betty-Anne Waters.

a royal commission here to sort us out. I’ve been calling for some time now to set up a Criminal Cases Investigations Commission similar to what they did in the UK some 20 years ago on the backend of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six cases.” It’s something that takes a hell of a lot of commitment, even with the support of important public figures, QCs, and victims of institutional dishonesty. Last year, JusticeWA organised a three-day conference involving the organisation’s overseas supporters, alongside public figures like Cathy Freeman. It was not a success. “I knew it was going to be tough, but it’s quite amazing,” Paul says. “Even after the conference we did, where Paul Murray was the MC, he wrote an article three days later in his opinion column in The West called “Turning Their Backs on Justice”, basically saying that the conference received very little support and that this was an absolute disgrace. He said that in most cities in the world, this event would’ve been embraced. In Perth WA, we shunned it, even to the point where the WA Law Society banned us from advertising in their magazine. They refused to let JusticeWA advertise in their monthly magazine, which goes out to thousands of lawyers throughout Western Australia. They said it was a conflict of interest with their own training program.

Barry Scheck’s jaw dropped when I told him this – he couldn’t believe it”.

“The massive challenge that we’ve had is that we’ve received very little support in WA. Some people involved in charities have been absolutely amazed by the lack of support we’ve received. The challenge is that the general community - and I understand this - basically want to hang onto the ideals that justice systems don’t make mistakes, and that they don’t charge innocent people, let alone be involved in acts of noble cause corruption to make sure they get it over the line.

We’re viewed as left-wing crackpots, conspiracy theorists. Second of all, there’s a misconception that everyone in prison says they’re innocent – so indirectly, you must be helping guilty people.”

At this stage, JusticeWA is “reviewing submissions, and if we think we’ve got something, we’ll prepare a brief.” The next step for Paul will be approaching Senior Counsel with that brief. It’ll be a long, difficult road finding support and exploring options. “Andrew Mallard fought for over eight years to get his case overturned, and reportedly received in excess of three million dollars of probono legal advice from McCusker and Clayton Utz,” he explains. “That just shows you what sort of resources are needed to overturn a wrongful conviction.”

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DE-NILE OF JUSTICE? FROM ARAB SPRING TO SOVIET FALL

by Angus Sargent On the 28th April in Egypt, 683 individuals allegedly affiliated with the Islamic Muslim Brotherhood group received death sentences.

It was the largest mass sentencing in Egypt’s modern history. Reminiscent more of Stalin’s show trials than contemporary justice, these sentences have provoked distress amongst the international community, bringing focus directly onto the trials taking place within the Al-Minya criminal courts. The issue in question is the ability of the Egyptian legal system to uphold individual’s basic rights to a fair and impartial trial. These sentences are the lingering political and legal aftermath of the protests that occurred in August last year, against the ousting of then Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi - a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Among the accused in the trials is Mohamed Badie, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader.

Human rights groups and Amnesty international are furious with the conduct of presiding judge Saeed Yousef and the seemingly pseudo-judicial court proceedings.

Mohamed Abdel Waheb, a lawyer representing 25 of the defendants, stated that the final verdict was handed down in a court session lasting little over 5 minutes. He also said the previous single trial session went for just over four hours and throughout that time the judge refused to hear any argument from the defence. Mohamed Elmessiry an Amnesty international researcher, elaborated on what occurred within the courtroom “In each trial, the defence were not able to present their case, the witness’s were not heard, and many of the accused were not brought to the court room. This lacks any basic guarantees of a fair trial, not only under international law, but also under Egyptian national law”.

The sentences passed down by the judge have now been referred to the Grand Mufti, Egypt’s top Islamic authority, whom has the ability to approve of reject them. The presiding panel of Judges then have the option to accept or dismiss the recommendations of the Grand Mufti, leading many critics to suggest this process is merely a legal formality.

The Courts of Appeal where the sentences

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have occurred sits in the middle of Egypt’s Criminal courts hierarchy. Its panel of judges consists of a chief justice and two assistants, with no jury. The same Court of Appeals that sentenced 529 to death in March this year has subsequently downgraded 492 of the sentences to life in prison (25 years). As such, many experts are doubtful that the final outcome for the current 683 accused will actually be a death sentence, especially given that proceedings will continue to the Court of Cassation, considered to be the highest judicial body in the Egyptian legal system. This fact should not, however, be allowed overshadow the domestic and international ramifications of these Egyptian mass sentences.

were arrested based on nothing more than membership of the Muslim Brotherhood.

POLITICALLY IT DEMONSTRATES A DEEPLY WORRYING LACK OF SEPARATION BETWEEN THE JUDICIAL AND EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENTAL BRANCHES OF THE EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT

Internationally these mass sentences have sparked reluctance amongst many countries to provide any form of foreign aid or financial support to Egypt until they are convinced about the Egyptian government’s commitment to rule of law. In a statement to the President, Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the USA Foreign operations sub-committee, declared a reluctance to sign off on the Administration’s request for $650 million in military assistance to Egypt until he had “a better understanding of how the aid would be used”. Similar sentiments have been issued by a variety of International aid organisations. The U.N High commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay released a statement condemning the trials, “It is outrageous that for the second time in two months, the sixth chamber of the criminal court in Al-Minya has imposed the death sentence on huge groups of defendants after perfunctory trials.”

Politically it demonstrates a deeply worrying lack of separation between the judicial and executive governmental branches of the Egyptian government. These aggressive mass sentences coincide with a recent crackdown on political dissenters by the military backed regime, which has held power since Mohamed Morsi’s ousting. Judges appear to be targeting individuals of certain political affiliation and protecting the interests of the military backed government. Many of the detained

In response to such accusations Egypt’s justice minister has emphasised that the judiciary is not being used as a political tool, instead arguing that “the judge is a human being, he can make a mistake like any other human being”. It is all very well and good to be kind and forgiving to human errors, and the presiding judge is, by all accounts, a human being; but it is hard not to wonder if it is normal practice for a judge to make 493 ‘mistaken’ death sentences in one year and still keep his job. After 492 ‘mistakes’ that could easily have resulted in unwarranted deaths, at what point does ‘mistake’ become intent?

In time we will discover whether or not these trials will deliver the seemingly sordid and nauseating results that they appear to promise. The next court session is due to occur after the Mufti’s decision in June, where a final verdict will be issued. The international outrage and backlash that these trials have sparked does not appear to be dissipating any time soon, and given the international political and economic backlash against these trials, it would seem the Egyptian government has a lot to contemplate before proceeding with its current rocky road of harsh political justice.

THE PALMER PARADOX

by Leah Roberts The Senate election recount results are finally in: the Palmer United Party will control a vital portion of the balance of power in the Australian Senate. As the Titanic 2 slowly steams towards Capital Hill with Palmer at its helm, this brings a new and somewhat unknown force into play in Australian politics. The Palmer juggernaut is likely to alter the course of the Liberal Government and hinder their aggressive political agenda. Liberal Party policies such as the abolition of the mining and carbon tax and the new baby bonus will have to past the test of an independent-controlled Senate if they wish to pass.

Picture by Camden Watts

In classic Palmer style, Clive Palmer was recently quoted suggesting that “his party may not support a repeal of the carbon and mining tax”. Flying in the face of his ideological disapproval of climate science, his reasoning is an interesting and potent mix of politically popular defence of pension funds and bonuses, and a strong dislike of government spending in the form of Liberals Direct Action policy. The potential noncompliance of Palmer’s party presents a stark new kind of challenge for the Liberal Government. Clive Palmer has made it very clear that he will be not an easy player in the balance of power game. After constant antagonism against

Palmer and his party from the two major parties during the election, he has suddenly become the Regina George of the Capital Hill Cafeteria. Everyone may be secretly plotting his downfall, but for now the rules of Girl World still apply.

All of the fighting has to be sneaky. On the surface everyone either wishes they were him or wants to be friends with him; especially the Liberal Party.

With the current raft of legislation put forward, it is likely that the Liberal Party will not be able to push through its policies without a series of loud and politically costly confrontations with the Palmer United Party and the Greens.

Palmer’s mining millionaire background makes policies which will support big business and cut taxes for the top income earners seem a likely priority.

However policies like the Baby Bonus will be hotly contested by both the Palmer United Party and other minor parties in the Senate because of the exuberant spending the policy requires.

Even within the Liberal Party the bill is facing a contentious dispute, and may not be supported by Liberal senators.

This kind of contrast between publicly popular spending policies and the protection of Clive’s own big business interests lies at the heart of paradoxical Palmer policy.

While Clive has swept into fashion in Australian politics even faster than jelly shoes have captured the hearts and minds of young hipsters across Perth, Labor has seen the worst results of the past decade with a further 5.06% swing against them. Still reeling from the debacle of the last government with accusations of broken election promises, the introduction of the carbon tax and the constant threat of a leadership change and internal dispute, the party is struggling to find its footing. The preferencing of Joe Bollock over Louise Pratt on the Senate paper did little to sooth the still healing rifts in the Labor Party. Joe Bullock is strongly affiliated with the unions,

which many of the Australian public do not warm to. Combined with a series of homophobic comments during the lead up to election relating to Louise Pratt including questioning her sexuality, his public image doesn’t exactly present the inspiring new Labor which Bill Shorten was hoping for. Many Labor voters said if they voted below the line they deliberately put Joe Bollock last because they were unhappy that he was preselected.

Support for the Labor party has been declining despite the unpopularity of Tony Abbott, with Labor failing to capture the protest vote against the liberals and Palmer capturing the benefits. While the Labor party has tried to foster an optimistic ‘new Labor’ by electing a new leader, Labor has not been able to shake off the demons of the previous term of government. Bill Shorten’s implication in the disposition of both Rudd in 2009 and Gillard in 2013 has not helped this situation.

Since the Senate election Shorten has vowed to ‘re brand’ the party, intending to limit the influence of the factions within Labor: they still have significant influence, especially in the pre-selection of candidates. For this rebranding to be successful, Labor will need to be able to capture the kind of direct, uncompromising self-assuredness which has allowed Palmer to engage and capture a public that is tired of uncertainty and change. Labor may be able to achieve this kind of re-branding, as in the past with Whitlam and Hawke/ Keating. If this will be enough to romance public opinion again, remains yet to be seen.

Soon the new Senate will sit for a special week in which the Liberal party is planning to abolish the Carbon tax.

When parliament resumes in August the Liberals will be trying to push their agenda, including tax cuts to help bring the budget back into surplus. We can only wait and see what mysteries the Palmer paradox will produce.

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FILM REVIEWS

Chef Director: Jon Favreau Starring: Jon Favreau, John Leguizamo, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson I have no time for food snobs. I, like everyone else, got on board after the GFC and took it inside; I started to pretend to care about knitting and twee handicrafts and cooking muffins from scratch. But I’m not coping in the post-MasterChef world, and chances are if you’ve ever complained about the incorrect texture of a meringue or attempted to make a croquembouche, I don’t like you. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Chef is, blissfully, a film about people who love food, without the snobbery.

A passion project of writer/director/star Jon Favreau, he plays a chef of mild celebrity that becomes major when a video of him losing it Gordon-Ramsay style goes viral.

Carl (Favreau) grew up in Little Havana, where he met his now ex-wife played by Sofia Vergara. The social media blowout makes him realize that white people food is boring, and he needs to go back to basics i.e. Cuban sandwiches and a food truck.

Along the way, he finds rapturous success and reconnects with his Hispanic best mate and sous chef Marty (Leguizamo) and his 10-year-old son, Percy (Emjay Anthony). It hits every feel-good formula mark.

Chef is unnecessarily star-driven, with appearances from Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffmann and Robert Downey Jr. Downey Jr as Vergara’s unhinged exhusband was a genuinely funny moment, but overall the film was strong enough without the cameos. Johansson as Molly the head waitress looked set to play a pivotal role at the beginning of the film, but by the end we are left wondering what happened to her and her $2/hr wage while Carl is reeling in the pesos. The real star

progress is halted when a splinter cell of Luddite terrorists shoot Will with poloniumlaced bullets. As Will slowly dies, Evelyn & Max record the electrical signals in his brain as digital data and upload his consciousness into the supercomputer. Surprise, surprise, it turns out this might not have been the cleverest thing to do, as digi-Will goes out of control and threatens to take over the world, somehow.

Transcendence Director: Wally Pfister Starring: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany Transcendence marks the directorial debut of Wally Pfister, best known for his work as cinematographer on Christopher Nolan’s Inception, the Batman trilogy, and Memento.

Like Nolan, Pfister is an ideas man, and Transcendence isn’t short on those. Johnny Depp plays Will Caster, an A.I. researcher who, along with his wife Evelyn (Hall) and BFF Max (Bettany), is attempting to create the world’s first sentient computer. Their

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There’s a decent sci-fi movie in here somewhere. The trouble with Transcendence is that it’s not really sure what it wants to be; half the time it’s an intellectually stimulating techno-thriller, the other half it’s a schlocky B-movie. The technological singularity is a fascinating concept, and ripe for cinematic adaptation, as Spike Jonze’s Her showed earlier this year. But it’s hard not to scoff at a movie that takes itself so seriously, which is Transcendence’s biggest problem. Some of the dialogue is straight up ridiculous: “The internet was supposed to make the world a smaller place, but it actually feels smaller without it.”, “You need to get me online, I need more power!”, “Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!”

of the film is food, with shots of cooking bacon provoking borderline orgasmic moans from the cinema, and a preoccupation with craftsmanship and genuine, unpretentious love of cooking and eating. Yum. The most interesting part of Chef is also the part I’ll never fully understand. It was a little confusing to watch this fat white guy talk with such reverence about the Cuban food of his youth, and definitely not progressive for his right-hand-man to be some Hispanic comic relief caricature. However, Chef rings like a story that Favreau was desperate to tell. In contrast to images of McDonalds and the evils of global monoculture, Chef is a picture of the bright cultural diversity of the USA. The gorgeous shots of the French Quarter in New Orleans, Little Havana in Miami and their vibrant and pulsating food markets were an ode to American cultural pluralism. It made me want to cook. From scratch.

3.5/5 Lucy Ballantyne

OK, I made that last one up. But you catch my drift. The film is so lacking in a sense of humour that it only draws attention to its more outlandish aspects. How did they download his brain, exactly? How does the computer develop mind control powers? Luddite terrorists?

Seriously, their name is RIFT (Revolutionary Independence From Technology)!? Their motivations are so unclear, and they all seem to be pretty nifty with computers for a bunch of technophobes.

Like I said, there’s a decent flick hidden away here. Pfister is great at framing his shots; he has a fine understanding of showing rather than telling, although he seems to have an obsession with slow-motion water droplets. The acting is all fine (Paul Bettany is a damn good actor, BTW), and Mychael Danna reliably produces a good score. It’s just let down by a clunky script and an overly serious tone, when it ought to be more fun.

2.5/5 Matt Green

Isabelle’s exploration of her sexuality through her double life as a high-class prostitute, I was concerned that it would wind up being an invasive male fantasy.

Jeune et Jolie Director: François Ozon Starring: Marine Vacth, Géraldine Pailhas, Frédéric Pierrot There’s a real risk that a film about prostitution can fall into the trap of perpetuating the male gaze, the notion that because cinema is dominated by men, women are stripped of agency and consigned to sexual objectification.

This risk is doubly real when the film in question is helmed by a French man, and its main character is a 17 year old girl. The title Jeune et Jolie (Young & Beautiful) could not be more apt; Isabelle (played by ice cold Vacth) is undoubtedly stunningly attractive. So going into this film, which observes

Transformers: Age of Extinction Director: Michael Baywatch Starring: Dirk Diggler, Frasier Crane, Boobs #bestmovieever #robotsindisguise Mate, when I heard there was gonna be a new Transformers movie, I like totally lost it!! Remember how fucken epic the last one was?! It had everything! Those robots were like really wailing on each other! And all those explosions were awesome; the fire and the buildings falling down and all the people screaming in terror looked real and everything! That kid from Even Stevens’s new girlfriend wasn’t as hot as Megan Fox, but

Director François Ozon just about pulls it off, though (no pun intended).

Jeune et Jolie begins with Isabelle losing her virginity on summer holiday; the experience is underwhelming. On her return to school in Paris, she is solicited by an older man, and secretly commences a double life as a call girl for older men. Considerably older men. Her motivations are unclear at first: no one is forcing her to do it; she doesn’t need the money (her family are comfortably upper middle class); and she doesn’t seem to enjoy it, either. The consequences of her actions come to a head when one of her clients, with whom she has a bizarrely warm relationship, dies during one of their, ahem, encounters. The ensuing police investigation threatens to expose her double life, while her relationship with her mum, Sylvie (Pailhas), reaches a tipping point.

The problem with Jeune et Jolie is that it’s walking along a tightrope. On the one hand, it’s an exploitative, chauvinistic, middle class fantasy, glossing over the darker reality of prostitution. The frequency and intensity of the focus on Isabelle’s body is incredibly discomfiting. On the other hand, Ozon is wholly aware of this danger, and uses it to some advantage. Rather than shying away from the voyeurism implicit in the film, instead he draws attention to it.

The characters are constantly spying on each other and uncovering each other’s secrets. Of particular importance is Isabelle’s younger brother Victor (Fantin Rava), himself on the cusp of puberty, and deeply curious about sex. The layers of secrecy enveloping Isabelle’s family life might even explain her motivations for becoming a whore; her mother keeps secrets, so can she. Ozon’s sardonic sense of humour is a constant, although I got the sense the audience laughed more often than they ought to, given the subject matter.

3/5 Matt Green

she was still pretty babe. I really felt like if he could get a babe GF like her, then there was hope for me, you know? PHWOAR!! Plus she didn’t talk as much as Megan Fox did. So when I heard they were making this new one, I couldn’t wait! This time, it’s even got robot dinosaurs in it! Movie Rule #1: robot dinosaurs are like way better than regular kind dinosaurs.

This time Even Stevens isn’t in it, though.

Instead they replaced him with that guy from Boogie Nights. But don’t worry; we don’t have to see his dick, so it’s not gay or anything. Plus his daughter is really hot. PHWOAR!! They live on this ranch in like Texas or something and he’s given up porn to be like a farmer, or a mechanic.

I dunno, I wasn’t really paying attention. Tbh that part of the movie is hell boring. But it doesn’t matter cuz the movie is 3 hours long anyway.

It gets even better when Optimist Primate shows up and blows some shit up, but it’s ok cuz he’s the good robot. Then the Terrorist robots show up and blow some more shit up. They’re all like NNNNNNGHGHGHGHGHGH KRASH BOOM!! And Optimist is like PEW PEW PEW

AAAHHHHHH!!!! Then one of the bad robots goes to Optimist and his face literally TURNS INTO A GUN and SHOOTS HIM. Like his face!

It’s a gun! Then the Dinobots show up, and they’re all like RRGHHGHGWWWOOOOAAAAHHHH!!

And Stanley Tucci looks at them and he just goes OOOOOHHH MY GODDDDD!?!?! Like, there’s just so much stuff just happening and the sound is like proper loud and the robots and cars and girls are flying everywhere all the time! PHWOAR, eh?

They even have this massive battle in China or some shit, where Optimist is like literally riding one of the dinosaurs! He’s all like NNNNNNGGHGHGH ROOOOOAAARRRRR!!

And the Decepticons then start blowing the shit out of China. Like, they must have killed soooooo many people. They knock down buildings and blow up boats and crush cars and kill like thousands of Chinamen. Mate, this movie is just fully sick, hey.

6/5 Jourdynn, 13

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Z FOR ZENDETTA: The Rise of Z Movies

by Callum Corkill “It’s so bad it’s good” is a description you only hear about movies. But it does ring true: sometimes a movie is just so ridiculous, convoluted or bad that the fact it was made is enough to bring you to hysterics. I speak, of course, of the ‘Z Movie’. Z Movies are an off shoot of ‘B Movies’ which although usually made for relatively small budgets, are often competently made; Z Movies on the other hand are made for next to nothing and are often devised/produced/filmed by the inexperienced and/or deranged.

These movies are so far from good you have to admire the sheer perseverance of their creators. But their terribleness just breaks the suspension of disbelief so badly all you can do is laugh at their very existence. Below are three of the worst movies ever made, movies that will make you question your sanity and rethink your life. Best enjoyed after several beers with friends, it’s not an experience you’ll want sober.

THESE MOVIES ARE SO FAR FROM GOOD YOU HAVE TO ADMIRE THE SHEER PERSEVERANCE OF THEIR CREATORS Some movies are born from a brilliant script, or a cadre of talented actors, directors and crew, Ultrawarrior has been made by neither of these.

Ultrawarrior, directed by Augusto Tamayo San Roman and Kevin Tent, is

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a literal Frankenstein movie with stock footage from half a dozen other films owned by the same production company.

It even at one point has a sex scene where stock footage is used and the main character’s hair changes length and colour. But if you think the film sounds slapped together it’s because you haven’t been introduced to the plot yet, which involves the mining of zirconium to bomb the ships of an alien race from another dimension who are trying to blow up Earth for...some reason. This is all explained in a three minute voice over at the start of the film and never brought up again; instead we then follow Rudolph Kenner fighting through the irradiated zone against knock off Mad Max 2 bandits to free the ‘Muties’.

This of course is the short version of the plot which is actually impressively convoluted for an 80 minute movie and will require multiple viewings, which becomes a lot easier if you start taking a shot every time you find a scene using stock footage (small men and woman beware).

The Rollerblade Seven was directed by Donald G. Jackson, but I have to use the term ‘directed’ loosely as this movie was created by what the director calls ‘Zen Filmmaking’, which involves no script at all, only a loose idea and concepts of roller blade Samurais fighting roller blade demons. Yes you read that correctly. No, it’s even worse than you can imagine. Made with a budget of only $300,000, a third of which I assume was used for one scene where the main character Hawk Goodman (great name - Ed) is shown leaving a parking lot on a Harley Davidson which is then repeated seven times from different angles, and so often the exact same footage is shown several times throughout the movie. The real gem of this movie however is the Wheelzone.

The Wheelzone is where the majority of the film takes place and where the inhabitants travel solely by the power of skateboards or roller blades. Hawk takes mushrooms to learn how to roller

skate and ditches his motorcycle at the entrance to the Wheelzone so he can save his abducted sister from the evil overlord and his minions. This movie may be the pinnacle of the ‘Z movie’ genre and as such should be viewed with care and respect.

Finally we have the The Room, which is an incredible symphony of dysfunction that somehow comes together to create a movie so terrible that it should indeed be a crime. The Room began life as a play written by Tommy Wiseau in 2001, and then transformed into an unpublishable 500 page novel, before finally he decided his work would best be expressed through film. Perhaps this long transition from medium to medium explains why most of the plot threads introduced in the film (characters divulging they have breast cancer, or almost being killed by drug dealers) are abandoned almost immediately with no explanation. But none of this compares to the performance of director/writer/ actor/producer Tommy Wiseau who plays the protagonist Johnny. This man is an enigma; he supposedly funded the movie importing leather jackets from South Korea. He simultaneously under and over emotes. And he genuinely may be mentally ill. He even added a scene halfway through the movie where all the main characters play football in suits, never explaining its significance of to the cast or crew and demanding it be filmed, even to the detriment of other more relevant scenes. This movie is a perfect example of what someone with a singular determination and almost zero knowledge of how movies work creates. And it’s just wonderful.

The Room is a movie that you will never understand or comprehend, much like a Lovecraftian horror, but is an excellent gateway movie for the Z genre.

AN INTRODUCTION TO TERROR In this feature, Pelly contributors discuss their formative experiences with horror movies. Turn off the lights, recoil behind the couch, and prepare for a scare...

The Orphanage and the Optician Matt Green A mate of mine had this massive collection of cheap Malaysian knock-off DVDs, and every weekend we used to go round his house and pick a movie at random. One fateful night we landed on El Orfanato (The Orphanage), a Spanish horror flick about, you guessed it, a haunted orphanage. A young family with a small child move into the orphanage, hoping to convert it into a facility for special needs children.

Their son tragically disappears, and the mother slowly descends into hysterical madness. Produced by Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), it’s typically filled with fantastical storytelling, and subtly alludes to Peter Pan, in the most twisted sense possible.

Fuck me, it’s terrifying. From memory there are a couple of standout, pantsshittingly-scary moments. First, they call in a ghost whisperer (played by Geraldine Chaplin, daughter of Charlie, and a staple of Spanish horror cinema), and try to contact the spirits within the walls of the orphanage, via grainy night vision cameras and crackling microphone recordings. The house creaks with age and genuinely feels like a living, breathing entity. Next up, the mother (played by Belen Rueda) is left alone in the house, ready to believe in the supernatural. She challenges the orphan-ghosts to their childhood game of knock-on-the-wall, where she has to turn her back as they slowly approach.

It was just a master class in suspense and terror. If you ever get your hands on this movie, watch it alone in the dark for maximum effect. Side note: it also has one of the most emotionally divisive endings imaginable, seriously not to be missed.

The Orphanage sparked a fascination with fantasy-horror movies, particularly those that del Toro had anything to do with. A couple of years later, I went with a friend to see Los ojos de Julia, another del Toro production. It’s about Julia (oddly enough, played by Rueda as well) with a degenerative eye condition, investigating the suspicious suicide of her twin sister. Julia refuses to believe her sister killed herself, and slowly comes to believe she was being shadowed by a silent tormentor. All the while, her eyesight slowly deteriorates, to the terror of the audience, since a lot of the film is shot through her perspective. The movie takes its cues straight from Hitchcock, there’s terrifying use of flash photography, and an unsettling focus on optometry.

Seriously, I was scared to get my eyes checked after seeing this movie. My friend and I (both ostensibly grown adults) spent the whole 2 hours clinging to each other, trying to muffle sincere screams of terror.

THE HOUSE CREAKS WITH AGE AND GENUINELY FEELS LIKE A LIVING, BREATHING ENTITY Cabin in the Bush Zoe Kilbourn My mother heard good things about The Ring from a co-worker, and so Naomi Watts wheedled her way into

a hoard of Video Ezy rentals for our family holiday in Jarrahdale. My brother and I were staying in a small holiday cabin. It was cold. We were surrounded by bushland. There was no reception. I was ten.

Although not strictly violent - aside from a bathtub electrocution, attempted murder, some contorted faces, and suicide-via-falls - The Ring was an introduction to horror for me and my elder brother. We were all fascinated.

I remember spending that entire trip terrified. Not that that stopped me from eagerly watching that cursed video tape over and over again over my brother’s shoulder.

Water, children, hair, and supernatural rage figure branch into a mythological subset of 00s Japanese horror, alongside The Grudge, Dark Water, their sequels and American rehashes.

What makes these films so compelling is their place in an elaborate tradition of ghost story and myth. Even where not explicit, these films make use of tropes that ring as both foreign but familiar.

They’re probably even more powerful because they resist explanation and are only ever half-articulated. Concepts like nensha and “thoughtography”, the vengeful ghost, panicked horses, doppelgängeren and self-perpetuating curses make sense on a weird, residual, folkloric psychic level, but still feel novel to Westerners steeped in a history of Hitchcock and Hammer Horror.

Ten years later, I told my brother I was going overseas. I’d never travelled before, and I was scared shitless.

The next day, I was a bit miffed by his reply. What felt insensitive at the time, though, might actually have been a sympathetic outreach. I feel you.

You’re scared. In response to “I’m going to Africa,” Alex said: “I’ve been to Jarrahdale.” Or not. Whatever.

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CRIME / PUNISHMENT MUSIC REVIEWS Everyday Robots Damon Albarn Parlophone Albarn is one of those artists that just seems to go from strength to strength. His newest ‘solo’ – he doesn’t like to think of it as a solo effort – record is a prime example of this.

Everyday Robots discusses the intricate mixture of modern technology with nature and the impact on the individual.

This is most evident in the title track, with lines like “we’re everyday robots on our phones”. Albarn had stated that this would be his most ‘professional’ record to date, and he has not disappointed.

The general feel of the record resembles something close to the more morose work he did with the Gorillaz – see tracks like ‘Broken’ from them. Albarn captures the loneliness and isolation that can be so apparent in modern day life; he expresses that no matter how much technology brings us together, it also sets us apart.

Tracks like ‘The Selfish Giant’ and ‘You And Me’ (featuring Brian Eno) are slow burning, reflective pieces for sad nights.

The latter specifically features a hook that finally kicks in just after the fourminute mark, after a splendid build-up of synth and keys and adds immeasurably to the emotional intensity of the track.

During his time with the Gorillaz, Albarn took a break from discussing himself and his experiences, but these have made a definite return with Everyday Robots.

This is no more visible than in the track ‘Hollow Ponds’ which describes significant events in Albarn’s life including the 1976 drought. Finishing with the slightly

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melancholy gospel-heavy track ‘Heavy Seas of Love’, also featuring Brian Eno, Everyday Robots is an exemplary record of Albarn’s achievements in being able to convey an emotion through the medium of music. This sentiment – mankind’s loss of direction and understanding in a time of rapid technological advance can be summed up in the sample from the start of the title track: “They didn’t know where they was going but they knew where they was, wasn’t it”.

9/10 Brad Griffin Pinata Freddie Gibbs & Madlib Madlib Invazion If any rap album has been generating hype just next to levels of Dre’s fabled Detox, it has to be the Pinata by famed producer Madlib and Indiana rapper Freddy Gibbs. Production started in 2009 with Madlib (Also known as Quasimoto and his collaborations with MF Doom ‘Madvillain’), it’s been 5 years and needless to say this album has been a long time in the making.

Released in March this year, Pinata is a celebration of nostalgic 80s-like hip-hop, reminiscent of 808s, hit hats, 1980s film references and the groovy bassline that we all love. Pinata, although running at a daunting seventeen tracks long, is filled with tracks that are individual in every way and are filled to the brim with lyrics and tunes that will stay with you for months.

Featured on the album is a mixture of seasoned rappers and up-and-comers; from Raekwon to Danny Brown, and even an appearance from the Odd Future rapper Earl Sweatshirt. The songs vary, with the ‘smokers anthem’ of ‘High’ and the gangbanging beat of ‘Thuggin’. Songs like “Robes” featuring Earl Sweatshirt and Domo Genesis are on the next level with glide-like RnB beat with chimes radiating throughout.

Tracks like ‘Deeper’ carry heavy themes, such as Gibbs confronting a woman for getting pregnant while he was in jail, which revives the ‘hood’ vibes of the 80s hip-hop scene. Although every song is strong and powerful on different levels, the weakest song is, ironically, the title track ‘Pinata’.

Although it has stellar production of Madlib,

the unenergetic lines of Mac Miller and G-Wiz bring the track down.

Overall, it’s easy to see why Gibbs described Pinata as a “gangster blaxploitation film on wax”; this album is spilling over with perfect beats, amazing lines, and a feeling that can only be described as orgasmic. It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned hip-hop veteran or just a newcomer; Pinata is an album that must be listened to, to understand the world of underground hip-hop.

9/10 Lachlan Palamara Demolicious Green Day Reprise Records ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! was a weird little entry by Green Day. Three separate albums, all released within a 6-month time period in 2012. It wasn’t like The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs, where 3 albums of content were all splurged out in a single whole. ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! did, however, ask to be treated as one, and in this case, felt bloated and didn’t justify its own length. Demolicious itself is another crack at what ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! tried to do, by instead trimming the fat and delivering an 18-track collection of demo versions from the choice offerings of these three albums.

It leaves criticism for the album to whatever you thought of the original three albums.

I found it kind-of empty, and lacking the politically charged energy that fueled 2004’s defining American Idiot and 2009’s follow-up 21st Century Breakdown. The band has reverted back to their prebreakout ideals, going back to musings on sexual frustration and other such nonsense.

Still, it’s the same tried-and-true sound of Green Day. The standouts being “Oh Love” and “Let Yourself Go”, which again, draws heavy comparison to the bands early work.

It’s fine stuff, though, and worthy of a revisit if you feel like a harmless throwback to being 16 again.

7/10 Cameron James

Christmas Island Andrew Jackson Jihad Side One Dummy Records The folk-punk genre leaders are back, and their sound is as refined as ever. Instead of the jarring minimalism of their earlier releases, the “folk” in Christmas Island is more akin to that of Neutral Milk Hotel, complete with overbearing bass fuzz.

The logical sonic progression from their previous record Knife Man, their latest release is lean, loud and oddly muddled.

It’s definitely a grower, and on revisits begins to reveal a richer tapestry than the picture of a shoddy patchwork quilt that it first appears to be. It’s dealing with ten years as an entity (however much they’ve grown), nostalgia, and hope.

There’s less unbridled rage, and though there are aspects of the energy that made the likes of Can’t Maintain and People great, most of the album is melancholic, reflective and slow. The lyrics are AJJ’s trademarked combination between weird metaphor and blunt, oh-so-blunt truisms that reach out and smack you with all the grace of a high schooler’s poetry scratchings. While here they’re more broadsword than battleaxe, they fall in a rut at times, relying on seemingly endless mixes of “I am X I am Y I am Z I am X that rhymes with Y”. The astute will be quick to note this is not new to them, but it’s the first time I’ve ever been bothered by it.

The composition is inconsistent. For every well-lampooned rock-standard with an ironic twist there’s a moment of feeling lost, Bonnette’s voice is at times the only thing saving AJJ from sounding like a mid ‘00s indie rock wave-riding demo tape. Earlier mentions of loudness weren’t fleeting: Christmas Island is mastered way too hot. Almost every song peaks for the most of the track, probably to really bring out that fuzzy bass.

Considering this album was hyped with a large pre-order deal, mostly vinyl, it’ll be

3 Carsick Cars Tenzenmen

interesting to see the audiophile reaction to such a muddly, cluttered sound.

7/10 Simon Donnes The New Classic Iggy Azalia Island Records Iggy Azalea’s debut album, The New Classic (Deluxe Edition) is a mixed bag. It’s probably worth saying that this isn’t usually my kind of thing; I generally go for pretty melodies or clever lyrics, and Iggy doesn’t really fall into either of these categories.

Most of the tracks are reasonable, if lyrically and thematically predictable. Songs like ‘Don’t Need Y’all’ and ‘Impossible Is Nothing’ exemplify this, with lyrics that tout female independence mixed with solid beats and melodic rapping that is somewhat appealing. ‘New Bitch’ is similarly catchy, although I have mixed feelings about lyrics that proclaim, “I’m his new bitch”. Is this an empowering re-working of an otherwise derogatory term? If this is modern feminism, I’m not sure I’m too keen on it.

‘Fancy’ is a standout for me. The song is decidedly pop-y, but that holds some appeal in comparison to tracks like ‘Fuck Love’ (“Fuck love, give me diamonds. I’m already in love with myself.”), which tries too hard to be hard. ‘Fancy’, in contrast, is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, catchy, and fun.

Carsick Cars are the flagship band for China’s underground indie rock scene, and are back after a couple of changes to their line-up since their last record, You Can Listen You Can Talk, came out in 2009. Citing The Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth as major influences (they toured Europe with the latter in ’08), they’re famed for their repetitive, droning soundscapes, mixing Cantonese and English lyrics, all of which revolve around front man Zhang Shouwang’s knack for conjuring up a good pop-inflected melody.

While their earlier stuff is a bit heavier, new release 3 is notably more accessible and tuneful; no doubt this has something to do with abandoning open chords in favour of more complicated riffs and arpeggios to accompany Shouwang’s vocals. The result sounds closer to Pavement, or maybe even Dinosaur Jr. This is best exemplified by opening track ‘野草’, which wouldn’t sound out of place on Dinosaur Jr.’s Beyond, apart from being in Cantonese (duh). That’s followed by ‘The Best VPN So Far’, which after a steady build-up, lapses into a tight groove layered with feedback and droning riffs. Album highlight is the hypnotic 7 minute jam ‘白歌’, which does the work of slowly building in intensity, with an epic Mogwaiesque payoff.

‘The New Classic’ is more miss than hit, but still worth a listen for select songs. If you’re into that kind of thing.

Maybe that’s the biggest problem here: they’re too eager to show their influences; which is fine, but ultimately there’s nothing particularly new or groundbreaking here.

Meanwhile, sometimes the lyrics are a little simplistic and vague; take filler track ‘Could You Be There?’: “His voice is fading/the words are going/it’s time for us to change”, it can sound a little juvenile. The tracks in Cantonese are generally better, while there are a couple of bonus extended tracks tagged on at the end that are worth a listen, particularly the Cantonese version of ‘15 Minutes Older’.

6/10 Elisa Thompson

6/10 Matt Green

However, among the likeable pop songs are overwhelmingly mediocre tunes like ‘Work’, ‘Bounce’ (“make it bounce!” - make it stop. Give this one back to Ke$ha), and ‘Goddess’. The latter sounds like it may have been mixed in GarageBand; the basic background track matches basic lyrics, and there is a weird, confusing and misplaced electric guitar riff mid-song. I don’t dig it.

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IN THE PINES 20/4/14 SOMERVILLE AUDITORIUM

by Connor Weightman Disclaimer: I went to In the Pines without the slightest intention of later reviewing it, and subsequently didn’t pay much attention to the things that would help me write a helpful review, such as the music. Take everything below with a pinch of salt.

On Easter Sunday I woke slightly hung over after multiple alarms, and messaged my In the Pines crew to let them know I was awake. This year we were a small group: S, an old friend and long-time ITP enthusiast, and L, which I guess here stands for Love Interest. We lived on different stops on the same bus route, and I proposed we all catch the same bus. I got on at my stop. L got on at hers. S got on at hers. It was remarkable, and it was beautiful. Sunday morning bus experience, 10/10.

No one had brought food, so we stopped off at the CBD Coles. We were pleased enough to find it open, given that it was Easter Sunday, but the subsequent discussions about what food to buy became time-consuming and tiring. Eventually we settled on a few dips, turkish bread, corn chips and a clearance price fruit salad. Coles CBD experience 6/10. Then to William Street to catch the reformed, many-routesbecome-one “Super Bus”, which was a new thing for me as it had been a while since I’d taken public transport to UWA from the northern suburbs. I can confirm though that the Super Bus seemed to come pretty regularly (for an Easter Sunday!) and definitely took us to UWA with a high level of efficiency. Super Bus 10/10.

We arrived at In the Pines and located our friends B & C, other ITP enthusiasts/ attendee-stalwarts, sitting with their friends in low foldup chairs, and we shoehorned ourselves on the side with the towel S had brought for us to sit on. I think Mudlark were playing at this point, and they sounded great. B had made fondue style nibbles complete

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with the little stick things, and they shared them with us and they were delicious. 10/10 for B’s fondue. However, thanks to my sleep-in plus the detour to buy food, we had already missed a few bands, including the very excellent Golden String. Missing Golden String, 2/10.

LEECHES! Played something like 30 songs in 25 minutes, during which time the frontman got his kid to come on stage and everyone was like “n’awww”.

S got impatient and went to buy wine, while L seemed nervous about whether or not she should start drinking. Mt. Mountain seemed appropriately named in accordance to other bands that also have Mountain in their name. Bill Darby & band were enjoyable, relaxing, psychfolk whatever, also I got to listen to L hating on the flautist unnecessarily, which was entertaining (nothing personal, she just hates flutes it seems).

At this point A (Norwegian tourist) turned up, towel in tow, which lead to more wine being bought, and perhaps this is why I can’t account for Antelopes at all in my memory (although doublechecking on SoundCloud now they seem pretty good and I also vaguely recall such besotted feelings at the time).

Community Chest hit the stage, doing their breezy synth-rock thing. L said she had been watching them play with their kids beforehand when they were sitting in front of us, and how nice they all seemed, and how lovely it was.

At 4:20PM they dedicated a song to 420 for those “in the know”, and C confessed regret for leaving all his weed at home. Flower Drums were solid, as were Runner. I had a discussion with a guy who was friends with B & C about how one would go about starting a band that would know the right people to get invited to play at ITP. I decided this would be my ambition for next year - subsequent daydreaming about said fantasy band ensued as someone (I think B) went to buy more wine.

Daydreaming 7/10. L & A tried to make flower headbands at the Yelp Perth

stand, but instead ended up with Thug Life fingerless gloves that didn’t quite fit. 5/10 for the free gloves.

The dusk double of Dianas followed by Rabbit Island ended up forming the high point of the day for me. Both seemed sonically clear and confident, and for whatever combination of reasons the music just hit me in a way that it hadn’t been all day, and wouldn’t for the rest of the night. 10/10 dusk experience. They were followed by the High Learys, who were widely enjoyed but really not my thing, and the Morning Night, who were pleasant but dull, and from there my attention slipped beyond retrieval.

I’m not sure what I can say about Scalphunter, The Floors, Gunns and DM3 - L has anxiety and we took a breather.

We resurfaced to watch Kill Devil Hills, not really sure why we hadn’t left yet, but enjoyed the closing set immensely.

They are a band that knows their stuff - no wonder they play so many support spots for bands that tour here.

From there came the inevitable discussions about what to do after, the inevitable getting-spoken-to multiple times by a drunk guy who kept inviting us to an after party then walking off without leaving any details, then the inevitable splitting to Stirling Hwy to get a taxi (which took twenty minutes - taxi getting experience 3/10). I asked L what she thought of her first ITP, and while she didn’t have much to say about the music, she said sitting at an all-day picnic, surrounded by nice people of all different ages and types, had a lot going for it. And I agreed. In the Pines Atmosphere, 10/10.

TRIPLE J AND THE AUS. MUSIC SCENE Recently, there’s been a lot of banging on the Triple J drum thanks to the revival of a decades-old argument surrounding Australia’s much-loved indie radio station.

Published in a Fairfax article ‘Calling the Tune’, journalist Nick Clarke writes that ‘musicians are ignoring pure self-expression in favour of manufacturing a sound just to get played’, and as a result lessen the station’s diversity of music to create a ‘Triple J sound’. Unidentified musicians throughout the article whimper about their fear of the ‘Triple J mafia’ that allegedly gate-keeps the station’s playlist and destroy bands’ careers by not allowing certain styles of music to be played- forcing releases to become more ‘J-friendly’, at the cost of musical creativity. One artist comments that their writing process has been often shrouded by wondering if Triple J would absorb their songs into their high rotation playlist, as opposed to exploring new musical avenues; whereas another is wary of calling out against the station, at risk of losing regular airplay.

Considering that Triple J has always been a pioneer in its discovery and promotion of independent and/or unheard-of artists, there doesn’t initially seem to be much truth behind this theory. The station’s playlist comfortably abides by a 25% Australian music quota, and its babies Unearthed and Unearthed High work wonders to give fresh-faced groups airplay. But there is a more artist-centric homogenisation occurring- the adoption of a Triple J mood, rather than a certain sound. FasterLouder writer Edward SharpPaul describes the station’s main playlist as a ‘genre clusterfuck’, with Australian hip-hop, grungy rock and indie-popsters all making an appearance.

Within each genre, there is natural influence occurring as one artist’s creative choices become popular and impact another’s. Electronic acts such as Daft Punk and Justice have influenced some to adopt sleek auto-tuning and synth sounds over the past decade; whereas singer-songwriter archetypes like Mumford and Sons have

inspired others to utilise sweeping choruses with generous lashings of falsetto and banjo. However, overarching this natural process is a prevailing mood of malleability- many groups will try to manufacture songs around three-minutes of applicable, ‘happy-sadness’ that’s versatile enough to break into any market.

This makes sense- tripe j has always been used by more mainstream stations, who select new potential chart-topping hits from its high rotation playlist.

Where did Lorde suddenly explode from?

What about Vance Joy, or Nirvana? It would be logical that a few Triple J artists would watch their successful peers, and actively shape their releases into this malleable, three-minute mold so to have the best chance at being picked through this system. Of course, these groups are only a minority- for most; music making remains a creative process, where popularity is only a side effect of writing an amazing song. It’s undeniable that popular styles of music are influencing artists’ decisions to some extent. Whether it is slight inspiration or blatant repetition, it is causing certain genres sounds to homogenize.

The effect is two-fold. Any band who decides to mimic the sound of a more popular group in its genre may eventually also gain popularity; but they could also be thrown out into the cold if the particular mood/sound that they’ve adopted becomes rapidly unpopular in a short space of time. Unearthed Music Director David Ruby Howe warns that ‘imitating a certain sound that could soon be usurped feels like a fruitless pursuit’- due to the unpredictable beast that is public opinion, a particular sound may be popular one day, and despised the next.

But is this genre-specific homogenization occurring solely on the artists’ side of the equation? Triple J has always been targeted towards an independent, younger market, which leads to some types of songs being preferred on the main playlist over others. In this sense, there is truth behind Nick Clarke’s

suggestion of playlisting new acts with a particular ‘mood’ or ‘sound’ in mind, as a similar process occurs with every radio station nationally. If a channel captures a Gen X-centric audience, then they are expected to playlist songs that appeal to that age group. In the same way, songs that are more relatable to an 18 to 24 demographic have a better chance of being highly rotated, as they appeal to Triple J’s target audiencethereby creating a somewhat ‘necessary’ homogenisation of mood that is accepted and justified by the station’s ratings and increasing popularity. With the station’s Nielson ratings improving to an average of 1.8 million yearly listeners- the highest in Australia for a metropolitan station of such a demographic- it’s not as if this homogenisation isn’t paying dividends.

Perhaps Musical Director Richard Kingsmill has something to do with this- in spite of his legacy; there has often been debate over his relevance as a programmer for a youth radio station.

This all relates back to the core of the original ‘Triple J sound’ argumentthe perpetuation of similar types of songs being selected by Kingsmill et al, which fit the station’s aesthetic and target audience. But put simply, the real problem behind the station’s streamlined ‘sound’ is that bands will draw some amount of inspiration from others, while the station appeals to the wants and needs of its target audience. All the players choose to follow others, and nobody takes the lead.

Picture by Kate Prendergast

by Bridget Rumball

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A STUDY IN FANFICTION

by Jasmine Ruscoe Fans of the BBC’s Sherlock have recently endured a gruelling twoyear inter-season hiatus. During this trying time, a plethora of fan-made stories, videos and art bombarded the Internet – an examination of which may lead one to deduce that Sherlock fans are at least slightly mad. This is not a new development. In fact, it was the collective insanity of the original 19th Century fan community, or “fandom”, that pressured Holmes’ creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, into bringing the detective back after what was intended to be his death in 1893.

Ironically, Doyle once stated that “if in 100 years I am only known as the man who invented Sherlock Holmes, then I will have considered my life a failure.”

Well, he must be turning in his grave to know that Holmes’ character is thriving, with several acclaimed adaptations such as the BBC’s Sherlock and CBS’s Elementary now carrying the torch.

Today, the adaptation-inclusive Sherlock fandom is recognised by those in the know, such as myself, as the “Mother of All Fandoms” - and their success is due in no small part to fanfiction.

Fanfiction is an unofficial genre of stories written by fans of a text, and aimed at other fans. Adapting preexisting stories, or creating originals using pre-existing characters, has been practised throughout human history without anybody batting an eyelid, but these days society appreciates the right of a text’s original creator to be recognised as separate and above secondary authors, such as fanfiction authors. Returning to the case of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle’s novels are now in the public domain, having outlasted statutory copyright protection. This means that adaptations can be officially recognised in their own rights, despite openly using characters and, in the case of Sherlock, plot elements straight out of Doyle’s novels. While fanfiction of currently copyrighted works do not receive the

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public legitimacy of these adaptations, source awareness is – surprisingly to some - a self-enforced practice within the fanfiction community. Doctor Who fans, for example, will seek out fanfiction knowing full well that anything they recognise is the property of the BBC, and not the author who presents it to them. Fanfiction authors acknowledge this too, and some (including myself) willingly sacrifice even the credit merited by our own contributions in exchange for the opportunities that fanfiction provides for us to engage with our favourite texts, and practice our writing skills in front of an audience.

BY AND LARGE, FANFICTION AUTHORS ACCEPT THE FACT THAT THEIR WORK WILL NOT, AND SHOULD NOT, EARN MONEY Recently, sparks have flown in the artistic community over the publication of Fifty Shades of Grey, an erotic novel that originated as fanfiction based on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. A common argument by opponents of fanfiction is, of course, that Fifty Shades author E L James should not be earning money from material that is not hers. Perhaps surprisingly to someone outside the fanfiction community, this is a sentiment widely supported by fanfiction authors - many of whom are outraged that such an abuse of the genre has occurred. By and large, fanfiction authors accept the fact that their work will not, and should not, earn money. We also acknowledge

that the association with a preexisting text makes it easier to draw an audience, while original fiction might go unnoticed. Within the fanfiction community, James is widely despised for passing off a largely original story as Twilight fanfiction, solely to attract the massive “Twi-hard” fandom audience, and the popularity and profit boost that comes with it.

Authors like James give fanfiction a bad name. They provide cannon fodder for those who unwaveringly insist it’s a theft of intellectual property, as fanfiction authors do not have the express permission of the original creators to produce “derivative works”. Amongst said creators, there is a wide variety of responses to fanfiction, ranging from the enthusiasm of Sherlock and Doctor Who masterminds Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, to the polite but vehement opposition

by Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series – and, no doubt, Sir A C Doyle. Both sides of the debate acknowledge that fanfiction is a way for fans to engage with the texts they love, and that inspire them; an argument which authors and supporters of fanfiction have taken to heart, especially as copyright law continues to get tighter and sanctions more intense. The recently-proposed Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement seeks to impose criminal sanctions on fanfiction, even in the significant majority of cases where no money – and only partial, if any, credit - is earned by the fan. While my fellow fanfiction authors wholeheartedly support punishing abusers of the system such as E L James in some way or another, such an extreme measure against what, for the most part, is a creative expression of appreciation for other people’s art, seems to go against the intent of copyright by restricting, rather than protecting, creative endeavours.

LOLITA ETC.: Writing and Reading decent books in edgy and Transgressive Fiction In Oxford Street Books I was surprised to see that American Psycho had an R18+ plastic wrap around it – but I don’t want to talk about restricted and banned books. While this still happens in Australia, it’s difficult to care too much since in practice any banned written material becomes available free online as a result.

Book banning aside - are there things you can’t do in literature? It doesn’t seem like it, here at least. It’s common wisdom that, if anything, that plastic wrap will make more people buy it rather than less. In a broader sense, writing in interesting ways about illicit topics has at times been a way to sell books, and reading them, or at least claiming to, has been a strategy for bookish students to look cool to each other since forever (though I’d highly recommend actually talking to the cute boys and girls in your ENGL tutes, rather than just leaving a wanky novel face up on your desk). But conversation is terrifying of course, so you’ll just have to hope they’ll come up on your tinder instead.

It’s very hard to think of a touchy subject that doesn’t have something worth reading written about it. And if you can, you should try to publish it before anyone else does. That said, a few weeks ago a significant portion of us watched a brother rape his sister astride their child’s dead body in a church and then sat down the next week for more, so good luck shocking anyone. Undoubtedly, people will question whether Game of Thrones counts as literature, but it’s topical and there’s more where that came from – what about Oedipus, Marquis de Sade, Dostoyevsky, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Tropic of Cancer, Howl, Naked Lunch, Ada or Ardor, A Clockwork Orange, Blood Meridian? Time Enough for Love??

It’s impossible for me to overstate the size of my hard-on for Nabokov, but you get the idea. Plus all that debate about

whether literature/western cannon is even a thing anyway or just snobbishness – you can see the argument extends to many classic works that people read and love. Let’s move on.

Whether you can be successful writing novels that feature freaky content at any given time is another question though.

In the 90s and early 00s novelists like Chuck Palahniuk, Lionel Shriver, Irving Welsh, and Bret Easton Ellis were getting big along with novels like Fight Club, We Need to Talk about Kevin, Trainspotting, and the aforementioned American Psycho. Finding success in this decade with shocking fiction is another question; evidence suggests you can do ok with BDSM erotica, but if there has been anything I might actually want to read in this field, it hasn’t come up on my radar. You’ll have to go searching for it. And to be honest, I suspect that this is because there’s not much scope to be more transgressive than has already been done; there hasn’t been an opportunity to horrify the literary world by one-upping the 90s. Certainly, there will always be more to write, but I’m not sure the intensity can be turned up much higher.

Of course, there will still be people to shock with new works in contemporary settings; until humans are extinct it seems likely there will be always be demographics who can still be offended by fictional things. And as much as we love reading about murderers in fancy prose styles we will remain hesitant to talk about them in front of children, grandparents and conservative relatives.

Perhaps the real taboo is discussing radical literature in front of these people.

Being uninvited from the family Christmas aside, I am happy to agree that some fiction should not be exposed certain people for their own happiness and good; the obvious example is kids. To me, there’s a clear ideological line between making books and ideas completely unavailable - realistically

impossible anyway - and ensuring that developing minds appreciate context, intended meanings and external dangers. It all comes down to educating kids about the frame of reference around the factual and fictional material they’re absorbing. These days, inquisitive children are going to go on Wikipedia or make a tumblr account and consequently ask you about drugfueled, bareback, triple-penetration, the same way that our parents would have got out an encyclopedia or gone to the library when they were young.

You’re just going to have to explain it to them and, in a dance as old as time itself, you’d better do it correctly or you might fuck them up. Let’s be realistic, if they read about it in a novel you should be thankful that you have a kid that reads.

So, to my mind, there are few taboos left unbroken by highly regarded works. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t still people to offend with them, or that there’s no scope for new tales of unbounded horror and debauchery – they’re just not that in at the moment.

Picture by Richard Moore

by Liam Dixon

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PUNISHING READS

by Chloe Durand I had the kind of parents who really did an awful job of censoring the books I read as a child. A book’s a book, they thought, and at least I was literate.

Consequently, by the time I was 12 I had read Nabokov’s Lolita, the Waking of Sleeping Beauty trilogy by 15 and The Story of O by 17. As you can imagine, when the Fifty Shades trilogy was released I was fairly unphased by its contents. Issues like sex, punishment, and punishing sexual encounters seem thematic in too many books for it to be a surprise anymore.

However, upon making my way through The Monkey’s Mask last year I began to sense that something was amiss. The entire literary representation of BDSM (Bondage/Discipline, Domination/ Submission, and Sadomasochism for those of you who don’t already know) as a fetish seemed either limited to the extreme, the criminal or the plaintively awful. Because the whole idea of sexual fetish hinges on something so subjective within individuals that the idea of creating a ‘realistic’ BDSM fantasy seems to be an inherent contradiction.

Apparently this contradiction has prevented anyone notable from writing anything relatable. Unlike world domination, magic or zombie apocalypses, BDSM is actually something very accessible off the page. Even Perth has its own fetish/kink society – and the parties they throw aren’t half bad.

So where do these books go wrong, continuously failing a community that seeks representation outside of sexual norms?

The Story of O is an example of the literary extreme. If the line between abusive punishment and kinky sex was ever so pushed, blurred and whipped into confusion it was here. In the name of love and devotion, titular character O submits to inhumane punishment interspersed with sex, leather restraints,

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public nudity, owl masks and ass branding. As much as it is heralded as formative and boundary pushing among kink literature, I can’t help but feel that its sense of taboo is derived not from being sinful or pleasurable but hyper-violent beyond the point of transgressive. Even though it has fostered a sense of intellectual and literary elitism within the kink community (“Oh, Fifty Shades is so pedestrian. Obviously she hasn’t read Story of O”), no one who follows the safe, sane and consensual guidelines for fetish/ kink activities would ever condone the spirit in which the acts to O are done, much less a majority of the acts themselves. I don’t mean to spoil the ending for any of you who want to read it, but requesting that someone kill you as the ultimate demonstration of your submission is probably a bad way to represent BDSM to the unknowing public. I say I’d do anything for love, but there’s a line, guys.

IF THE LINE BETWEEN ABUSIVE PUNISHMENT AND KINKY SEX WAS EVER SO PUSHED, BLURRED AND WHIPPED INTO CONFUSION IT WAS HERE Of course being niche, extreme, and French makes The Story of O a relatively obscure book. Obscure and niche are

not words I’d use to describe the Fifty Shades trilogy. Although this series mostly lacks the physical violence that made The Story of O so confronting, it contains a far more subversive and equally harmful message about BDSM, sex and relationships in general.

Christian ‘mother issues’ Grey is not an example of an effective or responsible top/dominant, or even someone who knows a great deal about female anatomy. Or the legal implications of stalking. The relationship portrayed in this series of books is co-dependent, degrading to women and about as sexy as sitting in a peak hour traffic jam with a broken stereo. Most people who practice BDSM, whether as a lifestyle or a kink confined to the bedroom (no one has a red room of punishment, E L James. Stop trying to make the red room happen - it’s never going to happen), took issue with the topic being commodified so inaccurately.

Given that this is a community of people who push boundaries and assert their sexuality outside the norm it is frustrating to see it so grossly misrepresented on the page over and over. Not to mention, the proportion of the kink community who are queer or coloured are frustrated seeing very white, very straight depictions of their sexuality.

The Fifty Shades series, The Story of O, and the whole gamut of kink literature in between fail to take into account deviants who deviate from their prescribed image of sexuality.

For all the hype surrounding erotic sadomasochistic fiction, their lack of genuinely thrilling or relatable subject matter may remain the greatest punishment of all.

REVIEW: TAMPA BY ALISSA NUTTING

by Shona McIntyre You’ll never look at a button hole the same way again.

Tampa is without a doubt the most disgusting book I’ve ever read. As it is written from the perspective of a 26-yearold female pedophile with a penchant for 14-year-old boys, this is not in itself all that surprising. It’s supposed to be horrifying and offensive and it effortlessly succeeds. The protagonist, Celeste Price, is a completely remorseless, irredeemable sexual predator. The language is absolutely, almost laughably filthy - I’m talking 50 Shade of Grey style vulgarity and sexual explicitness, but starring pre-pubescent boys. It’s really, well… I mean, look at the cover – it’s just off. The frequent sex scenes are so graphic that you could possible even make a case that the book constitutes illegal child exploitation material, and that it’s importation should be banned.

However, in spite (or maybe because) of its’ Mills & Boon quality prose, it’s definitely shocking, and whilst it’s quite tempting to block out the memory of it entirely, the more you allow yourself to think about it, the more disturbing the issues it raises become.

Our instinctive reaction to hearing about a teenage girl with a male teacher is to consider the girl a victim of “a dirty old man’s” manipulation, whereas a teenage boy with an attractive older woman is often assumed to be the perfect teen male fantasy. Tampa challenges these assumptions by presenting an image of a calculating and depraved monstress who systematically grooms her victims purely for her own sexual gratification.

Whilst male pedophilia is still shocking, the idea of a female pedophile as remorseless as Celeste is somehow far harder to swallow as she goes against the traditional stereotypes of women as nurturers and protectors of children. The book confronts our perceptions about sex offenders by presenting a beautiful female rapist who abuses her position of

responsibility – the idea of which is still incredibly taboo in society today.

The book is loosely based on the reallife story of Debra Lafave, a young female teacher in (you guessed it) Tampa, Florida who was convicted of the “lewd and lascivious battery” of a 14-year-old student in 2005. A quick Google search will bring up a platinum blonde, conventionally ‘hot’, 20-something who would not look out of place bikini-clad in Zoo Magazine.

Throughout Tampa the attractiveness of the protagonist is repetitively emphasized in a crude attempt to make the point that sometimes beautiful people can still have very sick minds.

Celeste’s comment that “people who look like me don’t go to jail” is an indictment of society’s tendency to let a person’s physical appearance dictate how we view and treat them.

Where Tampa falls short is in its character development. Celeste is so single-minded in her seductions that she is almost impossible to take seriously. Great literary villains have at least some redeeming qualities, whereas in Celeste’s case there is simply nothing about her with which you can sympathize. Whilst the subject matter has obvious parallels to Lolita, it differs in that Lolita’s Humbert struggles with his perversions and his forbidden love.

In contrast, the teenage victims of Celeste’s proclivities are merely onedimensional, ancillary objects to her lust that are entirely disposable. Tampa is definitely no love story. Celeste thinks about sex 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and at least a good chapter of the book is taken up with her masturbation fantasies. She is an almost cartoonishly evil sociopath, and her lack of moral ambiguity lets the novel down. No explanation is ever given for Celeste’s deviousness and the reader is left wondering, although this serves to expose the fact that female pedophiles are often regarded as mentally ill as opposed to simply being predators.

Ultimately Tampa is not the kind of book you admit to liking. If page after page of gratuitous descriptions of the violation of adolescent boys doesn’t make you extremely uncomfortable, I don’t know what will. The plot is somewhat predictable, the climax feels rushed and once the depravity of Celeste loses its shock-value it gets pretty repetitive and almost boring (there’s only so many times you can read about Jack Patrick’s hairless testicles before you vomit). However, the broader issues the novel raises are fascinating; whilst it is indisputable that the female pedophile exists, society does not want to believe it. The reality is that female sexual offenders are viewed very differently to males by the criminal justice system.

Tampa is a cringe-worthy challenge to how we view female sexuality and female offending that will leave you feeling like you need to wash your brain out with soap, but secretly glad you took the time to read it.

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BOOK REVIEWS The Word Exchange Alena Graedon

The Fight for Australia Roland Perry Having completed Honours in History, I consider myself to be pretty darn astute when it comes to analyzing historical texts. For that reason, The Fight For Australia loses me; too much pomp, bias and conjecture and not enough cold, hard fact. However, as a lover of history in general, Perry’s account of Australia’s struggle during the Second World War strikes me as one of the more bearable ‘popular history’ texts. Pop history is an enduringly successful genre, with notable figures including Niall Ferguson and (my personal favorite on the jingoism spectrum) Winston Churchill.

In a 21st century where historians have largely rejected the claim that the Japanese ever really had their eyes set on Australia, Perry strikes boldly out and begs to differ – but for good or ill? For a genuine addition to the historical discourse, or for another pop history fluff piece? The Fight For Australia hits right on the mark of a still-contested point in the ‘History Wars’ between British and Australian historians. British historians cry foul at Australian ‘cowardice’, while Australian historians blame British incompetence and nonchalance. It is an argument that has existed for decades and will likely exist for many more.

There can be no doubt about whose side Roland Perry is on in this debate. Such bias, however, makes it difficult to respect The Fight For Australia as a legitimate historical text. Indeed, their inability to criticize their nation’s military is a major fault of Australia’s historians (though a fantastic, thoroughly researched example exists in Peter Stanley’s Bad Characters, and other works attempting to rationalize the Anzac Myth have grown in number).

The Fight For Australia is an incredibly immersive and informative piece of literature. Perry gets intimate with Australia’s leadership throughout the war, profiling Curtin and Evatt in particular, whilst demonizing figures like Churchill. Though shackled to his patriotism, Perry has presented an enjoyable read, accessible to history buff and buffoon alike.

Best bit: Learning about the incredible similarities between Curtin and Churchill that made it impossible for them to get along (not least of all a shared passion for the bottle).

Worst bit: More footnotes PLEASE! Brad Griffin is iust counting down the days until he writes his best-selling alt. history book and never has to work another day in his life.

4/5

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A small annoying question crossed my mind as I was reading The Word Exchange: Have we reached peak dystopia? I believe many of you would second this question. Thanks to the remarkable success of the Hunger Games, bookshops everywhere are suddenly overwhelmed by a tsunami of novels featuring dystopian, futuristic settings and brave female protagonists who effortlessly challenge the status quo. The Word Exchange is one such book, set in yet another dystopian world and with yet another female protagonist and yet another convoluted reason for challenging the status quo. I was not looking forward to finishing this book.

The structure of the novel was actually quite appealing; chapters were initiated by alphabet letters and I enjoyed the dictionary style symbolism, especially since the novel revolves around words and the power they carry. The premise of the book was intriguing (it was the only reason for me to pick it up) yet the convoluted plot left me confused and annoyed.

This is my attempt to summarise the plot: it revolves around the final printing of a dictionary in a world where print has died, replaced by a ubiquitous device called a “Memes” (I kid you not, I imagined it to be like a smaller iPad with an omniscient Siri built into it). The father of the protagonist vanishes but leaves a note with the word ALICE in it and the protagonist sets off on a 400-page adventure to discover what truly happened to him (and there is, of course, an evil corporation to contend with). This is an epic book that makes you wish print media was really dead.

Perhaps the author should have focused on a narrower and simpler plot to create a book that does not feel like it’s trying to be both the next Da Vinci Code and the next Divergent. Perhaps the author could stop using so many bloody footnotes. And perhaps the author could spend just a bit more time making a not-so-whiny protagonist, and less time making up words.

Best Bit: Hilarious opening line: “On a very cold and lonely Friday last November, my father disappeared from the Dictionary”.

Worst Bit: WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FOOTNOTES?!

Kenneth Woo doesn’t get to read much and he’s annoyed he wasted his time reading this book.

1/5

The Deep Blue Good-By (1964) John D. Macdonald Kurt Vonnegut once said: “To diggers a thousand years from now, the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen”.

The Deep Blue Good-By is the first of MacDonald’s most famous series, the Travis McGee novels. Travis is a semi-retired ‘salvage consultant’ living in a houseboat named The Busted Flush (that he, of course, won in a poker game). He isn’t a P.I. - he ‘retrieves’ objects or money for the hopeless and the wronged for half the object’s worth.

Throughout his investigation, Trav has fistfights and sweaty, boatside sex. Pretty much everything you’re expecting.

This book and these characters have since been robbed blind by every procedural cop show ever made, and as such, now reads like an endless string of cliches. Trav owns a vintage muscle car (a 1936 Rolls Royce), smokes, drinks and has a desire to help a seemingly endless tide of damsels in distress.

Any of Trav’s lines feel as though they could be dialogue lifted directly from Casablanca, and the novel is really read best in one sitting, allowing the setting and the quick pace to wash over and through you.

Overall, this is a well written book, and one of the first to blend the hard-boiled detective archetype with the acerbic but sensitive ‘new age’ man that was emerging in the mid-60s.

Decades of detective programs have left this novel, once iconic, feeling formulaic. Nothing can be done about that, and despite its flaws, this is a detective novel at its truest and most entertaining.

Best Bit: Realising how much more enjoyable the book is if you imagine everything in the voice of Humphrey Bogart.

Worst Bit: Remembering this was published in 1964, and trying to keep that in mind every time a female character is introduced.

Tom Rossiter has always wanted to live on a houseboat.

3.5/5

ARTS REVIEWS old person’s skin and accumulate mould on what could have been a wonderful life. This, dear readers, happened to me in Basel, Switzerland, in an art gallery that can only be classified as ‘modern’. As the holidays draw near, it’s likely that some of you will be travelling to the fair European continent and therefore I shall tell you what museums and art galleries you should visit and which you should avoid (if only to avoid the same punishment I suffered).

MUSÉE D’OCTOR WHO

by Lauren Wiszniewski I love potatoes: fried potatoes, scalloped potatoes, mashed potatoes, potatoes covered in cheese, just potatoes full stop. Being a person of German and Polish descent means my love for potatoes is doubled and could almost be equal to the Swiss love of cheese.

Yet that doesn’t mean that I want to see an art piece that is solely a pile of potatoes, a piece that has been in existence since the 70s and therefore has began to shrivel up like

Beginning with Paris the Musée D’Orsay is a must see, it. There are a few floors here, dedicated solely to furniture, and I’m sure some of you are into that, but to the rest of you I say skip those and head up to the top floor for the impressionist exhibition.

Additional points go to the Musée D’Orsay for the fact that a Van Gogh painting featured in Doctor Who can be found here.

The Louvre nearby is also a worthwhile art gallery, if only to get a selfie with the Mona Lisa.

one of the last elephants in existence dies due to the overwhelming heat, which constantly starts fires and leaves everyone sweating. This dystopian world is therefore a brilliant mirror for our society, albeit a warped one. Dependence and loyalty took a spotlight as elephants dependent on humans, and humans dependent on humans, became loyal to each other due to legal obligations.

ELEPHɘNTS BLUE ROOM THEATRE

By Dan Werndly The Blue Room Theatre has been up to its old tricks again with their latest addition to the autumn theatre season. Elephɘnts, an eclectic, soft musical created by Jeffrey Jay Fowler, has an ironic wit that makes it able to discuss some confronting issues without turning the audience away. The play centres on a group of friends, in a world where marriages are economic contracts and elephants lay eggs. It takes place just after

Running at just over two and a half hours, the play is unusually long for a Blue Room Production, but never fell flat, with the characters able to carry the plot.

The minimalist set was neutral in order to perform its function as a variety of household interiors. A piano was the only other set piece, allowing the characters to sing all the things they wish they could say. The songs themselves were funny, yet still had relevance. As the songs were written by the script writer and deviser I was worried that they would

If you take a detour to Amsterdam, take some time out to check out the Van Gogh Museum.

While Amsterdam is considered the city of prostitutes and weed, it also has a notable art collection and fascinating history. Be sure to take a look at some historical sights including converted church attic from when religion was banned. Moving on to Berlin, go to Museum Island so that you can tell your parents that you actually learnt something on your trip. Then go to the East Side Gallery where you can get your new Facebook cover picture.

South of the German border is Vienna, a wonderful city where the art galleries fight over which will be the best Klimt gallery.

Now, Klimt is my homeboy, and I would have his 13th illegitimate child so I could be biased but SEE HIS ARTWORK AND FEEL SOMETHING DEEP INSIDE. I’ll allow you to skip Italy because they just have a lot of pictures of baby Jesus but if you skip the National History Museum in London I will kill you. Now have fun!

be too entwined with the specific scene to gain a broader meaning, but the lyrics tied in well with the issues of the play with the consistent melodies making the project seem more put together. My only criticism is that during the songs the cast could make better use of the space, with the actors often not moving until the final verse. Staging could therefore have been more energetic in order to match the wacky songs.

For a cast of five, Elephɘnts showed a diverse range of human emotion through a multitude of characters (and wigs), which was astounding. The actors were able to switch between characters in literally a matter of seconds, as their exits and entrances were separated by only a few seconds. This malleability of the production is one of its strongest points, as the actors are able to work with each other, not against. This made the play an entertaining piece showcasing local Perth talent.

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ARTS REVIEWS despite being a parent to a sixteen year old. Like Lorelai from Gilmore Girls, she was a teen mum; unlike Lorelai she hit on her daughter’s would-be boyfriend.

THE LITTLE MERMAID SUBIACO ARTS CENTRE

By Lauren Wiszniewski Although there was dancing, this was no Disney movie, with the traditional Hans Christian Anderson story being reworked and adapted until it was virtually unrecognizable.

Jacinta Larcombe played a young and naïve girl, who seemed to have great difficulty with human interaction and instead preferred to pretend she was a mermaid. Her mother played by Georgina King, had great command of a character unable to let go of her youth,

UNCLE JACK THE BLUE ROOM THEATRE

By Lauren Wiszniewski Just in time for Anzac Day, Uncle Jack is an autobiographical account of the toll war takes on its veterans, told through the eyes of 17-year old Doug, who is sent by his strict father to work the land with Jack, a war veteran and his father’s comrade. A snapshot of Australian history, Uncle Jack shows how the war affects us all and will continue to affect generations to come.

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Yet King’s Nina was a character with whom the audience could sympathise and identify with, mostly due to her very human flaws.

Despite wanting what’s best for her daughter, she is jealous of her youthful freedom and just wants to relive her high school glory days. Meanwhile Larcombe’s Grace is increasingly frustrating and unrealistic. Script problems meant that her character didn’t seem childlike, not because of her rearing but because something was fundamentally wrong with her. Jack Walker’s role as lovesick James is mostly forgettable, although this is due to the storyline rather than any lack of acting chops.

Stripped back, the play’s message is simple: it’s about escape and finding your place.

Directed by Ian Sinclair, the actors made good use of the small stage and simple props to create different landscapes and scenes.

Most notable were the domestic scenes, with a single wine glass on top of a TV and a

Playwright Ross Lonnie has created a fleshed out script that allows for the characters to fully develop. Often in war stories, actors become stock or trope characters so un-relatable the story cannot be told effectively. Instead Doug becomes a sweet but timid teenager who becomes more accepting as time goes on. He grows up and becomes a man who will take control of his own destiny, even if it scares him. Uncle Jack becomes a character that can be functional one minute and a quivering mess the next. He shows what post-traumatic stress is really like, and how memories can always haunt you.

The success of the play is also due to the actors, Quintin George (Uncle Jack) and Ben Hall (Doug). Both are WAAPA graduates with a long list of credits to their names. Hall has acted alongside Toni Colette and Simon Burke in Devil’s Playground and will next be seen in the Australian production of Le Miserables.

picture of heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio taped to a fan, along with a deckchair in the backyard as Grace danced under the sprinklers, and a scene with Nina waiting in a lounge chair for her daughter to come home.

Other technical aspects such as lighting and sound production were well handled and able to create a variety of moods. A scene in a game arcade was perfectly created via sound effects and a kung-fu dance routine. This normally out of place routine perfectly blended into the play and created a visual treat. This scene is also notable for the strong performance between Larcombe and Walker, with an interactivity that could not be recaptured later in the play. King, the real star of the play, reacted nicely to circumstance and it is her performance that stood out the most at the play’s conclusion, with Larcombe never fully developing her character and Walker seemingly confused by what was happening. Yet King was not enough to save this piece, with the play being overall disappointing.

Their acting lent creditability to their roles and made the message shine all the brighter.

As a piece with an array of flashbacks, a range of sound effects was needed.

Sound designer Carley Gagliardi made a believable mix that transported the audience back to the war, with a hurried pace that contributed to a sense of what was happening inside Jack’s mind at the time. Her job was made easier by set designer, Patrick James Howe, whose bare and minimal set, a pushable wheel of dirt that acted as a stage, was able to change the scene from that of a farm to that of war.

Time shifts were also possible with this method, aided by subtle lighting changes.

The combination of these factors added to the play, allowing each contributor to shine in their jobs without detracting from the overall piece. Telling the strong and heroic story of what our ancestors suffered from, Uncle Jack is a must see.

OPERATION YEWTREE

by Lauren Wiszniewski Last year the art world was rocked with news of Rolf Harris’s arrest for possessing indecent images of children and of indecent assault involving a girl as young as eight. Dating back to the 1960s, Harris has apparently been a sexual predator for years. However he’s still firmly embedded in the category of cuddly koala bears and kangaroos, with a variety of friends coming to his defence claiming, “This just isn’t the Rolf I know.” In 2012, he was made Officer of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list and despite his recent charges continues to be respected by his peers. Our Perth celebrity was charged as a result of Operation Yewtree, the Scotland Yard probe set up in the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal. A scandal that only emerged after his death, meaning his victims would no longer have to testify against the man who molested them with the very man in question in the room.

CENSORSHIP

BY OMISSION ALLOWS THESE CELEBRITIES TO CONTINUE THEIR CRIMES AND DOES NOT ALLOW JUSTICE FOR THEIR VICTIMS Yewtree has three strands- claims involving Savile, those involving Savile and others, and those involving others. Harris is classified under “others” and has no connection to Savile apart from the fact

he is not being held responsible for destroying the lives of others. Indeed Saville, who may have abused as many as 1000 young boys and girls while at the BBC, can never be held responsible for his crimes. As the establishment turned a blind-eye to his crimes, people who should have exposed his behaviour didn’t, begging the question of who was supposed to be protecting his victims. Savile’s status protected him from investigation despite the number of people who said they knew about his antics. Margaret Thatcher was advised not to give him a knighthood due to his offensive behaviour. Yet she ignored this advice and immortalised a man who was a sex predator. The establishment added to the problem.

Perhaps this is why the establishment is always so keen to hide any wrongdoing and protect these celebrities once the truth is revealed. Coming off dirtier than a McDonald’s floor, the media acts on the wishes of the government who failed in their duty to preserve the innocence of its citizens. When the story of Harris first broke, the Australian press bestowed itself the option of naming or not naming the guilty party. Instead they issued the statement that an “82 year old highprofile Australian entertainer living in Berkshire UK has been arrested on child sex charges…” As Harris had been questioned over the same matter the year before, it could be no other person than him. Yet he was not named for his crimes. Explanations for not releasing his name was that presumption of innocence should prevail, and that Harris was so highprofile it would be unfair and lead to an unfair trial. Jonathon Holmes of ABC’s Media Watch criticized the press for not naming the star, yet omitted to name Harris himself. Censorship by omission allows these celebrities to continue their crimes and does not allow justice for their victims. Harris has maintained a public silence over the allegations, with his friends talking about the effect that the charges will

have on Harris’s frail wife Alwen, who is “crippled with arthritis”. Because it is the court case rather than the fact that her husband abused young girls that will affect her health the most.

If convicted, Harris faces a maximum 10-year jail sentence. However it is likely that he will receive less with his art and fame overshadowing his crimes.

Last year, renowned international artist Graham Ovenden was jailed for only two years and three months for sexual offences against children. Ovenden, now 71, is best known for his explicit portraits of young naked girls, and told police he had taken some of the best portraits of children in the last 200 years. He continued to describe himself as a distinguished artist who had taken some ‘nudies’ but that they weren’t of a sexual nature. The judge presiding over his case ruled that Ovenden was no longer a threat to children, and that his offences took place in the 1970s and 80s, before the current laws protecting children against sexual predators were introduced. In his pursuit of capturing children in a “state of grace”, he abused their trust and touched them indecently.

However as there were no “laws” saying that this was illegal, and that Ovenden had already suffered a “steep fall from grace”, his sentence was greatly reduced.

His fame, which should have had no place in this investigation, came into the equation.

Harris, Savile and Ovenden all reflect instances where the system has failed to protect children from being corrupted.

Instead of properly holding these low-life slimes responsible for their actions, their infamy increases. At his trial Ovenden stated how, “this hasn’t embittered me.

My reputation is impugned, but in the art world fame and infamy are the same thing-look at Oscar Wilde.” His artwork has increased in value, and his name will live on. Meanwhile his, Savile’s and Harris’s victims are still suffering and waiting for their moment of justice.

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POLICING POPULAR CULTURE

by Elisa Thompson I often find myself avoiding online content that mentions Japanese popular culture.

And as someone who has a personal and academic investment in it, I think this is pretty strange. In general, the representations that I come across make me irrationally angry. I try not to feel this way, but my emotional reception is always my first – and often my most compelling – reaction. When people don’t endeavour to understand your own perspective, it’s very difficult to take a step back and make an attempt to understand theirs. But we have to try.

Take, for example, The Young Turks.

They are a self-proclaimed “online news show… covering politics, economics, pop culture, social trends and lifestyle”. I’ll admit that I haven’t watched the majority of their output (there are currently over 1000 videos uploaded to their YouTube channel), but I have looked at those that refer to Japan. These news segments are provocative, with a focus on sexuality, gender and, most commonly, perceived deviancy. To me, the commentary provided

by The Young Turks often comes off as judgmental, naive and overwhelmingly ethnocentric.

… WHILE IT’S EASY TO CRITICISE THE IGNORANCE OF OTHERS, IT IS OFTEN DIFFICULT TO OFFER AN ACCESSIBLE ALTERNATIVE

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Popular culture is much more complex than the majority of popular discourse would have us believe, and understanding and commenting on these phenomenon in an informational capacity should involve more than watching a segment of television or an advertisement that is taken completely out of its intended context. And when it comes to Japanese pop culture, this is exactly what The Young Turks do; they provide us with a number of broad generalisations that are not necessarily entirely wrong, but which are largely unconsidered, remain un-interrogated, and which perpetuate a western-centric notion of normative behaviour that may be detrimental to our understanding and acceptance of cultural difference. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read the comment, “Japanese people are so weird!” on YouTube, and I think this speaks volumes to our general reluctance to delve into difference – cultural or otherwise.

No one has the right to condemn the interests of another simply because they don’t match up with their own. And yet, there is still a tendency to police the activities of other people and to judge those who engage in things that we don’t see as normal or cool. Tokenism is often used as a defence in these cases: I love Hello Kitty and sushi, but J-pop is lame; I play boardgames every weekend, but Magic: the Gathering is for nerds; I watch Game of Thrones, but only losers cosplay as fantasy characters. Considering how important it is to most people to feel original, why are statements like this so prevalent?

The Young Turks exemplify what I see as a problematic disconnect in understanding difference, and this has implications beyond the topics that they address in their videos. While their criticisms may infuriate a number of Japanese people and those who are familiar with Japanese culture – myself included – many more will accept their ill-informed postulations as fact. It may also be the case that they are not entirely to blame, as reliable information that questions generalisations,

and that is simultaneously digestible by the non-academic majority is arguably difficult to find.

Social scientists have been openly critical of popular scientists such as Jarred Diamond who make an attempt to engage in public anthropology, and to make scientific knowledge more relatable. Certainly, he is arguably guilty of some broad and often unsound cultural and social generalisations.

However, in a public forum during a writers festival at UWA in early 2013, I couldn’t help but find his discussion of culture to be compelling and refreshingly accessible, if not entirely ‘right’. It’s important to remember that while it’s easy to criticise the ignorance of others, it is often difficult to offer an accessible alternative.

For disciplines that are largely concerned with understanding human difference, perhaps the contemporary social science’s emphasis on comparing themselves to other scientific fields has overshadowed a more important imperative; the potential to connect academic disciplines to the general public. Popular culture may be one area of study that exemplifies a latent potential, as the subject matter is often familiar and engaging to non-academic people, whilst still potentially affording understandings and promoting the acceptance of difference.

Perhaps then it is time that social scientists consider not only their obligations to academia, but to a broader, general public that would benefit from an ability to understand, accept and appreciate human difference. In the mean time, it’s up to us to think twice about judging others according to their hobbies, and making snap decisions about what is less or more cool/interesting/worthy of our time. No one’s interests sit 100% in the mainstream, and perhaps if we take the time to understand what appeals to others, they’ll return the favour for us.

KICKSTARTER ISN’T DUMB, BUT THE PEOPLE WHO USE IT ARE

by Cameron James Kickstarter is a website that allows its users to upload a video presenting their idea to the world, before begging for money to fund it and make that idea a reality. Many fledgling, independent video-game developers, mostly working from their own/parents’ houses have been able to pitch their ideas to an audience and receive money directly.

This is as opposed to obtaining funding through a publisher, who might maintain that said developer’s niche ideas for a small group are not profitable, and are subsequently not willing to make the initial investment. What ends up happening is a resurfacing of long dead genres, like the ‘point-and-click’ adventure games, by cashing in on the pent-up consumer-demand for the specific genre. This is proving to snooty, multi-million dollar publishers, completely unaware of the general goings-on in the actual minds of many gamers out there, that there is actually a hungry population wanting these types of games. It suggests that there is profit to be made by branching out, and perhaps it would be worth the effort to experiment in video-games, rather than relying on focus-groups of the same people. Perhaps there are many gamers out there not being satisfied by the stock-standard, everyday stream of typical bullshit strewn out from mainstream releases.

ARGUABLY, THINGS GET EVEN WORSE WHEN A PROJECT IS SUCCESSFUL On the whole, this is seen as a mostly positive thing. Kickstarter is definitely

giving developers the chance to revitalise some genres that haven’t been seen in a while, for example, the topdown RPG and 3rd person platformer.

It’s cool, sure, and Kickstarter for sure has its upsides in generating otherwise unnoticed consumer demand. But, like the title of this article makes pretty blatant, there is a sinister aspect to this form of virtual panhandling.

The sad truth is that literally anyone can pick up a camera and plead for money, and there’s no legal binding whatsoever that says the people have to actual follow-through with their promises and deliver a finished product. The gaming scene has a slew of cases where a group of small-time developers pitched their idea to the masses, garnered a passionate group of people who want to see that idea fulfilled, only to have their money squandered and wasted by amateurs who are in way over their head. My idiot brother has donated to at least 10 different Kickstarter groups because he “liked the idea”, and ended up wasting his money. I don’t think he realizes that it’s more than likely being handed over to some unemployed guy in his early-30’s, who probably smells of Doritos and has never had an actual job in his entire life.

Arguably, things get even worse when a project is successful. I mean, if developers crap their pants and can’t complete their product, that’s one thing, but if they end up becoming immensely successful from an idea they basically had no financial risk in, that’s even worse. Even though you are essentially an investor, and are wholly integral to the creation of this product, guess what?

You get no claim whatsoever as owning any percentage of the game, album, movie or whatever project it is you decided to help fund.

Just recently, the company Oculus, which originated as a Kickstarter company based around the creation of virtual reality headsets, was bought out

by Facebook for a cool billion dollars.

The people that gave Oculus their money in the first place didn’t see a cent of it. A similar case happened in the movie-world last year, when Zach Braff pleaded with his fans for some cash to make a follow-up to his notoriously sappy coming-of-age flick Garden State, a film which was nauseating and full of privileged people dealing with first world problems. If the otherwise widely successful Braff was so confident in the movie, why didn’t he invest his own capital into it? It comes out later this year; so don’t feel bad if you end up torrenting it because the guy has already made a ton of money from it.

WHEN YOU PITCH INTO KICKSTARTER, IT’S A DONATION THAT’S BEING MADE, NOT AN INVESTMENT When you pitch into Kickstarter, it’s a donation that’s being made, not an investment. And when you’re giving away your own hard-earned money just to help a company make a billion dollars, or get a movie made that’ll make a shitton of money that you have no legal entitlement to, you’re kind of a moron.

Kickstarter works inside a moral grey area. These people are operating fully within the law in taking people’s money, but it’s kind of shitty when they either waste it completely, or use it to help skyrocket themselves without spending a penny.

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“IT BECOMES CONSENSUAL”: Game of Thrones and Myths of Rape

by James Munt

For not the first time, Game of Thrones has demonstrated some pretty disturbing things about rape culture.

Or, at least the audience reaction it’s precipitated has, as well as the way the producers have grossly mishandled such serious subject matter.

After seeing the purple wedding aftermath scene between Jaime and Cersei, I was unprepared for the director of the episode Alex Graves’ comments that it “becomes consensual by the end because anything for them ultimately results in a turnon, especially a power struggle.”

How the show runners let him try to depict this is beyond me. The scene could not have been more overtly rape as Cersei’s repeatedly ignored exclamations “no,” “it’s not right,” “please no,” and “not here” attest.

Using terminology like “turn-on” when you are referring to something like rape could not possibly be more offensive or dismissive. The idea of rape that “becomes consensual” is Hollywood’s great contribution to rape culture.

Rape cannot “become consensual”, and the fact that he intended to justify himself with reference to her actions like “holding on to the table, clearly not to escape” whilst directing a clear, repeated refusal is emblematic of many of the responses in social media and alarmingly in responses to actual rape elsewhere.

As if matters needed to be made worse, just as in the aftermath of Daenerys’ rape in season one (after which she fell in love with her rapist), things continue as if nothing at all happened. With no reference to any ramifications of being sexually assaulted, Cersei, the same woman who tirelessly plotted the murder of her previous husband after he raped and beat her, calmly asks her brother to do her a favour. It’s always been obvious that GoT is steeped in shock value, but if you are going to depict

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rape it cannot be for shock value and especially cannot be brushed over like it’s nothing.

I have a big problem with any of those people that suggest these two instances of rape as represented in George R.R. Martin’s books were unproblematic.

In the book, while Cersei is not crying and does eventually ask to have sex, it is only after her brother has ignored her protests and forcibly removed her clothes. Does it really need to be said that “no” means “no”, don’t forcibly strip me naked until I change my mind?

Distancing himself from the filmed scene, Martin claimed, “I was writing the scene from Jaime’s POV, so the reader is inside his head, hearing his thoughts.”

Apparently somehow marginalising the thoughts of Cersei in favour of those of the man who ignores her protestations is meant to make things better. Claims like this play into ideas that for example “her eyes said yes”, that it’s okay to ignore what is clearly refusal because they surely didn’t mean it. This complicates what should be one of the simplest things about rape; anything after “no” is rape.

There is no such thing as a “false refusal” and any attempts to question why a woman didn’t scream or fight back blame the victim and invalidate the trauma of a host of women.

Moreover the number of times I’ve heard fans of the books claim that the Dany-Drogo rape scene was consensual in the books makes me want to scream.

I can’t believe this even needs to be said but she is thirteen in the books.

Thirteen year olds cannot consent to sex. The fact that so many people do not seem to recognise this reflects just how uncritically he wrote their relationship, practically romanticising it.

It is disgusting.

There’s something to be said for the emancipatory potential of speculative fiction. If you’re going to construct an entire universe yourself, why not create a society in which queerness is normalised, as opposed to having

two marginal gay characters? If you’re instead going to portray a high fantasy world that’s representative of feudal Europe, informed by its misogyny, racism, classism and homophobia but with dragons (because who’s ever done that before?), please don’t forget to make your oppressed characters sympathetic. Representing events in such a patriarchal environment without an eye on your victims or without being critical does not mean you are being “objective”, it means you are being grossly irresponsible.

… IF YOU ARE GOING TO DEPICT RAPE IT CANNOT BE FOR SHOCK VALUE AND ESPECIALLY CANNOT BE BRUSHED OVER LIKE IT’S NOTHING Rape is one of the most serious issues Game of Thrones could have addressed; unlike the hundred odd stock characters that die each episode, rape victims are forced to live with their trauma for the rest of their lives. The show is fictitious, but when 55 universities are currently being federally investigated in the US for mishandling rape claims, the creators of one of the most popular shows on television, and easily the biggest fantasy show, mishandling their own depiction of rape and contributing to myths around rape culture could not be more political.

I GO TO RIO

by Lucy Ballantyne My first experience with the world of professional ‘intimate’ waxing was less than perfect. My friend and I made a 9 am appointment to use her two-for-one bikini wax voucher, and I had promised to be there on time.

Naturally, I went out the night before and got completely tanked. I never did quite make it home, and rocked up at the salon the next morning in last night’s outfit: an all-in-one jumpsuit with a neckline that did not allow for the wearing of a bra. Suddenly, my bottom-of-the-range basic bikini wax necessitated my complete nudity. I drink to forget.

My naked discomfort on that beautician’s table was analogous to my feelings about waxing in general. I came of feminist age under the reign of Tavi Gevinson. I’m a Women’s Studies major. I know the idea that a hairy vag can’t be a clean vag is not only nonsense, but wildly inaccurate. I know that the twig in my mind that tells me I need to shave my legs to be desirable was put there by something external to me, and when I do it anyway I’m being complicit. Yes, I know every woman has the right to choose for herself; I get it, it’s the 90s. But I spend all day, everyday thinking about the power relations that force women to punish their bodies, and it is agonizing.

B. Ruby Rich wrote of walking past a salon that performed Brazilian waxing with her girlfriend one day and how she “whimsically decided to go in and put an end, for no apparent reason, to a decade of ideological attachment”.

This is exactly how I felt about waxing.

Unluckily for me, my ideological attachment to saying no to waxing competes with another: the one that says ‘do it because it’s funny’. So, under the guise of the pursuit of knowledge, I booked my Brazilian.

When I got there it became apparent that the salon had booked me in for

the less extreme whatever-pokesout-of-your-grundies bikini wax, and when I corrected the beautician she disappeared for a couple of minutes.

It took a second for me to realise she was putting on another pot of wax. It’s like when unexpected guests rock up at a dinner party: you make enough chicken casserole for six and suddenly, several thousand more pubes turn up.

How frustrating.

I mined the beautician for as much info as I could. She said I was brave and she’d be as gentle as possible since I was jumping straight from bikini to Brazilian. This is something most women just don’t do, and she seemed incredulous when I didn’t react to the pain. I wasn’t exactly expecting hot wax being ripped off my vulva to be a walk in the park, and I wondered why any of her other clients would. When I said as much, she told me she has clients who call the salon the morning of their appointments to check they’re running on time, so they can time when they take their pre-wax ibuprofen.

These women are dedicated. I learned that the optimum time between waxes is 28 days, and post-Brazilian you shouldn’t go to the beach, exercise, have hot showers or feel any joy at all, for at least 24 hours. Oh, and stuff your knickers in your bag; you can’t wear those out of here, either.

decide if I had the vagina of a child or a pornstar.

Porn seems to cop a lot of the blame when we talk about the popularization of the Brazilian. It’s the medium where we’re up close and personal with genitals most often, so it gets to dictate the trend. But porn is just one player in the range of panoptic forces that push us to smear hot wax over our anuses. Late capitalism forces our hand and makes us think we need to buy shit we don’t. Throughout my wax, I knew I was being primed for the on- and up-sell. The beautician scared me into buying the $60 soothing cream that I could have made up with ingredients out of my pantry. I paid a woman to create an itchy problem that I then paid to have her fix. I was reminded that I went in for that twofor-one bikini wax in the first place because this shit is expensive. I’m still drinking to forget.

There was probably a bigger part of me than I’d like to admit that was really rooting for the Brazilian. I wanted to have a revelation. I had visions of my waxing experience being fun and sexy and walking away knowing that women do this because it feels great, and not because of The Man, or whatever. In this way, it was disappointing. None of the beautician’s comments about how ‘clean and nice’ it feels were compelling, nor were the ones about how doctors actually recommend Brazilians now (I am pretty sure the AMA have not made a comment about this). When I got home, I couldn’t

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CULTURE REVIEWS COMEDY BANG BANG! (TV REVIEW)

by Ante Malenica The faux talk show genre has become an increasingly popular comedic medium in the last few years. As a result competition among these shows is growing as the viewership is divvied into smaller and smaller chunks. Scott Aukerman’s cartoonish escapade Comedy Bang Bang! manages effortlessly to sit atop this saturated market, all the while playfully lampooning television’s most embarrassing tropes. CBB nails them all.

CBB’s host, Scott Aukerman, plays a delightfully white-bread version of himself as the host of a fantastical talk show. Reggie Watts plays the dynamic bandleader (sans band) creating improvised musical intros and outros that are amazing in and of themselves. But it’s the intentionally cheesy rapport between host, bandleader and guest that sets this show apart. Almost every line of dialogue

INFORMATION SERVICES DESK POD, REID LIBRARY

by Zoe Kilbourn People, on some level, crave stasis.

Whether you look at it as a subconscious evolutionary strategy, a thrust for power, the hangover of an Oedipal complex, or a spiritual craving, we’re afraid of death, of loss, of becoming obsolete. Kubrick speculated in 2001 we might need an external push to embrace bipedalism, the wider universe, complete psychedelic liberation - say, an enormous, unexplained, unavoidable, minimalist monolith.

We probably didn’t need this enormous, unexplained, unavoidable, minimalist monolith in the middle of the first floor of the Reid Library. It’s the new information desk. It says so in blue neon letters on the side facing the entrance. Like most of the university’s recent renovations, it’s very tasteful: polished white marble, sharp-edged, informed by a post-Bauhaus

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is consciously artificial; clichés are taken to their logical conclusion and into absurd dream-sequences and Technicolor nonsequiturs. Television has been guilty of cringe-inducing cheesiness (see Channel 10: Summer Line-Up) since the days of black and white broadcasting; CBB just wants to make sure that everyone knows it.

The quality of the guests is also a significant point of difference for CBB. Guests range from mainstream comedy heavyweights like Zach Galifianakis, and David Cross to alt comedy oddities like Pee Wee Herman and, Weird Al Yankovic.

CBB gets the best out of its guests; either by slowly revealing that they are in fact playing an unhinged version of themselves or by introducing them as ridiculous characters during the intro credits. This is a welcome departure from the prosaic, stale interview themes common in the Late Night time-slots (just one more year, hang in there Dave). Galifianakis is

resistance to 90-degree angles, and wholly unnecessary. It speaks to an Information Services future with a focus on self-help, movement and speed, computer-driven and IT-focused.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t speak to an old guard of UWA librarians who have been here for, like, ever.

The renovations represent a radical shift in IS philosophy. It’s about the internet age, online databases, a spiritual and physical decluttering of library space.

It’s also about cost cutting, and, as economically inefficient as hiring people may be, a sad sense of depersonalisation hangs around the new floor space. The old desks, made out of a comparatively earthy wood, were attached to the returns space and the first floor offices.

They were clearly made for traditional librarians, that Dewey decimal cabal, who could easily sneak away into the covert spaces away from the desk should it all get too much. The divisions that

particularly good as a bellicose Santa Claus and Nick Kroll’s appearances always entertain with colourful parodies of media staples.

Some of the jokes may fall flat and the kooky humor may cross the border into the childish at times but this is inevitable in a show as unrestrained as this one. CBB is filmed with a mix of improvised and scripted material, allowing the cast to explore premises to their tenable limits or switch quickly to a completely new direction. It is because of this that the dialogue feels natural while the narrative conceits continue to be entertaining.

The second season of CBB was wrapped up a few months ago and the third season is set to start on the 8th of March with IFC in talks to order a fourth. I cannot recommend this show enough to fans of absurd, lovingly crafted comedy.

new library policy is introducing are only reinforced by an information desk that doesn’t accommodate chair space, is awkwardly placed so students are discouraged from approaching, and that advertises librarian facebooking to a host of econs students fighting over the last macro textbook in the High Demand section. Also, it gave one of my coworkers a blood blister.

It still erks me that, in the midst of a series of university cuts (first, under a Labor Gonski scheme that moves money to primary schools, now, under a Liberal government that moves money to fighter jets), UWA’s getting stuck into renovations. Meanwhile, intellectual manpower is stretched to its absolute limit. Whole departments, particularly the ones that don’t bring in Twiggy dollars, are crumbling. At least, I suppose, they’re crumbling in style.

Reid library information desk: like the rest of the university, a hot mess.

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