Oh Lara Bingle… A model of a few choice words, yet so quintessential Australia. The blonde haired, blue-eyed, potty-mouthed, beach babe has become the next Australian tourist tramp, I mean trap to lure in boorish British backpackers and arrogant Americans to piss in our beaches and defecate on our shores and buy into Australia (i.e. made in China). So Lara as representing all things Australian, what does that say about us, and also by what coincidence is it that she comes from another quintessential Australian image of our times – Cronulla.
Well it seems like to get anyone's attention these days you just need to slap on a few random curse words, add some tits and ass and plaster every media outlet with a hefty taxpayer funded budget until everyone gets so sick of it that they'll buy into it just to shut the campaign up. Too bad the same could not be said for the WorkChoices ads. Maybe the ACTU and the Federal Employment and Workplace Relations department can learn a few lessons from Federal Tourism.
Instead of having a poor struggling single mother of three sobbing that she'll lose her job if she can't find somewhere to dump her kids or having some smiling oblivious factory workers caught off guard being told that they are posing for a workplace safety campaign, have a couple of half-naked models cussing and prancing around operating power tools, staring suggestively. Hey, if Sophie Monk using a jackhammer can sell an otherwise shithouse comedy about romantic comedies, it should be able to sell industrial reforms – regardless of what position you take..…
This is Australia - the land of delusion – second to the United
States. Everybody loves us Aussies like everyone loves Americans, right? They can't get enough of us! Racism problem? Wot? Me? Worry? More like race problem we immediately assume, like some unconscious cultural reflex. Well with hotties like Lara Bingle diverting our attention away from understanding lesser issues like workplace reform, global warming and that R word – no not refugees, but close – Racism… how can social movers and changers compete?
The distraction smooths over the unfortunate reality that is our
culture. In Australia it's a lot easier to organise a crowd of 5000
crackers to 'reclaim the beach' and chant 'no more Lebs', throwing shit at anyone whose skin tans brown rather than gold, than to organise any more than 600 students to 'reclaim the streets' and give a shit about student services and welfare.
FACT: On the day of the Cronulla Riots 12 people were arrested. On the day of the 'Your Rights at Uni Rally' in Sydney, the 12th of April, 25 people were arrested for a sit down at Railway Square.
I can feel the scourge of the Left-wing/liberal bias in the media now.
Well since then, the images of violence have changed from 'Anglo' to 'Arab'. We've returned to that comfortable place where we are reassured that its ethnics that are the real problem. That Cronulla distraction (the riots not Bingle) has now dissipated, and we have returned our focus on the real problem – Islam.
The results of a survey conducted by Dr Kevin Dunn, a senior lecturer at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of New South Wales last month revealed that the most common stereotypes of Islam are that it's a fundamentalist religion, and an intolerant and threatening one. (Porter 2006, Survey shows Australian community feels threatened by Muslims, ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s160...Isn't ignorance bliss? I don't know what Dr Kevin Dunn was talking about when he said that [a] 'high level of ignorance is problematic… as any stereotype can take root in the absence of a more accurate understanding of Islam and its people'. Dr Dunn must have been living under a rock because since when did we need 'accurate' information to know someone was a threat? Children overboard, gang rapes, Iraq… Australians are more than happy to assist any invasion where the natives wear turbans and have funny writing – Iran here we come.
As one does when faced with such a quandary of thoughts, Hollywood offers us some answers. Taken from the opening lines of Crash "We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."
Well at least we mark the 21st of March as Harmony Day – wear the orange and feel tolerance…
FACT: Nothing looks good in orange – even tolerance.
