I'm sorry Gerard, but once again you are wrong. The arts community didn't get in a tizz because Kevin Rudd said, "That's the first time I've seen them. I think they're revolting."
Or because the Prime Minister went on to say "kids deserve to have the innocence of their childhood protected".
It was because he said something which you so convenientlty left out of today's 'opinion' piece;
"Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly I don't think there are any..."
(My goodness, how often do we have to explain ourselves? And he runs an 'institute'?!)
And then you freely call us 'condescending' because 40 odd representatives from the community say that politicians have "every right to their personal opinions; however, as political leaders they are influential in forming public opinion, and we believe their words should be well considered".
Gerard, your whole piece bases itself on a convenient omission and is undone when you complain about Michael Gow who "bemoaned the fact that 'the Prime Minister who invited us to Canberra has questioned the abilities and credentials of a major Australian artist'. In fact, Rudd had done neither. All he had done was to describe some Henson photos shown to him as 'revolting'."
No he didn't Gerard. No he didn't. Read the transcipt.
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
No, Gerard
Posted by Nicholas Pickard at 10:10 am
Labels: Censorship, Media, News, Visual Arts
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8 comments:
SAJ it would be nice if your own paper, the Telegraph allowed you to publish a reply to Henderson, but I doubt if they want to divert from the party line of Piers Akerman and the rest of the Murdoch phalanx of Defenders of the Right. At least the Herald lets David Marr and Elizabeth Farrelly interject a note of reasoned discourse. It's all deeply depressing.
Don't be silly Anonymous! Do you know who the Opinion Editor at the Telegraph is?
None other than Tim Blair, compadre to Bolt, Akerman and Devine.
In fact, from what I have seen recently at the Telegraph, they are lucky to publish anything at all about the arts, let alone a whole column dedicated to defending it. They are a model of mediocrity.
Excuse me Anon?! Who does Miranda Devine write for? I think this News Limited vs Fairax argument is sooo 1987.
I don't think Anon said she wrote for the Tele. He said Akerman did.
I get that philip, but I think it's all a bit too retro and convenient to continually suggest that the Daily Telegraph is somehow more devotedly and passionately right-wing than the Sydney Morning Herald any more. It doesn't advance the debate one bit. Anyone with more than a fleeting interest in the debacle that's currently going on within Fairfax would realise that there has been a seismic shift in the SMH's editorial direction.
SAJ - I think you're right, though I was vaguely disappointed when the Ruddmesiter said "they're revolting...". I would have preferred it if he said "Ooh, that's a Henson, Therese and I will be popping along to that next time we're in Sydney...".
The thing that pisses me off about Henderson is that he does know what's going on, he just pretends not to in order to be a divisive w@nker. When he quotes Engberg near the beginning of the article, he shows he knows what's going on: "it is one of life's paradoxes that the arts love Labor ... But Labor finds it harder to love the arts back". I wouldn't call it love so much as that, when it comes to arts policy, the voters have a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledumber. Where is the surprise that the arts community voted for the least cretinous party? It did not mean we expected much, but at least at 2020 the right sounds where being made. For the first time in 12 years. Was is fundamentally wrong to interpret that as a faint glimmer of hope?
And the idea that you always know what a politician is going to do in advance? Really? I couldn't have had a smaller opinion of Howard before he was voted in but even I in my wildest dreams would not have thought we would declare war on a sovereign nation for no reason whatsoever.
Henderson is a smart man who neverthelss provides absurd arguments to support biased and misguided ideas which are almost insupportable with fact. Keep his 'institute' in inverted commas...
Yes I agree gaz that Henderson is undoubtedly smart. To me the much more bizarre SMH columnist is Paul Sheehan, who seems to be a somewhat creepy mix of the prurient and the purse-lipped. On the one hand he writes a book like "Girls Like Us" which several women I know had to stop reading as his descriptions of gang rapes went way past mere reportage in their salacious details of the assaults and could be construed as titillating to potential rapists (just as he claimed Henson's photos might be to pedophiles) then he writes a column celebrating middle aged Willoughby housewives who dash off from hubby and the kids to go have a some rumpy-pumpy before work with the toyboy in Darlo, but now flushes with outrage that his local Paddington gallery would dare to run an exhibition of Henson's work...a strange mind indeed...
Correction: "Girls Like You" is Sheehan's book.pc
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