Pop Psychology For Beautiful People™
By Aaron Darc
CAN YOU FOLLOW THE FUGUE? David Lynch’s Inland Empire arrives…
Feb 13th
“I’m not sure how I got here, or what I’m doing…” (Laura Dern)
David Lynch’s latest epic of madness, despair and identity comes to The Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals before beguiling, engrossing, confusing, enraging, endearing and captivating Australian audiences, in its ever-delayed commercial run. Before you venture in, perhaps it’s time to take a look back at the history of Lynchtown, and make what sense of it we can…
David Lynch. In so many ways, perhaps it’s wrong to discuss a David Lynch film, and I (now, quite hypocritically) advise people to steer clear of reviews and associated material. So many people have so very many different views on good old Davey; arthouse critics and mainstream reviewers, alike, don’t simply divide on their opinions of each work, but splinter into various mindsets of appreciation and condemnation (not so different from the films, themselves). Inland Empire has divided them, quite like no other, with its epic ambition, hyper-surrealist nature, and the sheer distance Lynch this time takes us, into the realm of the subconscious. Despite those critics who insist on their own almighty objectivity, to the point of being able to write off the work after one viewing, or, being fair, those adoring analysts and kings of deconstruction who claim to have figured it all out, it’s almost impossible to offer anything, after a single screening. I am left with as much as I feel I can be; disjointed impressions that have vague – perhaps, conflicting – pockets of rationale, caught prematurely before they’re realistically going to translate into the articulation of anything concrete or conclusive. I’m not about to explain every mystery of Inland Empire to you – nor should I, nor can I – and neither will I be able to construct a fluid response that, I dare say, I will 100% agree with, several viewings (probably more) later. I loved it. But, my concluding analysis is still a sense very much in motion, and I’m still not quite sure where it’s taking me. How very Lynchian of me!
OPEN SEASON (part two) The Top 100
Feb 11th
As the clock ticks for Big Brother 2008′s online audition hopefuls, let’s take a peek at the hits and misses, and the final 100 that will bring forth the lucky little devils who win a chance to play this very strange game of democracy. Links to corresponding videos are highlighted in pink.
“There are one million people in Australia who love Big Brother, and we can help the 90 percent who don’t have a reason to watch, to see why it shouldn’t be axed.”Julie (auditionee)
Well, here we go. Last week, my initial excursion into the forthcoming series of the king of Reality TV, Big Brother, caused a bit of a stir in the BB online community, and I had to stop and acknowledge, once again, that the realm of Big Brother exists in a most volatile consumer market. Everybody wants their two cents worth, after all – it was one of the reasons I chose it as a subject matter for my adventures into cyberspace. That is it’s nature. In the contemporary world of Big Brother (slowly becoming passe, but still powerful enough), our lust for recognition, our striving to be seen and heard in the overcrowded hyper-media landscape, mixes dangerously with good old fashioned crucifixion. Either you’re crucifying someone else who has put themselves out there, being crucified for being out there, or both. The lines, for some, may blur.
And the winner is… a matter of perspective
Feb 11th
Australian Idol 2007 comes to a close, as Natalie Gauci gets “the best birthday present ever”. But Matt Corby has done alright, too. Let’s leave this atrocious series, remembering why…
“We know you’re a little girl who wanted to be a star.”
Natalie’s Grandfather
And, so it was. With mere hours to release what is set to be one of the biggest (quickest) wads of cash made off the Christmas music retail push, there was simply no way – none – that this single could be attached to an enduring week of press, where the artist had so totally detached himself from the product. Sony BMG was never going to have it. No business, in its right mind, would. Once again, publicity directs the outcome of reality television. But, worth remembering, is that once again, we have seen that publicity narrative interfered with by the uncontrollable nature of talent, in a generation fast wising up to the falseness of the genre. It was an awful, awful series – I don’t think anyone would disagree with that – but, regardless, it actually had one of the most productive endings we’ve seen in the recent dramas of reality television. Natalie Gauci, wedding singer extraordinaire, won Australian Idol. Like she should have.
Thank God it’s over!
Nov 26th
“They really do love me!”Jessica
Well, that was that. Idol 2006 ended like a bad ode to Young Talent Time, dragged into the merciless future of cross-promotion heaven (or is that hell?) – every barrier for bad group choreography smashed, and every advertisement cleverly placed in the corner of every scene. The final twelve were reunited one last time, complete with finger-clicking, and “ooooh wop wop” backing vocals, and cheesy grins. Deni and Marcia Hines gave us another “world first” (the rest of the world must have been dying to score this particular one) and sang together, in front of a chorus line that seemed to jump straight out of an early 90′s Peter Andre clip, and giant screens ablaze with the golden arches. Australian Idol… brought to you by Mc Donalds. And Telstra. And everyone else who made a buck off it. It was awful, really. I sat there for over two hours, my friends rolling around the floor in hysterics. More >
WHAT’S INSIDE KRAMER? AND IS IT EXCLUSIVE?
Nov 21st
“It was one of those things that are a little difficult to watch, but you can’t stop watching.”
Jude Brennan (Executive Producer, The Late Show With David Letterman)
Occasionally in pop culture and the media, we get to see little scandals that are symptomatic of the contemporary times – not just in the media attention or our interest in itself, but in the actual instances at the center of the media scandals as reflections of social and psychological trends. There’s an awful lot of hate being voiced in the world, at the moment – much more than we’ve had for a very long time. Some of it has been there, in essence, of course – it’s just that we’ve been repressing it. I’m the first to criticise so-called “political correctness”; but unlike the conservatives who resent the concept, I hate it not because it suggests I am wrong to hate or degrade something or someone, but because it suggests a false sense of freedom and acceptance for that subject of PC ideology. A lot of the hatred we see in today’s world has been recently “created”; but a lot of it was already there, in the first place. It’s just that it’s now been justified, politically and socially validated, and then amplified (or “grown”) by various new social dialogues that essentially center around fear and hatred of another group. We didn’t particularly love, or perhaps even acknowledge, Muslims (who we have no real contemporary history with – unlike the black or gay issue, or the role of women in our society), but they existed all around us without us ever really caring. For most people, Islaamophobia is quite new. The homophobia, the sexism, and various other racisms (though much of that included those who are now roped into Islaamophobia) were always there.
GOT FAME? The Werribee boys get a little more than they bargain for…
Oct 26th
“We have to make this girl look like a slut.”
C*nt – The Movie (DVD)
At what point do we take a good, long look at our youth and start making the long overdue connection between what they are absorbing through media and technology, the way this has shaped the way they exist, the context as set up by the parental controls in their life, and what they are actually doing?
As we all know, the country has been rocked this week by the production and distribution of a DVD made by a group of boys, featuring scenes where they harass a homeless man, beat up another they identify as being a “loser”, and then sexually assault a mentally challenged 16 year old girl (before urinating on her, and setting fire to her hair). But will we really embrace the reality of this situation, or simply respond by looking for avenues of blame that absolve us from more pertinent social questions raised by the issue?