Prime Minister Rudd’s was the first politician to plunge into the Henson outrage. Confronted – we are told – for the first time on Friday morning with some Henson images, he declared them revolting, and that they had no artistic merit. I’m not sure I disagree, but when it comes to art I don’t even know what I like, let alone know much about it.
Jenny Macklin put it best when she linked the images to the apparently remorseless s-xualisation of adolescents – especially girls – in the media. In that context, Henson’s work isn’t much different from what looked like a thirteen-year-old model pouting from the Weekend Australian Magazine’s fashion page. Which doesn’t make it OK.
But Rudd’s apparently instinctive moral reaction – strongly reminiscent of his predecessor – shouldn’t surprise. What did people expect from a church-going Queenslander? Hasn’t the “cultural community” been paying attention since the December before last? Rudd was never going to be anything other than wholly mainstream on such matters, and on the conservative side of the mainstream.
Moreover, in an era when men are afraid to touch the kids they coach, or play with, or teach, for fear of being labelled a paedo, what politician is going to stand up for the right of men, no matter how renowned in the artistic world, to photograph naked adolescents?
And Rudd would have to, Milne suggested, explain the behaviour of the ALP candidate in Gippsland, Darren McCubbin, particularly “in the context of his condemnation of Bill Henson’s “pornographic art” (quite why Milne uses quotation marks isn’t clear, since Rudd didn’t use that phrase, but anyway).
I got all excited reading the headline of this article, “Labor candidate’s platform for pervs.” What had Milne dug up now? Was McCubbin supporting Bill Henson? Had he given some furniture the nasal once-over? Had he proposed a Wild Western Australia-style threesome to some staff? Alas, not quite.
Apparently McCubbin is a director of a local cultural festival, and last year the festival included a group who sang a bawdy song. And worse, this was “in the middle of the conservative rural electorate.” Apparently the cockies can’t handle songs about c-cks.
Let’s hope they didn’t put any Shakespeare on, then. The Bard is full of rude bits that might upset those allegedly fragile rural minds.
Quite why Rudd has to “explain” what some people sang in a festival of which an ALP candidate was a director isn’t quite clear, but Milne seems damn angry at the Government. Perhaps they’re not treating him with the respect to which he feels entitled.
And Milne also offers this cryptic line. “Labor’s Victorian headquarters is in West Melbourne, spitting distance from the inner-city theatre district. Which might explain McCubbin’s tastes.” What’s that supposed to mean? McCubbin’s ALP biography says that he is married with two kids. But he likes theatre. You know what that means, right?
As usual Milne descends to sleeze and slime, gutter reporting is his business. If anyone is going to know about the grubby side of life he will. It was he who stumbled onto a stage in a drunken stupor in front of National TV cameras to throw an insiped punch that had as much effect as a powder puff, then fell flat on his face. It was he who had the scoop of the year, the then Leader of the Opposition, full as a goog at New York strip club, seeking out ladies of questionable whatever, another flop. A close examination of this little mans writings show a distinct grubby overcoat, hat down over eyes, peering from round a doorway, ears flapping type jurno more suited to publications such as Private Eye or Showbiz Tattle or I Saw You. Interesting to note also, gossip writer Milne never invites or accepts comments from his readers, not much ticker evident there. Probably unable to cope with the the inevitable sarcasm that his trashy writing would attract. That News Ltd has the audacity to continue employing the silly little person, beggers belief. That professional jurnos would share their columns in the same publications as Milne must be very very difficult.
Disappointing tone.
Attacking the saviour of working families when he reflects the community’s rage, by asking:
“What did people expect from a church-going Queenslander?”
And later, the question:
“what politician is going to stand up for the right of men, no matter how renowned in the artistic world, to photograph naked adolescents?”
Stand up…. for what right is that again? There is no right here. Only gaol.
With regard to Hensen – Lewis Carrol (aka Dodgson) could get away with photographing young girls because in the Victorian age children were supposed to be innocent and incorruptible. Times have changed. I hate turning my thumb down for a show I haven’t seen but I think the Queensland approach is about right.
With regard to the efforts Milne – I recall that a novel Beautiful losers was stopped by Australian Customs about 1975. I had a opportunity to read a copy that slipped through and thought it had a little artistic effort and concerned consenting adults. I can’t follw Milne’s gripe,
Glenn Milne is nothing more than a Tory stooge. He has no credibility at all. His wife works at Textor Crosby, whose income and power must be severely diminished with the change of Government. Maybe that’s why the dwarf is so angry.
Milney?, Isn’t great to see the likes of him still championing the worst of the conservative mind, or lack of it.
Even Milne doesn’t understand (as with most conservatives) what their writings expose of themselves. What they attack is usually a preoccupation that reveals, to thoughtful people anyway, a real insight into how and what they think about, and most times it’s not nice.
The more vicious the diatribe, the greater the fear from within themselves and the more likely they fear its exposure!