For awhile now I have felt Australia sliding deeper in control of the right wing Talk Back Radio brigade and ACA and Today Tonight. Sure, I could watch shows like Media Watch and The Chaser and smile and laugh at those shows and their listeners/viewers but even that is now under attack.
Make no mistake. When the Chaser returns on June 24 it will be a hobbled show with Aunty constantly looking over their shoulder. Sorry, boys, you should have taken the money and gone to commercial TV.
But what I find distressing is that the people getting outraged over the Make a Realistic Wish Foundation sketch are the same people who defended the Matthew Johns gang bang incident. Alan Jones more or less said the girl in that incident was a slut and was asking for it. The majority of talk back radio callers supported Johns but they get outraged over this? A comedy sketch where not one person was hurt or harmed.
Then we have Clare the Bogan getting 15mins of fame for making racist comments and making fun of a guy who was shot.
So by Australians standards joking about a guy getting shot and inviting a bunch of team mates to have sex with a girl like she was a piece of meat is ok but make a comedy sketch, admittedly a very dark skit, where no one's life was shattered or destroyed and all hell breaks lose.
And the amusing part is that the shock jocks and newspaper columnists that rail against "Political Correctness" are the ones leading the brigade to burn the Chaser lads at the stake. So anyone attacking shock jocks and "journalists" such as SMH's Devine Miss Miranda for insulting Muslims and Arabs is a politically correct do-gooder but they aren't "do-gooders" for being outraged at the Make a Realistic Wish Foundation sketch. The mind boggling thing is they dont even see their hypocrisy. Of course they try to justify their position by talking about "lines in the sand" and that there is some Absolute Universal Law, much like gravity, that supports their position and only their position. I wonder what their reaction would have been if the sketch had involved dying children from Saudi Arabia.
But its not just talk back radio and ACA/TT. A couple of years I was looking up some information about an Italian director called Pier Paolo Pasolini. In the mid 70's he made a controversial movie called Salo. This movie was banned up until 1993. I remember reading about it when it was unbanned and it was being shown in some independent, art-house cinemas. I was not 18 at the time so I couldnt see it. But it was re-banned in 1998. What? Why was it re-banned? The writer/director had been dead for over 20 so its not like there was a director's cut released. Generally as time goes on controversial movies become less controversial. What changed between 1993 and 1998? Obvious answer is the Federal government.
But John Howard is gone and has been for over 18 months now but if anything the push for censorship and a return to the 1950's is stronger. We have a government trying bring in an internet filter for everyone. While the internet filter will never see the light of day because of the opposition parties in the Senate, in the case of the Coalition purely for political reasons, rather than a change of heart from Kevin Rudd, Stephen Conroy and Labor.
And lets not forget the issue of computer games being censored in Australia and no other country. Oh, except for places like China.
Am I wrong that in the last 10 or so years Australia has lurched to the right and the radio shock jocks and Murdoch papers grabbed cultural control of mainstream Australia? Is Australia becoming more and more socially conservative by the day? Maybe because in the last 10 years the internet has really developed and younger people dont listen/read talk back radio or read newspapers anymore but politicians are still very much influenced by these media.
I just believe that the subsequent censorship and sanction of the Chaser team is yet another warning sign that Australia is traveling down a road that it should not be going. What happened to the line that "I dont support what you're saying but I support your right to say it"? The only people defending the Chaser are their fans which is sad statement.
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Topic: This issue is greater than the Chaser (Read 1210 times)