I'd Love You Even If You Were A Murderer

I don’t usually talk to the TV, but this morning I made an exception.

Bleary eyed and flicking through yesterday’s copy of Mx I decided to turn on the TV. Catching the last few minutes of ABC kids’ school holiday cartoons I decided to leave it on whilst I went through the paper in the hope that something good would be on in a few minutes, or at least kill the time between infomercials on the other channels. I looked up from a riveting article on David Beckham to discover a middle aged British man informing me that his boys would never have survived a 1950’s childhood. Honestly, why would anyone want to go through the 50’s again? Unfortunately this appeared to be the exact purpose of the show. We moved from black and white pictures of this man growing up with his perfect hair and perfect little boy suits - naaw how wonderful! – And cut to a teenage boy with Taylor Swift like flowing golden locks, this is one of his disorderly sons. Cut again to another boy, whom the family like to call a ‘meterosexual.’ The voiceover man explains his 'meterosexuality' whilst our little metero man lies on his bed in a pink t-shirt, chatting to his ‘girlfriends’ about the third season of Desperate Housewives.

Hmm...

We then establish that the disciplinary problem with the family’s four boys stems from their ‘individualism’, clearly it is some sort of crime against humanity to allow your children to have personalities, heaven forbid you should have a sports nut, an emo guitar player, a macho little kid and a ‘meterosexual’ living under the same roof. Okay I can see how that could cause some conflict, but still...The boys are stripped of their iPods, computers, electric guitars, and metero boy loses his ‘cosmetics’. The look of disdain on his face when his bottles of god knows what are being taken away is absolute gold.

The ordinarily sweet natured father has been forced to become a cold disciplinarian and their normally empowered mother must now become the ‘perfect housewife’, the poor woman is clearly unhappy about having to take on this role as is evident through her various sarcastic remarks disguised as ‘jokes’ and ‘insecuirities’. Whilst mother dear is cooking dinner in the kitchen, young metero is asked to help her peel potatoes, but he seems hell bent on disobeying orders (and good on him I say!). This calls for Man of the House father to come along and save the day. Whilst poor metero boy is being reprimanded he stomps and squeals in a very effeminate manner and just before our young hero heads off to face 'punishment' in his room he makes some final remark, a remark accentuated by that little wrist flip, or ‘pansy hand wave’ that so many camp gay men have become known for. It was at this point that I snorted into my Weet Bix and exclaimed at the television

‘you morons! He ain’t no ‘’meterosexual!’ HE’S A HOMOSEXUAL!’’

Looks like someone’s parents are in denial.

Poor boy.

Lady in Red Is Dancing With Me

What is meaning?

What is truth?

Why does it matter?

It matters because we are here, because we exist and most importantly because it gives us something to do.

But why should it?

Why should we simply occupy our minds with simple drivel whilst ignoring what is important? I suppose that would mean actually knowing what ‘important’ is. Oh but important is family, it is belonging, it is knowing who you ARE the universal ‘they’ will tell you. Well thank you universal ‘they’ you have been of great help here today.Now back to the matter at hand.

Or is there in fact any matter at hand? It only matters if I say it matters and who am I to say it matters? Why should it even matter that I think it matters? But everything matters if it matters to you! They will proclaim. Yeah tell that to the millions who are being blown up by god knows who for god knows why right now, to the dictatorships forming and collapsing, to women being raped, children being abused, people being manipulated, cheated on, experiencing moments of euphoria, being born and dying. It’s all this huge tangled mess that no one can ever truly fix. Yep world peace, that’d be good, but then what would we all do with ourselves?

Humanity needs something to DO it needs something to mull over when it is not occupying itself with education (or avoidance of it), work, family/friends/workmates/ sexual interest etc or other form of hobby

.All we do is create things, watch them fall apart (if we live long enough, for surely everything comes to an end eventually) and then we wonder why we bothered creating it in the first place. But it gave me pleasure at the time! You will exclaim. Yes well making a baby gives you plenty of pleasure for a short period of time but then you’ve got the rest of your life to suffer for it. Or not I suppose, depends on whether you’re the kind of person who should be having kids.

Who determines who should be having kids? Why should it matter? Some say our only purpose is to make babies, to simply exist, to make more babies and die. Most people don’t like that idea because it is rather depressing. The vast majority of the time I do not like that idea either. Sometimes though, sometimes I do wonder,

faith.

To have faith is to KNOW to TRUST.

I have faith.

But what if I just have faith because I want to have faith? Because the alternative is simply too terrifying to imagine, that my life means nothing and the few people it DOES mean something to will soon perish and their lives will have meant nothing because the people their lives meant something to will also perish and so the cycle will continue. Sure some people live on in history but what do they really MEAN to us? I have had people tell me that these figures inspire them, that Jesus or Joan of Arc or Henry VIII have given them a reason to want to exist in this world and I believe them.

What if we took it all away? The distractions. The computers, TVs, movies, radios, music, books, science, history, war, exploration and religion. Would we then find TRUTH?Can truth be defined? Isn’t truth subjective? Isn’t it what you want it to be? Isn’t it what ‘feels’ right? Why should our ‘feelings’ make anything ‘right’?

WHAT IS RIGHT?

How can you define it? Oh but it is the opposite of wrong! It is when we KNOW that what we have done is BAD.

But aren’t these just constructs? In some Arab countries men hold hands – this is RIGHT because it is a SYMBOL of FRIENDSHIP. Then when they decide to move those hands to other places or use other body parts it is suddenly WRONG. Why? BECAUSE SO AND SO SAID SO. DUH.

Oh right excuse me for not realising.

IT IS WRONG TO KILL.

Why?

BECAUSE SOMEONE SAID SO.

Which is why Americans still practice capital punishment, which is why men who kill hundreds of other men in war are celebrated as ‘heroes’ for they have been ‘brave’ and fought ‘for their country’ (oil/land/meaningless religious distinction) but the man who killed his son because hi s son was in pain always, never able to move or ‘live’ (whatever that is) that man is sent to jail because he has done something BAD.It is only ever ‘wrong’ when it suits your purposes for it to be wrong. It is wrong to ‘kill’ because this means that your neighbour could walk into your home and slaughter you simply because they felt the urge. It is, on the other hand, perfectly legal to slaughter cows, ducks, chickens, pigs, moose, elephants and anyone else that can’t sue you and kill them. Oh but I need to eat! Well there are vegetables. Yes but vegetables are alive too! WE ARE KILLING LIVING THINGS WHEN WE MOW THE LAWN, WHEN WE EAT POTATO PIE. We shouldn’t eat. We should starve. Eating merely fulfils unnecessary desires, desires that distract us from our goal.

What is this goal?

Why to find the meaning of life!

Don’t you have to be alive to find the meaning of life?

Well yes that does help.

Sometimes.

Not always.If you work fast you can find the meaning of life without living.

Define ‘life’

.I can’t, there are too many definitions – is it breathing? Is it consciousness? Is it being social? Is it all or none of the above?

I suppose you would need to eat to physically sustain yourself long enough to reach the stage of development required to contemplate existence.

PEOPLE DON’T CONTEMPLATE EXISTENCE! THEY THINK ABOUT IT FOR A MOMENT, FREAK OUT AND HIDE BEHIND/IN FRONT OF SOME SORT OF INVENTION.

Or they drive themselves mad with nonsense written in books by people who wrote what they UNDERSTOOD Buddha/Jesus etc to have said, NOT WHAT JESUS/BUDDHA ETC SAID.

Humans change things to suit themselves, all they care about are their selfish gains, gains that will mean nothing when they face their grave, all that will matter will be meaning itself.

Find the meaning of meaning and you will find meaning.

Education What?

there is a post about public education about two posts down

READ IT.

Crazed Rant

My internet keeps cutting out.As you can imagine, the first night this happened to me it wasn’t a very pretty sight, or I suppose I wasn’t the very pretty sight (though I assure you that normally I am exceedingly pretty). It was about some stupid thing called a ‘DNS Configuration’ and when it wasn’t that it was the ‘key ports’ not doing what they were supposed to. And all this meant that the INTERNET WAS GONE. There was NO FACEBOOK. Let me repeat that for you in case you didn’t catch its significance the first time:

NO.

FACEBOOK.

How was I going to avoid assignments now? How would I get random updates about people who I ordinarily do not give a shit about’s lives? And more importantly what if that hottie from the lecture who I still haven’t had the guts to speak to, was attempting to friend request me RIGHT THAT VERY MOMENT and I wasn’t there to accept and subsequently Facebook chat- them up? And I couldn’t complain about it because I couldn’t access my blog.Suddenly I had all this TIME readings were being done (2 weeks in advance) assignments due in week 14 were being polished off...and it had only been 2hrs without online access.Just imagine what I could do if I never had access to teh interwebz again! I could cure cancer, end world poverty, create peace on earth...or watch the Buffy box set again. Oh the possibilities! Children will clean their rooms, chores will be done and parents will float around homes, living in the kind of domestic bliss only observed back when they only had TV and radio to spread the word of the devil. But hey, with Rudd’s new internet censorship laws this might end up being the case anyway, I mean if your local dentist has been blacklisted as a paedophile, YOU won’t be going out and doing something horribly impure like getting your teeth whitened now will you? Clearly K-Rudd was having similar difficulties with his internet, and when he discovered how productive he could be if he got off that MySpace page of his (G 20 summit, solving a financial crisis) he figured we should al have this same fantastic opportunity. Which is also why he’s promised us super-fast broadband for the future, so sure you won’t be able to do much on the internet but at least you know that you’ll be able to do a whole lot of nothing at lightning speed rates, and isn’t that what matters?

Maybe She's Born With It?

Maybe it's the leather pants.

Eliza Dushku ( Or 'Ms Dushmush' as Hung so eloquently put it) returns to our screens with Dollhouse this year, hopefully it'll last longer than two seasons (Tru Calling).

This makes me quite happy, I've been waiting for some new awesome sci-fi to emerge, and Ms Dushmush never disappoints!

'Public Education, It's Time To Give It More'

We all remember that little song they'd play to accompany the pro-public education ads a few years back yes? The guy strumming his guitar and singing 'public eduuuucaaattiooon...' with the smiling faces of little kids in blue uniforms . Of course these children all came from diverse backgrounds - it WAS a government endorsement after all.

Just a slight issue...

Public schools are not filled with kids in perfect little uniforms, they are not pretty colourful places with extensive resources (much to the shock of the ad's director I'm sure).

The other week I scoffed at the public high schools endorsement brochure lying upon my dining table. It showed all these happy kids using brand new computers and sparkling science equipment.

Please

My brother goes to a public primary school and will be starting high school next year, my parents have been tying themselves in knots trying to work out what to do with him, he certainly can't go to the local high school, they don't know if he'll get into a selective high school and private schools teach religion - something my parents don't really approve of.

Why all the fuss? What's wrong with going to a public school? Didn't yours truly complete 13 years of public education?

Indeed I did.

I am a strong supporter of the public system, so when I picked up the Sunday paper last week and read that Ruddy boy was going to give the old private schools a boost I was ever so slightly miffed.

RUDD MY MAN! I THOUGHT WE WAS TIGHT!

Clearly not.

An 'Education Revolution' is not much of a 'revolution' if all you're doing is giving the schools with the most even more. What exactly do you propose they do with this money? Invest in super fertiliser to make their sweeping lawns even greener? Meanwhile public schools struggle to maintain the sad and sorry dirt patch that passes for an 'oval'.

Try sharing 30 textbooks between 180 people and using these same textbooks year after year, regardless of the amount of graffiti they accumulate , it doesn't matter that they have turned into outlets for teenage boys to release their feelings of masculine inadequacy, we must attempt to decipher the words beneath them nonetheless. Well that is of course if the book isn't missing pages or if it doesn't have chapters falling out. Every lesson there would be a rush to the textbook basket, no one wanted to get the ones that barely resembled 'books'.

< --- a geography textbook


< --- the overhead projector not working, a frequent occurance, note the state of the blackboard

While you're at it have a go at working with this textbook on a table that keeps sliding off its legs. That's right, the wooden top of a table would frequently lift itself and send all your prescious items all over the mouldy carpet if you were not careful to keep your legs (or your neighbour's legs) from bumping into the posts holding it so delicately together.

< --- table tennis tables breaking

Also have a go at learning anything when you're subjected to a string of substitute teachers or, even better, no teacher at all. The senior classes were always given priority and always had teachers but the year 7s and 8s would often end up in the 'Outdoor shelter' where they'd be under minimal supervision. Teachers would yell at them to do work but this wouldn't always happen.

Maybe I should also mention that my school, which used to pride itself on being an 'agricultural high school' had to sell off most of it's agricultural land, sheep and tractors because it was so badly underfunded.
Similarly our neighbouring/rival school is currently facing the possibility of having to do the same, thankfully their ex-students and current students seem a little more politically motivated and are lobbying the Rees government to stop this from happening and I support these guys 100%, why should more public schools have to suffer? Is it any wonder parents scrap and save to send their kids to private schools?

< --- the last of our animals

The pond and it's little surrounds are our 'ag plot' the houses and grass outside it are what was sold off.

I also suggest that everyone tries using the computer facilities in a public school, up until my final year we had to use computers built for Windows 95 and yes they eventually managed to run Windows Xp but it was at an excruciatingly slow pace. The computers were yellowing and you could see and feel the grime on the keyboard and mouse. Whenever a teacher would remark that we were going to the computer lab we would scoff because we all knew that 40minutes of the 80 minute period would be spent starting up and signing in, and there would always be SOMEONE whose computer wouldn't work. Often we would share one between two or sometimes even three.

When we finally did get the new computers it wasn't much better because the government decided to censor the internet. Trying to do an assignment for art? Good luck with google images, English? Don't look up anything as controversial as Shakespeare now! Imagine the fun I had trying to research anything for extension 1 (our topic was 'gendered language')

< --- laptops with our grant

So how did we get these computers? Our school managed to recieve a 'grant' something about being in a disadvantaged area but trying really hard anyway...geez...thanks...

We kids would joke about the fact that we didn't have mirrors, soap or anything that passed as toilet paper in our bathrooms.

<-- senior toilets, these were the 'good' ones

We'd joke about the state of our 'ag plot' and the fact that the little money the school DID have seemed to be spent on things like vollyball courts and not on EDUCATION. Or it would go to making the fences taller, spikier and adding barbed wire to them.

< --- our canteen

Our humanities teachers would go on rants about life under Whitlam, the need to abolish the Howard government and the days of free university education. My yr 10 Australian History teacher spoke of marches against war, Aboriginal rights and Medicare, as did most in the history/social sciences/English faculties.

< --- one of my teacher idols, note the shitty computer

The reality is that private schools have parents forking out because they can afford to. Those who can't afford to are doing it anyway, but wouldn't life be so much easier if parents DIDN'T have to break their backs working extra hours to put their kids through private schools? Selective schools are the only form of public education worth receiving so is it any wonder that desperate parents are trying to bribe these schools*? That parents force their children to study their guts out in primary school so that they can receive some quality education?

My local high school doesn't offer Advacned English, the concept of an 'extension course' is unheard of, 60 people finished year 12 in 2007 and approximately 10 of them went on to tertiary education - half of whom are at UWS.

My high school (A half selective one) had 160 people finish yr 12, at least 100 people went to university, many of them at USYD, UNSW, UTS. Some of those going to UWS were offered scholarships and are completing courses like Law and Medicine. We also had two people top the state and the school ranks in the top 150. A dramatic contrast wouldn't you say?

I think that says it all.

< --- when they have that

we have this:

< --- portables as permanent classrooms

< --- it'd be nice to have some real plumbing

*http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25046192-5001021,00.html

How Buffy Changed My Life (unedited version)

Once upon a time I did not quote lines from a television show; I did not drive my friends mad by relating every single occurrence in my life to an episode from Buffy I did not have a stack of DVDs taking up half my shelf and prior to entering the ‘Jossverse’ (Urban Dictionary 2005). I had never thought about television viewership in a critical way. Joss Whedon’s brainchild Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) was born when Whedon decided he didn’t like seeing ‘the little blonde girl’ always getting killed in horror movies, he wanted her to fight back (Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2001). Little did he realise that this would become a phenomenon – one which people would build their lives around, whose philosophies would be shaped by a blondie in high heels who could kick butt- and for whom television, and life, would never be the same.

Buffy aired in Australia from 1997-2003 on Channel 7,I, being a mere child at the time was not an avid watcher of prime-time television. I only aware of the show when I noticed the media hype surrounding its final episode (Tonkin, 2003) but it would be two years later, at the age of 15 when I would pick up my first Buffy VHS from the local library, with no idea of what lay ahead. This was not going to be the simple good vs. evil supernatural drama that I was accustomed to Charmed and Sabrina the Teenage Witch stood to little comparison. (Atkinson 2004).

Viewing the series on DVD from season two onwards I found myself with a plethora of extra information I’d never encountered or considered when it came to television viewing. Previously I had always consumed television in a very ‘in the box’ format – the traditional broadcast viewer who consumed without question (Wired 2007). But now I had featurettes taking me behind the scenes introducing me to a world of screenwriting, production, costuming, stunts and thematic consideration. Interviews with Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt showed me that there was real thought put into the show (Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2001). This compelled me to start watching the commentaries as well; I would go back and re-view the three or four episodes per season that featured commentaries and I’d get extra excited if Whedon would be talking. Rather than buying the series I would borrow the DVDs from my local library. Sometimes waiting weeks for my reserved items to come in, I would refuse to watch ahead for fear of missing some crucial moment that could subsequently spoil the entire season for me. So when I did get the DVDs I would watch it in chunks, two or three episodes a day if supply was plentiful or one a day if supply was scarce. This influenced my viewing as the narrative progression was written for a week-by-week viewing audience, not someone who sat down and watched half the season in one night. I’d find myself wondering how things were moving so quickly but also revelling in the instant gratification I was being granted, I was the privileged viewer who didn’t have to wait for next week’s instalment.Another advantage of the DVD format was that I didn’t have to suffer painful interruptions: advertisements, the phone ringing, family members with their endless stream of questions and demands. The DVD was perfect for me, I could stop, rewind and re-listen as much as I liked, and at times enabling subtitle to ensure that I heard everything correctly.

In an attempt to fill the void in my post- Buffy life I sought to get my Buffy kicks from other forms of media, first in the official novels, some written according to events in the series and others with alternate endings (Gwenllian-Jones & Pearson, 2004, pg. Xii). But I found these to be disappointing; they just couldn’t quite capture the essence of the series. So I found myself turning to fanfiction and finding ‘slash fiction– sexual fantasies about favourite characters written by and circulated among cult TV show fans’ (Siegel, 2007, pg.58) particularly intriguing. Fanfiction was a dream come true because it allowed fans to explore in extraordinary detail all our Buffy ‘fantasies’ ‘...perhaps because fandom can be more accepting than the ‘’real world’’?’ (Tulloch & Jenkins, 1995, pg.xii) The endless nights spent devouring and writing fanfiction would be reinforced by the visuals provided by YouTube fan videos that would cut scenes from episodes of the show and paste them together with a song to emphasise a relationship that wasn’t explored in-depth in the series – with ‘slash’ being notably popular. Interestingly I find that these ‘fantasy’ images of Buffy shape my memory of the show as much as the original series itself, it seems Whedon’s Buffy served as a launching pad for endless future scenarios and this evolving nature is part of why it continues to thrive.

Eventually I grew tired of fan created drama and decided to explore critical writing on the series instead. Astonishingly these critical analyses are adding even more layers of meaning to the series, reinforcing my own reading and sometimes forcing me to question beliefs I have held about the show. Similarly during the series I would read Buffy forums because I would be seeking further connection with the show and with other fans. I was interested in what they had to say about events in the series and their opinions on how it fit into the ‘Jossverse’ philosophy. Of course one has to let everyone know they love Buffy and what better way to do it than to post up pictures and quizzes on your social networking site? I’ve added the ‘Addicted to Buffy’ application, become a ‘fan of’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and have done many a quiz to determine which character I am most like. Everyone on my list gets an update about it so it’s a great way to share interests and find that other friends are Buffy fans via comments and updates.

Never before had I watched a ‘teen drama’ and found the ‘edgy humour’ appealing (Owen, 1999, pg. 25). Unfortunately I didn’t understand a lot of the 90’s pop culture references which meant I’d go running to the computer after every episode to look up what they meant and then laugh to myself quietly if I understood or remain bemused if I didn’t. Sex is an inevitable component of teen drama and it was not something I’d been exposed to on television prior to Buffy. Having grown up in a household where sex wasn’t exactly dinnertime conversation I would be on parent alert every time I sat down to watch the show. Somehow I would always manage to stop the DVD or change the channel before anyone walked in and any awkwardness could ensue. To make life all the more interesting my nine year old brother would try watching Buffy with me and in the earlier seasons I would (grudgingly) allow it, but after sex started becoming a core component I decided I would have to stop him from viewing it because I would rather not be there or his sex education.



Which brings me to the issue of privacy, I’m a private viewer for me television is a form of escape, an alternate reality where I can sit down with a familiar group of ‘friends’ for years or months and not think about the world. So it gets difficult to ‘escape’ when you have someone intruding on your space, especially when they ask annoying questions ‘who’s that? Why are they doing that? What just happened?’ Ideally television viewing is an individual experience for me which contradicts Seiter’s claim that “media consumption and interpersonal relationship are closely intertwined” (1999, pg.2).

Buffy also covered another taboo – homosexuality. It was the first series I’d watched that featured prominent lesbian relationships, never before had I seen homosexuality depicted positively and openly on a television show. This was further cause for secrecy because the thought of my mother walking in on me watching lesbian sex on television was not one I wished to entertain. Viewing a normalised portrayal of homosexuality made me realise that there was more out there and I went in search of other shows like The L Word, Will and Grace and Queer as Folk.Similarly I wanted to follow the cast’s future careers partly as a feeble connection to the series and also to help me ‘move on’. To my delight I found Alyson Hannigan on How I Met Your Mother which sparked a newfound love of sitcoms and so my Friends obsession was born, as was my appreciation of British humour with Anthony Stewart Head in Little Britain. Not to mention my squeals of delight at seeing Michelle Tratchtenberg guest star on House and following Eliza Dushku in Tru Calling and soon Dollhouse. Buffy was able to open up an interest in a variety of quality television I would never have otherwise considered watching.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer has dramatically influenced my viewing practices, my first teen drama it opened up a world of witty quips and sexuality. My process of viewing was also very different to other programs I had previously consumed as I watched this on DVD years after it was originally broadcast and sought interaction through other forms of media which then led to a variety of new interpretations of the program.