#VaxTheNation smacks of desperation

Amazing to watch how many assets are being deployed now to get "needles in arms". Performing artists portray themselves as free spirits driven by their unique creative visions. But they're just as mind-controlled as mainstream media journalists. So they've all been activated, natch! 

I'm sure you've heard about this cringeworthy #VaxTheNation campaign. The West Australian says that these household names have "banded together", zif they're doing it voluntarily, off their own bat. 

Nah, they've just been told to do it by their agents, who are ultimately controlled by the globalist elite. 

While many are talented and work hard, that's not the main reason they've been elevated to their current level. It's much more about being easy to control. 

These slebs are role models for the masses. So they can be used by the globalist elite to push the sheeple in whatever direction they want them to go. Which is clearly what is being done right now.

And note the desperation. It's all about getting the jab ASAP! They really are tryna cram as many people into these creepy vaxx hubs as possible. You've gotta wonder why.

The medical, safety aspect is all but forgotten in the message. It's all "get the jab so you can enjoy live music again". Just more extortion, which makes any thoughtful person suspicious. 

I note that Jimmy Barnes is one of them. But why would you listen to anything he says, especially about vaccination? 

I would, on the other (slow) hand, listen to Eric Clapton's thoughts on the matter. He was advised to get the jab by his doctor and it turned out to be a very bad decision. But thankfully he's come through the ordeal, and it's inspired him to create a new song. 

So ironic that his authentic, heartfelt expression makes him the outlier in his industry. He's remained true to his rebel roots. And isn't that what being an artist is all about? 

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Josh Thomas gets cancelled

CHAZ is rapidly becoming like a woke, vegan Thunderdome. But Artsville is not far behind. Only recently Aussie comedian Josh Thomas was mocked for being triggered by dairy product labels. The next day he was being devoured by the same folk he was tryna impress with that very overreaction. To say this was a case of "life imitating satire" would be an understatement. The woke mob are now more extreme than the fictional Titania McGrath herself. 

Turns out he was a panelist at some tax-funded wankfest or other a few years back. He said things about the casting of POC that ruffled feathers at the time. In the context of BLM the videotaped comments were deemed doubly offensive and he swiftly became a Pinata (if I'm allowed to use that analogy) for many PC lefties.

The discussion in which his appalling thought crime was committed seemed to have been about how to be an arty wanker and woke at the same time. The clip has been "infamous" for a while, apparently.

There's one particular part of the convo that is particularly damning for poor Josh. That's when Dan Harmon is stunned by the young Aussie's ignorance and/or insensitivity.

It seemed that this Harmon guy was seen as a pretty hip dude; some kinda authority on how to be culturally sensitive and super-creative at the same time. That's because another Josh-hater mentioned that very moment of humiliation, helpfully including a screenshot of it.

His name did ring a bell, though. I vaguely recalled that Harmon himself was in some kinda scandal or something. Twitter search gave me the answer almost instantly.

Given his worldwide fame it's unlikely the two Aussies cited above hadn't heard of this episode. So in Artsville some transgressions get a pass, while others (that most would prolly not be bothered by) are strictly verboten, it seems ... 

What a strange, sick world these hipsters inhabit. Sad!

Soon after the massive explosion of lefteous indignation over his comments from years ago Josh Thomas apologized. This was the worst thing he could have done. By doing so he ensured that this "admission of guilt" is wheeled out repeatedly in future, along with his "sin" against POC. He should've said "Hey woke wankers. Go take a flying fark at a rolling donut!" or something similar.

While Josh was still grovelling there was another cannibalistic feeding frenzy starting up. Meshel Laurie's Facebook comments re blackface from over a decade ago had triggered the Twitter trollective. 

But she was just expressing an opinion. It was perfectly reasonable and not racist at all. You don't need to be an expert to do that.

Again, she should have stood her ground, kept calm and stayed focused on the point she was making. But having willingly participated in PC pile-ons herself, and terrified of being on the receiving end for once, she wussed out bigly and claimed those weren't her comments at all because her account had been hacked!

Now she's in an even more dire situation than Thomas, because at least he never denied he'd made his sinful comments. And he couldn't have if he wanted to anyhow, since they were captured on tape.

In one sense all this carnage is kinda funny. And it's ironic that these two zealous promoters of cultural Marxism have now been devoured by it. But it's also really sad on many levels. 

This brutal, ugly ideology is what totally dominates Artsville along with many other professional spheres such as the mainstream media. If people who work in them don't start sprouting ball sacs pronto it's only gonna get worse. 

Almost all who succeeded bigly in Australia's entertainment industry have done so because of their willingness to regurgitate PC bollocks when required. But that very ideology is gonna bite 'em all on the arse eventually!

The solution is pretty simple. Instead of tryna narrow the boundaries of acceptable discourse and apply different standards according to racial and other categories, it's far better to open them up completely. Let people say what they reckon. And if others find that wrong, stupid, hurtful or whatever, then they can say what they reckon too! That way, as Walt Whitman so eloquently put it, "the powerful play goes on". The quality improves, too ... 

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PC Labor killed comedy and became a joke itself. Sad!

Back in the day when I was doing standup and character comedy in Melbourne I could see how political correctness was slowly poisoning the medium. It was one of the main reasons I gradually lost my enthusiasm for it.

I thought maybe there would be some kind of resistance against this creativity-killing force from the comedians themselves. We would certainly grumble about it often.

But nothing like that ever happened. That was because the Australian comedy scene -- much like in America and the UK -- is chockas with lefties and liberals. So, PC was seen as the lesser of two evils. Resisting it would mean you were a rightie, that most vile of creatures!

The monster of cultural Marxism has been getting increasingly ferocious over the years and even bit a chunk out of one of our greatest comic talents, Barry Humphries. He was officially condemned for thought crime by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival organizers and they even removed his name from an award!

This was a petty, nasty and humorless thing to do. Shows that they are the last people who should have anything to do with comedy. But sadly they control it utterly now right across the country. They make sure that the only shows that get featured at their events are dreary right-on fare.

That's why I thought it was quite symbolic that a major venue for the Sydney Comedy Festival (Sydney Town Hall) doubled as a polling place for the federal election last weekend.

While the Labor Party has not been quite as deeply infected by the mind virus as, say, the Greens, it's copped a bloody big dose of it and is clearly deeply unwell. Identity politics -- victim feminism in particular -- now dominates that party.

Given how many arts funding decisions are made by governments -- state ones in particular -- there's no doubt that the kind of entertainment on show at these festivals has a lot to do with what's been going on in the ALP.

As I entered the building to cast my vote I was dreading the thought that Labor would win, but still very optimistic that the LNP would retain government.

Thankfully this proved to be the case. While there were many economic and cultural forces behind the result, a substantial factor was clearly a widespread rejection of PC. Australians have had an absolute gutful of smug elitists telling them what they can say, think and feel. They elected a PM who understands their frustration and has pledged to address this problem.

He may not be warrior for plain speaking common sense on the scale of Trump. But I'm sure he'll do some serious work in dismantling the control matrix that these creepy totalitarians have built up over the years.

The challenge for Labor is to take a long hard look at itself and see how poisonous this ideology actually is. It not only makes the normies miserable but massively impacts their own prospects at the next election. They really need to dump it.

Something tells me they won't. That's sad.

I doubt that Aussie comics will either, since they're so beholden to their left-wing political parties and figures. That's sadder still.

How would Alvin Purple go down in the age of #MeToo?

So it seems that Paul Hogan reckons a dinkum reboot of Crocodile Dundee would be a good idea. Perhaps this is because of the widespread disappointment over the fact that the recent trailer for such a movie turned out to be nothing more than a Superbowl advertising gimmick to promote Australia as a tourist destination. 

Then there was the positive reaction to the #BringBackDundee campaign by the NT News, along with lots of other tweets and updates from fans across the world about why it would be worth making.

As I wrote before, I'm all for it. But it would only work if it was true to the spirit of the original. If, say, Chris Hemsworth reprised the iconic character (or played his son?) in a defiantly politically incorrect way it would trigger social justice warriors across the globe. Bonus!

And the idea of reviving this comedy classic has got me thinking about what it would be like to remake other great Aussie movies from the past. As well as The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, Alvin Purple comes to mind.

Now, on the surface it was just a naughty comedy about a plain lookin' dude who was utterly irresistible to women. But it was also a sly satire about feminism, censorship, and the sexual revolution in general.

Given that we are currently in an era easily as psycho-sexually tumultuous as the early seventies I reckon it could be a good time to, er, res-erect that ol' Purple fella in a balls to the wall reroot! If it were as unapologetically Rabellaisian as the original, I think the public would love it.

Still, gotta wonder how such a fillum would go down with the Aussie sisterhood. And these chicks are extremely influential in the local movie "industry", let's face it.

Given that the plot "subverts the dominant paradigm" by making the female characters sexual aggressors, I think some of these sheilas would see it as a real goer. But then there are the more puritanical frightbats who think that all sex is rape, etc., and would therefore be extremely unlikely to come across on the issue. They'd likely see any filmic flippancy about such a serious subject as yet another example of "toxic masculinity", and demand the project be shut down.

And even if such a production were to receive funding, you've gotta wonder if any well known male actors would be game to take part in it. The #MeToo movement sprang from Hollywood, remember. And it has had big time ramifications for big name Aussie actors such as Geoffrey Rush and Craig McLachlan.

While many of the claims of sexual assault and harassment are harrowing and certainly have the ring of truth, there are some that seem somewhat over-egged, to say the least.

Alvin Purple is a sex comedy, so the casting itself would necessarily include a couch -- or rather, waterbed. While the cavorting would of course be scripted, there's a very real possibility that an ambitious young actress might subsequently decide that some of the touching she received in the audition was "inappropriate" -- particularly if she didn't get the role. Which is why I think many red blooded young Aussie actors might perceive the project to be as "problematic" as the frightbats themselves and steer well clear of it.

So, all things considered the odds of a new Alvin on our screens are remote ... Still, rude for thought, eh?

Wait on! Alvina Purple, with an all female cast, could be the go. Would have a much easier path to production, that's for sure.

What do you reckon? Any more thoughts on this subject? 

Yes, let's #BringBackDundee. We should also #BringBackBazza!

The reaction to this recent Superbowl marketing stunt utilizing the classic Aussie comedy Crocodile Dundee has been fascinating. Seems that squillions of people are genuinely keen to see a fair dinkum reboot of the movie series!

The NT News has even been running a campaign to make it happen.

When I first heard about the idea of a sequel centred on Mick Dundee's son I thought it wasn't a very good one. But given the interest it's provoked in recent days I've actually warmed to it.

As far as I know the hoax trailer had Yank comic Danny McBride as the lead. But of course you'd need a real Aussie bloke playing the main character -- not some bloody seppo! I think Chris Hemsworth would do a great job.

Clearly the massive support for such a movie being made is driven in part by widespread frustration with political correctness. Without a doubt many Aussies believe that their country does have a distinctive national character, best exemplified by the laconic, blokey Dundee. Obviously this idea upsets the cultural Marxist crowd, which makes it still more appealing to local normies.

With that in mind there's another comical Aussie icon that I'm sure many people would love to see brought back to life on the silver screen: Barry McKenzie.

Bazza was one of Barry Humphries' best known creations from early in his career. (Here's the satirist's autobiography BTW. A fascinating read.) It was made into a commercially successful film by Bruce Beresford.

Not surprisingly this variation on the yobbo stereotype is distasteful to today's "culturally senstive" smart set. Guardian reviewer Luke Buckmaster's opinion of the McKenzie movie was a bit kinder than it was for Crocodile Dundee. But he still found the humour in it deeply offensive: 

The jokes in The Adventures of Barry McKenzie are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and guilty of virtually any other derogatory stereotyping you care to name. Bazza’s zingers include “When it comes to fleecing you, the Poms have got the edge on the Gypos”; “hungry Arab, would have dropped the bastard if he wasn’t qualified for the pension,” and “I’m that thirsty I could drink out of a Japanese wrestler’s jockstrap.”

Ha! The lefteous indignation that such jokes provoke (even if they themselves aren't that funny) is actually amusing in itself.  All the more reason this character should also be brought back to life, IMO. 

Musos' PC posturing ultimately unwise. But Colin Hay probably benefited short term

Some more thoughts on the unedifying mass tanty thrown by Australia's rock royalty: What they did was perfectly understandable. Rebellion is a common thread through all rock music, after all. And the establishment has long been seen as Christian and conservative.

I don't think that has actually been true since the fifties. But it's certainly long been a widespread belief ... So, for decades now if you wanted to be seen to be rebellious, you would set out to mock and offend those uptight Christian squares. And it was ultimately a good business decision.

Sure, you might have lost some sales as a result. But if you didn't obey the PC narrative there was no way you'd get access to that massive MSM megaphone, so crucial to commercial success. 

But that's all changed in the last coupla years. A helluva lot of people have really woken up to how dominant cultural Marxism actually is in so many institutions and industries. They're spooked about it -- energized as well. They are the rebels now. And unlike in the past, they now have a means to join forces and build a movement -- namely social media.

The cultural dynamic is very different now. Yet Darren Hayes, Jimmy Barnes et al were still playing by the old rules. That's why I think that in the long term they may be shocked by the public reaction to their dummy spit over Cory Bernardi's playlist.

It won't kill any of their careers, sure. But I suspect it (and other PC virtue signalling they subsequently engage in) will slowly erode their fan base and ultimately their income.
 
That said, I can see that in some cases it was prolly a good decision, at least short term. Take Colin Hay for example. 

Shuffling down Enmore Rd recently, I saw that the ol' trooper from Men At Work had a concert slated at the iconic Enmore Theatre.

As anyone in Sydney knows only too well this suburb, along with those surrounding it, is absolutely chockas with PC types. 

Now, I know that established musos tend to have diehard fans who will travel to see them. Still, I suspect that the combination of Hay being in the news sledging hate figure Cory along with all the local offline advertising would have resulted in quite a buzz about this one-off concert, which was actually held last night.

Not sure if he packed it out. But even if he didn't I suspect there were many more bums on seats than he would've had if he hadn't joined that attempted bolshie boycott of Bernardi's AC100 countdown on Australia Day. Fact that Hay's song "Down Under" came up as number one on it, therefore garnering some more media reports, wouldn't have hurt him either.

IMO he should actually thank the conservative pollie for the extra publicity! Something tells me he probably won't, though ... 

The Guardian's Luke Buckmaster frets about Crocodile Dundee's dangers

There has been talk about a Crocodile Dundee reboot with American comic Danny McBride playing Mick Dundee's son. But it looks like it's some sort of viral marketing stunt to boost tourism.

My own reaction to the possibility of this sequel: It would've been very unwise since Hogan himself was the perfect Dundee. Now that he's old and wrinkly it just wouldn't work. And attempting to get a younger Yank to carry off something so definitively Australian would just be cynical as -- a real case of flogging a dead croc. 

But that's not the main grievance from the sneering hipster set. Trapped in the thought prison of political correctness, they find the very idea of the larrikin Aussie bloke so memorably epitomised by the iconic Hogan character as appalling -- even socially dangerous -- in itself.  

A recent column by Luke Buckmaster of The Guardian is a case in point. Dude is so humorless, it's like a mini-comedy in itself -- a self parody to be exact.

Like so many on the cultural Left, he seems to believe art is not a mirror held up to (human) nature, but a tool to manipulate viewers into some kind of behavioral ideal. He seems not to understand that when people see a comedy they don't actually look for directions on how to live their lives. They just want to escape from reality for a while and have a laugh!

Of the rumoured project Buckmaster writes:

So if we assume the unthinkable: that this project is actually going ahead (though Screen Australia has not confirmed it), what would Dundee: The Son of a Legend Returns Home need to do to capture the spirit of the original three Crocodile Dundee movies, released in 1986, 1988 and 2001?

For starters, in addition to being vulgar and witless, the new film would need to be sexist, racist, homophobic and transphobic. It would need to have awkward jokes unfunny at the time of release and even less amusing when revisited years later.

"Sexist, racist, homophobic, and transphobic." Gawd. For today's serious young insects, they're like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!

And "unfunny" to whom? Surely not the millions of people across the globe who lined up outside theatres to watch the movie and laughed out loud at regular intervals as it was projected before them. Being one of them I remember this well.

Anyhoo, if Buckmaster's profile photo is any guide, it looks like he himself hasn't yet hit forty. Did he even see it in the cinema back then? If so, he must have been a mere whippersnapper -- and a sullen one at that. 

He then describes a scene he found particularly offensive: 

Take, for example, a scene from the original film, based in a pub in New York. Mick Dundee (Hogan) chats up a trans woman, before a friend pulls him aside: “I’ve been trying to tell you all night, that girl, she’s a guy!” Dundee responds by sexual assaulting her. He grabs the woman in the groin area, then points and yells: “A guy dressed up like a sheila! Look at that!”

The pub erupts into laughter and applause. There are high fives and back slaps.

Yeah, because it's like, a movie. It's not real. It wasn't actual sexual assault, and the scene wasn't somehow exhorting people to go out and commit violence against the transgender community. It was just a joke about the rural Aussie bloke Dundee's complete lack of urban sophistication (for want of a better word). 

Dundee sexually assaults another woman later on, in the same way, at an art gallery. His love interest Sue (Linda Kozlowski) consoles the distraught woman by saying: “It’s OK, he’s Australian.”

Again, not meant to be taken seriously. Also, a self mocking gag about our country's international reputation as a land of horny hicks.

Buckmaster doesn't just find the character of Dundee deeply threatening to today's social fabric. In his view the American woman who takes him to the Big Apple is also guilty of "wrongthink" (although this is ameliorated by the fact that she's a pawn of the patriarchy who lacks "agency").

Sue, a journalist, initially appears to have a reasonable amount of agency, before we learn she is dating her editor and her father is the publisher. During a quiet scene in the original movie (directed by Peter Faiman and written by Hogan, Ken Shadie and John Cornell), Sue complains to Dundee about a previous lover. She says this guy is a lefty type, “probably marching right now, for the gay Nazis or something”.

If poor Luke found that line upsetting, imagine how triggered he must have been by the late Bill Leak's brilliant toon!
 
Rather than make me look back in anger (or rather, sneering disdain) at the original Crocodile Dundee, elements like this increase my affection for it. Clearly, the film was lightheartedly reflecting some significant and enduring issues.

It wasn't trying to change the world. It was just having a laugh it what it was like! And isn't it interesting how much has remained the same? 

It's not just the rainbow fascism in particular, by the way. Think about that tranny scene mentioned above. Dundee's description of the "woman" as a "guy dressed up as a sheila" is now called "misgendering". It was a faux pas back then and now it's actually illegal in some parts of the Western world.

Dundee's blunt description basically captures the argument against transgender totalitarianism: A man dressed as a woman (with or without his genitalia surgically removed) is still not a real woman.

Hate to break it to ya, hipsters! The truth remains the truth, no matter how much you tell yourself otherwise.

That's why that scene, along many others in the original movie, will continue to get laughs -- even though Buckmaster and his sour-faced ilk are so appalled by them.