From: axolotl@socs.uts.edu.au (Iain Sinclair)
Subject: Re: Male violence and the 'Power Myth'
Reply-To: axolotl@socs.uts.edu.au
Organization: University of Technology, Sydney
Date: 28 Sep 92 08:53:59 GMT

andrewb@suite.sw.oz.au (Andrew Bettison) writes:
 >From the way
 >you've worded it, one could reasonably deduce that [...]
 >or a film about South African apartheid [is] "disturbingly one-sided"
 >in that all the black people are presented as poor and opressed, and the
 >white people affluent and privileged.

If you don't attempt to put things into context, it's very easy for
a film about emotive issues to get people making instant judgements.
In a film about apartheid, if all the blacks are victims and all the
whites are oppressors, the audience will react as "black=good" and
"white=evil".  (After all, does the audience personally know of any
violent South African blacks, or poor, unemployed South African whites?
Any South African residents at all?  Unlikely.)

Do you deny that audiences may be emotionally manipulated in this way?


 >The alternative, you seem to be implying,
 >would be a documentary showing interviews with "normal" men and
 >women, edited to be representative of society in general, and would
 >have nothing to say specifically about rape.

What's with this "either-or" stuff?  I wasn't implying any such thing.
I would think that a documentary on rape would provide something more
useful than sordid, voyeuristic descriptions of the act of rape.  All
that does is stir people up.


 >As far as I can see, he simply sets out to document
 >the experiences of specific people, rapists and their victims, and
 >does so using spoken interviews.

What if I made a documentary about men whose lives had been ruined
by, say.. women?  One might interview the women who had ruined men's lives,
and the men whose lives had been ruined.  At all times, one would pull
heartstrings, get tears flowing and say things like, "studies show that
90% of men have had their lives ruined by women at one time or another".

One would make no attempt to examine causes, to provide background, or
other information which would make the documentary useful.  And one
would assume that such a documentary would have your full support.


 >You seem to be putting your own words into Goldie's mouth again,
 >Iain, and your jab at the filmmaker's private life simply weakens
 >your credibility.

The filmmaker's private life has everything to do with his motivations
for making the film, and thus, what ends up on film.  Besides, they aren't
even my words -- they're from Helen O'Neill's Guide article, who was able
to conclude that "mateship" "must be destroyed" after seeing this documentary
(words which evidently had Goldie's blessing).


self:
 >> Last week, it was
 >> reported that Australian women are the second highest paid in the world
 >> (after Iceland), with 88c out of the (male) $1.
 
A:
 >I fail to see the relevance of this (unattributed) statistic to
 >the issue of sexual violence.

Who said it had anything to do with sexual violence?  The documentary
was trying to show that Australia was the worst place in the world for
women, by quoting supposed figures about sexual violence.   I was pointing
out that Australian women are very well-off by world standards, at
least financially.


 >Quoting an unsupported statistic is
 >pretty lame, Iain, considering your immediately preceding attack
 >on Goldie for doing the same.

Unsupported?  It was a nine-paragraph article in one of last week's SMHs.
I suppose you should go and dig it up if you really want to see how "lame"
I am.  Then you can tell me how guesstimates about # of victims reporting
rape, # of victims reported by rapists, etc. are so much more reliable
than straightforward statistics derived from publically available
numerical data.


 >I agree that this statistic seems rather extreme.

 >I agree with you that a documentary on rape has a mobid fascination

 >The ABC is partly affected by ratings

 >[these documentaries are] bound to exhibit sensationalism to a large degree;
 >it's practically mandatory for popular television format.

 >As for not providing insight into why men rape; first, I'd say
 >that's a pretty tall order for a two-hour documentary

You say that this documentary features absurd statistics,
that it is exploitative, that it has to pander to ratings, and that
it is unable to provide any productive insights?  Can't agree more.


 >the majority of our population, leading tedious and quietly
 >desperate lives...

 >So why don't you tell us what you _really_ think, Iain?

What do I really think?  I think, fuck you and your elitist sensibilities,
you inner-city deadshit.  But my hidden agenda forbids me to say so!



--
 Iain Sinclair    axolotl@socs.uts.edu.au