Australian culture has never been particularly well looked after in its home country. Decades of poor funding and even worse management has led to Australian’s creative traditions being devoured by American and European traditions. Few ordinary Australians could name an Australian painter or writer, possibly they could name a film or an actor. It’s a special kind of tradition that began almost as far back as the 1950’s and was described then as ‘the Cultural Cringe’ (Phillips).

Our uniquely Australian perspective is like a stubborn plant occasionally treated with liquid fertilizer, more often than not it’s casually sprayed with weed killer. It has not exactly thrived but managed to find a couple of patches of dirt in which its roots can grow and a few flowers can perhaps not bloom but at least reach maturity. 

Melbourne in particular, is a UNESCO City of Literature but has been let down on the state and  federal level by politicians who see the Arts as simply another financial wing of the Australian  economy: a profitable export. 

What I thought I might do is give you a list of some superb examples of Australian writing that you may be missing out on. I really do think that Australian culture is ill defined in its native country and internationally as well. If I can get you to do anything after reading this it is to read something Australian. 

Acute Misfortune, Erik Jensen (2014) 

If you can be bothered to read reviews, Acute Misfortune has been described extensively if a little  bit dismissively as being ‘novella sized’ and having a ‘gimlet eye’. As if the book was too small and  stuffed with bitter scrutiny to really be worth five stars. It is small and laser focused but it is also  capable of being a biting study of Australian identity to the attentive and sensitive reader. 

Acute Misfortune is the true story of Erik Jensen’s four-year friendship with the Australian painter  Adam Cullen set shortly before Cullen’s death in 2012. It doesn’t hold back. It uses real names and  tells the story as honestly as it can. It analyses why Cullen felt so pressured to behave the way he  did. Drugs, violence, guns and paintings. Substance abuse and shocking behaviour became crutches  holding up Cullen’s life and artistic career. 

Personally I blame former Prime Minister John Howard for all of this. I blame John Howard for a great deal actually. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s Paul Keating (John Howard’s predecessor) was determined to create a modern, aspirational Australia identity. A nation more in connection to Asia than America or the UK. A thousand, unique blossoms bloom in the garden kind of thing. Howard fundamentally disagreed with this idea. He argued that Australian identity was decisively western, conservative and collective. It was Australia Day, the idea of a fair go, the British Commonwealth and a general distrust of those who  aspire to rise above their station. It was what sat in your gut ,and that your first instinct is your best one.

I see the struggle of Adam Cullen’s life through that clash in Australian ideology. Cullen’s toxic masculinity was a facade, demonstrated to him by the country he inhabited. His rejection of the multifaceted, sophisticated life and his whole-hearted embrace of petty, uncomplicated Australiana is as much the fault of John Howard as it is the artistic landscape of the time. A time of high economic growth and stifled political debate both of which benefited those establishment figures who already possessed both wealth and prestige. What Howard argued was that the ‘Lucky Country’ became instead the ‘Frightened Country’. Scared of immigrants, change and in some cases the reality of the wider world (Marr).

Acute Misfortune is a fantastic and essential read for those people willing to look beyond just the beautifully constructed words on the page. For me, the book reads as a state of the nation in the early 2010’s. Still struggling to emerge from the shadow of Little Johnny Howard and the ignorance of our own cultural output he instilled in generations following his leadership of our large island nation.

Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe (2014)  

Dark Emu, in my opinion, is probably one of the most interesting books on Australian history you could read today. The intention behind Pascoe’s work is to provide an alternative perspective to Aboriginal history and challenge preconceived ideas of first settlers as primitive and technologically backward.

I’ll be honest with you, Pascoe’s work is by no means utterly faultless; there is arguably a cherry picking of sources and a focus on non-Aboriginal sources. But you have to understand how fascinating both the intention and the effect of Dark Emu had on Melbourne and Australia as a  whole.  

Pascoe argues that in pre-contact times, Australian Aboriginal people weren’t just hunter gatherers; they were agriculturalists who changed their landscape to benefit  their communities. Examples of this include aquaculture in rivers, more permanent kinds of  settlements, and the spreading of seeds. He also contends that this evidence of pre-colonial  Aboriginal societies was often deliberately erased by early colonisers. For some in Australia, the  idea of our enormous continent being anything other than a sunburnt wasteland drove people  literally insane with rage.  

If you read most reviews of Dark Emu, the perception of it is considered mixed. Reviewers talk  about the book’s popularity or use gentle, academic phrases like ‘sparked debate’ and  ‘generated controversy’. This language does not go far enough to convey the tangible effect of the book’s release. People were sincerely upset by this book: media personalities called the whole thing a sham and a  waste of paper. The book tore open holes in the minds of many Australians. Some individuals could  find no academic way of absolutely discrediting Pascoe, so they critiqued his standing as an Aboriginal person instead.  

People who I personally thought of as uninterested in Aboriginal rights, or just non-readers on the  whole, were outraged by Dark Emu at the dinner table. For some, it confirmed their greatest fears,  that Australians had invaded and destroyed a society that already existed here long  before we rocked up and started telling ourselves this was all grass and kangaroos.  

Pascoe doesn’t fall into the quagmire of elaborate language, he writes simply for what is ostensibly an academic book. A big reason why I recommend Dark  Emu is that it is designed to be easy to read and digest.  

More so than any other piece of fiction or nonfiction published in the last decade, Dark Emu has brought a discussion of Australia’s colonial history into the mainstream, and we are all the better for it.  

This House of Grief, Helen Garner (2014)

Helen Garner’s work is the chicken parmigiana of the Australian literary landscape. Her work is fundamental much in the same way the chicken parma is to the traditional pub landscape. Just as every  pub must have a chicken parma special during the week, so too must every Melbourne bookshop  have at least a couple Garners out the back. Much like the parma, she is a reliable seat-filler.

This true crime book is a heart breaking story of a father, Robert Farquharson destroying his family, by murdering his three sons, because he is a broken man. Garner contends that perhaps all men are capable of reaching their breaking point and committing such an act. To do something totally unforgivable. I think Garner hints in this book at the idea of Australian identity being a fragmented thing. An artificial construct designed to shield most people from the harsh realities of living in Australia. More than 95% of Australians are non-indigenous, with no real understanding of why we are here and our short-lived traditions are designed to shield us from that fact rather than help us embrace and overcome it. It helps to come to this land pre-broken, with some kind of family chip on your shoulder. We fight for, purchase and build upon broken, colonised land that was never ours to begin with. It makes sense as to why people and communities who live here can end up perhaps even just a little bit broken. Garner uses the story of Robert Farquharson as a kind of warning, we can all, in different ways, be pushed to a breaking point. 

Garner’s insight and perspective is razor focused. She provides a fascinating examination of Robert Farquharson’s female relatives, and the effect of the children’s deaths on Cindy Gambino and her family. Garner  offers a unique perspective on the world around her by drawing attention to her role as author and  witness rather than trying to blend invisibly in the background. 

Her familiarity with Australian life is why she has had such tremendous success. 1 in every 100 Melburnians claims to have actually met Helen Garner. At swimming pools, super markets, university lunches, book shops and out the front of flinders street station. She is a kind of special literary ghost. I suspect 1 in every 1000 actually has met her.

I saw her speak most recently in 2025 about her most recent book The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations on a Triple Murder, to a packed house at the Melbourne Town Hall. Her words have the ability to transfix and unify, and just as everyone has their favorite pub parma, everyone has their favorite Garner work. This House of Grief is both mine and my mothers.

Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers, Ryan  O’Neill (2016) 

They are not real authors, the book is a clever work of fiction. 

Now that I’ve got the headline out of the way. My comments and thoughts. Their Brilliant Careers tells the story of 16 fictional yet highly realized Australian authors, comprising 16 individual but interconnected short stories.

O’Neill was most obviously inspired by Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño, who in  turn was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges. However O’Neill does so much more than simply mimic  Bolaño or Borges. He gives each of his chosen subjects a unique Australian flair: some cling to the  city, others flee to the regions or the suburbs. There is a restlessness about these characters that the  author captures perfectly with a clean and crisp prose. There is a stylised exactness about this  collection that makes it one of my favourites. Of the individual authors my favourites would  probably be Francis X McVeigh, Vivian Darkbloom and Helen Harkaway. There is a precision and emotion in each of these characters that touches me deeply and personally. I feel like given the right (or wrong) mix of choices I could end up just like them. 

The first time I read the book the individual stories were entertaining, but I didn’t fully appreciate the specifically Australian position of the work. It is a warm and comforting read the second time around. It’s a literary Kath and Kim. A humorous and gently affirming experience that enhances your perspective on what Australian culture can be. 

Their Brilliant Careers works so well because O’Neill is commenting on an absence. There is no  tangible literary landscape in the capital cities or the regions of this country. There are no libraries, cafes or restaurants or small towns famous for its cultural inhabitants. There are small clubs, reading circles and communities scattered like warts on a beautiful face. These blemishes are networking events rather than actual meaningful places of conversation and discussion. Culture is not something ingrained into our society. It has latched on like a parasite. The art, music, theatre, literature and creativity on our continent clings desperately to a hulking beast with Australia branded across its backside.

I enjoy Their Brilliant Careers because of the cultural absence it identified in Australia. There are no real literary cults set up around our writers or journalists in the way they are in America (see Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison or Truman Capote for more details). Their Brilliant Careers uses imaginative prose and compact storytelling to explore a kind of literary what if in Australian culture.

The Henson Case, David Marr (2008) 

This non-fiction selection is a hard find, but that, to me, is part of the experience of enjoying a really good book. It’s light and easy to read. The book explores the cultural fallout surrounding the 2008 raiding of a Sydney gallery.

The ‘case’ was a simple one. Bill Henson had been a professional, practising photographer since the mid-1970s.  He had cultivated institutional as well as social support for his work and had several major exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney. Marr recounts the photographer’s exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney, and the public media furore  that emerged from its invitation. The author takes a certain delight in naming and shaming those who first  brewed this storm of scandal.

The uproar around Bill Henson’s photos rose to such a level of outrage that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd,  described the photos by Henson as “absolutely revolting”. This, for Marr, was the final betrayal. A failure of leadership from a politician who had promised change, who had advocated for the arts when it was convenient, but chose to deliver populist scorn instead. This is the main thrust of Marr’s argument: if we live in the free democracy promised to us, we should have the right to express ourselves,  and to do so without being immediately strung up for crossing unspoken social taboos. Marr takes a refreshingly moderate approach in his criticism and acknowledges that his work is not for everyone. His position is that of strict anti-censorship. 

I think this book reminds its readers of modern events and foreshadows the  cultural quagmire some feel themselves sinking into. First and foremost for me, it would be the removal and reinstatement of Khaled Sabsabi as Australia’s representative at the 2026 Venice  Biennale. Sabsabi was controversially dumped only to then be quietly reinstated as Australia’s representative. His ‘crime’ was depicting Palestinian political figures in his paintings (Jefferson). The fact that Sabsabi, a professional artist has to justify his political perspective and how it relates to his work is an insult to any artist, but particularly to an Australian creative landscape who applauds the socially-aware work of Kaylene Whiskey because it appears harmlessly inoffensive (Silcox).

Interestingly, the title, The Henson Case, also hints at the resolution. Because there was no ‘Henson  Trial’ or ‘Oxley9 Trial’. No charges were ever issued against anybody for these images. Something  happened, some vein was pressed too tightly in the hearts of ordinary Australians.

If Helen Garner is to be a chicken parma, I would argue David Marr is to be a Vodka Soda with Lime. His writing is fundamental. On the surface, you imagine it to be something cheap and simple. Beneath that, you have something that kicks the back of your throat (or the mind, in Marr’s case) when you  really need it to. He is one of the few Australian authors I can think of who will argue with you as a reader and actively try to work you over to his side. He writes convincingly of how individual cases of censorship like this one can cause lasting damage to the Australian cultural landscape. 

These are all really excellent books and well worth a read. Even if you only read one you  will be doing yourself a tremendous favour. If these reviews do anything they should inspire you to support and visit Melbourne. It’s a literary landscape desperate for your attention. It’s in my opinion the greatest city in the world and beyond reproach. I would know because I have never lived anywhere else.

My hope is that, in the future, we see a recognition of Australia as a really unique and special place deserving of cultural attention. We live in what can feel like the perfect beginner’s level to life. Artists like Kaylene Whiskey, Brett Whiteley and Adam Cullen. Writers like Helen Garner, David Marr and Henry Lawson. These are established individuals who I feel have long gone unrecognized for their skill and talent because of their identity. If I want you to do anything I would encourage you to read and embrace something Australian, before it vanishes in a puff of poorly-funded air.

Citations

Jefferson, Dee. After a turbulent year, Australia’s Khaled Sabsabi will present two works at the Venice Biennale. Sydney, The Guardian, 2026. The Guardian Newspaper

Marr, David. His Master’s Voice: The Corruption of Public Debate Under Howard. Quarterly Essay 26 ed., Melbourne, Black Inc., 2007. Accessed 17/5/2026.

Phillips, A. A. The Cultural Cringe. 4th ed., Brisbane, Meanjin, 1950, https://meanjin.com.au/essays/the-cultural-cringe-by-a-a-phillips/. Accessed 16/4/2026.

Silcox, Beejay. The joyful world of Kaylene Whiskey: the Indigenous artist pulling Dolly Parton and Wonder Woman into the outback. Melbourne, The Guardian Newspaper, 2025

The post 5 Aussie Reads appeared first on The New Absurdist.

In the following review, Rowan M. offers her experience as a girl with a Jewish background who took the initiative to personally learn about what is going on in Palestine. A special thank you to this contributor for her research, and collaborating with the New Absurdist to share her thoughts on these Palestinian films and documentaries.

Rowan M:

While watching these films, I felt both enraged and helpless seeing the way people of Gaza and Palestine were being treated. Each of these films gave me a new perspective and allowed me to learn more about a history that our own educational system has failed to teach us. Much of the content made my stomach turn with sadness, some of the more graphic moments making me cry because of how frustrated I felt. All I could think was, “If I feel like this just WATCHING these events, I can only imagine what it’s like for those facing it first hand”. Films like these remind me how much I still have left to learn about the world.

These films do not have “happy endings”, but rather honest depictions of real life. Each one of these films reminded me how important it is for us, as human beings, to have enough empathy to learn about and help those who are facing such intense oppression. And while I don’t have much to my own name, I will continue to do what I can in order to support Palestine and call for a ceasefire to the ongoing genocide we are witnessing. As the saying goes, “You don’t need to be Palestinian or Muslim to support this fight, you just need to be human”, and we need a lot more humanity now than ever before.

The five films Rowan watched are:

1. Farha
2. Born in Gaza
3. Omar
4. The Present
5. Habibi

Film Synopsis and Review: (Spoiler Alerts!) 

1. Farha: Based on a true story, this film focuses on a young Palestinian girl during the year 1948, who dreams of expanding her education and pursuing schooling in the city rather than get married. However, just as her father is finally allowing her to follow these dreams, it all comes crashing down. Their village is suddenly attacked, bombs flooding the area. Rather than running to escape with her friend, Farha stays behind to try and help her father. She ends up being locked away in a pantry in order to remain safe. Her father promises to come back for her, leaving her trapped for days, running out of food, water, and hope. We also see glimpses of how the IDF soldiers treated her community. In one graphic scene a family attempting to hide is killed, and their newborn son left to lay on the ground due to the IDF soldier not having the heart to crush the baby (since they didn’t wish to “waste a bullet”). The film ends with Farha finally escaping the pantry, seeing both the dead child, and the now abandoned area she once called home. As she leaves, she can only wonder where her father is, though she never saw him again after these events. She lived on to tell her story.
   


2. Born in Gaza: This documentary focuses on the violence of the Israel-Palestine conflict and its effects on the children of Gaza. It follows the story of about ten children who describe what their daily life is like after the horror of the war during the summer of 2014. It details memories they have about specific attacks and bombings, and reflects the trauma they face in regards to it all, including how they are unable to receive much help or mental support.
   


3. Omar: This film explores the lives of three close friends and what it is like for them as freedom fighters living under the control of the Israeli military. After another incident facing violent mistreatment, the three carry out a dangerous mission to attack the IDF in order to support the resistance, killing one of the soldiers in the process. Omar is eventually arrested and faces brutal torture by the IDF. He ends up agreeing to be an informant for them to avoid remaining in jail,  (and also for the sake of his sweetheart). However, he hides his true motives and remains loyal to his alliances, leading to an intense and in depth look at the conflict between Palestine and Israel.
   


4. The Present: A short film about a father and daughter in the Palestinian enclaves of the Israeli-occupied West Bank trying to buy a wedding anniversary gift for the mom of the family. This story explores the difficult life Palestinians face within the West Bank, showing that what would be the most simplest things for some is not for them. It includes the absurd challenges they face as well, trying to navigate a system that is built against them as they do their best to survive.


5. Habibi: This film depicts a modern retelling of a forbidden love story between 7th-century poet Qays ibn al-Mulawwah and his one and only Layla, who meet each other while studying at school. It shows a glimpse into stereotypical roles within their home lives, and the expectations they face as they try to navigate an already deadly world around them. We see how they are mistreated by others, and what happens when they try to run away and together, being harmed by IDF soldiers in the process.

All five films are available to stream on Netflix (US) 

Further watch list (and credit for cover image): Palestine Film Institute

Decolonize Palestine: Reading List

Literary Hub: 40 Books to Understand Palestine

This Is Not A Watermelon by The New Absurdist

The post 5 Palestinian Films to Watch appeared first on The New Absurdist.

In the animated Netflix original Kipo, the titular character, Kipo is biracial Black and Korean. The two supporting human characters, Wolf and Benson are Black. Benson openly announces he is gay and Kipo and Wolf are debated amongst fans to be queer-coded. The rest of human society is filled with multiracial characters and peaceful racial coexistence is the norm, at least among humans. 

As a biracial Asian American growing up, it was rare for me to see this level of racial representation in film or animated children’s media. Nowadays, it’s apparent that representation of all kinds is becoming more important especially with younger audiences seeking out more content that reflects their demographic.

Kipo Fandom Wiki: Kipo And the Age of Wonderbeasts poster

To speak a little about the plot: 

Kipo has been living in the Burrow her whole life in an underground, suburban coded utopia (and quite literally sub-urban, as she lives below a city) for humans where they can protect themselves from the surface world, where mutated animals known as “mutes” dominate. When she is accidentally separated from her family in a mega-monkey mute attack, Kipo goes on a mission to get back home, meeting friends and making allies along the way. Kipo’s world is set 200 years in a post-apocalyptic future, and the range of race and sexuality are easily accepted, addressed, and normalized. The main issue of discrimination and specifically racial tension focuses on the animosity between humans and mutes. 

Racial Redesigns

Kipo and the Age of WondersBeasts was first created in 2015 by Radford Sechrist as a webcomic. It was eventually turned into an animated series by Dreamworks and Netflix, and all three seasons were released in rapid succession in 2020. 

While the TV series starts off fairly similar to the original webcomic in plot and character roles, many racial aspects of the main characters were changed. Benson was changed from a middle aged white man into a young Black teen. Wolf is redesigned from a racially ambiguous, potentially Asian character to match voice actress Syndney Mikayla ‘s Black American ethnicity. And while Kipo looks the same as she does in the webcomic, she was not originally created to be the bispecies, biracial (Blasian) character that she is in the show (Kipo was originally intended to be Korean, but her character was not redesigned to reflect changes in the show). 

Images from Kipo Fandom Wiki, From Left to Right: Benson, Wolf, Kipo

Radford Sechrist has offered up some reasons through interviews and comments on Reddit, one of them being that the producers wanted the characters all to be kids and for Kipo to be “special” somehow.

What does it mean to be special? The transformation of Kipo’s character from a mono-racial, human character to a biracial, bi-species character has done two things. Her biraciality on her human side can be read as a symbol for her dual species. Furthermore, the purple skin offers viewers a foreshadowing indication of her mute DNA. It can also be read as a way the show codes Kipo’s Blackness and status as POC.

In the history of animated film, there has been a pattern of portraying POC, particularly Black people as animals or in colors that deviate from skin tone to indicate a non-humanness to them. Tiana, the Black main character in The Princess and the Frog spends most of the movie as a green frog. Similarly, the Black main character, Lance Sterling, in Spies in Disguise turns into a pigeon.  In Soul, Joe Gardener is immediately turned into an amorphous blue blob and literally disembodied. At one point in the film, a white woman’s soul even inhabits his Black body – animating a black man’s body through the desires and thoughts of a white woman.

People of Color have historically been depicted in animation as non-human characters that appear to exist outside racial constructs. By portraying POC as whimsical colored or as creatures, the animation industry can attempt to circumvent accusations of racism while still appealing to white audiences with the humiliation and exploitation of non-white characters. These character designs of POC skirt realistic depictions and stories as a way to appeal to that demographic that historically only mattered (with their buying power): white audiences.

Despite Kipo’s mostly successful attempts to provide representation that doesn’t rely on negative stereotypes surrounding race, it does still end up using established racial tropes in animation that viewers are already familiar with in their visual vocabulary. 

Multiracial Asians in Film and Animation

The show actively plays on Kipo’s racial ambiguity to build up the postmodern, suburban utopia that Kipo grows up in: “The Burrow.” The show introduces Kipo’s father as her primary caretaker, making it immediately clear that despite Kipo’s appearances, she is indeed Black. And because Kipo’s mother’s Korean ethnicity and Part-Mute nature are not revealed until later on in the series, Kipo’s character design and story arc become heavily tied into her own racial ambiguity. Both Kipo and the audience learn more about her heritage the further we watch the series. 

In addition to Kipo, the Burrow has quite a few racially ambiguous and multi-racial characters in the background and ensemble cast including Troy Sandoval, who is also a multiracial person, this time of Asian and Latino descent. Troy too, joins Kipo on her mission of resolving tensions between the mutes and humans and ends up befriending a giant frog named Jamack.

Kipo Fandom Wiki: Troy Sandoval

The coding of ‘white’ and ‘black’ can change between the mute world and the human world.  In season 2, “The Ballad of Brunchington Beach” a mute restaurant refuses to serve humans, mirroring twentieth century American racial segregation. In the same episode, the TheaOtters put on a show stereotyping and dramatizing Team Kipo and other humans, which seems to allude to minstrel shows in which white people would put on blackface to entertain white audiences. It’s interesting to note that as these acts of racism take place against humans on the mute dominated surface world, the three main human characters in which these acts of racial violence occur are all black.

Troy and Kipo both share a multi-racial Asian identity. As multiracial people, they serve as an example of a film trope where multiracial characters act as a bridge between cultures.  Through these characters, the animation is able to represent racial differences between humans without actually addressing racial issues during the script. Furthermore, because of their status as Asian Americans, they are members of “both the targeted, racialized, group in US immigration policy and yet [part of] the least ‘colored’ group in racial debate. Asian Americans offer a charged site where American nationhood invests much of its contradictory desires and anxieties.’ The prominence of peaceful racial coexistence amongst humans as evidenced by multiracial people indicates that this is a postmodern society where humans live in a race free utopia.

The idea that multiracial people are symbols of the declining significance of race also lends itself to the future that Kipo is working towards: a world where humans and mutes thrive and live together peacefully without adversity. The explicit identification of multiracial characters in Kipo can be read as a symbol for hope, for a future where ‘color-blindness’ is the norm and racial categories are continuously blurred.

This comes with its own set of qualms, as it can ignore much of the context of racial upbringing and cultural heritage that comes with being a Person of Color, let alone one with a mixed background.        

Multiracial Ambassadors

Kipo is what we call a multiracial ambassador in Hollywood, a persona well established in film history. The multiracial ambassador is a main character who often appears in action films that is supposed to reflect the diversity of younger generations and their interests in seeing people who represent them. Instead of relying on brute strength, the contemporary action hero is distinguished by, in the words of Mary Beltran, “their natural ability to navigate in, command respect and when necessary, kick ass in a variety of ethnic communities.”

The multiracial ambassador normally operates within a multiethnic cityscape, a setting that appears frequently in Hollywood action films. It is appropriate then, that Kipo’s world is set in a reimagined Los Angeles called “Las Vistas.”

Las Vistas, Kipo Fandom Wiki

One of the key features of the Hollywood multiethnic cityscape are turf wars based on racial tensions. We see this in the gangster films in the 20s and 30s, social problem films from the 40s, and movies concerning white flight in the 50s and 60s. Non-white people were seen as violent criminals in urban centers, prompting white people to flee to the suburbs.

For those who have seen Kipo, this may ring some bells. Humans retreat to the safe societies they built below the surface, far away from the upper world where dangerous mutes live on the surface. Despite the racial diversity of the human characters in Kipo, the humans can be read as symbols for white society in relation to the mutes. The predominant narrative surrounding mutes in the Burrow is that they are uncivilized and dangerous.

But with the appearance of the multiracial ambassador, such as Kipo, characters are able to navigate complicated and nuanced racial tensions  Kipo is able to navigate relationships between humans and mutes not purely because of her biraciality, but because she is willing to listen to others and develop connections with people. However, her biracial-ness mirrors this cultural savviness.

Political Blackness

Kipo’s portrayal as both a black and Korean character also allows the world’s environment and music- a core theme in the show- to be built around her: Black and Korean musical themes and cultural references are woven through the fabric of the show. However, while this ‘cultural Blackness’ is celebrated, ‘political Blackness’ (including the persistence of racism) is disguised more as a class struggle, similar to the conflict between Mutes and humans. Kipo’s biraciality and Black identity is diluted as an appeal to mainstream pop culture, and a more fantastical interspecies conflict of humans vs. animal Mutants.

While the plot of Kipo heavily relies on considering racial tensions and discrimination, the show avoids directly acknowledging the way that Blackness affects and shapes the characters’ lives. In terms of the postmodern future, animation and science fiction tends to see human society as color-blind, yet at the same time uses racial allegory to create the ‘other’ the same way POC have been ‘othered’ and dehumanized in film history. The tensions between the Mutes and the humans can be read as an allegory for racial tensions we have had in human history and are having currently.  However, the post-racial lenses that show views of the human world in Kipo don’t acknowledge racism in human history or how it may affect this fictional future, instead focusing it on the adversity between humans and mutes.

Final Thoughts

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for an animated series with beautiful world-building and well-developed characters. I think the steps it takes towards building well developed and diverse characters are highly notable and to be commended. However, I think it’s important to acknowledge the circumstances in which Kipo was created to be a multiracial character.

 Kipo builds on a legacy of multi-racial tropes in Hollywood and takes advantage of popular trending ideas of our time such as Black hip hop, anime, and LGTBQ representation to create an action TV series that is neatly packaged for younger and older audiences alike. The show skirts over the political context and histories for its human characters in favor of more light-hearted and marketable content. At the same time, it attempts to touch on complicated issues regarding racial discrimination and prejudice through Mute-human interaction.

 This post-apocalyptic, post-modern future of humans aspires to be a post-racial utopia where a multiethnic population can thrive, first in terms of multi-ethnic humans and by the end of the series, for both humans and mutes, now deemed ‘Wonderbeasts.’ 

There is further work to be done in animation yet in creating multi-ethnic characters without their identity ‘becoming’ the plot, and in acknowledging the political and cultural heritage of People of Color, but I am optimistic and look forward to the progress being made by creators in the industry.

The post Kipo: Biraciality and Blackness appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Leading up to its theatrical release, Greta Gerwig’s third feature film continues to be all anyone and everyone have been talking about. This and of course, its tonal and seemingly gendered juxtaposition with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023): a beautifully organic, fan-driven internet phenomenon that will forever hold a black-and-pink space in cinema history. 

But I want to focus on the woman of the hour herself. The doll. The myth. The legend. Barbie. (Trademark of Mattel Inc.) 

Who is she behind the painted face? What was she made for? 

Growing up, I hated Barbie. But not for any socially relevant reason like the size of her (white) body or internalized misogynistic one like the perceived size of her brain as suggested by her blonde hair, love for fashion, and 1992 struggles in math class. 

I hated Barbie like I hated all hard dolls. I hated the way their plastic bodies felt. I hated that it hurt if you stepped or fell on top of them. And quite frankly, they scared me. Barbies, Bratz, American Girls, you name it. Before I opened presents at my birthday parties ages 3 to 5, I would announce this to the friends and family gathered around me, immediately making several of my parents’ friends feel bad as they had inevitably bought these dolls for me as a kind, thoughtful gesture. I even wrote a whole essay about my hatred and fear of hard dolls in the third grade; it really was that serious. 

Instead, I played with Groovy Girls, Manhattan Toy’s line of fashionable dolls. They were marketed as the funky and more ambiguously diverse alternative to Barbie and introduced to me by my aunt for that exact reason. But their most important feature? They were soft and I could sleep comfortably with them in bed. (There was an East Asian-looking Groovy Girl named Caring Caitlin, but at 5 years old, I didn’t have the language nor context to express why that meant so much to me at the time.) 

Groovy Girls were not as popular as Barbie. Not even close. In 2019, Manhattan Toys retired the Groovy Girls, while Barbie today and more broadly, Mattel, are stronger than ever. Those poor Groovy Girls never had a chance. Since her creation in 1959, Barbie has always been more than just a doll. She herself is a brand with over 40 films (I adored many of them as a child despite hating the doll itself), TV shows, a now taken down-website filled with online games, skincare/makeup lines, and clothing. 

She also embodies a movement: packaged yet personified feminism of the past and present. She’s held over 200 jobs and with that, has her own money, dreamhouse, plane, etc. Barbie was the first toy to reflect and encourage the unique aspirations of little girls. They didn’t have to play and train for motherhood anymore; now they could be whoever they wanted to be. As the 2023 film so accurately states, “Humans only have one ending. Ideas live forever”: a sentiment that summarizes the great reckoning Margot Robbie’s Barbie confronts and the reason behind the commercial success of Barbie the doll. 

Greta Gerwig, along with the actresses in the film, will be the first to tell you that Barbie is “most certainly a feminist film.” Robbie Brenner, Executive Producer of Mattel Films, and other Mattel executives are quick to say the exact opposite. Whose words do we believe? Whose words hold more weight? Is it Gerwig, the woman who co-wrote and directed this film, or is it Brenner, the woman spearheading the years-long rollout of the next MCU: Mattel Cinematic Universe? (More on that later.) 

Greta Gerwig is an artist. A visionary. A filmmaker. Robbie Brenner, as she stands as Executive Producer, speaks for Mattel, the multinational corporation whose executive leadership team consists mostly of men. In fact, in the over 60 years Barbie has existed, Mattel has never identified Barbie as explicitly feminist; instead, she’s been associated with vague promotions of female empowerment and girl power. “Feminist” is too politically charged for Barbie; it’s us, society at large, that has projected feminism onto a plastic doll. 

Where does this leave a film that’s smashing box office records with a multimillion-dollar omnichannel marketing campaign to match? 

Well, as it will reveal—perhaps in a punchy five-minute-or-so monologue—somewhere sort of in between. 

Spoilers ahead. 

True to Barbie canon, every Barbie in Barbieland is…everything. She’s the President, a mermaid, a diplomat, a lawyer, a doctor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the Supreme Court Justices, a Nobel Prize-winning author, and a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. The lead protagonist, Margot Robbie’s Barbie, is “Stereotypical Barbie,” presumably a fashion model and the enduring original from 1959. She’s the brand, nay cultural icon, the feminist, nay fascist symbol, the role model, nay impossible beauty standard. She’s the most everything anyone could ever be. 

And the film does its best to acknowledge and tackle this dichotomy, albeit in chaotic, rushed scenes. You have to remember: Mattel’s CEO is watching Barbie’s every move, both Will Ferrell’s unnamed character in the film and the actual current Mattel CEO, Ynon Kreiz. 

(Barbie’s also a major plastic pollutant and the factories she’s made in have a long history of unsafe and inhumane working conditions, but that’s a bigger issue that doesn’t begin and end with Barbie. Mattel would never want you to know that though.)

Margot Robbie’s performance as Barbie is grappling with the culmination of ideals, expectations, and politics she represents is a marvel to behold. But it is America Ferrera’s monologue as Gloria, receptionist to Mattel’s CEO (Ferrell’s version), that has followed people long after they leave the theater. Ferrera articulates the sobering reality of the female experience, answering the film’s central question: if all this pressure is placed upon a doll, how does this manifest for women in the real world? 

Literal impossibility. A paradox that would make philosophers the likes of Plato and Bertrand Russell shudder. 

Gloria’s feminism is pure. It’s real. It’s relatable. 

At the same time, it’s pretty uncontroversial and not revolutionary; in other words, it’s perfect for Mattel. This merely enhances the trendy Barbiecore aesthetic taking the world by storm. 

Feminism goes far beyond the individual. It’s systemic. It’s global. It’s inherently political. 

That isn’t to say Barbie is completely devoid of 21st century politics. One can deduce where Gerwig stands on more contentious social issues concerning Americans today, say for instance the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. In Barbieland, the Supreme Court is packed with women until Ryan Gosling’s Ken, who I have purposely not mentioned until now, brings patriarchy and unravels everything the Barbies have ever worked for in a day. 

With the issue of bodily autonomy, Barbie just scratches the surface. The key difference is these hints are far more subtle than the otherwise spoon-fed messaging on what it means to be a woman. Mattel has to appeal to the pro-lifers after all. 

But I’ll cut the film some slack. The overt yet simple feminism of Barbie works for the narrative too. The Barbies are still dolls, empty vessels made of toxic plastic. In the end, Robbie’s Barbie decides to become human, accepting that she will realize how much worse the real world is in time. 

This time, however, she won’t be experiencing it alone. She has Gloria and Gloria’s daughter, Sasha, to lean on. Gloria may be a Mattel employee, but she’s, more importantly, the owner of Robbie’s Barbie. 

Which brings me back to my original question. Who is Barbie? 

When we push everything we’ve pushed onto Barbie aside, what is left? 

A doll. No, still not just any doll. She’s your doll.

She’s an extension of every child that’s played with her. 

And Mattel knows this. Boy, do they. 

Fourteen Mattel properties are in active development for their respective film adaptations including but not limited to Barney, Polly Pocket, American Girl, Hot Wheels, UNO, View Master, and more. 

Hollywood has our nostalgia in a chokehold, squeezing out every last dollar. 

Who cares about the controversies that have plagued Mattel as a corporation? Thanks to Barbie, they now have enough advertising to distract us for at least a decade. Unlike Will Ferrell’s character, Ynon Kreiz is no bumbling idiot. 

I get it, I do. If by some miracle there’s a Groovy Girl film, you know I’ll be the first in line. 

As another self-proclaimed pop culture nerd, I’ve fallen victim to the consumerist dystopia that comes out of fictional “utopias” such as Barbieland. (I’m staring right at my Harry Potter and Marvel Funko Pop collection.) You can use fantasy and capitalism as an escape! 

It’s not wrong to be nostalgic. It’s not wrong to revisit our favorite stories—in this case, toys—and reimagine them with a fresh new take. Greta Gerwig had a point to make. A point that was diluted to appease a billion dollar company, but a point nonetheless. 

The announcement of Robbie Brenner’s MCU has me nervous. The joint success of Barbie and Oppenheimer is exciting and yet it is happening against a backdrop of a historical double SAG-AFTRA and WGA strike. We talk of million dollar earnings when there are writers and actors who can barely afford to live. 

Barbie is feminist and it is not. 

Barbie belongs to you and she does not. 

At the core of Barbie, the film, and Barbie, the doll, is a fascinating push-and-pull between art and money, consumer and corporation. 

Looking back, Groovy Girls were not nearly as interesting. (I love them dearly, Bác Xuyến/Aunt Kelly; I’m kidding.) 

If only I had inserted myself into this conversation sooner as a 3 year old.

The post What Was Barbie Made For?  appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Let them eat McDonalds says director, Mark Mylod, with one of Searchlight Picture’s newest star-studded original films, The Menu. There’s a lot going for this film: Ralph Fiennes’ hypnotic performance as psychopath Gordon Ramsay, a hauntingly memorable score by Colin Stetson, and Peter Deming’s masterful camerawork weave gorgeously together to create what really is an entertaining time with friends and family. But sadly, that’s where the buck stops.

At the end of the day, the film rings hollow: there’s enough Christopher Nolan brand spectacle and pseudo-intellectualism to satisfy most viewers exiting the theater (or more likely, turning off their streaming device), but you’re left with a sour taste once you inevitably realize that there is no depth to the film at all.

Class is used as a buzzword in the hopes that the film will appear profound, but frankly, the message of the film is insulting. The protagonist is named Margo, a sex-worker who manages to escape because she fulfills the crazed chef’s fantasy of having his high-end food rejected for a ten dollar cheese burger to go. Chef Slowik, his staff, and the wealthy clients trapped on the island perish explosively as Margo hungrily scarfs down the burger on the boat she escapes on. 

So what’s the message? Satisfy the white man in power if you want to survive? Flipping burgers is more fulfilling than pursuing your passion? Whatever hang ups you might have about Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion (assuming you’ve watched it), it’s hard not to admit that the imagery it closes with is powerful and evocative of radical leftist rebellion; unlike The Menu, Glass Onion actually says, eat the rich.  

Mylod writes in a snooty critic to dismiss criticism as a whole, insinuating that they destroy artists arbitrarily because they are given too much authority— that artists can’t fail because their work… might not actually be that good. And Tyler, played by Nicholas Holte, is created to criticize fans who obsess over things they can’t do themselves. It’s as if to say that only people who know how to do it should enjoy it, whatever it may be. 

The film, like Fight Club, The Dark Knight, and American Psycho, is essentially about cults and intoxicating cult leaders. But unlike the movies mentioned, the ideology and allure of the cult is never developed in The Menu, robbing it of the entire premise’s appeal. We watch people burn themselves alive for Chef Slowik, but we never quite get why, and that’s extremely disappointing!   

I desperately wanted to love the film, but it’s best described as a bunch of interesting ideas, loosely strung together in the hopes that viewers will make something of it. Once it’s in their hands though, it quickly falls apart and any meaning you might try to extract from the film ceases to make sense once you think about it for two or three seconds. There are a lot of reasons to watch it — just don’t be surprised when you’re left hungrier than before. 

The post The Menu: Beautiful Presentation… But Lacks Substance appeared first on The New Absurdist.

The start of the video puts the women in a position of control: the three women in the scene outnumber the one man, Danny, who they initially ignore as they laugh amongst themselves. He presents them with ideas for the “I Luh Ya Papi” that they are free to reject and even mock. The clothes they wear aren’t intended to be sexually provocative, but are more colorful than Danny who wears all black. He is also seated far away from the women, and rarely shares the camera with them: he is often outside the frame of the women and the women are often outside the frame of the man. However, part of Danny or Lopez’ head is visible in each frame to indicate whose point of view we are looking from. 

This is all to say that the first (and last) section of the video does confront viewers with an interesting dilemma. The three women are overpowering and excluding a man who seeks their approval – he is the one surveying himself and they are the surveyors. This relates to what John Berger writes about the physical presence of a man: “A man’s presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies. If the promise is large and credible his presence is striking. If it is small or incredible, he is found to have little presence… a man’s presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you” (198). Danny’s presence, in this sense, is disparagingly small in comparison to Lopez and her friends. As communicated by the framing that separates them, the lighting that illuminates the environment and eradicates any sense of danger or power he might hold over the women, the difference in clothes that they wear, and the nature of their relationships with one another, Danny is completely powerless and the women are completely powerful. They are the ones who are capable of doing something to or for Danny, subverting Berger’s idea of a man’s presence and promise of power to that of women. The larger argument this section of the video might make is that men can work harder to earn the acceptance of women, whether professionally or socially.   

The messaging of the video begins to shift once Lopez’ friends point out that the music video ideas that Danny presents are based on Lopez being a woman. They claim every music video has men objectifying women, and then they describe what a music video might look like if women objectified men instead, transitioning into the body of the music video. The problem is that the music video they dream of still serves a male spectator. Lopez, in the first shot of the mansion music video, wears high-heels and a jacket that emphasizes her cleavage. Then the video transitions to a shot where Lopez and her two friends lean on a massive black car while dressed in provocative denim shorts and shirts, their legs contrasting brightly against the shadows of the driveway. Although the women talk about a video objectifying men, so far, Lopez and her friends are being objectified by the camera the most. The majority of the male-centered shots closely resemble imagery in cologne and underwear advertisements aimed at male audiences, so they are most likely already familiar with these visuals. Shots of mens’ abdominal and pectoral muscles are frequent examples, and the one shot of a man in a pool looking directly into the camera can easily be mistaken for a Calvin Klein commercial. Most of these shots are brief, and the very few that might be offensive to male viewers are even briefer. In one instance, Lopez pulls on a man’s shorts and pours her drink onto his genitalia with her tongue out. This imagery can arguably elicit a stronger reaction in most viewers than many of the other shots, but it’s shown for a total of 8 frames, or a third of a second. And for a music video that presents as disapproving of the objectification of women, there is one moment in which Lopez’ friend is on the floor on all fours while rapper French Montana towers above her. 

Lopez and her friends dress and dance in a way to achieve “desirability in a heterosexual context.” That desirability is “presented as something done for [oneself], not in order to please a man,” but it fails to address how “socially-constructed, mass-mediated ideals of beauty are internalized and made [one’s] own” (Gill, 140-141). Lopez and her friends are included in a grouping of women that are allowed to exercise sexual agency and overpower men, unlike older and fatter women. Gill writes:

“The objectifying male gaze is internalized to form a new disciplinary regime. In this regime, power is not imposed from above or the outside, but constructs our very subjectivity. Girls and women are invited to become a particular kind of self, and are endowed with agency on condition that it is used to construct oneself as a subject closely resembling the heterosexual male fantasy found in pornography” (139).

This is not to say that there’s a problem with Lopez and her friends exercising their sexual autonomy over men. The issue lies in the way the video perpetuates ideas about the women who are allowed to exercise that agency. And that being objectified as a woman is alright so long as women can “objectify” men back. 

Incidentally, the lyrics of the song don’t push against ideas of the gaze either. Most of the lyrics convey the speaker’s desire to be objectified by her male lover. Some of these lyrics include: “I put it down for a brother like you / Give it to you right in the car… Got that hourglass for you, baby, look at these legs… If you wanna hear your name, I shout it.” The lyrics almost directly contradict the premise of the video where she is presented as an unattached, pleasure-seeking bachelorette. The speaker in the song dedicates herself to a singular man who she tries to appeal to with her body, sex, and subservience. French Montana’s lines also objectify the main speaker: “Take the pants out here, drop to her knees / Oh my, I’m a don like Omar.” These lyrics are from the man’s perspective, and describe how he feels like a “Don” after it is implied that the main speaker falls onto her knees and gives him some sexual favor.  

Instead of examining and criticizing the roots of the gaze, the “I Luh Yuh Papi” music video tries to use irony to be feminist within the confines of patriarchal society. Gill writes, “Irony is also used as a way of establishing a safe distance between oneself and particular sentiments or beliefs at a time when being passionate about anything or appearing to care too much seems to be ‘uncool’” (144). By choosing to use irony, they essentially say nothing to address the gaze or the way women are treated in the music industry. It safely retains its appeal to male audiences while many female viewers will walk away feeling that some form of justice has been served even though the status quo remains.  Perhaps the music video was not meant to make a strong social statement. Perhaps the decision to swap the roles of the genders was based on an amusing observation of trends in music videos. Regardless of intention, the video published gives the illusion of progress where there is very little, which can inadvertently normalize the idea that we’ve reached an age where feminism is no longer needed in Western society, and that the ideals that define women’s equality should continue to go unquestioned. Instead of suggesting an alternative to the objectification of women, the video essentially goes for an “eye for an eye” approach, perpetuating the battle of the sexes when it could’ve sought to mend broader social inequalities. In any case, the “I Luh Yuh Papi” music video is a legitimate response to the male gaze that helps us define what attitudes celebrity women like Jenifer Lopez might have had towards the gaze at the time it was created. At the very least, it helps us assess how audio-visual and narrative elements should and shouldn’t be used to address the downplay of feminism and social change.        

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