(Above: an alternative to King Charles III?)
David Penberthy, it has to be said, and said often, is something of a twit, and we're not talking about whether he twitters.
The challenge then ... is to make the argument not by appealling to bourgeois dinner party sentiment, or blathering on about our reputation in Asia, but instead tapping into Australia’s excellent hostility towards toffs.
I speak here of the royal family.
If I’d been asked to do the yes ads, I would have got a band like the Hoodoo Gurus to do a cover of I Am, You Are, We Are Australian and run it over a montage of shots of Charles with Camilla, of the Duke of Edinburgh shooting an elk, of Princess Anne falling off her horse and into a pond, some snaps of some lesser royals and a few members of the House of Lords dressed like halfwits at Ascot, and then at the end just had the words “Yeah Right” on the screen.
Here he is in Clapped-out baby-boomers have killed the republic, devising a campaign to make Australia a republic:
I speak here of the royal family.
If I’d been asked to do the yes ads, I would have got a band like the Hoodoo Gurus to do a cover of I Am, You Are, We Are Australian and run it over a montage of shots of Charles with Camilla, of the Duke of Edinburgh shooting an elk, of Princess Anne falling off her horse and into a pond, some snaps of some lesser royals and a few members of the House of Lords dressed like halfwits at Ascot, and then at the end just had the words “Yeah Right” on the screen.
Oh yes, by holding up to Australians the very reason we still love the Royals, and why you can still sell a lot of women's magazines in this country by doing a royal scandal story, even if the glory days departed with the demise of Di. We just love the royals and the intrigue and the gossip and the scandals and the sublime twittery.
So Penber's proposed working class hero proposal is about as dumb a campaign idea as the guys who got taken off the ABC's Gruen Transfer for suggesting fat people jokes were as offensive as racism or homophobia - by making dumb racist, homophobic jokes.
We have our own bunyip aristocracy - and sycophants thereto - but we really don't do it in the style of indolent English monarchs bred over the centuries to an exclusive and exalted level of twitdom. Years and years and years of breeding and crossing and inbreeding until finally we have a prince who aspires to be a tampon as our likely future king (unless we get one of the young lads who fancy donning a Nazi uniform as a jolly jape amongst chums).
Poor old Penbers gets indignant about this kind of thing:
... the strongest argument against the current system is that, as the ultimate meritocracy, it makes no sense for our young, modern nation to have such an elitist, born-to-rule absurdity as the Royal Family parked at the top of our system of government.
The ultimate meritocracy? By golly, these acid flashbacks are kicking in on me at an alarming rate. But we have an aristocracy surely, those inner city dwellers who sip chardonnay and drink coffee in dangerously strong doses. Born to rule the country are these liberal inner city elites with their fancy airs and singular ways and exceptionally odd taste in playwrights:
The ultimate meritocracy? By golly, these acid flashbacks are kicking in on me at an alarming rate. But we have an aristocracy surely, those inner city dwellers who sip chardonnay and drink coffee in dangerously strong doses. Born to rule the country are these liberal inner city elites with their fancy airs and singular ways and exceptionally odd taste in playwrights:
... as long as the republican argument continues to be put largely by people who look and act like characters from a David Williamson play, generations x, y and z will remain professionally underwhelmed.
... As long as the republic remains the stuff of inner-city dinner party chat, the monarchists will sleep soundly in their Union Jack pyjamas.
See, I knew we had an aristocracy, bunging on inner city dinner parties, and attending David Williamson plays. Curse you baby boomers, curse you. It's all your fault.
Here's Penbers going to the heart of the problem:
One of the biggest drivers of republican sentiment for older Australians is the dimissal of the Whitlam Government. But younger Australians haven’t maintained their rage over Sir John Kerr’s actions - they never had any rage in the first place. Many if not most of them wouldn’t even know what the dismissal was.
News flash for Penberthy. Younger Australians couldn't give a toss about the Hoodoo Gurus, the featured act in your proposed ad. They formed in 1981. If you were born that year, you'd be 28 today. Sure they're still kicking around the traps, playing to old fart baby boomers, but many if not most of the young folk going around wouldn't even know who the Gurus are.
That's right Penbers, you're old before you even realized it, and possibly attend dinner parties, and hopefully you never mention at them that some Australians expected to be able to vote for a President, or ersatz GG, or whatever, seeing as how everybody tells them that's what people are expected to do in a democracy.
But never no mind, if it makes you happy, cling to the delusion that it was Malcolm Turnbull, now head of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, who led the charge to a republic as a way of maintaining his squillionaire rage over Sir John Kerr's actions. Even if most of the time he blathered on about how absurd it was for a young modern nation, the ultimate collection of nongs and meritocrats, to have an elitist born to rule absurdity at the top of the system of government.
Yep, fair savage suck of the overwhelmingly silly nationalistic sauce bottle Penberthy, Turnbull and his ilk were motivated by the kind of dinkum Oz pride you lead as your strong suit.
Well given the recent unhealthy development of racist nationalism in the young, what with the Cronulla riots and the taste for curry bashing, not to mention leb bashing, skip bashing and poofter bashing, it's just as well we've got over that republican nonsense.
And now it seems the young don't care. Gen x, y and z are off waving the flag and getting Southern Cross tatts and that's it. So if they don't care, how's that the fault of old farts? If they don't care, it's just because they don't care.
Well I do care. As a feminist, I'm proud to rally behind a man who just wants to be an aspirational tampon. He's the perfect foil, the perfect figurehead for this nation.
And I'm so infatuated with my discovery of the notion of the crowned republic that I've decided to go around crowning any republicans who stand in the way of bonnie Prince Charlie's ascension.
The rage will not be abated, though we also might spare a little savagery for smart arse dingbats who want to send up the intelligentsia and inner city dwellers continually, and who can therefore go take a flying leap at a king prawn. We aren't amused but that would amuse us.
After all, it takes a toff to recognize a toff, especially one that comes in sizes bigger than fifteen to the pound. Prince Charlie is our man, and David Flint his royal escort to the throne.
And who cares what the lower alphabet generational folk think. They're all off at a Lily Allen concert singing "fuck you very much".
2 comments:
stop it dot you'r killing me,i can't get the image of david flint and a posse of liberal party grandees groveling to a giant tampon with big ears.but wait,here's a great tourism idea for a town with a name like,say charleville,a giant tampon.that would bring in the japanese photographers by the bus load.bring on the aspiational tampon i say.
i do think uncle kevin is missing an ideal wedge with this issue.turnbull would have to support a republic but the relics in the party wouldn't have a bar of it.he would be like a ninja with six arms keeping the knives out of his back
wow fully sick dude, but have you patented this idea? It's way better than the ear of wheat they were planning for Dimboola. Time to get to Charleville, the perfect town for this visual delight, and get an erection going before some dastardly monarchist steals your scheme ...
Post a Comment