Arts + Culture – The Conversation

The ABC gives true crime the comedy panel show treatment – with expectedly mixed results

2025-11-04T19:10:00Z

ABC

ABC’s new offering is a new take on true crime, where comedian host Julia Zemiro is joined by criminologists Professor Danielle Raynold and Dr David Bartlett and a changing lineup of comedians to unpick key crime issues.

I was intrigued when I saw the trailer for Crime Night, wondering how successful the marriage of crime and comedy could be. Would it work?

I have watched the first two episodes, and as a basic educational tool, this show may be of some interest. But is it educational or entertainment? It doesn’t feel like the creators have made up their mind and so the whole show hasn’t quite come together, at least not yet.

Dissecting eyewitness testimony

The format is this: the host leads the panel through a series of questions, starting with the criminologists who add some facts around the topic of the week. Then clips from true crime shows, or inserts sharing statistics or fun facts. The comedians are asked questions, or chip in to add a lighter moment. The panel discussion is supplemented by “experiments” both inside and outside of the studio, with the comedians or with the audience, hoping to add more light on the topic at hand.

The topic of the first episode is eyewitness testimony.

This is a good first pick: is it incredibly important in criminal investigations, and eyewitnesses get identifications wrong all the time. In Australia, 6% of wrongful convictions involve eyewitness error.

The show touches on some of the reasons this happens. An infamous case from the United States is outlined as an example, where Richard Phillips was misidentified by two witnesses, and subsequently spent almost 46 years in prison for murder.

A key element of this case was “own race bias” – people’s increased cognitive ability to accurately recognise and remember faces of the same geographic ancestry as ourselves. In the case example they used, Phillips was black and the two eyewitnesses were white.

The criminologists do a good job of explaining the case and outline the key elements in an accessible and engaging way.

After the discussion of the Phillips case, the comedians attempt to interject and add some humour to the discussion. Commenting on how the witnesses had not seen the offender clearly, Celia Pacquola quipped “they should have gone to Specsavers”.

While I understand the comedians are there to be funny, it felt flat and pushed. It felt like the comedians were really trying hard to be funny on a topic that naturally elicits few laughs.

Crafting an experiment

As a psychological experiment, when comedians Pacquola and Mel Buttle arrived at the ABC to record the episode, they were covertly filmed in the foyer witnessing an angry woman on the phone.

As part of the show, they had to recreate the face of the woman who was involved in the call from memory.

Surprisingly, the outcomes were remarkably accurate.

There is a huge amount of variation in how accurate people are when attempting to recollect a stranger’s face. Time since observation is key: the sooner a witness is asked to create a composite, the more accurate it is likely to be.

This is complicated by the fact that some people are good at remembering faces and some people are terrible. Where someone is sitting on that scale will heavily affect how well they recognise and remember a stranger committing a crime.

And as an experiment, although a very basic one, it was interesting and added to the production.

Looking at scams

The second episode, focused on scams, is smoother. The two criminologists are the same and the two new comedians, Steph Tisdell and Rhys Nicholson, are more comfortable. The style is less formulated and more discursive; the laughs more natural.

This week’s experiment is conducted on the unwitting audience. On arriving at the studio, the audience were asked to scan a QR code to get a free gift after the show. The purpose was to test the audiences’ trust in the ABC, and to manipulate that trust to encourage them to reveal personal details: 62% of the audience scanned the code, and in this context were “scammed”.

At the end of the show, they use another game to illustrate how easy it is to create deep-faked audio clips that are indistinguishable from the real person. Scary – but a good warning to everyone watching to be very vigilant.

With a focus on scams, the producers appear to be sticking with gentler crimes. It would be very, very hard to make murder, sexual abuse, or domestic and family violence funny. However, I wonder how many types of crime they can cover in this softer space, where the mix of crime and comedy won’t become offensive.

At the end of episode one, I was left wondering what the point was. But at the end of episode two, I thought this show could be used to educate people about current issues that will affect them.

In a world of media where everyone is searching for the new formula, this show might grow into something that could actually do some good.

I’m at least going to give episode three a go. If you are interested in contemporary issues in criminal justice, you might find something of value here.

Crime Night premieres tonight on ABC and ABC iView.

Xanthe Mallett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Op-shopping, worm farms and cornstarch blood bags: how Australian theatre is staging a greener future

2025-11-03T19:09:58Z

Theatre has long gathered and connected communities through story and shared experience. The performing arts can educate, provoke and inspire climate action. Yet the industry grapples with its own environmental footprint.

In response, the Theatre Green Book was released as a free, global framework for sustainable theatre practice.

The Theatre Green Book began as a collective initiative by writer Paddy Dillon and theatre-makers in the United Kingdom, in response to calls for coordinated climate action within the arts. Since then, it has been adapted into more than 17 iterations and used in more than 50 countries.

The Australian version adapts the European framework to an Australian context. It was first published online in 2023 by myself (Grace Nye-Butler) and Chris Mercer. The second edition, published today, was developed in collaboration with First Nations performing arts practitioners and the wider industry.

This edition grounds sustainability in relationship, legacy and innovation. It offers a Country-centred approach that honours First Nations Custodianship of Country, connection to Culture and Community.

As Dalisa Pigram, co-artistic director of dance company Marrugeku, explained during collaboration for the book:

Country is the oldest ancestor and the first teacher. If you care for Country, Country will care for you. It has ways to reset things.

An Australia-centred response

The performing arts sector’s environmental footprint can be traced to a range of sources, from energy used for lighting and venues, to emissions from touring and audience travel, to materials used for sets, props and costumes.

A recent study by Griffith University researchers found 74% of practitioners believe Australia’s performing arts sector has a responsibility to act on the climate crisis. Yet only 28% of organisations currently measure their own environmental footprint.

The Theatre Green Book Australia provides a practical, step-by-step guide to help companies reduce their environmental impact across three key areas: productions, operations and buildings.

Towards regenerative and equitable futures

The second edition was trialled over six months with seven theatre companies: Bangarra Dance Theatre, Bell Shakespeare, Belvoir Street Theatre, Griffin Theatre Company, Monkey Baa, Performing Lines, and Sydney Dance Company.

The Green Book responds directly to the continent’s ecological and logistical challenges. It acknowledges, for instance, the vast distances involved in touring, the diversity of local ecosystems, and the distinct supply chains and materials used in Australia.

By using the framework, theatre companies can align with international sustainability efforts in a way that remains locally meaningful. It also opens opportunities for global collaboration.

As Sydney Dance Company resident stage manager Simon Turner said:

Enhancing the ability to think “outside the box”, collaborating with other organisations has broadened the possibilities to bolster [the company’s] sustainable practices.

Central to the Green Book’s approach is the view that sustainability should be seen as a creative opportunity – not a constraint.

Practical changes include setting up composting and worm farms, connecting to local community gardens, using biodegradable blood packs made from corn starch, and creating asset-tracking systems to reuse sets, props and costumes.

Cat Studley, production manager at Bangarra Dance Theatre, said, in reference to the company’s production of Illume:

When we built Illume and the large set element – an oversized trumpet shell – we explored various methods and chose 3D printing in recycled black ABS (synthetic polymer), helping us exceed our goal of 50% of onstage materials being recycled or reused.

The companies that took part also developed a strong peer-sharing network, exchanging ideas and resources.

Dani Ironside, company manager at Bell Shakespeare, said:

Connecting with other theatre companies has expanded our insights into what’s achievable and shown us that the roadblocks we once saw to reaching baseline goals are, in fact, possible to overcome.

Other initiatives included investing in additional resources for sustainable sourcing, shopping at op-shops instead of fast-fashion outlets, incorporating sustainability criteria into hiring and contractor selection, and actively recruiting people with eco-conscious values.

The success of the Theatre Green Book in Europe, and now in Australia, shows meaningful change is underway. With commitment and creativity, theatre companies are proving sustainability can be woven into the fabric of storytelling and production.

Antonia Seymour, executive director at Arts on Tour, said the trial outcomes were a promising sign that eco-thinking could become the new “normal” for the sector:

We knew the only way to drive momentum and embed eco-literate theatre-making in the sector was by working collaboratively, using a common language and a global framework.

This is a moment of collective opportunity. Through shared knowledge, the performing arts can lead the way in imagining and enacting a regenerative future.

The author would like to thank Chris Mercer, co-author of The Theatre Green Book Australia, for his contribution to this work.

Grace Nye-Butler is the co-director of the Theatre Green Book Australia and currently works as a Reseach Fellow at the Performance and Ecology Research Lab at Griffith University.

‘Wog’ humour, tense US politics and real-world monsters: what to watch in November

2025-11-02T18:59:41Z

Netflix, 10play

As the year begins to wind down, and the days grow longer, our critics have a fresh slate of films and series to keep you glued to your screen.

This month’s streaming picks include a 90s “filmic time capsule”, some tense US political drama (refreshingly set in a non-Trumpian America), and the harrowing real-life story of child sex abuse at a Jewish school in Melbourne. There’s also some sharp, tender animation from the creator of Bojack Horseman.

Whether you’re chasing comfort, catharsis or a good cliffhanger, November’s streaming picks are sure to delight.

Surviving Malka Leifer

Stan

Surviving Malka Leifer, directed by Adam Kamien, centres the survivors of Leifer’s abuse. Sisters Nicole Meyer, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper reveal their trauma and claim their power through this film.

The sisters are interviewed alone and together and we see their video diaries. While the sisters recount their abuse, we are often taken into a constructed dollhouse, classroom and courtroom where the sisters are represented as tiny dolls. A spider moves about these constructed rooms – it appears enormous relative to the dolls.

Alongside Freya Berkhout’s haunting original music and the raw accounts of the documentary subjects, these devices heighten the sense of risk and vulnerability in the film. As we follow the chronology of the sisters’ campaign to bring Leifer to Australia, we become ever more engaged in their rising panic about whether she will face justice.

We learn about the sisters’ psychological torment, to the point of suicidality and hospitalisation. The delay in justice is central to the film’s narrative. The sisters’ trauma was compounded over their many years of campaigning and waiting.

Surviving Malka Leifer tells several important stories. We see how the perceived interests of an insular religious community are prioritised over the victims of sexual abuse. We see how legal processes, especially when protracted, re-traumatise victims and maintain their vulnerability as abusers pose counter-narratives before courts.

We also see three women who have persisted through unimaginable trauma in their campaign for justice. Their courage is breathtaking.

– Amy Maguire

The Diplomat, season three

Netflix

Season three of The Diplomat is back, with romance and comedy wrapped up in high politics. Star of the show, Keri Russell, is the United States ambassador in London and a possible candidate for the vice presidency. Instead she ends up as second lady, maintaining a trans-Atlantic marriage with her vice-president husband, the infuriating Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell).

The program is infused with nostalgia for a pre-Trumpian world, symbolised by the ascension of President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) who, like her First Gentleman Todd Penn (Bradley Whitford), also starred in West Wing (1999-2006). That series, with its thoughtful and liberal president, represented a vision of politics which has now largely vanished in the US.

Meanwhile there is growing tension between the US and Britain, whose prime minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) is a thug without charm. This tension dates back to an attack on a British naval vessel, in which the US was apparently involved. But if the exact reasons for it seem murky, it’s because the show moves at such a fast pace – and we are carried along as it features increasingly improbable romantic entanglements.

The Penn White House remains more attractive than its real-life counterpart. And President Penn doesn’t seem interested in demolishing part of the building.

– Dennis Altman

The Celebrity Traitors UK

ThreeNow (New Zealand) and 10 Play (Australia)

The British didn’t do The Traitors first, but they definitely do it the best. The reality show pits traitors against faithful in a social deduction game built on bluffs, double bluffs, “murders” and banishments – with a stack of money awaiting the winners.

The latest season, technically a spin-off, stars UK celebrities – and it’s really bloody good. As usual, there’s dramatic footage of the Scottish Highlands, the looming Adross castle, many extremely camp cutaways, some outrageous and well-produced outdoor missions, and host Claudia Winkleman stalking around in impeccable knitwear, whispering threats and encouragements in equal measure.

The winnings (apart from bragging rights) go to charity. Kudos to the casting director; this season’s lineup features national treasures such as Sir Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross (dubbed the “big dogs” early on), as well as sporting stars, actors, singers, comedians, presenters and Gen Z celebs. They’re all thrown into scenarios that cut through carefully curated personas.

The season particularly excels at juxtaposing the gothic with absurdity. Where else would beloved actress Celia Imrie be caught out loudly stress-farting before a particularly gross challenge? It also plays with preexisting friendships and professional relationships in a sly fashion, as the cast struggle to play as strategically as “civilian” casts usually do.

You might tear your hair out at some people’s ability (or lack of) to figure out the show’s deceptions, but it all makes for impeccable viewing for old fans and newbies alike.

– Erin Harrington

Son of a Donkey

Netflix

Son of A Donkey, from the comedy duo Superwog (brothers Theodore and Nathan Saidden), tells the epic tale of Theo, his best friend Johnny, and Theo’s unnamed parents as Theo attempts to buy back his impounded car and to resolve his daddy issues once and for all.

Superwog are part of the third wave of wog humour. Here, their skewering of the vagaries of modern life leans more to the carnival of Pizza (2000–07) than the cosmopolitan ethos of Acropolis Now (1989–92). But the juxtaposition of classical music against some of the show’s more ridiculous scenes serves as a sly wink to its audience.

Its satire of an Epstein-esque sex island, conspiracy theorists, Jordan Peterson and the manosphere is at once ludicrous and needle-sharp. Even as they sink into a misogynist rabbit-hole, Johnny’s grandma is there to remind them who really is the boss in the ethnic family.

The main challenge for the Saidden brothers is to move from the disconnected episodic approach of Superwog to a cohesive narrative arc for Son of A Donkey. In this, they largely succeed, progressing the overarching story incrementally across the six episodes even as each has their own micro-misadventure.

Ultimately – despite flying shoes and rancid food – wog blood is thicker than water.

– Jess Carniel

Monster: The Ed Gein Story

Netflix

The Ed Gein Story is the third season of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series, Monster, an examination of violent killers at the centre of some of America’s most shocking crimes. This latest instalment follows the life and crimes of one of the most culturally impactful serial killers of the 20th century – a man who inspired the films Psycho (1960), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Perhaps most surprising, then, given Gein’s reputation, is the sensitivity and empathy shown to him in Murphy’s portrayal. In Monster, Gein is abused, downtrodden, soft-spoken, lonely and easily confused. His killings are (largely) unplanned – the result of bursts of anger. His desecration and mutilation of corpses is suggested to be a simultaneous function of his desire to bring his much-missed mother back to life, and to experiment with his own gender identity.

Murphy’s depiction is not limited to a reenactment of Gein’s crimes. It also looks at his influence on popular culture, via other serial killers who emulate his actions, as well as big-screen adaptations by directors such as Alfred Hitchcock.

But ultimately, as Monster would have it, it is we who are responsible for Gein’s celebrity. As Gein himself tells the viewer: “you’re the one who can’t look away”.

– Jessica Gildersleeve

Mother and Son, season two

ABC iView

Season two of Mother and Son, a beautiful remake of the original 1980s–90s Australian sitcom, is just as strong as the first. And luckily, viewers don’t need to have seen the original show in order to enjoy it. The latest season features significant character development, as well as some delightful gender and genre gear shifts that make for cutting-edge situational comedy.

There is not one weak link in the ensemble cast. Denise Scott, who plays the mother, Maggie, and Matt Okine, who plays her son Arthur, are one of the best pairings in recent comedy history. They are supported the most by Angela Nica Sullen, the “golden child” Robbie, and the lovely alternative parent/adult child pairing of Tony and Maya, played respectively by Ferdinand Hoang and Catherine Van-Davies.

The tension between comedy and accessibility – especially the looming “D word” (dementia) for Maggie, and Arthur’s social isolation – makes the story arc of each episode and the overall season quite compelling.

This season is a collection of dark, funny and thoughtful moments. And the stunning cameos from Jean Kittson and Virginia Gray are wonderful easter eggs for those with a deeper knowledge of Australian comedy.

– Liz Giuffre

House of Dynamite

Netflix

It’s Dr. Strangelove meets Rashomon in Kathryn Bigelow’s House of Dynamite. The film has blasted onto Netflix with 22.1 million views in the first three days.

It details the 39-minute countdown until a nuclear missile hits America’s mainland. The Pentagon has taken issue with the film over its claim that America’s missile defence system isn’t perfect, whereas screenwriter Noah Oppenheim stands by his research for the film. Oppenheim is, however, “glad” the Pentagon watched it – “or is watching and is paying attention to it, because this is exactly the conversation we want to have”.

The ensemble cast is stacked with Rebecca Ferguson, Anthony Ramos, Tracy Letts, Idris Elba, Gabriel Basso, Greta Lee, Kaitlyn Dever and Jared Harris all having great moments in the tense drama.

House of Dynamite has a Rashomon-style narrative, where the countdown is told three times over with new perspectives each time. In the first segment, Rebecca Ferguson holds a tense conference call where we hear the voices of Greta Lee and Idris Elba, and see Jared Harris and Gabriel Basso via a screen. In later segments, we see this countdown from their perspectives.

Some may find the handheld camera distracting, and the ending frustrating, but the film is nonetheless intense, with Bigelow never letting up the pressure. With its apolitical, hard-working staffers, it feels very at odds with the contemporary political climate. This seems a deliberate choice from Bigelow.

In the moment, several players realise that while they know they need to focus on their jobs, they have loved ones in the target city. Do they stop what they are doing and tell them they only have minutes left to live?

– Stuart Richards

Disclosure

Netflix

There is almost an unwritten rule that every great 1990s thriller must have Michael Douglas playing the scandal-prone leading man. Douglas doesn’t disappoint in Disclosure (1994). He pays Tom Sanders, a middle manager at the DigiCom computer company who is falsely accused of sexual harassment. Demi Moore is also at the height of her star power here playing Meredith Johnson, the young, predatory career woman who lies and cheats her way to the top.

However, it’s Donald Sutherland who really steals the show as Bob Garvin, the power-hungry director who gets a sadistic thrill from playing favourites among the staff, and promoting his sexy, surrogate “daughter” Meredith above more senior and meritorious colleagues.

There are many guilty pleasures in this 90s filmic time capsule. First, there is the nostalgic amusement of watching clunky, outdated technologies (answering machines! CD-ROMS!) being presented as contemporary or even cutting-edge. The film also features a deliciously melodramatic soundtrack and other neo-noir elements. The first image we have of Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore), for example, is a close shot of her black, killer high heels. When the camera pans up to her blood red lips and defiant stare, we are reminded of the old sexist stereotype of the manipulative “vamp”.

Like many other erotic thrillers of the 1990s (think Fatal Attraction) Disclosure offers the politically-conservative reaction against female power that feminist Susan Faludi famously described as the “backlash”. The film is certainly dated in its sexual politics. On the other hand, its subplot about economic recession, redundancies, ruined careers, competition and corruption remain relevant and very entertaining.

– Susan Hopkins

Long Story Short, season one

Netflix

Long Story Short is a quirky adult animation that oozes charm and heartfelt realness. The series centres on podcast scriptwriter and playlist creator, Avi Schwooper, a character based somewhat on the lived experiences of creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the mind behind BoJack Horseman (2014–2020).

In this first season, Long Story Short explores Avi’s everyday existence in California, negotiating his complex attachments to his parents, siblings, ex-wife, daughter, and his Jewish faith.

Episodes jump between various decades and generations up to the 2020s and routinely grapple with the absurd. Episode 6 (“Wolves”) satirises the public education system in the US via a bizarre lockdown situation, which occurs when wolves start roaming the halls of the middle school Avi’s daughter, Hannah, attends.

Episode 3 (“There’s a Mattress in There”) also stands out as affecting. It focuses on Avi’s neurodivergent brother, Yoshi, on a quest to prove himself equal to his siblings, only to be undone by unscrupulous capitalists.

Visually speaking, the series has a groovy colour palette reminiscent of vintage storybooks, and a distinctive hand-drawn aesthetic. Each figure is both exaggerated yet realistic in a way that avoids slipping into caricature thanks to the influence of designer and supervising producer Lisa Hanawalt.

There are some strong, resonant themes around family, memory, selfhood and generational continuity. It is funny, yet achingly sad – a bit like life, really.

– Phoebe Hart

Amy Maguire receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Jess Carniel received funding from the Army History Unit for her research into wog history.

Dennis Altman, Erin Harrington, Jessica Gildersleeve, Liz Giuffre, Phoebe Hart, Stuart Richards, and Susan Hopkins do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

A stage adaptation of Dying: A Memoir asks the big questions about death – but ends up strangely unmoving

2025-10-31T03:12:58Z

Pia Johnson/Melbourne Theatre Company

What makes a good death? Quietly surrounded by friends and family or going out in a flash of blazing glory (whatever that means)?

Would you like to know when you’re going to die?

Will knowing when you die help you to appreciate all the small finalities – the last time you drive a car, the last touch of grass on your fingertips, the last time you feel your partner’s breath on your cheek, a final kiss on the lips?

Or do these small closures matter at all when looking backwards is a distraction from “the great unknown” that lies ahead?

Do you deserve the right to choose when you die?

Author Cory Taylor was confronted with these questions when diagnosed with melanoma after a biopsy of a mole on the back of her right leg. She was just about to turn 50.

Death in modern Western society exists in a peculiar limbo – simultaneously sanitised and sensationalised. We’ve outsourced dying to hospitals, nursing homes and palliative care units, creating physical and emotional distance that leaves too many people unprepared for when loss arrives.

In her 2016 book Dying: A Memoir, published just months before her death, Taylor writes:

For this is one of the most lamentable consequences of our reluctance to talk about death. We have lost our common rituals and our common language for dying, and must either improvise, or fall back on traditions about which we feel deeply ambivalent.

Taylor exposes the cost of our cultural avoidance: by refusing to engage meaningfully with mortality, Western society has left individuals to face death’s deepest questions in isolation.

Playwright Benjamin Law brings Dying: A Memoir to the stage in a one-woman show starring Genevieve Morris, directed by Jean Tong for Melbourne Theatre Company.

Immediate intimacy

Morris gives a commanding performance. She brings a formidable presence to her portrayal of Taylor and fluidly inhabits a range of characters in Taylor’s world: doctors, siblings and acquaintances connected to Exit International, a support and advocacy group for voluntary euthanasia.

Tong’s direction creates immediate intimacy with the audience. Morris begins out of character, gently acknowledging the difficulty of discussing death while honouring Taylor, before the performance proper begins. This connection with her audience is strengthened across the show.

Set and costume design (James Lew), lighting design (Rachel Lee) and sound design (Darius Kedros) all function to support Morris’ delivery, its constant movement and fluidity.

James Lew’s set design features red theatre chairs which are rearranged into various configurations. Pia Johnson/Melbourne Theatre Company

Red theatre chairs on wheels form the main set piece, which Morris rearranges into various configurations. The surrounding black walls feature small reveals and cracks of light that reflect thematic shifts.

The sound design anchors each scene with precision: the hum of a doctor’s waiting room, the noise and clatter of a restaurant, the clinical quiet of a psychologist’s office. Mostly understated, it punctuates key moments with purposeful intensity, working to mark emotional shifts.

Oppressive lighting pervades the production, its unrelenting bleakness mirroring the subject matter too literally. The lack of variation or contrast flattens what could be a more visually complex exploration of its themes.

Evading the emotionally complex

Law’s persistent examination of the end of Taylor’s life within his adaptation reveals an evasion of the book’s more emotionally complex and spiritually challenging entanglements.

Taylor’s memoir spans three interconnected acts; Law’s adaptation fixates primarily on the first, circling questions about euthanasia and the right to a “good death” in ways that lean into and recapitulate parts of popular debate.

Acts two and three of Taylor’s memoir overflow with childhood recollections – vivid, nostalgic landscapes painted through thick descriptive prose and family memory. These sections reflect closely the relationship with her mother and father, giving rise to questions of: where do we come from? What is home? How are we formed and by who?

Taylor’s memoir spans three interconnected acts; Law’s adaptation fixates primarily on the first. Pia Johnson/Melbourne Theatre Company

This complex and poetic examination of life is excised from Law’s play. But, for his part, he manages to embed his signature biting wit while telling Taylor’s story.

On the frustrations of managing one’s final affairs, and specifically password retrieval, Morris turns to the audience and flatly delivers the line: “If cancer doesn’t kill me, two factor authentication will.”

The situation with an over-enthusiastic therapist is described as a “government-subsidized hostage situation”.

These moments of searing humour help make the story feel fresh and grounded.

However, Law chooses didacticism to end the play as Morris steps out of character again. The choice drains the production of Taylor’s sharp intelligence and emotional depth, leaving the audience instructed rather than stirred. Despite a chorus of sniffles amongst the audience, the ending is strangely unmoving.

It avoids the mess and the grit that fascinates Taylor in composing her memoir. She quotes T.S. Eliot:

In my beginning is my end
Old fires to ash, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf

The kind of raw and unflinching acceptance of death’s physical reality that inspired Taylor is upended in favour of what is, sadly, a little too sterile and neat.

Dying: A Memoir is at Melbourne Theatre Company until November 29.

Jonathan Graffam-O’Meara does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

90 years of Monopoly: how the ‘new craze’ morphed from socialist critique to capitalist dream

2025-10-30T23:49:23Z

Monopoly is the best-selling licensed board game of all time, popular since its 1935 release when “the new craze” swept the world.

It has remained a staple, with over 390,000 copies sold in Australia to date.

Its transformation from an economic critique to a capitalist icon highlights its historical evolution and adaptability.

A game with a message

Monopoly’s roots trace back to The Landlord’s Game (1903), created by Elizabeth Magie to critique monopolistic land ownership.

It featured two sets of rules – one emphasising wealth accumulation, the other wealth distribution. The aim was to demonstrate how different policy levers, taxing income versus taxing land, affect economic outcomes of players.

It was based on economist Henry George’s proposition for a “land value tax” or “single tax”. Under this regime, people would keep all they earned, with public funds raised from land ownership instead.

The board for Elizabeth Magie’s 1906 version of The Landlord’s Game. Wikimedia Commons/LandlordsGame.Info

The two sets of rules in the Landlord’s Game demonstrate how wealth is either concentrated in the hands of landlords (taxing income) or is more fairly distributed across society (taxing land).

In 1935, a man named Charles Darrow removed the game’s socialist critique (the version that taxed land), renamed it Monopoly and sold it to Parker Brothers. The game was now focused on the accumulation of real estate until one player remained, having bankrupted their fellows.

The game thrived during the Great Depression, offering an escapist fantasy of financial success.

In 1935, Charles Darrow reworked the game to become Monopoly. The Salem News Historic Photograph Collection, Salem State University Archives and Special Collections, CC BY

In 1935, Parker Brothers paid Magie US$500 (US$11,800 today) for the rights to her game, ensuring their ownership of Monopoly was unchallenged. As part of the deal, they released her original game, but it failed to gain traction with players.

Not everyone welcomed its capitalist themes – Fidel Castro famously ordered all Monopoly sets in Cuba destroyed in 1959

Playability and house rules

Philip Orbanes, former vice president of research at Parker Brothers, argued a good board game must have clear rules, social interaction and an element of luck. Monopoly ticks all three boxes.

Despite this, Monopoly is notorious for causing arguments. Hasbro (who bought out Parker Brothers in 1991, acquiring Monopoly in the process) found that nearly half of Monopoly games end in disputes, often over rule interpretations. Monopoly is the game most likely to be banned, or see a particular player banned, on game nights.

A group of sunbathers having a smoke and playing a game of monopoly at an open air pool, 1939. Fox Photos/Getty Images

Monopoly’s rules have been adjusted and manipulated as players have sought to overcome the inequities in the game. Another of Hasbro’s surveys found 68% of players admitting to not having read the rules in their entirety, and 49% said they had made up their own rules.

These “house rules” include things like cash bonuses on Free Parking or modifying auctions to make the game more engaging.

Identity and nostalgia

Monopoly’s use of real-world locations makes it adaptable to local markets.

The original version reflected Atlantic City’s socio-economic hierarchy. When Waddingtons released the English version in 1936 under license (the same version which would go on to be released in Australia in 1937), Atlantic City’s wealthy Boardwalk and working class Mediterranean Avenue became London’s Mayfair and Old Kent Road, respectively.

The game can also serve as a bridge to former geographies. The 1980s Yugoslav edition remains a link to the past for those who lived through that era, recording changing political geographies and cultural shifts.

More than 240 players compete for the British Monopoly title at Fenchurch street station, London, in 1975. WATFORD/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images

Monopoly is a flagship brand for Hasbro, worth an estimated US$272m in 2018. Part of Monopoly’s success lies in its licensing strategy. The board layout is extremely flexible, allowing for localised adaptations to be made to suit different markets, without any substantial change to the game play.

There are believed to be over 3,400 different versions of Monopoly issued, from classic city street layouts to popular culture imaginings.

It is this aspect that attracts collectors; world record holder Neil Scanlon owns 4,379 sets of Monopoly (he is still searching for the Cronulla Sharks set).

Monopoly reflects the world’s economic systems, embodying both the dream of wealth and the realities of financial inequality.

It has been studied by economists and educators as a tool for understanding capitalism, wealth accumulation and market control.

The game originally meant to critique monopolistic practices became a celebration of them. Each player has the opportunity to accumulate vast wealth, reflecting the promise of capitalism: where anyone can enjoy riches as long as they work hard enough.

Magie’s message was leveraged by Federal MP Andrew Leigh in his 2023 critique of the growing concentration of business monopolies in Australia. Leigh noted how monopolies affected Australian families and how the Albanese government had “increased penalties for anti-competitive conduct, and banned unfair contract terms” with the aim of creating a fairer society.

Enduring popularity

In 2025, Hasbro introduced digital banking versions – though many players lament the feel of physical wads of cash.

The game continues to be a favourite, ranking as the top childhood game among Baby Boomers, Gen X and Millennials – and fourth for Gen Z. The sense of nostalgia was strong among all groups, not surprising as board games were found to be an integral part of family bonding.

Monopoly has evolved from an anti-capitalist critique into a commercial juggernaut. While it has faced criticism for erasing its socialist origins and its reliance on luck, its ability to reinvent itself has ensured its lasting appeal.

As both a cultural artefact and a competitive game, Monopoly remains firmly embedded in board game culture.

Lisa J. Hackett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Sex with 1,000 men in 12 hours: why Bonnie Blue is neither a feminist nor a monster

2025-10-30T19:09:22Z

Stan

The documentary, 1,000 Men & Me: The Bonnie Blue Story, has made Tia Billinger – stage name Bonnie Blue – a household name.

Famous for her sexual stunts, including one in which she has sex with more than 1,000 men in 12 hours, Bonnie Blue fascinates us because we do not understand her.

Billinger claims to be an embodiment of feminism. She points out she is rich and independent, and says she has taken control of her sexualisation. Yet it is difficult to imagine how sleeping with 1,000 men in a day could lead someone to feel empowered rather than degraded.

Some have offered personality-based explanations for Billinger’s choices, saying she may simply be an opportunistic sociopath.

But explanations like these relegate her to the status of a social oddity, or a monster. And this discounts the social conditions that produce someone like Billinger – the same social conditions all women face.

The contradiction Bonnie Blue embodies reveals just how fraught a woman’s relationship to power and influence is. Women who seek power often encounter a double bind that leads them to use their power in a way that also curtails it.

Power through subservience

Power requires two ingredients. It involves autonomy and self-determination. It also requires being embedded in society so as to exert influence within it.

These two aspects of power work in tandem for men, and especially white men. But for women, and people with other marginalised identities, they often pull in opposite directions.

US feminist writer Andrea Dworkin described this situation in her 1978 book Right-wing Women: for women, power comes through subservience to male values.

For a woman, to be embedded in society is, by definition, to have her autonomy and self-determination restricted. As a result she is forced to choose: do what you want or have influence.

The reward for protecting men’s access to women

Billinger’s business model is striking. She makes enormous amounts of money by offering sex for free. The fact the sex itself is free enables her to turn around and sell a desirable commodity through subscription-based platforms such as Fansly – namely, the fantasy of female availability.

After her 1,000 men stunt, Billinger told her documentary film makers

I loved […] seeing how many men had wedding rings on. I just loved knowing I was doing something their wives should’ve done.

She tells men not to “feel guilty for doing something you deserved and you was, well, you was owed”. Despite appearances, then, Billinger is not autonomous at all. Her power is the result of subservience to male entitlement.

There have always been women who gain power by protecting men’s access to women. Consider, for example, US conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016). While Billinger is famous for her extreme sexual stunts, Schlafly could be considered the original tradwife.

Initially an expert in foreign policy, Schlafly was unable to gain political traction through her expertise, so she built a career opposing women’s liberation on behalf of housewives. She got the political power she wanted, but not in the field she really cared about.

Conservative activist Phyllis Schafly wearing a Stop ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) badge in front of the White House, Washington DC, in February 1977. Library of Congress

Womanliness as a masquerade

Both Schlafly’s and Billinger’s personas map squarely onto one side or the other of what psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud called the Madonna-whore complex, in which a misogynistic society categorises women according to the kind of service they offer men – either as a saintly mother figure or as a sexual object.

Each of these roles also deflects attention by attacking the opposite side of the dichotomy.

Billinger positions herself as a rival to men’s wives, claiming her critics simply want to turn her into a housewife. Schlafly positioned herself as a housewife opposing equal rights because she considered such rights to be bound up with sexual promiscuity.

In reality, each stance relies on the other. And we’re beginning to see this manifest in the emergence of tradwife Onlyfans content.

In 1929, psychoanalyst Joan Riviere wrote about a tendency in her female patients she called “womanliness as a masquerade”.

Riviere notes how women who exhibited traits socially coded as “masculine”, or who occupied positions historically reserved for men, attempted to hide this masculinity through a performance of femininity. She wrote:

women who wish for masculinity may put on a mask of womanliness to avert anxiety and the retribution feared from men.

To undertake a “masculine” pursuit of power, both Schlafly and Billinger uphold a particular ideal of femininity. And both women’s careers are logical – if misguided – responses to the messages women receive about where their value lies.

A never-ending tradeoff

Our systems punish women for wanting things such as power, money, or visibility, requiring them to turn against other women, give up their expertise, or make themselves infinitely available to men.

If women were allowed to pursue power without these sacrifices, it might curtail the harms other women face as a result of the masked pursuit of power.

Women should not have to choose between power, money and visibility on one hand, and community and liberation on the other. They should not have to choose between Madonna and the whore.

Yet as political gains continue to shrink around the world, many women are starting to feel this double-bind more forcefully. There may be more Bonnie Blues and Phyllis Schlaflys on the horizon.

Lexi Eikelboom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

From Wog Boy to Son of a Donkey: how ‘wog humour’ made Australian comedy its own

2025-10-30T19:08:49Z

Netflix

In Son of a Donkey, the Saidden brothers Theodore and Nathan reunite viewers with the characters from Superwog, their shorts on YouTube since 2008, and later adapted into an ABC series, from 2018–20.

Superwog was a series of largely unrelated episodes. Now, the six episodes of Son of A Donkey tell the epic tale of Theo, his best friend Johnny, and Theo’s unnamed parents as Theo attempts to buy back his impounded car and to resolve his daddy issues once and for all.

A road rage incident sees Theo’s licence (hard won in season two) revoked, his beloved 1988 Twin Cam Corolla (definitely not a Daihatsu Charade) impounded, sold to a used car dealer (played by Mark Mitchell, aka Con the Fruiterer), and a round of court-ordered psychiatric treatment.

Theo’s father’s habit of eating food from the dump has resulted in fused kidneys. His mother finally decides to leave her husband when he tries to force Theo into a kidney donation. Thrown into the world of dating (via her parents’ matchmaking), Theo’s mother undergoes enough cosmetic survey to make her resemble Mob Wives’ Big Ang.

Meanwhile, Theo and Johnny’s schemes to scrape together enough money to buy back the Corolla lead them to first accept a stultifying corporate job and then an invitation to an Epstein-esque sex island before falling under the influence of the manosphere while taking Theo’s antipsychotics recreationally.

The evolving shape of wog humour

Son of A Donkey and its predecessor Superwog are part of the third wave of wog humour.

Wog humour is a particularly Australian brand of ethnic humour centred on the experiences and identities of predominantly southern European and Middle Eastern migrants and their children.

While ethnic humour is a feature of all multicultural societies – and often has transnational or diasporic appeal – wog humour’s appeal is somewhat limited because of its use of the word “wog”.

For many Australians, wog comedy has played an important role in reclaiming this ethnic slur. But still many others still find it problematic. It also limits its capacity to be exported as “wog” remains an unquestioned slur in places like the United Kingdom, where the word originated.

Wog humour first emerged in the 1980s with Nick Giannopoulos, Simon Palomares and Mary Portesi’s 1987 stage show, Wogs Out of Work. This first wave gained mainstream success via Acropolis Now (1989–92) and continues to this day in Giannopolous’ Wog Boy film series, the most recent instalment released in 2022.

The second wave of wog humour occurred with the TV series Pizza (2000–07), and its spin off film Fat Pizza (2003).

While Acropolis Now aimed for cosmopolitan comedy set in Melbourne’s cool inner north, Pizza provided carnivalesque chaos in Sydney’s western suburbs.

At their core both told stories of class, work and ethnicity in multicultural Australia.

The third wave

Third wave wog humour continues the exploration of cultural difference and class but centres much of its humour on the differences between migrant parents and their kids.

The third wave is best represented by Superwog and the skit comedy of Sooshi Mango (on YouTube since 2007), albeit at different ends of the comedic spectrum.

Sooshi Mango are perhaps best known for their skits portraying their ethnic mothers and fathers. (As the daughter of an ethnic concreter, this one hits home.)

One member of the trio, Andrew Manfre, has described this as a way of remembering their parents who worked hard for their children, and their adopted country.

Superwog emerged from the Saidden brothers’ re-enactments of their parents fighting. Unlike the gentle respect that motivates Sooshi Mango, the Saiddens sought to capture their parents’ over the top arguments.

In 2014, Theo spoke of his memories of:

Shoes flying. Getting offended. All wogs get offended … it’s a very big thing. They are very emotional and loud and make big deals out of little things.

Superwog comes to Netflix

In Son of a Donkey, the Saidden brothers humorously seek to resolve the dysfunctional relationship between Theo and his father that was a core part of the humour in Superwog.

The Saidden brothers’ skewering of the vagaries of modern life leans more to the carnival of Pizza than the cosmopolitan ethos of Acropolis Now. But the juxtaposition of classical music against some of the show’s more ridiculous scenes acts as a sly wink to its audience.

Meanwhile, its satire of Epstein, conspiracy theorists, Jordan Peterson and the manosphere is at once ludicrous and needle-sharp. Even as they sink into a misogynist rabbit-hole, Johnny’s grandma is there to remind them who really is the boss in the ethnic family.

Superwog are part of the third wave of Australian wog humour. Netflix

Ultimately – despite flying shoes and rancid food – wog blood is thicker than water.

And despite being the foil for their sons’ comedy, the Saidden brothers’ parents are happy with their success.

Son of a Donkey is now streaming on Netflix.

Jess Carniel received funding from the Army History Unit for some of her research on wog history in Australia.

60 years ago, supermodel Jean Shrimpton’s Cup outfit shocked the nation – but few know the full story

2025-10-29T18:34:41Z

The Australian Women's Weekly, November 17 1965 issues (page 3).

Today marks 60 years since English photographic model Jean Shrimpton, dubbed “The Shrimp”, caused a stir among conservative racegoers at the Melbourne Cup.

On October 30 1965, the then 22-year-old wore a “swinging 60s” minidress that would go on to become the stuff of legend.

Shrimpton ventured to Flemington Racecourse in a simple dress, minus the trappings of 1960s conservative female attire: hat, gloves and stockings. She was also flashing a few extra inches of bare thigh which would have been deemed unseemly for the occasion.

This dress, a mere 10cm above the knee, would hardly turn heads in 2025.

Shrimpton was one of the world’s most photographed faces at the time, and her Derby Day appearance has been credited with driving a cultural shift in Australian sartorial style – one that marked the dawn of casual dressing and the rise of youth fashion culture.

However, as my research highlights, Shrimpton did not come to Australia with the intention to shock or disrupt. In fact, her influence on fashion was more a result of the reach of one particular big business.

Why did Jean Shrimpton come to Australia?

Ahead of the 1965 Melbourne Cup, the Victoria Racing Club (VRC) invited a number of locally active textile fibre producers to bring an international model to the event dressed in their product.

The VRC hoped a bit of extra glamour and pizzazz (at no cost to them) might stem waning attendance numbers and generate more interest in the relatively new Fashions on the Field event.

But apart from the Australian Wool Board, the only party to take up the offer was multinational chemical and textile giant DuPont de Nemours Inc (DuPont). DuPont hired Shrimpton under a sponsorship contract, and arranged to fly her to Australia to wear and promote one of its synthetic fibres called Orlon.

At the time, Orlon’s reputation in the fashion market was practically non-existent. What better way to increase its profile than to have it associated with a famous face?

‘The Shrimp’ on the front cover of the Australian Women’s Weekly August 25 1965 edition. Trove

Rumours of a tussle over fabric

Shrimpton was sent lengths of woven Orlon fabric in advance, and given free rein in having her racewear made in designs of her choice in London.

Stories abound about her having insufficient fabric to work with – hence the short hemline. In her 1990 autobiography, Shrimpton blamed DuPont for shortchanging the fabric allowance, but then affirmed she would have worn similar styles to any other race meeting in the world, as short skirts were “in” in 1965. DuPont also knew about those “mini” London styles Shrimpton was famous for wearing.

If the company had erred, or if Shrimpton had really craved a more traditional hemline, supplying additional fabric would not have been a problem for the large, well-resourced multinational.

When Shrimpton and her boyfriend, English actor Terence Stamp, touched down at Essendon Airport on Derby Day, they were 24 hours late.

A welcome party planned for the evening before Derby Day at Melbourne’s Top of the Town restaurant was cancelled at the last minute when DuPont got word around 6pm that the guest of honour was still in Sydney. The “big shrimp” ice carving prepared as a party centrepiece was left to melt.

Shrimpton was lucky to have made it to the Derby Day meeting at all. With no time to freshen or change, DuPont representatives hastily bundled her and Stamp into waiting vehicles at the airport, and headed straight to Flemington Racecourse.

What happened next is, shall we say, history.

Fallout from a fashion faux pas

Many have recalled the indignation among racegoers when Shrimpton entered the members’ enclosure on Derby Day — as well as the furore that erupted later and was enthusiastically fanned by the media.

Strict dress codes ruled supreme in the members’ enclosure. It was a space of conspicuous consumption, and one where haute couture traditionally took centre stage.

The promotional buildup to Shrimpton’s Australian arrival had been robust thanks to DuPont’s marketing efforts, so some of the public’s indignation and anger was likely tinged with disappointment.

The magic of a much-anticipated celebrity appearance was quickly dashed by the reality of a young model with unruly, windswept hair, wearing a simple, synthetic dress.

On November 17 1965, The Australian Women’s Weekly published a photo spread of outfits worn by Jean Shrimpton and Parisian model Christine Borge during the cup. Trove

Critics blasted Shrimpton’s supposed lack of etiquette, manners and fashion choice, while Australia’s provincialism was called out internationally.

And while Shrimpton maintained her right to dress in her own style, she went home nursing bruised feelings over her public dressing-down. Meanwhile, DuPont’s involvement in the incident was all but forgotten.

Six decades on, Shrimpton retains her status as an icon who delivered Australian youth from the stifles of conservative dressing. But it’s also worth remembering the big business sponsorship behind her famous appearance.

After DuPont’s initial attempt at damage control – which involved supplying Shrimpton a hat and stockings for the Cup Day meeting – the company’s marketers quickly embraced the controversy as “absolutely sensational!”

It seems they followed the logic of 19th century showman P.T. Barnum, who reportedly said “there is no such thing as bad publicity”.

Pauline Hastings does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

How one 1985 documentary ‘scared the pants’ off us – and sparked a paranormal TV craze

2025-10-28T18:57:53Z

On a crisp winter evening in 1985, a documentary went to air whose advance advertising promised to scare viewers out of their wits. It didn’t disappoint.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the broadcast of Haunted on Australian television.

Following the success of the 1984 Ghostbusters movie, there was a public appetite for all things spooky.

Over the course of 97 minutes, Haunted documents 14 cases of alleged hauntings across Australia, from Fremantle in the west, to the convict settlements of Tasmania’s Port Arthur, to Brisbane’s leafy inner suburbs.

Commissioned by Network 10 with the brief to “scare the pants off people”, writer and director Iain Gillespie and his crew travelled the country to interview everyday people about their paranormal experiences.

Haunted rated well upon transmission. Yet four decades on, Gillespie tells me has mixed feelings about it:

It was made as a commercial documentary. I would rather have done something more scientific.

Even so, the program would go on to become a major precursor to the paranormal TV genre.

Exploring old haunts

The success of Haunted hinges on the seeming credibility of its witnesses.

In one scene, a vehicle welder speaks nervously of his encounter with a girl in a striped bikini who vanished before his eyes.

And perhaps most memorable is the little athletics club mum who, while puffing on a cigarette, describes a phantom matron who stood outside her hostel window and stared at her blankly.

A recreation of the phantom matron of York Hostel, Western Australia, from Haunted. Network Ten/Iain Gillespie/Terry Carlyon

Much of Haunted’s eerie atmosphere comes down to its visuals. Gillespie credits cinematographer Terry Carlyon for the documentary’s stylistic look:

He shot building exteriors in the daytime, but by using filters and low camera angles, made them look like night and very creepy.

Ghosts take over the media

The mainstream media’s coverage of the paranormal started in the Victorian era with spirit photography. The first spirit photo was published in 1862, and the medium was later championed by the likes of Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle.

The 20th century saw investigators such as Harry Price, Hans Holzer and Maurice Grosse document cases of everyday people dealing with ghosts and hauntings.

The Enfield Poltergeist in late 1970s London is a good example. Investigated by Grosse and Ed and Lorraine Warren (the couple who inspired the glamorised Conjuring film franchise), the case received much exposure in the press – including in Australian tabloids.

In 1992, an infamous live paranormal investigation called Ghostwatch aired on British TV on Halloween night.

Although it was a mockumentary, it was given credence by being presented by respected journalists and hosted by TV presenter Michael Parkinson. By the end of the show, Parkinson was standing in an abandoned TV studio apparently possessed by the demonic entity his team had been investigating.

In the days following the broadcast, the BBC received thousands of complaints from viewers who were disturbed by the program.

But it was arguably Britain’s Most Haunted (2002–19) that set the formula for modern paranormal reality TV more than any other show.

The investigative team, which included a host, camera crew, parapsychologist and psychic medium, would spend the night in a purportedly haunted location and make extensive use of night-vision cameras and environment-sensitive devices.

Footage would then be furnished with fast edits, creepy music and unsettling flashes of spooky graphics.

Between 2004 and 2019, more than 70 documentary-style paranormal series aired in the United States alone.

The American show Ghost Asylum (2014–16) is one egregious standout. It follows a burly band of brothers who have the absurd intention of being the first team to “trap a ghost” via their own spook-snaring contraption.

Ghost Asylum features a burly, bearded team who will, at times, get combative with any potential ghosts. Prime Video

A more “authentic” example is The Other Side (2014–). In this series, a small team of Indigenous Canadians investigate haunted places in a respectful manner, with a smudging (smoking) ceremony held prior to each investigation.

Ghost-hunting in the digital age

The interest in ghost-hunting on TV has also been reflected in the growth of amateur “paranormal societies” the world over. Multiple groups have formed, particularly in the US, and gained members through social media. There was also a spike in ghost reporting during COVID lockdowns.

The technologies used in “ghost-detecting” equipment have developed markedly since the ’90s and noughties. Today, investigators such as host of the long-running Ghost Adventures Zak Bagans and his team use electromagnetic field (EMF) meters and digital thermometers to track sudden drops in temperature – generally associated with the suspected presence of a ghost.

Other recent advancements include spirit boxes and the ovilus: devices to translate environmental fluctuations into spoken words, giving a “voice” to ghosts.

There are also structured light sensor (SLS) cameras adapted from the body-sensing technology of the Xbox gaming console. These project an infrared grid to allegedly detect and visualise human-like phantom forms as stick figures, even in complete darkness.

Much of this tech was influenced by the devices in the original Ghostbusters movie.

A lasting legacy

In the final segment of Haunted, Iain Gillespie featured three amateur ghost-hunting schoolboys who spent a night in a supposedly haunted restaurant in Melbourne, using simple equipment they had built themselves.

Haunted’s teenage ghostbusters John Wilson, Stephen Franklin and Damian Gould in the Black Rose restaurant, St Kilda. Network Ten/Iain Gillespie/Terry Carlyon

These days, Gillespie doesn’t have much time for the tide of ghost-hunting programs taking over our screens:

I look in vain for something that is credible. I am yet to find one.

But whether or not you’re a believer, there’s no doubt paranormal reality TV fulfils a need in many viewers to seek confirmation that some part of us can survive death.

Alasdair Macintyre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Samhain: the true, non-American origins of Halloween

2025-10-27T19:04:09Z

Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images

We all know how commercial Halloween has become, with expensive dress-ups, trick-or-treat “candy” and fake cobwebs (please don’t – they kill birds!).

But if you’ve ever dismissed Halloween as an American invention, you might want to rethink that.

For at least the past couple of millennia, the changing of the seasons has been marked among Celtic peoples with festivals at recognised times of year.

One of these was known by the Irish and Scottish Gaels as Samhain (pronounced “sah-win”), celebrated at the onset of winter. In the northern hemisphere, this falls around the end of October, although the tradition predates our modern calendar.

Samhain and the rhythms of the farming year

At Samhain, the harvest would be over, the last livestock would be brought back from the summer pastures, and people would prepare for the winter.

The old Gaelic saying “Oidhche Shamhna theirear gamhna ris na laoigh” (on Samhain night, calves become stirks) shows us how closely the idea of Samhain is tied to the rhythms of the farming year. (A stirk is a beast aged between six and 12 months.)

Summer in Gaelic culture meant outdoor life – young family members staying up in the hills watching the grazing livestock, renewal of the thatch on the family home, growing and harvesting crops.

Winter meant long hours inside the house, rationing the food that had been stored.

Samhain became an opportunity for one last celebration of nature before the long period indoors.

Seasonal duties were completed. Beasts unlikely to survive would be butchered, with part of the meat preserved and part used in a shared meal.

Bonfires would be lit for a last outdoor party, also providing warmth, invoking protection and fertility.

Fires were probably a way of mimicking the warmth and light of the Sun – holding back the winter darkness a little longer, protecting against evil by appeasing the old gods or new saints.

There’s also a long-held Celtic belief that at liminal times like Samhain – on the cusp between summer and winter – the veil between the human and spirit worlds was especially thin.

This meant otherworldly beings or spirits, particularly those of the ancestors, might be found roaming in our world.

Bonfires are a big part of Samhain. Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images

The forerunners of our modern trick-or-treaters

Various Samhain activities, recorded from the early 18th century, reflect uneasiness about the possibility of encountering spirits, but also the fun of the bonfire party.

Many involved divination: attempts to predict a future spouse or otherwise foretell the future, are particularly widely recorded.

Acts of mischief by perpetrators unknown (likely teenagers), not all of them benevolent, were also common at Samhain in parts of Scotland and Ireland.

Gates might be removed and hidden, meaning livestock might stray. Chimneys might be blocked with turnips, trapping smoke in the house. Houses might be pelted with vegetables, wheels taken from carts, boats pulled up above the waterline, or chamber pots tied to doors.

Some people carved ghoulish faces into turnips, into which a light (usually a smouldering peat or ember in the rural areas, but sometimes a candle) would be inserted. It may originate from the practice of carrying a smouldering peat to light the way, or it may originate from the idea of pre-emptive frightening of any spirits wandering abroad. This is the likely origin of today’s pumpkin carving.

Perhaps the peculiar combination of uneasiness and fun led to the most widespread Samhain activity: guising.

Guisers might be considered the forerunners of our modern trick-or-treaters, but this was not a matter of dressing as your favourite character, or donning a fetching witch’s hat.

Guisers could be genuinely terrifying, especially for young children.

On the island of South Uist, for example, masks made from sheepskin with features painted on them were often paired with wigs of straw and old clothes or animal skins that concealed the form of the person inside. Sometimes a sheep’s skull might be added.

YouTube/The National Trust for Scotland Foundation USA.

Guisers would visit neighbouring houses, challenging the householders to guess their identities, perhaps reciting rhymes, riddles or songs, before accepting a scone or other food and going on their way.

There are two explanations of why guising began.

One is that by obscuring their identities, guisers would evade any hostile spirits seeking to harm them.

The other is that guisers were themselves imitating the ancestor spirits, and trying to frighten others.

Both are possibly true. The idea that the evening would morph into a sharing of songs, stories and food, surely holds the kernel of modern trick-or-treating.

All traditions change over time

In the 18th and 19th centuries, during the infamous Highland Clearances and Great Irish Famine, a great deal of the rural populations of Scotland and Ireland were relocated – often against their will – to North America.

In those relocated settlements, what could be more natural than to reproduce these familiar, and perhaps comforting, rituals of home?

The name Halloween refers to the Christian tradition of All Souls’ Day falling on November 1: the night before is All Souls’ (or All Hallows’) Eve, which became Halloween. As happened with many other significant dates, it seems to have been layered with the pre-existing festival of Samhain.

Halloween as we now know it has certainly been heavily influenced by North America, but if we look closely enough, we can still see the traces of much older Celtic beliefs.

We can embrace the idea of marking the turning of the seasons without having to adopt the whole package.

Pamela O'Neill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

‘Dark Academia’ romanticises a gothic higher education aesthetic. The modern institution is ethically closer to grey

2025-10-27T04:53:02Z

Sony

The world of graduate research studies in higher education is not typically deemed cinematic material: the “actions” of scholarship are rather prosaic. However, two films currently in cinemas have put graduate research on the screen.

Sorry, Baby, an indie film by writer/director Victor Eva and Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, from a screenplay by Nora Garrett, connect with the genre and online aesthetic of “Dark Academia” and its obsession for all things scholarly.

It’s popularity online explains, to a degree, why these “PhD films” are of interest to screen audiences of different generations. And both films blend towards a “Grey Academia”, exploring the ethically grey areas of the modern institution.

The world of dark academia

Stories of Dark Academia unfold in the shadows of university cloisters. The characters are university professors and their students. The dress code tweed or preppy.

The term is relatively new. It first described an online aesthetic on Tumblr then TikTok, with users sharing idealised images which romanticise higher education, literature and the arts.

The genre is porous. It has been reverse-engineered to revisit the campus novel/film/TV genre, including mainstays such as Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945) and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992).

During COVID, Dark Academia proliferated online with students locked out of their universities, pining for the real thing.

Publishing followed: Mona Awad’s Bunny (2019) and R.F.Kuang’s Katabasis (2025) are stories of graduate students in distress. The world of PhD study meets crime, psychosocial harm and sometimes magic and the occult.

The #metoo fallout

Sorry, Baby and After the Hunt share New England campus settings, in the northeastern United States.

The darkness in these films is shaped by incidents, and allegations of, sexual assault. They rely on genre to explore a post #MeToo sensibility: Sorry, Baby is a “traumedy” and After the Hunt a psychodrama that oscillates around, rather than confronts the inciting incident.

The main characters are humanities professors. Sorry, Baby’s Agnes (Eva Victor) is a young, creative writing professor at a regional university who has flashbacks to her trauma as a graduate student. After the Hunt’s Alma (Julia Roberts) is a middle-aged professor of philosophy at Yale, supervising students in ethics.

Both professors are white and privileged. However, the films foreground a queerness and gender fluidity consistent with Dark Academia on social media, as a generational update of the campus genre. They share a muted mise-en-scène but it is Guadagnino’s film in which scenes are (literally) bathed in darkness.

In After the Hunt, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) is a queer, millennial, black woman (coded Gen-Z at times) who is portrayed to be at best a mediocre student or at worst a plagiarist. Her PhD supervisor and mentor, Alma, struggles with pressures of modern academia: teaching, publishing and campus politics. Her remedies are copious amounts of red wine and (illegal) pain prescription pills.

With tenure just in sight, Maggie files an accusation of sexual assault against Hank (Andrew Garfield) who is Alma’s close colleague and confidante. Generational conflict plays out on the Beinecke Library plaza where Alma calls out Maggie’s “accidental privilege” and performative modes of “discomfort” through a lens of identity politics.

But Maggie’s family are benefactors to Yale and, with dwindling government support, private philanthropy keeps the lights on.

Maggie dresses as Alma in elegant, recessive preppy wear. This tilts towards “Light Academia”, a more optimistic version of the genre which peaked with the highly forgettable Netflix film, My Oxford Year (2025).

In After the Hunt, Giulia Piersanti’s muted costume design also reflects the greyness inherent in the moral ambiguity of the film.

Higher education in crisis

Themes of Dark Academia are also being referenced in scholarship on the psychosocial harm taking place within corporate university settings.

In After the Hunt, the phrase “the crisis of higher education” – typically a news heading – is repurposed as character dialogue.

Universities in the United States have been targeted with underfunding, a dismantling of diversity programs and existential threats to academic freedom. And graduate research studies are not exempt.

Closer to home, humanities and creative arts programs are being restructured, or erased altogether.

Is it too far of a stretch to imagine that the romanticism of studying the classics, the liberal or creative arts may one day only exist on screen?

In these new campus films the university itself is a key character – and its traits are found wanting.

In Sorry, Baby, Agnes feels the cold hand of the institution when her PhD supervisor flees to take a job at a new university. In After the Hunt, the Dean tells Alma “optics” matter most. While Agnes and Alma ultimately succeed in their tenure as professors, it feels a hollow victory.

These films bring dark stories of campus life to the screen in new ways. They explore generational values and distil the sociopolitical anxieties that surround universities today into fictional forms.

In particular, they conjure an ethical (and institutional) greyness perceived to be operating in higher education settings and draw on current affairs in the sector for raw material.

Last week, we saw the Australian government implement a set of “University Governance Principles” to restore public trust in universities. Perhaps an Australian film in this genre is coming next.

Alex Munt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The Art Gallery of NSW has transformed into a space to cook, play, do laundry and linger

2025-10-26T18:27:36Z

Children’s screams echo off concrete walls as they navigate bright-painted monkey bars. Families huddle around a sausage sizzle. Teenagers lounge on borrowed towels near a palm grove. Washing machines hum quietly in the corner.

But we are inside the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Mike Hewson’s The Key’s Under the Mat is one of the most ambitious and intelligent works of public art created in Australia in recent years.

What makes this work so remarkable is how completely it succeeds on multiple registers simultaneously. It’s a functioning neighbourhood park, a sculptural tour de force, and a sophisticated meditation on what we mean by “public space”.

Hewson has thought through every detail with extraordinary care. Inside the gallery’s cavernous underground tank gallery, brass spoons are hammered into custom concrete pavers. Steel rails are hand-painted rather than powder-coated, giving them a casual, approachable quality. Trinkets and tiles are embedded throughout like hidden treasures. Look down at the ground and the pavers read like abstract paintings.

The craft is exquisite – but it doesn’t announce itself. Instead, it creates an environment where people feel genuinely welcome to cook, play, do laundry and linger.

And they do. Watching families engage with this space – not in hushed gallery tones but with the comfortable ease of a neighbourhood park – reveals the work’s most radical achievement: most people using it (primarily children under 12, on the day I visit) have no idea they’re in an artwork.

‘Hopeful embellishment’

The work emerged from the artist’s experience of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Witnessing the collapse of structures that had seemed permanent, Hewson became fascinated by provisional repair, improvised solutions, and the community-building gestures that emerge from disaster.

Hewson’s subsequent projects have celebrated what curator Justin Paton calls “defiant repair and hopeful embellishment”: the beauty of making-do with care and resourcefulness.

The Key’s Under the Mat brings this ethos into dialogue with institutional space in ways that are both generous and thought-provoking.

Visitors in Mike Hewson: The Key’s Under the Mat in the Nelson Packer Tank at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Artworks © Mike Hewson, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Mim Stirling

The vast tank at the Art Gallery of NSW was built urgently in 1942 to hold fuel for the war effort, then abandoned for decades before being drained, cleaned and opened to the public in 2022. Here, it becomes the perfect container for Hewson’s vision of repurposed, reimagined public infrastructure.

The work’s intelligence lies not just in what it provides, but in what it reveals about the nature of “public” space itself. The gallery is a public institution, and entry is free. Yet accessing the tank still requires certain conditions: geographic proximity, availability during gallery hours, cultural confidence to enter a major art institution, and the knowledge that this remarkable space exists at all.

By creating functioning public amenities – laundromat, barbecue, playground – Hewson makes visible something we often overlook: “public” always comes with conditions. Laundromats require proximity, mobility and often money. Park barbecues require time, transport and sometimes booking systems. No public space is universally accessible, even when it’s genuinely free and open.

Visitors in Mike Hewson: The Key’s Under the Mat in the Nelson Packer Tank at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Artworks © Mike Hewson, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Mim Stirling

The project illuminates this with remarkable clarity. In trying to create the most welcoming, functional and generous public space possible within a gallery, Hewson reveals both what institutions can achieve and where their reach inevitably stops. It’s a paradox the work holds lightly but meaningfully.

Institutional critique; joyful amenity

There’s something profound about how the work operates for different audiences.

Children climb and play without needing to understand they’re experiencing art. Art-literate visitors notice the handmade pavers, the embedded spoons, the deliberate aesthetic choices.

Both experiences are valid; both are intended. The work makes room for multiple ways of engaging – from pure use to deep analysis.

This multiplicity extends to a question Hewson leaves deliberately open: should there be more interpretive signage explaining the work’s intentions and extraordinary craft? The current approach lets the art disappear into life, functioning without demanding recognition. But it also means the labour and thought remain visible primarily to those already versed in contemporary art’s vocabularies. There’s no single right answer – and the work’s refusal to choose feels intentional.

Hewson has described children as his “first ambassadors and interpreters” for this work. Watching kids genuinely inhabit the space confirms his instinct. They don’t need permission or explanation – they simply use what’s there.

Visitors in Mike Hewson: The Key’s Under the Mat in the Nelson Packer Tank at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Artworks © Mike Hewson, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Mim Stirling

The Key’s Under the Mat achieves something rare: it is simultaneously a sophisticated institutional critique and a genuinely joyful public amenity.

The work’s title captures its spirit perfectly. It is an invitation, a gesture of trust and openness. That the mat sits within an institution with its own forms of access doesn’t negate the generosity of the gesture – it contextualises it. Hewson has created the most open, welcoming, thoughtfully crafted public space he can within the given parameters, and in doing so, has made us think more carefully about what “public” means in all contexts.

The Key’s Under the Mat doesn’t solve the contradictions inherent in institutional public space. It doesn’t need to. Its achievement is making those contradictions visible, tangible and surprisingly joyful to experience. In a cultural landscape often divided between art that’s critically sophisticated and art that’s genuinely popular, Hewson has created something that brilliantly refuses to choose.

The Key’s Under the Mat is now open at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Sanné Mestrom receives funding from Australian Research Council

The artifice of the manosphere comes to the screen. It’s comedic – but also confronting

2025-10-24T04:12:58Z

The convoluted title of 5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!! boldly proclaims its subject matter by evoking the clickbait of algorithm-obsessed online personalities.

5 Steps is a multi-channel installation that presents audiences with a satirical yet confronting look at social media’s wellness culture.

Creators Nisa East, Anna Lindner and Yasemin Sabuncu construct multiple interwoven character studies – largely played by Lindner and Sabuncu – representing differing facets of the manosphere and its emanating impact beyond the screen.

Impossible expectations

“BE LIKE WATER” demands a poster of Bruce Lee’s glistening torso while an archetypal Alpha Man shadow boxes in the foreground.

The subject of a famous quote from Lee about adaptability, water becomes a motif in the film. On the third screen, positioned behind the seating area in the gallery, is the constant rippling of ocean waves.

Water surrounds the viewers, omnipresent in the way social media has become in our lives.

5 Steps begins with the opening lines of the poem We Wear the Mask by African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. In the poem, he describes the façade of a smile that can hide the struggle of hardships.

With lace front wigs applied over reshaped foreheads and a muscular drag king chest plate, many of the 5 Steps cast sport visible prosthetic work in the film. This exposes the artifice of these influencer figureheads, the lifestyles they claim to lead part of a careful performance used to cultivate clicks.

Nisa East, Anna Lindner and Yasemin Sabuncu, 5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!!, 2025 production still. Image courtesy of the artists.

A Bryan Johnson–inspired biohacker obsessively inspects himself while reciting the mantra “look after yourself”.

He is representative of the hyper-individualistic elite, using their wealth to gather expensive gadgets and personalised regimens that optimise their own wellbeing. Immortality becomes a luxury product.

This “aspiring god” is comfortable in his high-tech home – complete with AI assistant – while the world outside spirals into existential chaos.

Predators and prey

I encourage you to sit with the film more than once, to notice the details that only become apparent through rewatching again and again.

The comments that scroll past during various livestreams are a concerning (but all too real) blend of “NAMASLAY” spiritual appropriation and conspiratorial patriotic extremism. But these comments are also subtle evidence of everyday people yearning for connection.

These glimmers of isolated individuals seeking out community online echo the origins of “incel” subculture, before it evolved into the angry, misogynistic ideology we recognise today.

It also makes the influencers all the more predatory. The archetypal Alpha Man greets his “brothers” in a video promoting his shamanic retreat for “REAL Alpha Men only”.

Meanwhile, calls from a bohemian conspiracy theorist to “free yourself from the collective shadow” play into nihilism. He cultivates a dedicated following of “Sovereign Warriors” while defending himself against allegations of sexual assault, claiming he is a survivor of cancel culture.

It is not uncommon for popular influencers to be caught up in scandals of this nature. Nor is it surprising when their loyal followers view such accusations against their heroes as targeted attempts to wrongfully discredit them.

Nisa East, Anna Lindner and Yasemin Sabuncu, 5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!!, 2025 production still. Image courtesy of the artists.

Spouting snake-oil slogans about awakening your inner hunter, and harnessing “conscious aggression” to build legacy and “crush comfort”, in 5 Steps we see how young, insecure men can succumb to the toxicity of the manosphere.

The recurring appearance of a Stretch Armstrong doll also emphasises the impossible task of living up to the standards set forth by these fitness gurus, the distorted toy inevitably falling back into its manufactured shape. (One that is distinctly muscular, male and white.)

Gender dynamics in the manosphere

Within the online incel subculture appear two stereotypical caricatures to direct vitriolic hate towards: Chad and Stacy. Blonde and attractive, these are the perceived perfect specimens of a chiselled, virile man and a voluptuous, Barbie-like woman.

In 5 Steps we see this couple in the Alpha Man with a disconcertingly square jaw and his perfectly made-up girlfriend. In white robes and green facemasks, their luxe spa day spirals into him berating her for not “forging anti-fragile confidence”. Their voices dissolve into static as the disagreement goes on.

Later, she spends almost half the installation’s screentime fighting to maintain a camera-ready smile. With a string of pearls around her neck, her tradwife guise dissolves under our scrutiny. Paired with her partner’s aggressive rendition of Dayna EM Craig’s poem, A Narcissist’s Prayer – spat into his smartphone like an accusation before he slams the device on his desk – it paints a damning picture of their relationship that is hidden from his followers.

While 5 Steps is primarily concerned with male figures from the manosphere, the female characters are equally compelling in their complicated positioning as both complicit in this exploitative venture, and themselves victims of the toxic masculinity that flourishes in these online spaces.

What happens offline become some of the most poignant scenes in the film. The conspiracy theorist lashes out in frustration. The Alpha bullies his own reflection in a harrowing monologue. A woman quietly cleans up debris from a hole punched through the wall.

5 Steps fits a multitude of messages in its brief 23-minute runtime, but feels as though it is ultimately a call to action, asking us to reach out a hand to those at risk of drowning in the falsehoods of commodified wellness.

5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!! is at the Samstag Museum of Art with the Adelaide Film Festival until December 5.

The University of South Australia is a Key Partner of the Adelaide Film Festival, and the home of the Samstag Museum of Art.

New Australian–Irish coproduction of Roméo et Juliette grasps the spiritual quality of the opera

2025-10-24T02:55:04Z

Andrew Beveridge/SOSA

State Opera South Australia’s production of Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, co-produced with the West Australian Opera and the Irish National Opera, heralds a new globalised collaboration.

It is a considerable undertaking for the South Australian company, with the set built in Adelaide and the production requiring 200 personnel to bring it to fruition.

The focus is on young love: Roméo (Kyle Stegall) and Juliette (Siobhan Stagg) are moved by an extraordinary force that brings individuals together, in spite of their surroundings.

Shakespeare pitted such young love against the warring tribes of the Montagues and Capulets to highlight the folly of adult misdemeanours.

Stagg and Stegall’s triumphant singing bring the house down. Andrew Beveridge/SOSA

Gounod’s 1867 opera builds on this by foregrounding four duets between the two lovers. This structure provides a suspension of time, a spiritual quality in the intimacy that draws two souls together. These moments of beauty provide a powerful contrast with the violence of the world surrounding them.

From her training with École Jacques Lecoq, director Rodula Gaitanou is interested in the notion of “suspended space” and how a theatrical space is charged by human rhythm to become a living space. The rhythm here is in the music performed by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and accompanying movement and song of the two lead performers echoed by the supporting cast and the State Opera Chorus.

Soul’s fusion

The production begins literally with a bang, as a snap lighting cue reveals the Montagues and Capulets facing each other with guns drawn, dressed in 1940s trench coats and hats.

Two children encourage the families to lower their guns – only to have the weapons turned on them instead. It is an intelligent metaphor for both the purity of intentions of youth and a commentary on the death of innocence in war.

The children subsequently return, carried in a candlelit funeral procession that foregrounds what will come when Juliet discovers her would-be-lover is Romeo, from the despised Montagues.

The production begins literally with a bang, with the Montagues and Capulets facing each other with guns drawn. Andrew Beveridge/SOSA

Stagg and Stegall’s triumphant singing brings the house down. Both provide solid physical and vocal anchors for the opera. Stagg’s voice soars and gives a powerful display that delivers the at times challenging notes with ease. She is finely paired with Stegall, whose defining moment is the soft and subtle tenderness he brings with great beauty to the balcony scene.

Sidelight, traditionally utilised in dance to isolate the body in space, is used stunningly by lighting designer Bernie Tan-Hayes. In a bold decision, warm orange – normally used to convey daytime – is employed to create the glow of pure love. This is contrasted with the coolness of night – love surrounded by the coldness of the world around.

This anti-naturalistic intention is furthered with the use of sparkling stars that first light up the balcony scene then glitter with the marriage of Roméo and Juliette – a literal rendering of happiness.

The lighting is finely embedded within the set by the designer Takis: a post-industrial/renaissance blend of towers of wire, castle and LEDs moved into varying configurations to create the different locations. The lowering and raising of the curtain before each act has the effect of highlighting each new setting.

Takis creates a spectacular array of colourful costumes for the masked ball. Andrew Beveridge/SOSA

This culminates in the final act in the tomb where the blending of strips of LED lights, an off centre cross and candles is strikingly incandescent. Takis also creates a spectacular array of colourful costumes for the masked ball and a clever mirroring of the lover’s costuming when they marry, symbolising their soul’s fusion. The costumes range from the 1940s to the contemporary, giving a timeless feel.

Will there ever be peace?

The State Opera chorus is kept busy by the director working with movement coordinator Jo Stone, with much movement choreographed upstage to contrast with the action between the lovers developing downstage.

As Lecoq mentions, “there is no movement without a fixed point”. A prominent fixed point is the tableau after the deaths of Mercutio (an honourable Morgan Pearse) and Tybalt (Tomas Dalton with an energetic rashness). The chorus is aligned in stillness at the rear, Roméo is down stage centre flanked by the corpses either side.

After the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt, the chorus is aligned in stillness. Andrew Beveridge/SOSA

Gaitanou uses with great effect the raising of the individual guns of the Montagues and Capulets, then placed beside the dead bodies. Moments later the dignified Duc (Nicholas Lester) arrives and asks if there will ever be peace among them – a powerful message for the current conflicts in the world.

The remaining key singers provide strong support. There is the playful tease of Stéphano (Charlotte Kelso); the outraged and driven Capulet (Eugene Raggio); the earnest Frére Laurent (Pelham Andrews); the quietly assisting Gertrude (Catriona Barr); the supportive Grégorio (Jeremy Tatchell) and Benvolio (Zachary McCulloch); and a commendable performance by Oliver Dinnessen, making his debut with the company as Pâris.

The highlight of the production is the singing by the two lead performers. Their shared understanding is communicated both vocally and physically, achieving a complete immersion into the opera’s score and story.

Roméo et Juliette is at State Opera South Australia until November 1, then at the West Australian Opera in October 2026.

Russell Fewster does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Historical images made with AI recycle colonial stereotypes and bias – new research

2025-10-23T22:54:03Z

Generative AI has revolutionised how we make and consume images. Tools such as Midjourney, DALL-E and Sora can now conjure anything, from realistic photos to oil-like paintings – all from a short text prompt.

These images circulate through social media in ways that make their artificial origins difficult to discern. But the ease of producing and sharing AI imagery also comes with serious social risks.

Studies show that by drawing on training data scraped from online and other digital sources, generative AI models routinely mirror sexist and racist stereotypes – portraying pilots as men, for example, or criminals as people of colour.

My soon-to-be-published new research finds generative AI also carries a colonial bias.

When prompted to visualise Aotearoa New Zealand’s past, Sora privileges the European settler viewpoint: pre-colonial landscapes are rendered as empty wilderness, Captain Cook appears as a calm civiliser, and Māori are cast as timeless, peripheral figures.

As generative AI tools become increasingly influential in how we communicate, such depictions matter. They naturalise myths of benevolent colonisation and undermine Māori claims to political sovereignty, redress and cultural revitalisation.

‘Sora, what did the past look like?’

To explore how AI imagines the past, OpenAI’s text-to-image model Sora was prompted to create visual scenes from Aotearoa New Zealand’s history, from the 1700s to the 1860s.

The prompts were deliberately left open-ended – a common approach in critical AI research – to reveal the model’s default visual assumptions rather than prescribe what should appear.

Because generative AI systems operate on probabilities, predicting the most likely combination of visual elements based on their training data, the results were remarkably consistent: the same prompts produced near-identical images, again and again.

Two examples help illustrate the kinds of visual patterns that kept recurring.

Sora-generated image from the prompt ‘New Zealand in the 1700s’.

In Sora’s vision of “New Zealand in the 1700s”, a steep forested valley is bathed in golden light, with Māori figures arranged as ornamental details. There are no food plantations or pā fortifications, only wilderness awaiting European discovery.

This aesthetic draws directly on the Romantic landscape tradition of 19th-century colonial painting, such as the work of John Gully, which framed the land as pristine and unclaimed (so-called terra nullius) to justify colonisation.

Sora-generated image from the prompt ‘a Māori in the 1860s’.

When asked to portray “a Māori in the 1860s”, Sora defaults to a sepia-toned studio portrait: a dignified man in a cloak, posed against a neutral backdrop.

The resemblance to cartes de visite photographs of the late 19th century is striking. Such portraits were typically staged by European photographers, who provided props to produce an image of the “authentic native”.

It’s revealing that Sora instinctively reaches for this format, even though the 1860s were defined by armed and political resistance by Māori communities, as colonial forces sought to impose British authority and confiscate land.

Recycling old sources

Visual imagery has always played a central role in legitimising colonisation. In recent decades, however, this colonial visual regime has been steadily challenged.

As part of the Māori rights movement and a broader historical reckoning, statues have been removed, museum exhibitions revised, and representations of Māori in visual media have shifted.

Yet the old imagery has not disappeared. It survives in digital archives and online museum collections, often de-contextualised and lacking critical interpretation.

And while the precise sources of generative AI training data are unknown, it is highly likely these archives and collections form part of what systems such as Sora learn from.

Generative AI tools effectively recycle those sources, thereby reproducing the very conventions that once served the project of empire.

But imagery that portrays colonisation as peaceful and consensual can blunt the perceived urgency of Māori claims to political sovereignty and redress through institutions such as the Waitangi Tribunal, as well as calls for cultural revitalisation.

By rendering Māori of the past as passive, timeless figures, these AI-generated visions obscure the continuity of the Māori self-determination movement for tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake.

An AI-generated social media post visualising history from a Māori perspective. Facebook

AI literacy is the key

Across the world, researchers and communities are working to decolonise AI, developing ethical frameworks that embed Indigenous data sovereignty and collective consent.

Yet visual generative AI presents distinct challenges, because it deals not only in data but also in images that shape how people see history and identity. Technical fixes can help, but they each have their limitations.

Extending datasets to include Māori-curated archives or images of resistance might diversify what the model learns – but only if done under principles of Indigenous data and visual sovereignty.

Addressing the bias in algorithms could, in theory, balance what Sora shows when prompted about colonial rule. But defining “fair” representation is a political question, not just a technical one.

Filters might block the most biased outputs, but they can also erase uncomfortable truths, such as depictions of colonial violence.

Perhaps the most promising solution lies in AI literacy. We need to understand how these systems think, what data they draw on, and how to prompt them effectively.

Approached critically and creatively – as some social media users are already doing – AI can move beyond recycling colonial tropes to become a medium for re-seeing the past through Indigenous and other perspectives.

Olli Hellmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Why US activists are wearing inflatable frog costumes at protests against Trump

2025-10-23T19:09:27Z

Three frogs, a shark, a unicorn and a Tyrannosaurus rex dance in front of a line of heavily armoured police in riot gear.

Over the past few weeks, activists taking part in protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the United States have donned inflatable animal costumes. The aim is to disrupt the Trump administration’s claim that the protests are violent “hate America” rallies.

The result is a sight to behold, with many encounters between police and protestors going viral.

Whether they know it or not, these costumed activists are contributing to a rich history of using humour and dress to mobilise against and challenge power.

The ICE crackdowns

Since its creation in 2003, ICE has enforced immigration laws on the ground, arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants convicted of criminal activity.

During Donald Trump’s first term as president (2017–2021), the agency expanded its operations to target and deport many people with no criminal record.

This expansion sparked the June 2018 Occupy ICE protests, inspired by the broader global Occupy movement challenging corporate power and economic inequality.

The first major Occupy ICE action in 2018 occurred in Portland – a city known for its creativity and dissent. It grew from a rally organised by the Direct Action Alliance into what federal officials called a “very, very peaceful” encampment with kitchen tents, kids’ spaces and media hubs.

The protesters forced the temporary closure of the facility for about eight days, before federal officers cleared the site and erected a fence around its perimeter.

Following Trump’s re-election this year, ICE operations have intensified again, with the repealing of policies that prevented enforcement operations in sensitive areas such as schools and hospitals. Protests have followed.

In Portland, tensions escalated again this September, when Trump described the city as “burning to the ground” and “overrun with domestic terrorists,” announcing his plans to deploy the National Guard.

A federal judge has so far blocked Trump from doing so, saying the protests don’t meet the requirements for rebellion. He will likely keep trying.

Operation inflation

Protesters in Portland and across the US have long used humour and costume in their demonstrations. In October, a TikTok video showing an ICE agent spraying pepper spray into the air vent of an activist’s inflatable frog costume amassed more than two million views.

The clip exposes the absurd levels of police force against peaceful demonstrators. The protester, Seth Todd, said his intention was to contradict the “violent extremists” narrative, and “make the president and the feds look dumb”.

The Portland frog has quickly became emblematic of resistance, appearing on shirts, signs and street art, including parodies of artist Shepard Fairey’s iconic OBEY design – the authoritarian face replaced by a cartoon amphibian surrounded by the words DON’T OBEY.

And the frog costume has spawned imitators, with creatures multiplying in protests across the country, including at the recent No Kings rallies. One group of activists launched Operation Inflation, a website that crowdfunds inflatable suits for protesters, aiming to make resistance more visible, playful and safe.

Strategic silliness

One example that echoes Portland’s blow-up menagerie is London’s Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA). Members of CIRCA dressed as clowns during anti-war protests in the early 2000s. They played tag around police lines, hugged officers, and marched in absurd choreography.

As scholar Eve Kalyva notes, such actions employ “strategic frivolity”: silliness or absurdity in a way that disrupts the scripts between police and protester. By appearing playful rather than menacing, costumed activists directly counter narratives that paint them as violent threats.

The Portland frog and its friends work with the same strategies of silliness. Their dancing and cartoon-like actions make it impossible to frame them as thugs. Their soft forms bounce in contrast to the hard utility of riot gear.

From suffragette sashes to handmaids

Beyond frivolity, activists throughout history have also used dress and costume to more serious effect. In Britain in the early 20th century, suffragettes wore coordinated purple, white and green sashes to project unity in the fight for women’s voting rights.

In the US, dress and costume have played important roles in successive movements for African American liberation. During the 50s and 60s Civil Rights Movements, many marched in their best suits and dresses to assert their dignity against dehumanising racism.

The Black Panther Party had an unofficial uniform of sunglasses, berets and black leather jackets, embodying a more defiant style.

More recently, demonstrators in the US, Northern Ireland and Argentina have donned the red cloaks and white bonnets of The Handmaid’s Tale to protest abortion bans.

Similarly, The Extinction Rebellion–affiliated group Red Rebel Brigade stages actions in flowing red robes to mourn environmental loss.

And the wearing of the fishnet-patterned keffiyeh has now become a global symbol of Palestinian support.

Naked solidarity

On October 12, Portland’s anti-ICE demonstrators – many in their inflatable suits — were joined by thousands of naked cyclists in the Emergency World Naked Bike Ride. As costume designer and historian Camille Benda writes in Dressing The Resistance: The Visual Language of Protest (2021), nakedness in protest lays bare the body’s vulnerability to state violence.

In Portland, the mix of bare skin and soft blow-up animals heightens both the absurdity and tenderness of the scene. These protesters offer new avenues for direct action at a time when many people’s rights and freedoms are at stake.

At the time of writing, ICE was reported to have increased its weapons budget by 700% from last year.

Whether Trump will ultimately deploy the National Guard remains unclear. But across the US, the frogs (and their friends) keep multiplying. Their placards declaring “frogs together strong” remind us of the strength to be forged in unity and laughter.

Blake Lawrence does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

A decade of Tarnanthi: how a festival of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art creates a new national art history

2025-10-22T19:10:29Z

Installation view: Too Deadly: Ten Years of Tarnanthi, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Photo: Saul Steed

The Tarnanthi Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art began in 2015. The title of the exhibition celebrating Tarnanthi a decade on, Too Deadly, underscores the level of excellence Tarnanthi has achieved in terms of the sheer number of artists involved, new work commissioned and its reach to new audiences.

As Megan Davis said in her speech to launch the 2025 exhibition, art leads to conversations about First Nations people, their history and beliefs.

Tarnanthi is a biennial festival with a difference. It consists of a major exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia, satellite exhibitions in city, metropolitan and regional galleries, and an ethically run art fair.

Vincent Namatjira, Western Aranda people, Northern Territory, born Mparntwe (Alice Springs), Northern Territory 1983, Charles on Country, 2022, Indulkana, Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, South Australia, synthetic polymer paint on linen , 122.0 x 198.0 cm. Prudence Lee Bequest Fund 2023 , Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide , © the artist, courtesy of Iwantja Arts and Ames Yavuz

Underpinning these exhibitions and events is the central Tarnanthi practice of empowering First Nations artists to develop new work, to bring it to light. This has been, and is, central to Tarnanthi’s success.

Under festival director Nici Cumpston, a relational curatorial model was developed with several key elements – listening to and encouraging First Nations artists, giving centrality to artist-led projects, supporting cultural continuity projects, and facilitating innovation rooted in tradition.

Work of the decade

The most compelling work of the decade is on show in Too Deadly. This includes Western Aranda artist Vincent Namatjira’s endearing Charles on Country (2022). It depicts the British King regally dressed, but looking out of place, as if he has strayed onto someone else’s Country.

Namatjira considers art a weapon, softened with humour. As he explains in the accompanying exhibition catalogue:

I like to paint with a little bit of humour, humour takes away some of their power and keeps us all equal.

On entering the exhibition space, viewers are confronted by Kokatha/Nukunu artist Yhonnie Scarce’s extraordinarily impressive recreation of an atomic mushroom cloud in Thunder raining poison (2015), made of 2,000 suspended glass yams.

Installation view: Too Deadly: Ten Years of Tarnanthi , Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Photo: Saul Steed

Its beguiling beauty revisits the enduring tragedy wrought on Aboriginal people in central Australia by sustained atomic testing from 1952–63. Scarce grew up in Woomera, near Maralinga, and is acutely aware of the removal of Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people from their traditional lands, which were destroyed. These events haunt her as “one of the most hidden histories within Australia”.

The mood changes with Maluyligal/Wuthathi/Dayak artist Brian Robinson, whose large-scale wall installation Empyreal: a Place and a Path in the Sky and on the Earth (2019) portrays the sky as a navigational tool and spiritual realm.

Brian Robinson, Maluyligal/Wuthathi/Dayak people, Waiben (Thursday Island), Torres Strait Islands, Queensland, born Waib en (Thursday Island), Queensland 1973, Empyreal: A Place and a Path in the Sky and on the Eart h, 2019, Cairns, Queensland, mixed media, (dimensions variable), 25.0 x 120.0 x 120.0 cm (each). Acquisition through Tarnanthi: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art supported by BHP 2020, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Courtesy of the artist and Mossenson Galleries

Reading his massive map in black and white, dotted with red floral motifs, is a lesson in navigating the night skies from open Country, well away from populated centres.

Gail Mabo’s Tagai (2021) similarly brings navigation of the Torres Strait islands to the fore.

Powerful work on show

The monumental three-by-five-metre collaborative canvas painting Kungkarangkalpa: Seven Sisters (2016) by 24 female Anangu artists of the APY (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara) Lands speaks to the many ambitious projects Tarnanthi has fostered.

The Anangu songline recounted is the pursuit of the seven sisters by the antihero Nyiru. This painting is exhibited here alongside the ingenious and animated weaving Paarpakani (take flight) and Tjanpi Punu (trees) (both 2011) by the Tjanpi Desert Weavers.

Installation view: Too Deadly: Ten Years of Tarnanthi , Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Photo: Saul Steed

Tiwi art took centre stage in Tarnanthi 2019. The display in Too Deadly of the Tutini (burial poles), paintings and works on paper with distinctive Tiwi designs is testament to the strength of culture. A small number point to cross-cultural interaction such as trading ships, and the influence of Christianity.

There are many other powerful works on show.

Kuninjku artist John Mawurndjul’s Namanjwarre, saltwater crocodile (1988) is an intricate and detailed bark painting.

Installation view: Too Deadly: Ten Years of Tarnanthi, featuring Kuḻaṯa Tjuṯa by APY Art Centre Collective and Albert Namatjira, Slim Dusty and Archie Roach on Country by Vincent Namatjira , Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Photo: Saul Steed

The APY Art Centre Collective’s Kulata Tjuta (2017) is a confronting installation of traditional spears, surrounded by empty piti (food collecting bowls) simulating one of the disastrous atomic explosions in Central Australia and its enduring damage to Country.

Tony Albert and Alair Pambegan’s Frontier Wars Bone Fish Story Place (2014) is a bold installation merging the violence of the frontier wars with the upending of traditional life for those affected. Pambegan, a Wik-Mungkan man from Aurukun, is a custodian of the bone fish story. This work displays a line of dead fish shaped like bullets, gesturing towards the shocking history of the frontier wars.

Yvonne Koolmatrie, Ngarrindjeri people, South Australia, born Wudinna, South Australia 1944, Eel traps, 2015, Berri, South Australia woven spiny-headed sedge (Cyperus gymnocaulos), 40.0 x 40.0 x 132.0 cm, 47.0 x 41.0 x 121.0 cm. Acquisition through Tarnanthi: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art supported by BHP 2015. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide © Yvonne Koolmatrie, courtesy of the artist and Aboriginal & Pacific Art, Sydney; photo: Jenni Carter

The magnificent Ngarrindjeri weaving Eel trap (2015) by Yvonne Koolmatrie hovers, suspended in the air, its size giving gravity and importance to a functional vessel widely used for catching eels. Its considered design ensured restricted numbers of eels would be caught, preserving the eel population.

A new national art history

Close to the end of the exhibition is a moving series of black and white photographs by Pakana artist Ricky Maynard, Saddened were the hearts of many men (2015).

Each man‘s gaze confronts the viewer with their lived experience of pain, injustice and inequity.

Installation view: Too Deadly: Ten Years of Tarnanthi, featuring works by Ricky Maynard, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Photo: Saul Steed

Over 10 years, Tarnanthi has fostered many ambitious projects. Too Deadly is a distillation of a decade’s exhibits in which the diversity of the aesthetic, the depth of subject matter, the geographical range of artists and the ingenuity of medium creates a new national art history.

Too Deadly: Ten Years of Tarnanthi is on show at the Art Gallery of South Australia until January 18 2026.

Catherine Speck has in the past received ARC funding to research Australian art exhibitions..

Lisztomania: why did women go gaga for 19th century pianist Franz Liszt?

2025-10-21T23:31:50Z

In 1844, Berlin was struck by a cultural fever critics labelled Lisztomania.

The German poet Heinrich Heine coined the term after witnessing the almost delirious reception that greeted Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt in concert halls across Europe.

One widely circulated drawing from the 1840s crystallises the image. Women swoon or faint, others hurl flowers toward the stage. Men also appear to be struck by the pianist’s magnetic presence (or perhaps by the women’s reaction to it).

This 1840s drawing captures Lisztomania in action. Theodor Hosemann/Wikimedia

These caricatured depictions, when paired with antagonistic reviews from contemporary critics, may still shape our cultural memory of Liszt.

He is often depicted not simply as a musician but as the first modern celebrity to unleash mass hysteria.

What happened at Liszt’s concerts?

We know a great deal about Liszt’s hundreds of concerts during the 1830s and ‘40s, thanks to reviews, critiques, lithographs and Liszt’s own letters from the time.

His programs combined works by the great composers with his own inventive reworkings of pieces familiar to audiences. Virtuoso showpieces also demonstrated his command of the piano.

Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata or Pathétique Sonata might appear alongside Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, performed in Liszt’s highly expressive style.

Schubert was represented through songs such as Erlkönig and Ave Maria, reworked for piano alone.

Liszt also turned to the most popular operatic works of his time. His Réminiscences de Norma (Bellini) and Réminiscences de Don Juan (Mozart) transformed familiar melodies into large-scale fantasies. These demanded both virtuosity and lyrical sensitivity.

In these works, Liszt created symphonic structures on the piano. He wove multiple themes into coherent musical dramas far more than simple medleys of well-known tunes.

Liszt often closed his concerts with the crowd-pleaser Grand Galop Chromatique. This encore demonstrated his showmanship and awareness of audience expectations.

As critic Paul Scudo wrote in 1850:

He is the sovereign master of his piano; he knows all its resources; he makes it speak, moan, cry, and roar under fingers of steel, which distil nervous fluid like Volta’s battery distils electrical fluid.

His audience’s response, it would seem, regularly spilled beyond the conventions of polite concert etiquette and social decorum.

Artist and showman

In a series of 1835 essays titled On the Situation of Artists, Liszt presents musicians such as himself as “tone artists”, condemned to be misunderstood. Nevertheless, they have a profound obligation to “reveal, exalt and deify all the tendencies of human consciousness”.

At the same time, a letter to the novelist George Sand reveals Liszt was acutely aware of the practicalities of concerts and the trappings of celebrity.

He jokes that Sand would be surprised to see his name in capital letters on a Paris concert bill. Liszt admits to the audacity of charging five francs for tickets instead of three, basks in glowing reviews, and notes the presence of aristocrats and high society in his audience.

He even describes his stage draped with flowers, and hints at the female attention following one performance, albeit directed toward his partner in a duet.

This letter shows an artist who is self-aware, sometimes amused, and sometimes ambivalent about the spectacle attached to his art.

Yes, Liszt engaged with his celebrity identity, but clearly also felt a measure of distance from it. He was aware the serious side of his art risked being overshadowed by the gossip-column version.

Much of the music criticism of the time functioned in exactly this way. It was little more than the work of gossip writers, many disgusted by the intensity of audience reactions to Liszt’s performances.

Gossip, poison pens, and the making of Lisztomania

Not everyone shared the enthusiasm of Liszt’s audiences. Some critics attacked both his playing and the adulation it provoked.

In 1842, a writer using the pseudonym Beta described the combined effect of Liszt’s performance and the public’s response, writing that:

the effect of his bizarre, substance-less, idea-less, sensually exciting, contrast-ridden, fragmented playing, and the diseased enthusiasm over it, is a depressing sign of the stupidity, the insensitivity, and the aesthetic emptiness of the public.

Similarly, poet Heinrich Heine suggested Liszt’s performance style was deliberately “stage managed” and designed to provoke audience mania:

For example, when he played a thunderstorm on the fortepiano, we saw the lightning bolts flicker over his face, his limbs shook as if in a gale, and his long tresses seemed to drip, as it were, from the downpour that was represented.

These and other accounts fed the mythology of Lisztomania, portraying women in his audience as irrational and hysterical.

The term mania carried a medicalised, pathologising tone, framing enthusiasm for Liszt as a form of cultural sickness.

Lithographs, caricatures, and anecdotal reports amplified these narratives, showing swooning figures, flowers hurled on stage, and crowds behaving in ways that exceeded polite social convention.

Yet these accounts are not entirely trustworthy; they were shaped by prejudice, moralising assumptions, and a desire to sensationalise.

Liszt’s concerts, therefore, existed at a fascinating intersection: extraordinary artistry and virtuosity, coupled with the theatre of audience reception, all filtered through a lens of gossip, exaggeration and gendered panic.

In this sense, the phenomenon of Lisztomania foreshadows the dynamics of modern celebrity. (It was also the subject of what one critic described as “the most embarrassing historical film ever made”.)

Just as performers like the Beatles, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift provoke intense public devotion while simultaneously facing slander and sensational reporting, Liszt’s fame was inseparable from both admiration and the poison pen of his critics.

Timothy McKenry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The uneasy history of horror films and disability

2025-10-21T19:04:31Z

Historically, horror films have been popular during times of social upheaval, as they allow audiences to work through collective cultural anxieties by tapping into their greatest fears. And “fear” is often built around ideas of what is “abnormal” – that is, different from socially constructed norms.

Throughout horror film history, disability has often been used as a visual shorthand marking the boundary between normal and abnormal.

Disability has long featured problematically as a metaphor for horror, evil or monstrosity. But a new wave of filmmakers are using horror to reflect on the lived experiences of people with disability.

Obsessive avengers

In horror, people with physical or intellectual disability often feature as villains driven by an obsessive desire for revenge on a world that caused their pain. We see this trope repeated in a number of slasher films from the 1970s and ‘80s, including Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).

Disability film scholar Martin Norden describes this horror archetype as the obsessive avenger:

an egomaniacal sort, almost always a male, who does not rest until he has his revenge on those he holds responsible for his disablement and/or violating his moral code in some other way.

This connection between disability and villainy is no accident. In preparing for his role as Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, actor Gunnar Hansen observed students with intellectual disability at a specialist school, and adopted their mannerisms.

An evolving landscape

Disabled people are speaking out online about how their lives are impacted by harmful stereotypes of disability in the media. And this push for advocacy and awareness has led to shifts in cultural attitudes and film content policies.

In 2018, the British Film Institute announced it would no longer fund films that represent people with facial differences as evil or villainous. This decision was in direct response to the #IAmNotYourVillain campaign run by UK charity Changing Faces.

Under increasing scrutiny, filmmakers have also been called out for using disability as a symbol of horror, evil, or monstrosity.

Warner Bros was forced to apologize in 2020 after Anne Hathaway’s character in The Witches was criticised for stigmatising limb differences. Viewers noticed the resemblance between her “claws” in the film and a real-life genetic condition called ectrodactyly. This led to the #NotAWitch hashtag trending on social media.

Actor Lupita Nyong’o has apologised for using spasmodic dysphonia, a real larynx disorder, as inspiration for her evil doppelganger’s voice in Jordan Peele’s 2019 film Us.

The National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association pointed out:

Spasmodic dysphonia is not a creepy voice; it’s not a scary voice. It’s a disability that people are living with and [they] shouldn’t be judged on.

Also in 2019, director Ari Aster was criticised for using the character of Ruben, a disabled child, for shock value in the horror hit Midsommar. As film critic Emma Madden argued in an article for The Guardian:

In keeping with Aster’s previous film Hereditary, in which physical and mental disability provides a metaphor for trauma and familial dysfunction, the disabled body once again becomes the monstrous body, used to convey a monstrous world.

From monster to hero

Many disabled people are huge fans of horror. The goal of critique is not to destroy monsters, or erase the horror genre, but to reduce its narrative dependence on ableism.

As horror fan Lotto Ramsay points out:

I want to feel horror. I don’t want to be the horror.

Today’s filmmakers are increasingly creating horror stories where the protagonist is disabled – perhaps in response to changing audience expectations and commentary. In doing so, they can interrogate the idea of “normal” in new ways. Some more recent horror films have even framed physical disability as an advantage, such as in Bird Box (2019) and A Quiet Place (2018).

In the slasher film Hush (2016), protagonist Maddie Young (Kate Siegel) is a deaf writer who uses American Sign Language to communicate. Stalked by a vicious killer she can’t hear, Maddie draws the audience into her desperate struggle for survival, encouraging them to identify with a disabled character in a horror context.

Of course, having a disabled protagonist does not guarantee the film will be free from ableism or negative stereotypes. The Advent Calendar (2021), a horror film with a wheelchair user at its centre, falls into old stereotypes by framing disability as something that needs “fixing”.

Just as we can look back on past horror as reflective of outdated attitudes towards race, gender and sexuality, so too does horror reflect the changing social construction of disability.

And this means future horror creators have a chance to tell stories which people with disability can enjoy – rather than feel targeted by.

Katie Ellis receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Gwyneth Peaty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Meow Meow’s The Red Shoes takes us beyond the showgirl’s feathers and frills

2025-10-21T03:01:48Z

Brett Boardman/Belvoir

While Taylor Swift has been breaking records with the release of her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, a more compelling heir to the showgirl tradition offers audiences a glimpse into the world behind the feathers and frills.

Directed by Kate Champion, Meow Meow’s The Red Shoes is her latest interpretation of a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, following The Little Match Girl (2012) and The Little Mermaid (2016). Here she asks what happens with the passage of time to women who are, in Meow Meow’s words, “wrong, forgotten, gone astray”.

For the opening number, Meow Meow has to be dragged into the spotlight in dishevelled undergarments. She is propped up until she can rouse herself.

She soon dons a dress and matching feathered headdress. In true showgirl style, Meow Meow has multiple costume changes (designed by Dann Barber). Or, rather, there are additions and subtractions, with outfits layered as her quest for the perfect red shoes continues and then reaches its tragic conclusion.

Vegas-style plumed headgear is complemented by moments of kleptomania as bags or scarves are taken from audience members. It’s a necessary redistribution of wealth, she reasons, as she loads herself up with items that catch her eye.

Dancing the red shoes

In Hans Christian Andersen’s original 1845 story, an orphan named Karen is adopted and given a pair of red shoes which she refuses to replace with a more sombre pair to wear to church. She is then cursed to never stop dancing. Her feet continue to dance even after their amputation, until Karen is redeemed through death and contrition.

Meow Meow’s interpretation of Karen (though she says the name matters little) is of someone pushed by necessity and seeking respite from hardship, but who is punished all the same.

Meow Meow’s character is someone seeking respite from hardship, but who is punished all the same. Brett Boardman/Belvoir

Just as Meow Meow has questioned the need for the Little Mermaid to give up her voice or the Little Match Girl to be left in the cold while others celebrate, she launches her critique of double standards and unjust punishment at Andersen himself in a comically rapid-fire barrage of questions.

The show’s meaning and its accoutrements are sometimes the object of fun, as Meow Meow clambers over a pile of debris in the corner of the stage including odd shoes, an old fridge and late-night online impulse purchases, musing aloud whether it’s “too early” in the show to be too profound.

She melds ballet and kickline steps in her choreography, all while balancing on one solitary shoe. Initially she wears a boot similar to those worn by the Moulin Rouge dance troupe today, in her nod to “the cans and the can-cans”, later changing it for one stiletto heel and one ballet slipper.

Not just for pleasure

Joining Meow Meow in various guises, Kanen Breen is by turns the embodiment of Meow’s ideas (if “a bit sketchy”), a faun to embody bacchanalian joy, or Hans Christian Andersen himself.

He provides a resounding and accomplished tenor voice as accompaniment alongside the trio of musicians (Mark Jones, Dan Witton and Jethro Woodward). Towards the end of the show, the musicians wear tutus under coat-tails in homage to the “delirious burlesque” of a 1900 Moulin Rouge revue or to a chorus of balletic swans.

Meow Meow’s The Red Shoes dances back and forth over different centuries and styles, reinforcing her reputation as a thoroughly postmodern diva.

The Red Shoes dances back and forth over different centuries and styles. Brett Boardman/Belvoir

Meow Meow is always aware of the lineage of which she is a part. She recalls other women who have preceded her. References range from Byzantium and Empress Theodora’s pearl-strewn act to Anna Pavlova and the ballet sylph.

Meow also acknowledges the cancan’s transgressive power as an act of agency by the working-class women who made it famous, and evokes a young Marlene Dietrich perched on a piano while auditioning for The Blue Angel.

Over the stage hangs a Danish saying, used as the motto of the Royal Danish Theatre, Ei blot til lyst, meaning “Not just for pleasure”. This saying is a reminder of the deeper function of the arts: a remedy and rebellion against a world awash with ignorance, conflict and the increased reliance on artificial intelligence at the cost of human connection.

All of these issues, part of the inescapable “noise of the world”, are skewered in both original songs and poignant renditions of material by Fiona Apple and Paul Anka, among others.

While no firm answers are provided for any of the multifarious themes addressed – indeed, how can one solve the ills of the world in a 75-minute show? – The Red Shoes cleaves to the aims of cabaret, defined by Meow Meow as “rigorous and instructive theatre”, and the civic duty of the artiste to resuscitate the art of catharsis.

This way, Meow Meow and her co-conspirators onstage are able to help the audience to “cathart” for themselves.

Meow Meow’s The Red Shoes is at Belvoir, Sydney, until November 9.

Will Visconti does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Skims has put merkins back on the fashion map. A brief (and hairy) history of the pubic wig

2025-10-20T19:11:05Z

The Conversation/Skims

Kim Kardashian’s clothing brand, Skims, has been no stranger to a controversial campaign. Over the past few years, Skims has repeatedly made headlines for releasing divisive products such as the nipple bra and hip-enhancing shorts.

Its latest release is no exception. Last week, the brand announced the release of an A$70 faux hair micro thong, available in twelve different colour and hair texture variations. The product has rightly been identified as a merkin – a pubic wig, or hairpiece for the pubic area.

While this controversial thong has been released as part of a 1970s-themed campaign, the history of the merkin dates much further back.

Venereal disease

The merkin is believed to have originated in the Early Modern period in Europe. The Oxford Companion to the Body dates its debut to 1450, though its exact origin remains contested.

What is known for certain, however, is the function of this curious piece of clothing. By the end of the 15th century, a major syphilis epidemic had swept Europe. The initial outbreak became known as the “Great Pox”. It led to widespread death and disfigurement, before becoming less virulent in later centuries.

As historian Jon Arrizabalaga and colleagues explain:

In some cases, the lips, nose or eyes were eaten away, or on others the whole of the sexual organs.

Pubic wigs became a practical way to conceal signs of the disease around the genital area. As well as hiding syphilitic sores, merkins could help to mask the scent of rotting flesh by adding a lavender-scented powder to the material.

It has been estimated that by the 18th century, one in five Londoners suffered from syphilitic infection. Admission records of London’s hospitals and workhouse infirmaries show syphilis was particularly rife among young, impoverished and mostly unmarried women, who used commercial sex to support themselves.

With no effective cure for the disease found until the beginning of the 20th century, it is hardly surprising merkins were used to conceal undesirable symptoms.

Pubic lice

Pubic wigs also proved useful for preventing the spread of pubic lice. England and France were battling rampant infestations of lice well into the 17th century. Shaving one’s pubic hair was, understandably, a proven method to prevent infestation.

However, this hairless appearance carried a negative stigma, as it was associated with the presence of disease and prolific engagement with vice.

Pubic wigs offered a solution to this perverse beauty paradox of the time, allowing women to appear unshaven (thus, healthy and clean) while being shaven to prevent infestation and spread of lice. The wigs could be boiled or even baked after use to assure sterilisation.

Appearances in literature

Although cultural awareness clearly predates it, the first recorded use of the term “merkin” comes from John Taylor’s Observations and Travel, published in 1617. It features among a satirical list of exotic and indulgent imports – such as “apes, monkeys, merkins, marmosets” – suggesting it was already recognised as a risqué commodity associated with vanity and excess.

The merkin continued to appear across a wide range of literature from the 17th century, particularly in bawdy pieces of work, such as the following 1661 poem:

He laid her on the ground,
His Spirits fell a ferking,
Her Zeal was in a sound,
He edified her Merkin.

Its use is most commonly associated with sex workers, though it is plausible wealthy individuals would also have adorned themselves with merkins to preserve the appearance of beauty and health.

Powdered wigs were adopted by nobility in the 18th century to conceal hair loss and deformities that resulted from syphilis, so it is not a stretch to imagine merkins would have been adopted as well.

By 1786, the term “merkin” had entered the formal lexicon, defined in Francis Grose’s A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue as “counterfeit hair for women’s privy parts”.

Merkins today

As public health improved and societal attitudes towards hygiene changed, merkins largely fell out of fashion.

By the late 19th century, they had mostly faded into obscurity and survived only as a quirky historical footnote. One example is the well-known faux-Victorian photograph of a supposed merkin salesman peddling his display case of pubic wigs, which is circulating as though it were a genuine 19th century image.

While the Skims micro thong may appear to be a cheeky novelty, the merkin itself boasts a centuries-long history – evolving from a practical accessory to a provocative fashion statement today.

The Skims line of “full bush” thongs were quickly sold out soon after they were announced. While the company hasn’t made the intention behind the product clear, its virality has certainly sparked a broader conversation about body hair politics.

In many ways, even these cultural conversations mirror those from centuries prior. The merkin’s very existence is proof that women’s body hair has, for hundreds of years, doubled as a potent symbol of health, sexuality, fashion and autonomy.

Esmé Louise James does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The Mona Lisa, a gold toilet and now the Louvre’s royal jewels: a fascinating history of art heists

2025-10-20T05:53:40Z

The world’s largest art museum, the Louvre has approximately half a million objects in its collection, with about 30,000 on display, and sees on average 8 million visitors per year. That’s big on any scale, with a lot of people and objects to keep watch over. And Sundays are particularly busy.

In a cleverly conceived operation, four men wearing fluorescent vests pulled up at the Louvre in a flat-decked truck at 9.30 Sunday morning. Quickly setting to work, they raised an extendable ladder to the second storey. Climbing it, they cut through a window, entered the Galerie d’Apollon and, brandishing power tools, helped themselves to nine exquisite objects.

The objects taken were France’s royal jewels, formerly belonging to the Empress Eugénie, Napoleon III’s wife and arts patron.

This is where it gets tricky for the thieves: what can you do with these priceless objects? They can’t wear them – too big and glitzy to go unnoticed – and they can’t sell them legitimately, as images are all over the internet.

Jewels of Empress Eugénie photographed in 2020. The diadem, left, and diamond bow brooch, right, have been stolen. The crown, centre, was stolen but has been recovered. Stephanie de Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images

The best-case scenario, from the thieves’ perspective, is to break them down, melt the precious metals and sell the gems separately.

Empress Eugenie’s crown, which the perpetrators took and subsequently dropped as they fled the scene on motor scooters, contains eight gold eagles, 1,354 brilliant-cut diamonds, 1,136 rose-cut diamonds and 56 emeralds. In short, this amounts to a sizeable stash of individual gems to try and sell.

Timing is everything

For the Louvre, any heist is a major blow. It calls into question their security, both electronic and human. Five security staff were nearby who acted to protect visitors and the alarms did ring, but the entire heist was completed within seven minutes.

Timing is crucial with heists.

America, a fully functioning toilet made of 18-karat solid gold, on display here at the Guggenheim in 2017. MossAlbatross/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

In 2019, an 18-karat gold toilet titled America (2016), from the artist Maurizio Cattelan, was stolen from Blenheim Palace, England. It was taken in five and a half minutes. It weighed 98 kilograms and was fully functioning. In other words, the two men who took it (and were later caught and served prison sentences for their crimes) worked quickly and efficiently. At the time of the theft, as gold bullion it was estimated to be valued at A$6 million.

Van Gogh’s painting The Parsonage Garden at Neunen in Spring (1884) was stolen from the Singer Laren Museum, in the Netherlands, during their 2020 COVID closure. It was recovered in late 2023 after an investigation by Dutch art detective Arthur Brand.

The 2017 theft of two Gottfried Lindauer paintings from Auckland’s International Art Centre took just a few minutes to complete. The thieves ram-raided the front window of the auction house where the paintings, valued at NZ$1 million, were displayed. The portraits were recovered five years later through an intermediary, with only minor damage.

Recovering the stolen

The National Gallery of Victoria’s Picasso painting Weeping Woman (1937) was famously taken by the Australian Cultural Terrorists in 1986 – but only noticed as missing two days later.

Recovered just over two weeks later, the painting was left for the gallery staff to collect in a locker at Spencer Street railway station. The motivation behind the theft was to highlight the lack of financial support given to Victorian artists, but the true identity of the thieves remains a mystery.

In 1986, 26 paintings of religious subjects were stolen from the gallery at the Benedictine Monastery at New Norcia, Western Australia.

The thieves were poor planners: they hadn’t factored in that three men and the stash of paintings couldn’t fit into a Ford Falcon. The paintings were cut from their frames, ostensibly butchered. One was completely destroyed. The thieves were caught and charged.

Where to next for the thief?

Recovery of objects from heists is low. It’s impossible to put a number on but some say art recoveries globally are possibly as low as 10%.

Paintings are more difficult to sell on – you can’t change their physical appearance to the point of not being recognised.

However, with objects such as the gold toilet or jewels, the precious materials and gems can be repurposed. Time will tell if the Napoleonic jewels will be recovered.

Never say never. The Mona Lisa (1503), undoubtedly the main attraction at the Louvre, was stolen in 1911 and recovered two years later. The thief, Vincenzo Peruggia, was an Italian handyman working at the Louvre and was caught trying to sell it.

The ceremony for the return to France of the Mona Lisa, Rome, 1913. Mondadori via Getty Images

This latest heist at the Louvre highlights the vulnerability of objects in public collections. The irony being they’re often gifted to such institutions for safekeeping.

Those who guard objects are usually paid a minimum wage and yet they are tasked with a huge responsibility. When budget cuts are made, it’s often security staff that are reduced – such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ announcement just last week.

The thieves on Sunday knew what they were after and why. We aren’t privy to their motivation. We know the stolen jewels are part of France’s history and are irreplaceable. Their theft denies visitors of experiencing them individually for their beauty and craftsmanship, as well as collectively within the context of France’s history.

But part of me can’t help thinking how the French were partial to helping themselves to artworks and precious objects belonging to others. So perhaps this could be a case of déjà vu.

Penelope Jackson’s Unseen: Art and Crime in Australia (Monash University Publishing) will be published in December 2025.

Penelope Jackson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Artist Pat Hoffie’s prints are deeply etched expressions of humanity under duress

2025-10-20T03:43:06Z

Installation view of Pat Hoffie: I have loved/I love/I will love at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2025. Photograph: K Bennett Umek © QAGOMA

Pat Hoffie’s I have loved/I love/I will love feels like an intervention.

The exhibition at Queensland Art Gallery draws on images aired, day after day, of the conflict that started with the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians on October 7 2023 and continued with the war in the Gaza strip.

Hoffie’s title is adapted from Arundhati Roy’s The Cost of Living (1999) which urges all of us to bear witness, “to never look away”.

And Hoffie offers art as a safe space to air dangerous ideas. She told me she believes

If we can get into a space and it can make us think a little more, or put us in touch with ourselves in a deeper way, then we might gain something.

Obscured by the blackness

The four tall walls of the gallery create a cube that intensifies an immersive experience.

In the centre of the space, wreckage crashes through the ceiling with ladders stretching to the floor. The girth of the rubble-strewn central installation pushes viewers up close to the works inspired by artists like Goya, Picasso and Kollwitz, who addressed the brutality of war in their own prints.

Hoffie’s prints span the four walls (the largest is 375 x 535 cm); some are of human scale. They are generally dark, figures obscured by the blackness; you need to spend time to allow their shapes of stretchers, individuals and people leaning on other people to emerge.

Installation view of Pat Hoffie: I have loved/I love/I will love at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2025. Photograph: K Bennett Umek © QAGOMA

Hoffie engages with the politics of our time: her attention is drawn to injustice and is finely tuned into global events. At the exhibition preview, she asked:

Does art still have the capacity to arrest our gaze and decelerate the look? And does the deceleration or slowing down of the looking make us think more? You can’t assume that it does.

Technically, these prints are revolutionary, difficult to produce.

Monoprints, screenprints and drypoints were made initially on a small scale, with Hoffie’s scratch-marks into the plate expressing her angst about the images raining daily on our screens.

Then they are processed on the computer, printed much larger, and hand-painted with other media overlaid.

Hoffie’s marks, at times, penetrated the paper. These glitches express the physical process, her emotional and, at times, violent investment.

Given this physical interpretation and their layers – of hand-worked paint, and overlaid orange (emergency) tape – their aesthetic expresses a grief we may share.

The posture of duress

This body of work is designed to hang together under one title – I have loved/I love/I will love.

Within the darkness of the prints, the smeary surfaces, the hovering shapes, is selectively applied colour – like a sunrise orange (or afterglow of a bomb), a soft pink rising in the sky beyond a group of people who reach toward each other. In another a bright orange patch emerges like a sunrise to balance a landscape of people who stand, fragmented but close, in the centre of a paddock.

Installation view of Pat Hoffie: I have loved/I love/I will love at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2025. Photograph: K Bennett Umek © QAGOMA

Some figures wear gas masks, others a rabbi’s kippah. Stretchers bear bodies, all individuals wear the posture of duress.

The slow emergence of potential meaning is part of Hoffie’s inspiration and rationale. The aged and ageless appearance of these works is hard to locate in time. She said to me that,

What I wanted was not to do an us and them exhibition. Because for me, what art is, what we’re all involved in, whether we know it or not, is collective mourning, collective grief.

The investment of artists in humanity

Critic Quentin Sprague writes about the role of art in bringing us back to

challenge, or even simply moderate, rusted-on views of the world that all but the most radically open among us can’t help but hold. Good art allows us to see through the consciousness of another person, and for our own world view to shift accordingly.

It is in this space that Hoffie’s work is most outstanding.

In a world in which dissenting views are increasingly repressed, these works invite us out of our comfort zone of conversing only with those of similar views. Groups of impacted peoples occupy surfaces and depths that are seductive and beautifully rendered.

Installation view of Pat Hoffie: I have loved/I love/I will love at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2025. Photograph: K Bennett Umek © QAGOMA

Their rich aesthetic reminds us of the history of print-making, its ability to share information, the investment of artists in humanity and a world view with nuance and shade.

We look deeply into images where there is no black and white, no right and wrong – these are deeply etched expressions of humanity under duress. They decelerate our pace, and our heart rate – and offer the potential to open both heart and mind.

Pat Hoffie: I have loved/I love/I will love is at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, until February 1 2026.

Louise Martin-Chew does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

A wave, a honk, or a headlight flash? Road etiquette isn’t universal – and that brings risks

2025-10-19T19:09:14Z

Most of us have a way of saying “thank you” on the road. A wave in the rear-view mirror, a quick lift of the hand from the wheel, maybe even a flash of the indicators. We assume other drivers will understand what we mean. But do they?

The truth is, there’s no universal “road language”. What looks like courtesy to one person can be confusing to another.

And while road safety is often framed in terms of how good our roads and rules are, or how safe our cars are, or how skilful the drivers are, it also depends on something subtler: whether we can understand other drivers behind the wheel.

So what do we know about the role of non-verbal cues in road safety? And how do they change in different cultures and contexts?

A confusing unspoken road etiquette

You might assume there’s a shared etiquette on Australian roads: a wave when someone lets you in, or a quick beep to hurry someone along. But survey results show there is less agreement than you might think.

A recent national survey of 2,000 drivers found more than half regularly use unofficial signals, yet they often interpret these signals differently.

According to the survey, the most common way to say “sorry” is a raised hand, used by nearly three in four drivers. But the same gesture also doubles as a thank you, or general acknowledgement.

Saying thank you also takes different forms. About 60% of drivers wave through the rear-view mirror, 18% stick their arm out the window, and 12% flick their indicators.

When it comes to the horn, most drivers use it as a gentle prompt, but about one-quarter admit to honking in frustration.

Two-thirds of drivers interpret a headlight flash as a warning for police or speed cameras ahead, while almost 10% see it as a courteous invitation to proceed.

Generational quirks add another layer of confusion. Gen X drivers (ages 45–60) are most likely to point if they see a flat tyre, while Gen Z (18–28) prefer to flash their headlights. Meanwhile Baby Boomers (61–70) and Millennials (29–44) mainly rely on traditional gestures: a wave, a nod, or a raised palm.

Another large survey of 2,000 people, conducted by life insurance company Youi in 2024, laid out what people consider “unofficial” road rules.

Some examples included waving when given way to, lifting a finger in greeting on country roads, merging like a zipper and yielding to pedestrians (even outside crossings).

However, although almost everyone recognised these customs, far fewer practised them consistently. About 90% of respondents said they know they should wave in thanks, yet only about 60% said they always do.

Road language around the world

A global review of implicit driving cues published last year found gestures and signals carry strikingly different meanings in different countries.

In Japan, quick headlight flashes can mean an apology, or a thank you – reflecting the general politeness inherent in Japanese culture. In Italy, the same gesture is a warning. And in Russia or Hungary, a string of flashes can be a way of showing gratitude.

In Hawaii, the shaka or aloha wave is a way of showing politeness on the road. And in India, the distinctive head wobble, used in many social settings, can also appear on the road to signal agreement or gratitude.

Horn use also varies widely between nations. In Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia, use of the horn is legally restricted to emergencies.

In Japan, it can serve as a polite signal to let other drivers in.

And in countries such as India, Vietnam, Thailand and Egypt, beeping the horn is a socially accepted part of everyday driving – and a form of negotiating passage in congested streets.

Why it matters

While it may seem trivial, these signs and signals shape how smoothly and safely we share the roads. A misunderstood flash or wave can cause hesitation, frustration, or even a mishap.

In that sense, road safety isn’t just mechanical, or formulaic. It’s also about how well we understand each other. It is, at its core, a culture: a shared performance of signs and signals that can denote warmth in one place, and irritation in another.

This can present challenges in multicultural societies such as Australia, where drivers from around the world bring different “road languages” with them.

Perhaps it’s time to think about whether road communication needs more attention. None of Australia’s states include courtesy or non-verbal communication in their driving tests.

With much at stake, and with so much room for confusion, it might be worth developing a standard “road language dictionary”. This simple guide could sit alongside formal road rules and feature as a small but important part of driver training.

A shared road language could spare us all a lot of frustration, and ultimately help keep us safe.

Milad Haghani receives funding from The Office of Road Safety, The Australian Government, as well as The Australian Research Council (ARC)

The true political fights of One Battle After Another unfortunately happen on the edges of the frame

2025-10-16T19:09:50Z

Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

One Battle After Another, written, produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is among the most exciting Hollywood films to hit cinemas this year. It is technically brilliant, with stellar performances, a heavy-hitting score by Radiohead great Jonny Greenwood, and impeccable cinematography.

On NPR, Justin Chang called it “prescient and political”. Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times crowned it the artistic antidote to fascism.

But these claims mistake political theatre for genuine engagement.

One Battle After Another’s action-packed prologue, set 16 years ago, charts the dizzying excitement and painful unravelling of anarchist terrorists The French 75. The group funds the firepower to liberate immigration detention centres on the US/Mexico border by robbing banks.

Fiery Perfidia (Teyana Taylor) embodies the revolutionary movement’s highs and lows. She triggers a lethal competition between two men: wannabe anarchist and bomb specialist Ghetto Pat (Leonardo DiCaprio) and deportation enthusiast Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn), a caricature of far-right militarised masculinity.

After ratting out her comrades to avoid a lengthy prison sentence, she abandons them and her newborn daughter, Charlene (Chase Infiniti).

Forced into hiding, Pat and Charlene adopt aliases (Bob and Willa Ferguson) and settle into “normal” life in fictional sanctuary city, Baktan Cross. Fast forward to the present, and the question of which man technically fathered Willa reignites the conflict between the two men – and the political extremes they represent.

Focused mainly on these dysfunctional triangles, the film overlooks intriguing stories on its margins: Anderson neglects the political motivations of the French 75’s mother hen, Deandra (Regina Hall), and Willa’s karate teacher, Sensei Sergio St Carlos (Benicio del Toro).

Centring their commitments to the collective good would have radically shifted the film’s take on political action.

Missed opportunities

In the wake of Perfidia’s betrayal, Deandra helps Bob and Willa evade arrest. Later, she shepherds Willa to the “Order of the Sacred Beavers” to protect her from Lockjaw.

Deandra lacks a backstory, which forces Hall’s expressive face to pull double duty, filling narrative holes. Exploring what propelled her to political extremism would engage the film in a different kind of politics. She is clearly not attracted by the adrenaline rush of breaking or enforcing the law, but by defending those vulnerable to it.

Deandra lacks a backstory, which forces Hall’s expressive face to pull double duty. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

Sergio plays a similar role, protecting Bob while he’s desperately searching for Willa. This happens during the standout action sequence at the film’s midpoint, when Lockjaw empowers military forces to “round up” the so-called “wetbacks” – a slur against Mexicans living in the United States.

Sergio calmly watches over Bob, who stumbles around in his bathrobe trying to charge his phone and remember a password. At the same time, Sergio manages what he calls a “Latino Harriet Tubman situation” – tunnelling immigrants to the sanctuary of a local church – while repeating his signature mantra “ocean waves” to summon tranquillity in chaos.

The film is clearly more interested in reckless, self-motivated action than either “ocean waves” or Deandra’s revolutionary motto: “women and children first”.

Sensei Sergio St Carlos manages what he calls a ‘Latino Harriet Tubman situation’. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

Their underdeveloped stories gesture to a genuinely political film that One Battle After Another doesn’t quite deliver.

Politics should prioritise the interests of large groups over individuals, but this film is in thrall to the seduction of political violence and power for a handful of extreme personalities. This is precisely what we need less of if a just, equitable world is possible to imagine from here.

One Battle After Another’s most blatant misstep involves Taylor’s scene-stealing Perfidia, who is undermined by sexist and racist clichés. She is shot firmly through the male gaze, and her passion for political action is portrayed as a kink.

Teyana Taylor’s scene-stealing Perfidia is undermined by sexist and racist clichés. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

The film fumbles the opportunity to inject substance into a character that might have shone new light on the racist roots of contemporary immigration debates.

You could argue that the film critiques the misogyny and racism of the culture it represents. But multiple black women characters seem to only represent their racialised sex appeal for white men.

Because the film portrays Perfidia as driven by lust for explosions and sex, her musing about “trying to change the world” in the film’s final act comes off as shallow.

A frustrating end

One Battle After Another offers familiar seductions: sexy women with guns, visceral car chases, repellent villains who get what they deserve in the end.

When unlawfully deployed military forces clash with the people who live in Baktan Cross, the timeliness of a film that took years to develop strikes a chord.

But the film’s politics are thin and rely too heavily on spectacle. Featuring people of colour in cages between scenes that rehearse familiar hero/villain dramas isn’t revolutionary. It doesn’t inspire viewers to imagine a society that operates differently than this one.

One Battle After another is a work of high-quality cinema that presciently depicts a present-day US rocked by internal conflict. But the film mainly invests in formulaic power struggles. See it for the action – but don’t go expecting a deep dive into contemporary politics. If this is “the film that meets this political moment”, then at least it provides a clearer picture of the shaky ground we’re on.

Missy Molloy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.