Matchett’s hatchet
movies, popular culture - - Posted on July, 2 at 1:36 pm by Gianna
Lefties are constantly being accused by the Right of not being funny enough. The Weekend Australian’s Review section (not online) had two pieces in this vein on Saturday. In one, Stephen Matchett argues that Leftwing humour is not funny enough because it is too Leftwing. To be funny, he contends, humour needs to be about ordinary people and transcend politics. He begins:
“In the hands of writers and critics whose self-righteousness is greater than their sense of humour, comedy as social comment is more about ideology than entertainment. To see the difference between comedy as class warfare and making straightforward fun at human folly, consider the work of Christopher Guest.”
There follows a long appreciation of Guest’s work. Then we get,
“Having lost about every political fight they have got themselves into during the past 20 years, the cultural Left long ago started denouncing the electorate for voting for the two main parties instead of the Greens or that other mob–name starts with D–that used to be a power in the Senate.”
See, now that is gold. Lost every political fight? When it’s the cultural Right who are currently scrambling to jump on every supposedly Lefty bandwagon they can flag down, whether it’s Aboriginal welfare, the environment, education? When, meanwhile, neocon dogma has been discredited, and the rational Right is increasingly admitting invading Iraq was a massive mistake?
“Consider the critical, as opposed to popular, response to two Australian films last year. Ten Canoes, a story of an ancient indigenous community, was lauded. Kenny, the documentary about a hero who carts crap for a quid, was largely ignored at the film industry awards, but guess which one made the most money?”
As much as winning the AFI’s Best Actor award means Kenny was ignored by critics. As much as winning four IF (Inside Film) awards and being described by IF as “cleaning up” the awards means it was ignored. No doubt Ten Canoes was considered the better film in artistic terms. Which is of more long-term cultural significance: a film that opens up a window on the lives of a subset of Australians of whom most of us know very little, or a two hour poo joke?
Matchett’s point, it seems, is that critics who preferred Ten Canoes (ostensibly Leftwing, because it is about indigenous people) to Kenny (ostensibly transcends politics, because it is about bums) are nothing but elites who are out of touch with the Australian sense of humour. (Later, Matchett ponders why “[Christopher Guest’s latest film] Consideration was not as critically regarded” as his previous comedies. Funny, I thought critical regard was irrelevant and that all that matters is box office receipts?).
I wonder, how would Matchett explain the popular and critical success of a film like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which surely falls into the Leftwing category, being about gays and openly mocking rednecks? Surely Matchett would say this wasn‘t apolitical enough and therefore unfunny?
Posted in movies, popular culture |
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Forget all that - Cinema Theory itself is as inherently arty and leftwing as you can get. My bet is that he never glanced in the mirror as he wrote this, bor he would surely have noticed the black skivvy and beret he was undoubtedly wearing.
Put this one in the category of Rightwinger moans about the moral relativism of leftwing pomo intellectualism while defending Abu Ghraib with the argument that “Yes, but they are worse!”
Funny thing is, of course, that the ‘true blue Aussies’ he’s defending will never read his diatribe, seeing as its in The Australian.
July 2nd, 2007 at 3:23 pm
The right can believe what they want about us.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
a lotta good comedy often runs from Left to Right & off the map in the same skit…think ‘The Young Ones’…’M.A.S.H.’…’Red Dwarf’…’Frontline’…’Monty Python’…Clarke and Dawe on 7:30 Report…Lewis Black…
Libertarians can be pretty funny. They get to be politically incorrect.
What even constitutes Left these days…? Or Even Right?
seems to me most of those who purport to be Righties these days are just escapees from the loony bin taking Murdoch’s ark to the promised land where free marketeers w/ rose-coloured glasses & texas ties frolic naked in the concrete jungle w/ pin-striped painted money lenders, squealing altar boys, google-eyed gamblers & military wannabees in G-strings…served redrum steak by monotone mummies & marmelade matrons who flick their hicky covered cheeks w/ the whip of Corporate Copulation in order to get them spinning & spewing sh*t…all dancing in delirium to Hitler’s last symphony: Serfus Maximus in F-minus (F for Freedom)…accompanied by the echoes of Homer’s last belch.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Wasn’t it Albrechtson who started this, complaining that there aren’t enough right wing cartoonists? Then the reply came that it’s because the right aren’t funny?
I read somewhere that Tim Blair is funny, so I started lurking there recently. At first he wasn’t. He was just scary. Now I laugh. Acquired taste I guess.
The failing on both sides seems to happen when people can’t laugh at themselves. I feel sorry for this Matchett person. And anyone else who thinks the arty farty is a waste of time.
What’d I say before Nasking? The hills would be alive with the sound of cows passing wind and dark side of the moon would be a fact of astronomy.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:46 pm
:)…one of my fave lines Lyn.
The image…the image…
July 2nd, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Two films ‘The Kiss of the Spider Woman’ directed by Phillip Ruddock and;
‘The Baghdad Cafe’ directed by Mark Latham, can’t wait untill they come out on video.:)
July 2nd, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Here’s a great piece by Matchett that is available on-line (but for a limited time only, I suspect, so get those screen grabs while you can).
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Matchett is taking the piss.So the left aint funny as against what? I tell ya,a gladioli throwing man dressed up as a women is about as funny as a penis full of pus.This is the rights attempt at humour.Even the good Les Patterson reverse phsiognomy is not lost on this little black duck.
Hey Matchett! not that your ever likely to read this shite, humour and parody were invented by the left, to take the piss out of right wing toads.Still I guess what the right loses on humour,they gain in other areas of culture like music HA.
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:52 am
This “culture war” fixation of the right is just soooo ’90’s.
What a bunch of anal retentives.
And who says we of the left have no sense of humour?
I, for one, found the spectacle of our Esteemed Leader, hand on heart, earnestly professing a vital interest in the welfare of our Aboriginal citizens absolutley side-splitting.
Like all great humour, the secret’s all in the timing.
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:08 am
Fine form so far being shown in this thread and blog. Keep it up!
(loved the conspiracy thread!)
Plus I reckon the single best thing that defines Australians to me is their ability to laugh at themselves! and take the piss of anyone in authority.
That it’s coming back stronger than ever is the single best sign that we might just finally be waking up.. and got sick of hoWARd’s right wing nutters…
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Nasking, that was the funnyiest shit I have ever read, I almost spilt the B@@@ water.
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:48 pm
[...] Lambert shoots Glenn Reynolds full of holes in response to an attack on Al Gore; while Gianna makes short work of the latest theory on why ‘the left has no sense of humour’, this one from Stephen [...]
July 4th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Not only are lefties funnier than righties, they’re funnier about lefties than righties. See the most obvious example The Life of Brian, which continually sends up leftwing movements. Are the Python boys right-wingers? Hardly. They also came up with “Constitutionl Peasants”, a favourite amnogst my lefty friends, even if these days you’re more likely to hear “Help, help, I’m being repressed!” from some rightwing wanker whining about political correctness, which itself was a leftwing in-joke (though we said “ideologically sound”) as early as the mid 80s.
Seriously, name one, just one right-wing comic who’s actually funny. And if you say P.J. O’Rourke you’re at least a decade out of date.
July 4th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Seriously, name one, just one right-wing comic who’s actually funny
Kelsey Grammar
July 4th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Seriously, name one, just one right-wing comic who’s actually funny
Donald Rumsfeld?
July 4th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
The funniest of them all: Dubya Bush!