Eurovision Australia!

euro
What an exciting Eurovision!, with Dami winning the jury vote! And second overall. Loved the Swedish hosts’ comedy segments. L made lovely vanilla cupcakes with Swedish flags stuck in them, and Scandinavian Dreamcake (coconut topping, delish!) Everyone had made special trips to IKEA for all the Swedish food and drinks, so we had EVERYTHING!

Watching all the past Swedish hits made us wonder if anyone in Sweden has a normal 9-5.30 job? They all seem so busy making smash hits.

Played my customised Eurovision Bingo — we were a bit disappointed by the lack of backing dancers this years (replaced by special fx) as that eliminated some of the bingo spotting challenges (eg. “singer lifted by a backing dancer”). L won the bingo tiara, as she spotted most things first.

G brought Greek bikkies, but we couldn’t eat them when Greece came on, as they’d already been knocked out in the semis! TC filled in any gaps in our Eurovision knowledge.

We are still waiting for superfan S, who was in Stockholm watching the semis, to send us photos of her Eurovision pilgrimage!

Since we’ve been watching Eurovision since the 1990s, when it was first shown on SBS with Terry Wogan’s excellent commentary, we raised a glass and toasted Wogan’s demise at song no.9, which is significant, as UK host Graham Norton said this was when Wogan advised Norton that it was OK to have the first alcoholic drink. (“no drinking before song 9!”, otherwise the commentator gets sozzled too quickly.)

Mardi Gras 2016

Was a fantastic LGBTIQ Mardi Gras – marched with the Social Justice in Early Childhood float, which had major issues to promote, such as promoting diversity and equity in preschools, and general support for the Safe Schools initiative, which helps older schoolkids who have gender differences, and intersex and sexual diversity.

Then did the 11pm – 1.30am shift with Fair Play, an initiative that makes sure Mardi Gras party patrons are treated fairly when sniffer dogs and police check for drugs.

After that, it was off the the Party, with Deborah Cox’s show at 3am a major highlight, and her two songs totally raised the roof: gay anthem Absolutely Not and Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here. Conchita’s 1.30am show was brilliant too, with many of Sydney’s drag queens doing a spectacular dance number.

I was wearing a Parade Participant wristband and several tourists came up and said it was the best party they’d ever been to, and they’d traveled worldwide. Seems a lot of other major gay dance parties are held hours after a day parade, whereas ours goes from the high of the evening parade directly into the party, so everyone’s totally pumped up. (Am in the pic below, behind the word “Justice”.)

SJIEC

 

The night The Life of Brian was dropped from the TV schedule

(One of my favourite articles I’ve written, which I initiated when I’d sat down to watch one of my favourite movies, The Life of Brian, on a Monday night, but it wasn’t on! Living in conservative Queensland, I suspected something might have been afoot, so I rang the TV station the next day and uncovered the following story. This story was published in a regional daily newspaper, The Maryborough Chronicle.)

TV movie gets the axe after protest by religious groups

By COTTON WARD

TWO scheduled programs have been dropped by commercial television station SEQ8 due to lobbying by religious groups for their removal.

A cartoon series, Dungeons and Dragons, has been removed until it has been examined by a panel of experts.

Also, the Monty Python move, The Life of Brian, was scheduled for 9.30pm on Monday but was replaced with a “cops and robbers” drama, Stigma, after a petition was received from Christians in Monto.

“The petition, of 22 signatures, came from Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Seventh Day Adventists,” said SEQ’s program manager, Mrs Jan Daniel.

SEQ’s programming decisions are made by the program manager, the general manager and the station manager.

She said the petition said the movie was offensive to Christians and “felt it wasn’t good for young people to watch”.

“We had a phone call from Hervey Bay, a pastor in Gin Gin also rang to protest, and there were a few phone calls from Bundaberg, plus the petition,” Mrs Daniel said.

She said this was the first time SEQ had dropped programs due to protests from the public.

“We’ve had about a dozen calls from people complaining about The Life of Brian not going to air; a couple from Nambour, one from Gympie, and about 11 from Maryborough,” Mrs Daniel said.

The axing is significant at this time, as the country ratings survey ends in the first week of June, and The Life of Brian has been a proven ratings winner in other capital cities.

“In Brisbane, it rated higher than Gone With the Wind,” Mrs Daniel said.

The children’s cartoon, Dungeons and Dragons, was removed on May 11, after religious groups claimed it encouraged children to worship the occult.

A segment on State Affair highlighted that by continuously playing the D and D board game, children could feel inclined to perform acts of violence or commit suicide.

Mrs Daniel said that a panel of six people, including a pastor, a parent, one of the children who wrote in to complain about the show being taken off air (12 letters from the show’s fans were received at SEQ), a librarian, a psychologist, and a person from SEQ, would meet during the next fortnight to compare Dungeons and Dragons with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (another favourite with children, which hasn’t received any complaints).

“We also got a complaint about an episode of The Woody Woodpecker Show screened on May 17, which a viewer considered overly violent,” Mrs Daniel said.

Every phone call or letter received from viewed (with name and address) must be fully documented by SEQ to comply with the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal’s regulations.

She said that The Life of Brian had been scheduled for 9.30pm, later than the usual 8.30pm start for movies, due to the nature of the film.

“We put it on later, so if people didn’t want to watch it, they could turn their television sets off.”

She said that no complaints had been received from Maryborough or the Sunshine Coast.

There are 275,000 people, according to the latest census figures, in SEQ’s viewing area.

“Surprisingly, we didn’t get any complaints about Porky’s,” Mrs Daniel said.

Porky’s was screened last Saturday at 10.15pm, following The Empire Strikes Back. A renowned sex comedy, it was described in the television guide as portraying “The exploits of six over-heated young men bound together by their obsession for girls”. It was heavily modified.

The Baptist pastor at Monto, Mr Noel Nicholls, said he had hired a videotape of The Life of Brian before he organised the petition.

“I was warned by an assistant at the store that the video was ‘blasphemous’,” Mr Nicholls said. He said that the crucifixion scene was particularly offensive, and “made a huge joke of Christianity”.

“I would think the Christian public would be most offended by this. Some of it is obviously just comedy, but often there are tones of underlying blasphemy by subtle association with the life of Christ,” Mr Nicholls said.

He said the opening scene mocked the nativity of Christ. There were many takeoffs of Christ’s teachings, and the language was “foul”. When questioned about the replacement program, Stigma, which is a story about a policeman who received a medal for bravery in a shootout, and the sex comedy Porky’s, Mr Nicholls said it was up to the individual to choose their own viewing.

“There are a lot of  unwholesome films, but I don’t have the time to monitor these. It’s the individual’s responsibility to choose what they are going to watch.

“I only object when a program ridicules the name of Jesus Christ. That is when we have to stand up and be counted,” Mr Nicholls said.

He said he appreciated that SEQ had listened to the public by refusing to screen the program.

The presbyterian minister at Monto, Mr John Witteveen, said that the film contained “gutter language”and made a mockery of Christianity and Judaism.

“Some parts of it were very funny and clever but there was no indication that it would be modified for television.

“I think that young people would be influenced by its attitude to Christianity. It’s hard enough already getting them interested,” Mr Witteveen said.

He said that the long term effects of the attitude shown in the film also had to be considered.

The Anglican priest at Monto, Mr Noel Gill, said that most people he had asked had already seen the film.

“It could be misleading to those people who aren’t strong in the faith,” he said.

 

 

Went to Meng Fei’s Q&A in Sydney

Saw Meng Fei tonight, of If You Are The One. Was great. I love the show’s hosts and having people round to watch it. He was very good, and joked that he might open a noodle shop here. I missed a lot in the translation. The Chinese-speaking audience picked up about three-times more jokes. Some fans had flown from Perth and Darwin. Australia’s one of the few countries that adds sub-titles, otherwise you have to know Mandarin to follow it.

Professor Wanning Sun, of UTS, said the dating scene had recently changed with economic reform and privatisation: before that, other people, such as bosses and supervisors, would tell employees who they should date. Elders would gather in parks with posters listing the qualities of their children so they could pair them off. Now, everyone has to find love themselves, so it’s a huge paradigm shift, which is why If You Are The One always stresses it’s “providing a service”.

Love the Chinese fans, they were hilarious, all rushed up to surround Meng Fei at the end. And LOTS of yummy food afterwards, all Aussie food, meat pies etc. It was a tourism event. A koala made an appearance. Western Syd uni campus is very nice.
Meng Fei’s appearance in Sydney He’s on at 1:08.

Second Countdown-a-thon

We all did ourselves a favour and went to the second Countdown-a-thon, at L’s. S very dutifully spent MONTHS editing down the best bits of 70s and 80s stuff he had on VHS tapes. I went to see Mark Holden sans shirt, and this *did not happen*! Mostly because nobody could figure out how to use the remote control until we’d finished that DVD.

D is the worst music critic ever, due to saying at the beginning of every song: “This is my most favourite one ever!” S and I couldn’t contain ourselves and jumped up to dance to Leif Garrett’s “I Was Made For Dancing“. T was there, she had won Perfect Match in the 1980s and went on a lovely holiday. There were pics of her in a Perfect Match magazine having sunscreen rubbed into her back by her date. She makes great Hummingbird cake.

L had lots of 70s food, Countdown books, and Dolly mags and Cosmo and Cleo, they were all great. Stuff on how to insert a tampon and how to avoid AIDS.

There was even an article about how Madonna was “suffering over-exposure”! In the 1980s!

Where is North Rocks? More than 40km there and back, says my Satnav!