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Slash and burn time for arts, writing and drama at ABC-Radio National: why audio arts are too valuable to lose

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Beth Spencer

[This piece was published in The Canberra Times, Monday 21st October 2012]

Imagine a country in which, no matter where you lived, there was a public space just down the road, easily accessible, well-lit and safe, food available, your favourite drinks on hand, and excellent chairs. Or if you liked, you could bring some chores to do to keep your hands busy while you enjoyed the show, or even lie on the floor and do your daily exercises.

Imagine if in this space there was a constantly changing program of performances, talks, lectures, theatre and music by some of the best writers, sound-artists, actors, thinkers and story-tellers not just in this country, but from around the world. And that the staff at this public space were experienced and skilled at nurturing new talent, as well as bringing out the best from the more experienced.

Imagine that this was all funded by taxes, and so entry was free!

And it was never sold out. You could turn up two minutes before or even late and still get one of the best seats. No matter how remote from cities you lived, how old or frail or disabled or young you were, how many children you had to care for, how little money you had, you were still able to be a part of that grand collective pulse, witnessing and breathing life into a new work by your combined attention. And if you coughed, or were ill or came in your pyjamas or had to leave early, no-one minded.

If, like most of us, you were too busy to attend this space every single time there was something on, would you feel it was a waste to have it exist? Or would you be glad that at least some members of your community were being enriched and inspired and moved and expanded by participating in these events? Would you be glad that it was there for you, and your children, when you did want to make use of it?

ABC Radio National arts and features is such a space.

And it is currently in the process of being judged to be too great a luxury by the ABC management, with experienced staff being retrenched, long-running, flag-ship and innovative programs being axed, and remaining staff expected to produce more with less — inevitably, reducing the quality and diversity in myriad ways.

Recently there has been a huge debate in the mediasphere over whether we want to have a public space that enables the kind of invective and misinformation promulgated by the likes of Alan Jones on 2GB — served up every day and funded via the invisible advertising tax we pay on a wide range of products. However there is little debate or discussion occurring around this sudden decision to gut arts and features at Radio National. (Partly because, unlike Jones, ABC staff are prohibited from even talking about this or letting their listeners know what is going on.)

It seems that the cost of supporting Alan Jones to be on the air is around $500,000 per week (or at least that is what is claimed is being lost in revenue with advertisers refusing to be associated with — that is, refusing to fund — his show).

The annual savings expected from this drastic slash and burn at Radio National is one million dollars, or two weeks of Alan Jones’ funding.

As a percentage of the population — or compared to the ratings of shock jocks like Jones — the ratings for any one episode of the Radio National arts and features programs look ridiculously low.

But just because both forms of entertainment come out of the same little box in your house or car, is it valid to compare them?

What if instead of comparing RN arts programs to other radio ratings, we compared them to other arts delivery methods, and to arts audience numbers in general?

An audience of 40,000 for a theatre performance, for instance, in a bricks-and-mortar space would be considered extraordinary, especially if it toured around the country to provide equity of access to all Australians, and even went overseas. But imagine the cost of such a show – and hence the price of the tickets, and the government subsidies required to keep entry remotely affordable.

On another level, imagine the cost of sending in actors to read to people who are housebound, or sit beside people in their cars, so they can all share together in the one story over a number of weeks and feel inspired and connected?

Or the cost of organizing writers, artists, sound engineers and performers from right across the nation to produce and deliver innovative sound and word performances each week – to be, effectively, in the same room, engaging in a ‘conversation’ with each other’s work?

Through programs such as The Night Air, The Book Reading, Airplay, Creative Instinct and Sunday Story, (all slated for the chop) – plus programs that have disappeared in previous purges (The Book Show, Soundstage, The Listening Room, etc) – Radio National has been a significant nurturer of talent in Australia.

What is going to happen when this infusion of support and this unique culture of distribution and engagement is gone?

While there is definitely room for discussion and debate around how best to use resources, there is no doubt that radio is an excellent and cost-effective mechanism for the production and delivery of quality performative and literary arts across our very wide and diverse land.

The benefits of fostering imagination, story telling and creativity within a culture are incalculable; the long-term costs of choosing to save a million dollars in this way, unimaginable.

Have your say:

email ABC Managing Director Mark Scott:
Scott.mark [at] abc.net.au
or send a tweet and include @abcmarkscott and hashtag #cutshurtRN

send a copy to Chairman of ABC Board James Spigelman:
Spigelman.james [at] abc.net.au

use the contact form at the ABC to send a message of support to your fave programs

write a letter to the papers

phone or email your local federal MP (they really do appreciate hearing directly from constituents – make a quick call & tell them how much you value arts and writing on RN. Ask them are they aware of these changes, and what are they doing about it?)

‘Like’ these pages on Facebook —
Protect ABC Radio National Arts / It’s Your ABC. Not Their ABC /

sign these petitions:
http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/restore-funding-to-abc-radio-drama
http://www.communityrun.org/petitions/save-abc-radio-drama

Leave a comment on this blog or others like it.

And please share this post with your FB and twitter networks. Time for a public discussion around these issues.

(nb sometimes the ‘recommend button’ below doesn’t post the specific url for this page. If that happens, try cutting and pasting the url directly into a FB post. Thanks. And if any tech person out there knows why this might be happening, please let me know!)

Posted in books / writing / creativity, politics / current affairs / ecology, radio & audio arts | Tagged ABC Radio National, Age columns, Arts funding, cultural history, cultural politics | Leave a comment

On wrinkles, grey hair, ‘pertness’, beauty and death: and the privatisation of the body as capital

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Beth Spencer

Just reading a lovely, thoughtful post ‘On being a babe… or not’ by Australia author Susan Johnson (My 100 Lovers, etc) over at her blog, prompted by some comments by Pamela Stephenson on last night’s Q&A.

Johnson talks about the many and complex decisions we make these days in response to our ever-changing bodies, and the pressure to look young:

“Look, no way around it: I am dying. I am on the train that is going in only one direction, and what dyeing your hair or Botoxing your face or getting a surgeon to pull up the skin of your sagging jaw is trying to do is pull the emergency stop cord.

But, hey, folks, the train aint going to stop! It’s going one way, and what the grey hair and the sagging and the wrinkles are telling you is that your time with dark hair and no sags and no wrinkles is over. Move over! Let the unlined youth climb aboard! Unclutch your hands! Let life pass over you, let the trajectory of birth to death continue on its way.”

Mourn your unblemished, smooth skin. Mourn your glossy curls. Yes, it’s a grief, no way around it: it’s a grief because it’s about loss. Loss feels like all the other losses that have come before, all the losses like Russian dolls packed inside you.”

Thinking about this I thought I’d repost a piece I wrote a few years ago, and which was first published in The Age (Opinion, 27 Oct 2006, p19) under the title: ‘Are Wrinkles Really All that Ugly?’ Here it is:

In parts of Papua New Guinea there is said to be a dreaded curse that a witch may put on an enemy to make her breasts stay pert and upright, like a young girl’s, forever.

However, for the customers of the beauty surgeons, portrayed on Jonathan Holmes’ documentary ‘Buyer of Beauty Beware’ (Four Corners, ABC-TV, 23 October), pertness and youth is the dream and the promise. As Dr Josef Goldbaum neatly explains, ‘We don’t have to accept what nature throws at us.’

For Meredith Jones, who interviewed plastic surgery patients and their surgeons for her PhD and [2008] book, cosmetic surgery is just one aspect of contemporary ‘Makeover Culture’. Within an ethic that approves working on the self, improvement is regarded as labour rather than vanity, and a commodity for which one shops (and if wise, shops around).

For in the modern, privatised notion of the body — where the ‘civilised thrust’ (as an anthropologist once put it) has replaced the ‘primitive droop’ – body and mind are separate realms. Flesh is ‘nature’, passive and inert, and thus is not only open to being manipulated and controlled by a sovereign mind, but is in need of such control.

As such, our bodies – like our houses and land – have become a personal capital, to be invested in, worked and improved. It’s all about managing your assets, and having botox injections in your twenties and thirties becomes a kind of cosmetic superannuation, to protect you from the less bountiful experience of old age. Surely something every good citizen should consider and, if they can afford, take out.

However with the body seen as an ongoing project and investment, there can also be a recurring and sometimes permanent sense of incompleteness.

We keep adding to it – clothing, hair dye, accessories, push up bras, tattoos, piercings, more clothes, newer clothes, less clothes, muscle building. And we keep taking away: dieting, liposuction, depilation. (Peering into the fridge late at night: if only I can find the right thing to put into it… Maybe this chocolate ice-cream?)

Indeed for all our manipulation, modification and adornment of bodies in the name of individualism, greater pleasure, aesthetic delight, choice, personal freedom and power, we seem to be in the midst of an incredible epidemic of body loathing.

And while, as Holmes points out in his documentary, the surveys show the overwhelming majority of recipients of cosmetic procedures such as breast enhancement are delighted with their results, what of those (usually around ten percent) who aren’t?

It might be fine if they were merely not so happy, or indifferent. But a quick look at websites such as Silicone Holocaust (with a picture gallery not for the faint-hearted) suggests the kind of long-term physical and emotional devastation for this minority that should make all of us alarmed.

It’s also worth noting that these surveys, conducted by the plastic surgery industry, usually only have a short follow-up period: months, rather than years. On the home makeover programs, almost everyone is ecstatic when they walk through that door and see their new improved and redesigned space – the glossy paint and clean fabrics, the shiny neat surfaces and bold colours. But I often wonder what it’s like to live long-term with these quick fixes.

Sometimes, I’m sure it’s wonderful. Life-changing. And I’m certainly not immune to the seductive lure of modern uncluttered style — or of slim bodies and smooth skin.

But if I had the money to furnish my house any way I wanted, what would I pick? And if I called in a makeover team, what might I lose?

I love my house, and my house loves me. And while there are things I would like to improve, I’d actually like to keep the current style in which a creative use of old and found things figures strongly. I’ve learnt to find a peaceful balance between beauty, practicality and comfort — even to see beauty within functionality. I’ve learnt to find an aesthetic that values difference and variation; one that easily accommodates change and use; that recognises the difference between looking new (or young) and looking good.

If it is possible to cultivate a home furnishing aesthetic that appreciates the rich effects of time and brings both peace and pleasure – one where the patina of age, the scratches and marks of usage are a part of the beauty and story of an object – can it really be so impossible to do this with regard to our bodies?

If leather can become more beloved, and more sensuous, with age, why not skin?

As the beautiful Italian actress Anna Magnani once said to a photographer: ‘Please don’t retouch my wrinkles, it took me so long to earn them.’

[photo of Anna Magnani]