Hello and welcome to Big Gay energy.
I'm Bree. I'm Fiora and I'm Caitlin come
along with us while we dive into the fun and nuances of queer
media representation matters. And we're here to talk about it.
Alright, welcome back friends. The BGE team has two very
special guests today. Please welcome Sandy O'Sullivan
and Hannah Reardon Smith. Sandy is a professor of
indigenous studies at Macquarie University.
And Hannah is a postdoctoral research associate thanks for
hanging out with us today. Thanks for having us.
All right, so Sandy first questions for you, so what was
Your Scholastic journey to become a professor of indigenous
studies. Um, well, I left school when I
was 13, which was in the 1970s and I went back into education,
having been a musician for a long time and In the 80s.
And then I became an academic 31 years ago.
So so I started working in that way.
As an Aboriginal person, there weren't a lot of indigenous
people at the time who were in The Academy, it was pretty usual
for us to be leaving school, very young and so they weren't
there. Just weren't a lot of people who
were there to kind of model, what it was to be doing the work
that we now do in the Indigenous, studies area.
But I came out of doing creative practice work and I came out of
doing work across critical race areas and found my way towards
both gender studies and Indigenous studies and about our
particular area at Macquarie we actually do both.
So we have a very centered approach to say that queer
indigeneity is at the center of complexity of who we are as
indigenous people and so So that's I guess.
That's the very, very rough rundown of it.
But obviously 31 years is a really long time so I won't bore
you with all of the stuff that I did in the interim but I think I
think it's not an uncommon journey to have been across a
lot of disciplines indigenous studies as every discipline of
course. It is because we're across every
area. So it makes sense.
Yeah question. What but you just pursue a PhD
in music and now postgraduate research I'll preface this by
saying that I'm not indigenous I'm white settler scholar like a
lamb by Caitlin we've lost Kaitlyn but And I'm yeah, living
and working on Yeager and terrible country in what the
settler, Colonial nation-state noses.
Queensland in me Anton Brisbane and which is not where Macquarie
is. I should say, McQuarrie is
undoubted country which is further south near Sydney and I
Yeah, I'm a musician. Like I've been a musician
primarily throughout my like adult life and done a lot of
music study and playing and I play the flute and I do things
with electronics, I compose I improvise and my like doctoral
research was kind of pursuing. I mean, in a way I think for a
lot of artistic researchers, there's a kind of like point
that you're really trying to articulate Late your own
practice and your own identity within your artistic practice.
And so, I think a lot of my PhD was was like, really carving out
that space and kind of moving away from the training that I'd
had in within, like academic institutions, particularly from
a European art music background. And I've also, you know,
alongside my music studies I was always involved as a community,
organizer and activist anti O'Neill's solidarity activists
and and a queer activist. And I was, you know, I was also
late coming like being able to really step into my queer
identity in many ways. Like, it was always there and
under wrote everything that I did, but I grew up in, you know,
a more conservative town and and it was always a bit of a bit too
much of a people pleaser and and let that rule my identity for
far too long. Long.
And there was this kind of like parallel between stepping into
my queer identity and stepping into like the artistic practice
that I feel is most myself now. And so a lot of that was
involved in pursuing that PhD. And so my my doctoral study was
kind of like a queer feminist thinking of freely improvised
music. And and to do that, I really
wanted to think with what it meant to claim, freedom in music
on. Like stolen land in settler,
Colonial in a settler Colonial context as a white musician and
that, yeah, it's led me into reading much deeper into a lot
of things. And to also engage with a lot of
queer indigenous thinkers including Professor, Sullivan,
and and also many others, particularly Allison Whitaker
and also your to yodel song Woman, and Deb and several
others that really like, yeah, shaped shaped my thinking and
where I went from there and I got to meet Professor Sullivan
at a conference and really got to know a bit of their work and
the more that I read of their writing and and of what they're
doing, the more that I really felt felt into how how much I
wanted to kind of like, go down this track of looking deeper
into the artistic work of queer indigenous people and got to
know the department that profit is part of and now I'm part of
and just so many incredible people really thinking from
this, like central point of queer indigenous people.
And so, yeah. So I then stepped from from
doing a lot of artistic thinking, and artistic research
It's into into an indigenous studies department and to really
thinking with Yak we're indigeneity and and learning so
much from from that. So that's that's how I got where
I am. Awesome.
Yeah. In fact in fact we met at a
music and gender conference that I was doing a keynote for I
think a few years ago and so it made sense, then when I saw that
you'd applied for the job I thought well we've had that
conversation so yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah, it's not a house. It's often how it works.
I, you know, we've just, we've got a new PhD who's working with
us Leandro, Wellness. Who's one of the people from the
engender podcast, who's just come over from Argentina?
So, just joined us from Argentina.
It was the same thing. Wow, we'd engaged with them kind
of then they'd applied, and it was well, we know the wonderful
work that we Andros already doing, so right?
That's awesome. That you find you find
community. That would like the community
always provides. I feel like Community always
provides and I think anti-colonial work is always
about relationships. It's always about finding one
another and it's important work for us to be doing and
obviously, you know, working with settlers like Hannah is
incredibly important for indigenous people, because we're
strengthened by working with with people who are genuinely
here and wanting to challenge. That coloniality and it's no
mean feat to find people who are genuine around that.
So yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
So Sandy you're currently an Australian research Council
future fellow. Yeah.
Can you tell us a little more about the fellowship program and
your current project? Yeah, it's one of those senior
fellowships that, you know, means we got a million dollars
off the government to to fund. Some some work for four years
that looked at at the capacity for folk.
We're indigenous people to effect change across the
community, so the Project's called saving lives mapping the
the influence of of queer indigenous artists.
It's really looking at people who are making and out of that.
There's it's funny, these programs are all about the
individual. So they're about the fellow
basically. But there's a team of people
that I work with including Hannah.
So how does the postdoc on the team?
And then we have some other students including Leandro who's
doing their PHD. But also a couple of people who
are working on the Queer as audit which was actually how we
came to know this podcast, my complete addiction to it.
So I think I've seen almost everything and of course what's
powerful about it, I'll come back to that.
But just a few just to finish it in terms of the the program.
Look, it there is incredible power in representation and the
way that people are making and being able to make across a
range of artistic fields and the way that they're doing it, in
spite of the colony is incredible.
You know, we know that what happens for a lot of queer
indigenous kids that they can feel isolated and all Queer kid.
Kids can but for indigenous kids, that's the kind of extra
layer of coloniality that's brought religion and a whole lot
of misunderstandings, not necessarily from within the
community, but from outside of it, the tend to make us smaller,
you know, tend to make us not. So so prominent in that way.
So there's a number of work of bits of work that we do as a
part of this and the Queer as ordered is looking at queer
representation, but It's really looking at it in the context of
cereal screen work for a very particular reason that I'll pop
back to. But the other work that we're
doing is to work on this on this project called storied, which is
a curated. It's framed as a curated
creative, imaginings from queer indigenous artist but it's
actually them talking about their connection to
representation and their connection to meaning-making in
their work and all sorts of artists from visual.
Artists through the musicians obviously harder and I both have
a background in music and so but also in making other forms of
Art and in doing anti-colonial work, your often drawing on
multiples. And in the same way as
indigenous studies is across a range of disciplines.
A lot of queer indigenous artists work across more than
one discipline and this is true for queer artists in general,
but it's specifically true for for queer indigenous artists
because it's true for indigenous artists and it's for a range of
reasons. But it's mostly that Siloing,
you know, that kind of having to put things into boxes is the
colonial project is to say if you're an actor you're just an
actor. You don't get to be a musician
as well, or maybe you do, but then it's going to be a list of
things that you do, but it's going to be these silos and so
we're seeing people breaking that down a bit.
But yeah, it was, there's this other work to that's looking at
challenging the notion of session.
So this idea of a session, this idea of a of an agreement that
was never there to suggest that indigenous.
People would be forced into containers into Colonial
containers, including gender. So I do a lot of work on the
colonial project of gender for that reason and also because I'm
trans you know. So it's so it's part of the
journey for me I suppose as an individual but it's part of many
people's Journeys. And you know, and creative
expression is a great way for to be able to Talk to other people,
people from, for instance, my generation and my late 50s.
You know, people who are, who are younger, who are wanting to
communicate with their family. We're working on a major project
with parents of gender diverse children, which is a National
Organization that looks at how to provide support and we're
doing a project that develops up resources, but going back to
the, to the Queer, as which we only worked out. recently sounds
a bit like queer ass without the complexity of queer
representation so it's looking at a queer representation but
it's saying how complex can can - be in this kind of serialized
form sort of conservative form of TV.
You know, where there's actually a large group of people who are
not necessarily queer, working on something, where we expect to
see queer characters represented.
And so, it's trying to understand that that's doing a
lot of different work in that. And so, we've been working with
a bunch of people, but particularly with a lot of
Lakers and Tamela are two of our students who are, who are are
doing an internship with us at the moment to help us build this
audit. We're just basically auditing
but not like a queer version of the Internet Movie Database.
It's a bit more than that. It's, it's trying to understand
where there are weather relationships to, to power in
particular ways, but also to representation.
So, you know, obvious stuff like, like looking at
queerbaiting or queer coding or Any of that, you know, you know,
in something like the Internet Movie Database, you could have
something that has a list of queer characters, but it's not
going to Center on that idea of queerness.
And again, we do a whole centering on indigenous
queerness within that space. But then we move out from there
and say, what are the complexities of their, you know,
what other ways? Can people be represented in
that complexity? Because often often times, we
know, and you've said so many times across this podcast, that
that They'll be a selection of one thing, you know?
So people will pick queerness or they'll pick indigeneity or
they'll pick race as a pic disability.
They'll pick something but they won't understand that.
Actually there's a lot of people who are, you know, the
complexity of lived experiences that you're often lots of those
things. And, you know, and that is not
often what's being represented in this kind of front facing
serial TV programs. So so we're TV were also looking
at the serialization of some films.
So we've got a bit of a focus on Marvel and looking at the queer
and, like, a queer characters and also, the kind of society
that the queerness in Marvel, in particular, becomes a kind of
dumping space for. Yes.
We've got to create character there and, you know, and I guess
in light of that, it'll be interesting to see how Echo
works because it'll have queer indigenous characters in it, but
will that become the no? We did it.
It was over there. Remember for so we don't have to
do it again so, you know, and we came to sorry.
Not we I came to to listening to this podcast because I mean it
was just remarkable, you know to hear people talking for hours
about. I mean it is it's remarkable to
have that sort of time. I mean it matters that it
matters that you're all, you know, very eloquent and and
grated analysis of course, But that's, you know, in its own way
that I'm not sure that you'd get those hours out of analyze.
But it's remarkable to have that sort of time with with the
content, you know. And that's what we're doing, I
guess as well with the career. As archive is trying to spend
time with some of the content and trying to think about those
moments that come out of it, that are more than just seeing
this in a kind of cereal way or seeing one show.
And Another show and another show and hoping for the queer
representation sorry a million things to say and maybe thinking
about answer and and thank you. And maybe when we're thinking
about like yeah, what not just like you know what that
representation is and like a DOT point of the different layers of
complexity of an individual's identity but also thinking in
detail about the work that that's doing like You know what
that, what work that's doing for an audience, what work that's
doing for people that have maybe that particular kind of
wheelhouse of identity complexity but you know but also
yeah like how that's kind of inserted into the story.
How that that characterization or or the case of like
queerbaiting and things like you know, what role that's playing
and then you know looking a little bit also at and this Is
this is another point that this podcast comes in, like the kind
of fan feedback or the way that viewers can kind of take stories
in their own directions and and like, articulate what it is that
they wish they were seeing that. They're not seeing and and kind
of looking at how like how that kind of interactive rather than
it just being like, this is what's blasted out into the
world. It's like it's looking at how
that has a actually has a kind of interactive element that.
You know, the kind of like little Easter eggs or the
little, the little hat tipping that writers and producers due
to an audience that has complex analysis, that has complex
engagement with queer characters on screen.
So yeah, that's that's another way that it's kind of going
that's including than just like listing.
Yeah. Including when it's shitty, you
know, and absolutely probab probably, especially when it is,
you know, obviously the, you know, the idea isn't just too.
To bash these sites that are trying to do something but it's
also how much work is involved, too.
For instance, queer bait. It's a lot of work but there's
also a really interesting thing that happens often for an
indigenous characters that are in otherwise mainstream and what
we might call White stream shows and that's the there is this.
They're often already having to Some work and so that idea of
getting them to do a little more work, but there's also that
problem of, you know, how do you know a character is queer if
they don't have a relationship or talk about it?
So, you know, and we just had a case week, which has been really
interesting in terms of, looking for, you know, queer for Ace
characters in particular, and of course, where their present is
in a lot of animated series, you know, for a range of reasons.
But some of those reasons are Are you know, they're often not
analyzed. So so the idea of asexuality is
this kind of absence is often how it gets framed in, you know,
in, for instance, a series and the problem with series.
And the reason that we're interested in series rather than
just one off-screen rep, is that you have time with the
characters, you have time for them to develop and you have
time to see the potential. And of course, one of the things
that happens in writers rooms is that they decide for characters
to have relationships and So characters that might otherwise
for instance the ace or Arrow or you know or any other
representation that you know isn't necessarily that well
understood and it's not like there's an arm and in fact there
are some and that's part of what we're also you know flagging is
that this isn't this is also about locating people so it's
not just about problem at Eisenhower, people are being
included or characters are being written.
But actually, sorry if I can just add a come back to, you
know, there's an amazing interview that you did with
Olivia Lucas and in that there's a couple of incredibly important
moments for us in this work. You know, one's the, the
representation, as she frames of Afro indigenous people, and that
the only reason, That that the, you know, the character was
written that way was because there was someone in the writers
room, who wanted it, that's incredibly powerful.
And we know it, you know, I did this work for donkey's years.
It was about looking at representation in museums and
Galleries, and looking at at how indigenous people are
represented in those spaces, it's no surprise that it
happened where there were indigenous curators most
effectively in a more complex way, you know, you're going to
get that that Exit e because why not but you know the answer is
often because we want to make it as open as possible but open as
possible usually defaults to White.
So it's so it's about understanding some of those
challenges and and it offered defaults to, you know, sets hat
as well. That's awesome.
That was such an amazing interview for us and we ended up
talking with her. Four hours after we stopped
recording. So she's just she was just one
of the one of the I think it was probably no offense to anyone
else my favorite interview. So totally love.
Learned a lot during it. We learned a lot and that's why
it was favored interview because there's a line in there where
she says. I'll just write it off the page.
Talking about Thelma being queer.
Where she says, also for indigenous people, it's so
normal. And, and hearing that not only
is it a great life. Line that will be is going to
begin by us, but, but it's so powerful and so true because the
rhetoric is often here for decades.
Here, it was, oh indigenous, people don't like, you know,
queerness and they don't do quit and this was what was said about
us. But, you know, meantime, we're
just there being queer people and actually, it's just not
true. Like, even with the power of the
church, you know, there is a negotiation that is not
necessarily Really understood more broadly and it's part of
what happens in, you know, the in the colony, you know, in the
resistant colony, is that you still support your own in that
resistance. And so it, it isn't that big a
deal. Yeah, that's amazing.
Yes. Thank you.
It seems like that. Now is a great time for this
project and we're excited to see what comes out of this, because
it's a fascinating thing to really dive into.
So thanks for sharing that Hannah question for you.
So you are a producer and presenter for radio reversal.
Can you tell us a little bit about what radio reversal is and
how you got involved with it? Yeah.
So ready reversal is a Show on community, radio station here in
Mangin called for triple said and it's Community run.
Its. Yeah.
Just it's kind of got a like Punk DIY kind of aesthetic and
has a very strong focus on profiling, local musicians,
local artists, and radio reversal is a show that's been
running now for a bit over 10 years, which is wild.
I haven't been involved for Long.
But it's yeah, we just had kind of out ten year anniversary
which is, yeah, it was it was a really special episode but it's
co-produced thing. It's really a community project
so there's about six of us that are really regular presenter.
Producers some of us a little bit more regular than others.
There's sort of three main people that and then there's
like some very regular guests but then we It's essentially
like based in kind of critical theory Community organizing and
anti-colonial like solidarity efforts.
Yeah, run by a group of queer people and largely queer.
Women that are yeah, really thinking with, as many, you
know, thinking with the kind of like work that we're also doing
through community Using outfit called the Brisbane free
University, which is definitely started as kind of like a public
lecture series at the moment. The the most common thing we do
is a reading group, so it's the be a few radical reading group.
So there's so my involvement. I guess in radio reversal came
through the reading group and through the public lectures and
going along to these things and having been, I mean proof talks
about like these siloed sort of things, particularly in the art
world. Studying music, particularly
studying at a conservatorium like I did, which in the case of
the one where I studied the Queen's own conservatorium is
like, literally its own building away from the rest of the campus
of the University that it's associated with.
So extremely siloed, extremely kind of like enclosed space and
you're like, studying this one kind of art-making in this
particular way and you don't have a lot of contact with other
thinking's or other other kinds of Yahweh.
Of engaging with the with the world and ways of engaging with
knowledge and like who gets to have knowledge and the kind of
politics of knowledge. So I think I was always like
just a bit outspoken and resisting that in many ways and
I sort of tried to do some like cross institutional stuff that
didn't didn't really pan out the way I was hoping.
And so, through more activist circles found my way into bfu,
Brisbane for uni and became extremely good friends with a
lot of Apple and started that like organizing and doing things
with them. So it's kind of the idea is to
like remove this like enclosure of like knowledge or thinking
from this institutionalized space and to make it really
open. So the reading groups really
open. There's absolutely no
prerequisite to like have a certain level of like
understanding of critical theory or things like this.
The idea is that anyone can engage with these texts and even
if you haven't read the text or often we have a Customer or
screening or something like that, with like they're still
openness to be involved in the discussion and to talk about
like the understanding that you drew from it and like or the
understanding that you're drawing from the conversation
that's happening. So it's a really open space and
we make sure that all of our texts are as accessible as we
can make them with the limited resources.
So it's always presented as a written text and with an audio
recording and Yeah, so so then the radio reversals, I guess a
little like public injection on the on the airwaves and so it's
a good opportunity to be talking with people.
Like interviewing people and having conversations like this,
we only we have an hour a week and we also play some music and
things so it's it's often you know, quick quick conversations,
everything's added a down a little bit but we're hoping to
also Branch out into some more frequent.
We've done a few kind of like podcast releases but we're
hoping to kind of make some How some we sort of had these series
sometimes where we are like really thinking with a
particular topic. So recently, there's been a lot
of thinking, one of the, one of my co-producers presenters
Marissa. She's a new mom for the second
time. So she's been thinking a lot
with measurement and like, essentially the colonial project
of measurement and how how this is used to like like as a system
of control. And when you're like a new
parent, the the constant weighing of your child and all
of these like, Milestones, that that you're going through.
Yeah, like supposed to meet this by this point, and this by this
point and the anxiety that that produces for an individual.
And so there's been, there's been some thinking with that and
then, yeah, so that's that's ready reversal.
So but just recently, I had a good conversation with an
amazing. Condom UK original and
African-American artists Sachem on a show that we did on Friday,
which was a really brilliant performance.
But also just to talk about, you know, the developing his this
like really young and really great artist is, I only really
realized he's like, 22 and I was like, oh well, okay, yeah, cool.
Yeah, I've done things. I'm 35 but yeah, really young
But yeah, just just hearing his thinking thinking with community
and in community and how that comes through in his music and
his poetry, it was such a such a beautiful conversation and then
to, yeah, like the performance was also really beautiful.
So, you know, it's a wide variety.
So I do a little bit of talking with people as a kind of like
radical music is of me engine thing, because I'm the, I'm the
resident musician for the show. Yeah, that's a bit of a half
Hazard summary of radio reversal in the community around it.
And it's a it's you know it's a community radio station that's
really successful in. What is a pretty big city?
I think there's three million people in Brisbane so it's, you
know, so it's got some size and, you know, there is a real sense
of it as a community site. So So cool.
We talked a little bit that, you know, you knew of us.
And that's how we got to know you.
But we're curious about what Drew you to motherland' Fort
Salem and our podcast family. Oh, actually, I think it might
be a slight sacred. I know somebody who works on.
I don't suck so that was what drew me to watching her and then
look one of the things. things that I've been trying to do is
to is to look at, but I think, I think motherland in particular.
It's a kind of pretty, it's great, but it's also a very
straightforward showing a lot of ways, you know, it's a mean.
I think you've posited that it's surprising, that the there isn't
a greater audience for it. And in fact, I feel the same way
because it seems like the sort of Highly accessible show that
would have, you know, a much bigger fan base than it seemed
to accrue. And obviously there are lots of
reasons for that but what Acted me to to finding you was
actually I'd been looking at reactors.
I've been looking at worked with a reactor had been able to go to
to lexicon in 2019 for the beginning of this career has
work and they'd they'd gone there.
Emily Park had gone there and done a really great review for
us, which was the starting point to me.
Something to work on this. And at the time there was the
Big discussion. Stoush around trans people and
inclusion in lexicon and so I got firsthand kind of knowledge
of that I just couldn't get over there that year and in fact we
had a couple of our colleagues go to this year's Classic on and
have reported back as well and at the time then and even now
there are almost no indigenous. Queer.
No indigenous. Queer representation.
There was that there was one panel that was Content creators,
you know, was on YouTube, you know, was not necessarily the
kind of representation that we're looking at, which is
largely this kind of, you know, fictional character
representation, but also it's not surprising that there
aren't, you know, actually, one of the places where a lot of
queer indigenous representation is happening, is on this
continent. So we've got a lot.
I mean, you can see it in heartbreak high for instance,
but you can see it more broadly. We across everything from clever
man, through to a lot of things that you probably don't have
access to that are from so-called Australia and what's
been interesting? Then in looking at spaces like
the, you know, reactors is to see what sparks their interest
and that's why I've been looking at them is, you know, to
understand what your average person is looking at and what
they're saying, and the whole, you know, framing of reactors is
that there you are. Rich person.
You know, the whole framing of it is that they just will,
you're not your average person, you know, your people who have a
great level of complexity. No, you know, no disrespect to
reactors but they don't necessarily have the kind of
in-depth knowledge that that you represent.
So, I started listening actually, because what some of
them are like three hours when I first started it.
No. No, no that's just that we're
going to. Yeah, we can you shit.
He should see our outlines. It's brilliant.
I feel like I have seen your Outlets have seen implied and
Brilliant about. It is not just again, the
cleverness and the time with it, but also it's covering a lot of
ground that we'd identified was really needed when we were
looking at career as, you know, it's not just about how is that
a bit of queer bait? It's actually understanding
what's happening with characters and what happens with audiences,
what they expect, and you know what's possible.
And of course, what you've done is suggested things that are
possible and suggested things that are available.
As you know, a set of ideas that is like a layer on top of the
actual work so it makes it better.
So I think at one stage, it would have been any show but I
can't believe I'm saying this but I think I watched three
mostly so that I could keep up with where you were at with it.
So and I think it's everybody else who's interested in this
and people may not find the time to be able to do that, but it is
powerful and Powerful to in terms of interviews.
You know again I mean the you know, the Lucas interview was
really interesting though, stuff drawn out of there.
That we wouldn't have been able to find otherwise and I know
because then after that we went to try and find everything that
was available and it wasn't there and these other forms.
So so giving time over but also having that kind of allowing for
that complex discussion, it was incredibly important.
Yeah. Thank you.
That was why we started. That was like the goal pretty
much everything you said is because the or add listen to
podcast before that, were that length.
And she really enjoyed the in-depth analysis and and
everything. And so we wanted to bring that
but also some of our weird humor so Well, the humerus incredibly
important, too, because if you don't have that, I mean, what
the fuck are you doing? You know, it's, it's yeah, it
has to be an essential part of it because there's also humor
and what's not being realized in, you know what, you aren't
seeing the behind the scenes of a character.
I mean, and you know that there's, there's got to be humor
and all of that. And I think especially in a show
that isn't focused on humor, I don't think there's no humor in
it but, you know, I think Fulham in that instance would be.
We're very real about the fact that motherland would be very
depressing if you just looked at it from straight on.
So, you're incredibly right? I think this you've got 11
episode that look, I'm not gonna be able to remember which one it
was, but I think it's like to for season 2 episode 4.
That's really depressing and you kind of set it out with it's
depressing. And it's really interesting
because I listened to it and hadn't re-watched it since I'd
seen it the year before or whatever and went back and
watched. And I thought my god really is
to was interesting because of here, how you played that elbow
and I think from the powerful. Oh, thank you.
Thank you. In my culture and culture we
have this expression, you know, marijuana gonna And it's to live
well in a world that that you've made good.
So you make a world, that's good.
And then you live well in it but you have to make the world
that's good. And I think again sometimes when
you hear reactors, it's great but it's like our response and
you don't really know anything about their contexts.
And this whole notion of kind of making a world in which
motherland or any Other series enriches.
Your life. Is incredibly powerful in these
podcasts and I think we all have to do that work.
Thank you. Absolutely.
Mmm. I love that.
That's the first time I heard this podcast, I was like, oh
wow, they're really smart and I just come in and I bringing
chaos. No, you bring a lot more than
the chaos. I'm sure you do.
But chaos, isn't it? Bad thing.
No, it's not. I don't think we.
Yeah, I'm packing the complexity of things.
Yeah. Colonial, the anti-colonial work
we do is chaos so I'm sure I'm sure.
I think you have to, you have to throw that you have to have that
component for things to get shaken up.
Otherwise it's just going to remain the same.
So change doesn't come without chaos.
Yeah, I'd agree. So we have a question for both
of you and that is, how does media representation or lack
thereof impact? Intersectional Community such as
queer indigenous groups. Um, it's a big question.
The Project's called saving lives.
Our overarching project is called saving lives and it's
called that for a reason. You know, I was really pleased
that the government put a million dollars into this.
Our uni put another million into it which I think is like 1.5
million or something in u.s. u.s. dollars.
So it's a lot of money but it's also what it is is it's a
investment in the trust that we might be able to do some work.
That changes people's outcomes, makes them feel seen and also So
that they can see how they can be in the world.
And I think that issue of representation is even more
crucial for some groups. And it's not just queer
indigenous people because that's like that's a monolith to, you
know, there's older people as younger people, there's all, you
know, variety of people as many as there are people and that
idea of, you know, of challenging symbolic
Annihilation is incredibly important when we've been
subject to Actual Annihilation. You know the The Colony has been
about trying to demolish isyou know, I was born a year before
we gained rights as indigenous. People you know there's a very
solid argument that you know that we weren't considered
people at all before. Then fact we weren't we weren't
subjects and we were at least in some ways part of the Flora and
Fauna act, so for department but you know, we You know, not
considered to have rights, you know.
My mother was born in another country and came over to this
country and had rights as an immigrant that her children
didn't have. And you know, and this is a
really, you know, this is in just my lifetime in the late 50s
but still only in my lifetime that that happened and we're
still dealing with the after-effects of that that
involves people not really. Asking requiring or getting
representation. And so it's often just one or
two really good actors in the space, people who are doing the
work that change that. And we've had that here in TV
and film. You know, we've had a lot of
indigenous people who've been making but we've had a few
people, like Sally Riley who who put together clever man, who
pitched a lot of indigenous representation.
Treachery person. So from the same Community as
me, we've got over 300 different communities in Australia, and,
you know. So so we have this, this person
who's responsible for probably 20 to 30 percent of queer
indigenous representation and and particularly, probably much
more than that in terms of indigenous representation, you
know, and why does it happen? Well, it happens.
When people are queer, an indigenous, you know, it happens
when you've Got people who are there in the decision-making and
that's been only in the last 20, 25 years and so we're starting
to see it more, but it takes that it takes that
participation, it takes someone not just wanting to show
representation, but knowing what it means and knowing how it
affects people's lives. And so, we called it.
Saving lives for a couple of reasons.
Sorry, I think that was the royal.
We, I called it saving lives for a couple of reasons.
One was because we have the highest suicide rates in the
world, queer indigenous people. So it's that.
And a lot of that is about knowing who we are in the world
and knowing that that we will be accepted in the broader
community and sometimes within our own Community because of
these other, you know, issues. But look, the other reason is
The idea of remembering the groundbreaking work that people
are doing is incredibly important.
You know, I remember a few years ago thinking you know the I grew
up in the 70s there wasn't that much queer representation on TV
and 17th, it's not true. There was actually a lot and
people like Matt Bauer who does this remarkable work on looking
at representation, you know, I would look at I would think
about something like Mary. Tyler Moore Show and I think it
was like, queer characters on there.
They were, I just didn't remember them and see them.
And that's how symbolic Annihilation works.
You know, you don't look for things.
You remember, things as absent, you know, you kind of erase
yourself from these scenarios and I've never seen, you know,
up until think eight or nine years ago was the first time I
saw Aboriginal people kissing on screen.
Yeah, whenever brand new day came out, was it?
I don't know musica. It was the first time I can't
believe that you know I and I'm talking about heterosexuals you
know. And when we think about queer
representation in that way, it's off the charts problematic.
And yet the last couple of years we've seen massive changes in
that representation that are wonderful but they can't just be
lip service, you know. So the power of it is it saves
lives. The If it is not also not the
extreme, it's not the extreme horror of us losing people kids
mostly in our communities. It's also this, this idea that
people don't believe that they belong and they find all sorts
of ways to, to not participate in their own life because of
that were to change who they are, which doesn't usually end
well. So so the.
So I think the power Our is in, is in that an anti-colonial
work, has to be about calling that out and it has to be about
also pointing out good stuff that's happening, you know?
It's a dispositive charging of saying.
When you do have complex, queer representation, call it out, and
show it and say, look see how easy this was to do, you know,
we'll see how hard this was to do but see how easy it is to
consume and really recognizing that.
And again I think it's incredibly difficult.
Four characters where, you know, they're in the middle of a war
and you're not going to find out that they're queer because it's
not part of the Arc of of a character.
But there are flags and strategies sometimes literal
flags and strategies to talk about queerness and you know,
they're they're available. And so again, we hope that an
audit reminds people of of that availability even if it's just
cheating and sneaky, who cares, you know, representation is
representation. As well as we want it to be more
complex, all right? So again, free for all kind of
questions. So we talked a little bit about
how the representation in media has definitely evolved over
time. And so we're just curious.
What what are your thoughts on the current?
Like, how landscape of what representation looks like now?
Like quantity and quality in like media today.
Hmm, sorry have good. No no I'll just kind of like
throw a bit of wear like I mean part of it is the inability to
watch everything and be able to give a comprehensive answer and
that's partly why we have the amazing job is just a couple of
Alana and Taya who are doing such great work.
Yeah, not only not only watching a lot of the stuff that we don't
always have time to watch but also, like really thinking about
it and thinking with it and unpacking, a lot of this
complexity, I guess we're really thinking about yeah.
Like the kind of the gains that are being made and the and the
like the ways that they're, you know, a kind of representations
that, you know, we wouldn't have seen before and I think that's
like particularly, you know, it's Very intentionally evident
in remakes of shows and so like, heartbreak High here.
It just because I know that's a show from this place that's that
is also available to watch in Turtle Island in the US.
And you know, that's that's a very different thing to the
heartbreaker that was on the small screen in the 90s that I
watched growing up. It's a very, you know,
Intentionally kind of sitting with identity complexities in
ways that are that are meaningfully, more aware of some
of some of the political positioning than at that time.
But and you know, it's this is still got some of the
problematic stuff about it too. It's exactly.
And that's kind of the thing is that.
Sorry, I'm sorry, honey. I'm so sorry.
It's, yeah, it's still doing that.
It's still doing that. Problematic stuff of, you know,
the school yard is This kind of imagined safe place.
You know it like that swap out for a prisoner or where work is
really interesting. And that's the thing is that
it's kind of like yeah yeah there's this kind of like claim
to or like really trying to make really like articulated in many
cases, you know, this is this identity and this is this
identity and it's once again kind of a little bit container,
add a little It's I load so like and you are a representation of
this and your representation of this and therefore we are
diverse. And then when it reproduces some
of these like yeah some of these same kind of tropes and and
storylines that you know you know you have to question like
is this is this like net good or is this like doing further harm?
Just because you've like named this paneer like every weapon So
everyone on heartbreak, hi skinny, everyone on hypercars
skinny, you know, so that they've got this kind of notion
of, I mean, I don't know if they've met other Aboriginal
people that they haven't cast in that.
But I'm telling you, we're not skinny.
So but also, you know, it's about broader representation in
that way. I think on Turtle Island, you
know, A League of Their Own as a really good example of that, you
know? And And that's got I think we
count down 13 kind of characters that have that a queer that have
a real profile on the show and 13 is a lot.
Like, it's remarkable. What happens when you have 13 is
that you can have some baddies, you can have goodies, you can
have people who are like morally ambiguous, you can do that
stuff. You can't do that.
When you've got two or three, you know, you and we're really
interested in that idea of How especially clear indigenous
characters are always coded as kind of the hero or not so much
the villain. I mean, never the villain
actually, but always the hero or the sad character, you know, so
if somebody who's suffered from colonization, when that doesn't
happen, as when it's like, we're only create like something, like
Rutherford Falls, for instance, or, you know, or res dogs, for
instance, you know. Like you see some more
complexity where you can have like the baddies and you can
have the goodies and you can have the way that they interact
with one another, but I'm also really interested in how are
just totally took over. What you're saying, then is that
okay? Of course.
Yeah, look, I was just going to say, I was just going to say
about you know one of the things that we've had to be really
careful of. Is this issue of queer actors
within this space because there are a lot of clear actors that
are not talking about being queer and in particular, that's,
you know, it's a concern for us because, you know, the sort of
calling out, I mean, I can't play from the kind of saying
this in 2022, but here we are, you know, in a space where for
people to identify themselves as queer, particularly when they're
playing smaller roles in smaller Productions can actually
isolate, you know, their capacity and so we've been
really cautious about how we Right about the idea of kind of
excluding queerness, and I've had a really funny experience of
having. Can I tell the story of this
sent, you know what the story is had?
Look, I had I'd written something about four years ago.
Now, about four years ago, I'd written about four characters
that were queer either queer characters or kind of quick,
coded characters in major TV shows, and I've been riding some
work around On this and I was writing it to talk about the
complexity that was not really possible.
When we're talking about white sis had characters, white says,
have characters playing queer characters, there was much more
of a swap out of Permitting them and so it was sort of focused on
four of these characters and one of my pivot Points was to go and
none of them are queer. Like all of them are not queer
and I just gone to riding this this piece up.
And I was about to submit to the editor when one of them came out
and then I then I left it alone for a while.
I thought I don't have time to rewrite.
This when overseas was doing some research overseas came back
and I had this moment of going oh look, you know, I know this
other place that I can submit to so alternative.
Actually, it was the addition that Problems putting together.
And so I thought I'll get it ready for that.
I centered and then immediately recalled it because the second
actor came out, no boiled. Again they?
Yeah, something later. I was putting all of my work
together and, you know, sometimes you have work that
you've worked on for a while, but didn't get submitted
somewhere for whatever reason. I've got a few pieces like that,
and I had this piece and I thought, Well, this is
ridiculous. I can work this around.
I can talk about this in some way and I kind of found a way to
do it as losing a bit of traction for me, but I found a
way to write about it, and I was genuinely no word of a lie due
to submit again. And the third one came out know,
it's interesting because I'm saying, Queen us.
But obviously there is quite a difference between gender and
sexuality. And I think when you look at
something like disclosure that are really wonderful film, that
talks about the issues of having someone who's sis playing,
somebody who's trans and, you know, and the and the Deep
problems with that a quite different to sexuality, you
know, they're quite different to that space.
I'm not sure there are a million, you know, I'm not sure
that it's that it's an all-or-nothing at Arden.
I think there is some complexity to it but it is a real concern
and I guess at the moment with a lot of the trans exclusionary
stuff to there is a real concern over kind of setting that up as
a binary problem as well. So, so we're trying to know
about it and talked about it, a beard, but also not necessarily
play it out as a, this is working in this way in, this is
working in this way. And I think one of the things
that happened in 2020 and I won't mention and a name with
this this actor that this happened with, but It was really
horrible. So so in 2020, there was an
actor who had played a queer character on TV who came out as
Queer as queer, right? And they played a lesbian on TV,
I guess, I don't know if they're a lesbian or bisexual, but they
played somebody who is who is attracted to a woman.
And and there was absolute Support there was on across
social media, this incredible support and interest and
actually it was one of the people who also, who was the one
who came out but you know, there was there was certainly a lot of
interest and I read nothing but support our.
There might have been a few things that weren't but mostly
it was then a year later, they clarified that they were
non-binary and The stuff that happened was atrocious, it was
all - they ceased their Twitter account.
They did all of this work to basically all these people were
doing all this work to basically call them out, on being a liar
about their gender, you know, and also just a whole lot of
transphobic stuff about their body.
So they comment the comments on the body were Markable and, you
know, I think that it's entirely possible that because of the
scope of that, this is somebody who may not work.
Again. I think that's possible.
And I think it's appalling and I think it needs to be called out
kind of what it is, which is not just we're phobia but also this
real problem of how we understand representation
generally. And, you know, that idea that
that queerness is only how we Regarded as queer people you
know so it's so it's it was a I guess so it's horrible to see
any of these things as a you know as a lesson because this is
a person's life but it was a lesson in some of the issues
around this that we needed to also have an awareness of, you
know, again sometimes people have been out at some stage but
there no. No longer out or talking about
it. And so, in that way, we've been
very careful not to say that. And of course, that brings up,
this whole issue of queer people playing the characters and the,
the power of it, I guess is still for a lot of people
undeniable because they feel it. You know what, people feel as
viewers, it's this sense that there's a relationship to truth
in playing a character whether there is or not.
And So yeah, so so I guess they're the things that were
interested in but, you know, our beginning point, with the end of
my row and I'm gonna is to say we make a world worth living in.
So we don't do damage to individual people in that way
ever, you know, for the sake of, you know, research So Sandy we
saw that you are part of the center for Global indigenous,
Futures, can you tell us a little bit more about this
organization and your Roland? And yeah, so some of the global
indigenous Futures is, is a group that comes out of a group
called fire, which is the was the forum, for indigenous
research excellence and it was set up by Professor Broman
Carlson. Who's the The other professor at
the uni are in in this continent only about 5% of people who are
academics the professor's. So it's not you know it's a bit
of a different language. So it tends to be very senior
academics and so Braun actually does a massive amount of work in
the online space rights around indigenous, online engagement,
sort of remarkable body of work in that field.
And she'd set this up and she'd actually setup fire as a vehicle
for the first-ever queer indigenous, Symposium that
happened in 2015. So, they'd never been one before
that. And she brought people from all
over the world, simply because she had a student who was queer
and Indigenous and she wanted to have an opportunity for them to
meet other people. And so, I Ron already knew my
work and so got me to come down and be engaged in that way.
But as a result about a year and a half ago, I started working at
Macquarie which actually hosts the center for Global indigenous
Futures and that has the online journals free Lee accessible
online Journal that's called Journal of global indigeneity.
And we work with indigenous people from On the world.
So we've got a Sami Journal issue that's coming out shortly
and focuses on some it community in the area that is now known as
Norway and across that across that region and we focus a lot
on our relationship with people in Turtle Island.
So we've got a lot of connections to people in I guess
the Modern Day Canada and one day Us.
And the work that we've done is, is centered on a few different
areas. But essentially we focus on the
idea of digital lives, we focus on the locating ourselves, which
is about where the queerness sits within that's this space
and then we do work on the idea of our futures.
And so the idea of Futures isn't about going as not really the
futurism stuff about Going speculative fiction.
Let's make the world better and then we can go and live in that.
It's about the future that starts today, you know?
So it's about saying, how to indigenous people make this and
how do we make it with our allies?
So how do we make it with settlers and others from around
the world to make these spaces spaces that that people can grow
in? We use this idea of survivors.
So it's business idea who's an additional be scholar who Who
talks about the idea that if we exist now with existed in the
past, and we always will exist. So, so, so that when people say,
oh, you know, there weren't queer, people decades ago were
centuries ago, or thousands of years ago, it's like, well, we
exist now. So, actually, we did exist.
That's how it is. And so it's a lot of work that
does challenges to that a lot of work.
I do kind of creates those challenges.
So I do a little bit of work in the museum space.
That's around. How people gender figures of the
past. So, you know, people will gender
for instance. Some Venus of Willendorf is a
really good example. Lots of people know Venus of
Willendorf and you know, the Willendorf figurine is this is
this figure that's often framed as a maternal figure as a
pregnant figure actually and it's largely not thought of as
as pregnant anymore. It's now thought of as a
perspective work so it was made by somebody was looking down at
their own body. They may or may not have been
pregnant. That's kind of the rendering
from the last couple of centuries of how people
understand. And also, I have a body, that's
a lot, like the Venus of Willendorf and I'm not a woman.
So when the character gets framed of the figure gets framed
as, as female or a woman, there's a challenge to it, but
there's also a kind of contemporary reading that's
happening when that happened. So curators are going well.
Yeah, you know how I know the world is that there's the past
just Had women and men in it. I'm just going to go through a
gender. So so it does this work that's
not about kind of recognizing the complexity.
So what we do in the center is that we do this kind of complex
work that's around trying to make world's better.
So we work with a lot of large sites.
Obviously, the Australian research Council that provide
some funding to be able to do work.
That wouldn't otherwise be funded.
But we also work with organizations like in DigiTech
like parents of gender diverse children, Like the Victorian
government that provided the funding for that like Facebook
who have met who have done quite a lot of provided quite a lot of
funding for us to look at some of the issues in terms of
indigenous people online, you know, there's a lot of myths
around that, you know, there was a little mitts years ago that
was like indigenous people don't use the internet or they don't
use social media. And in fact, then there were
survey Has done that showed that the percentage of which we used,
it was about 20% higher than the rest of the population which
made all the sense in the world to us.
Because part of what it was doing was recognizing that was,
we were all recognizing that we needed to find a way to connect
with one another, you know in a site where where there was the
capacity to do that outside of work and form community.
And so from one's written quite a lot about that but we work
with with, with indigenous Scholars from around the world.
We work with Percy lizard, who is a remarkable two-spirit
scholar from Canada. Skulks scholar, who does
incredible work? And actually did this report
that challenged or added to, I guess the murdered and missing
women in committee that had set up a real concern around how
they were locating and And understanding what was happening
for indigenous women and girls and and saying that this is
happening for queer people to. Why would we be doing it?
Apparently, when we know that this is affecting queer people
who may also be indigenous women and girls and so in its so it
became also to Spirit on top of that we don't have terms we
don't have a single term in this country like to Spirit me to
Spirits. Are relatively recent to, it's
only been around for thirty, two years 33 years.
But But it's still a term that many First Nations people in
indigenous people in Turtle Island, use, we don't have a
similar term that works across queerness but we would say, you
know, queer indigenous people and you know, so there is this
sort of complexity that's around representation that surround
visibility in the case of social media, that's around the work
that we do. Recognizing the horrors that can
happen in our community and also the successes that can happen in
our community in this continent, we've got this idea of closing
the Gap where you know, our health outcomes is substantially
lower than the rest of the population.
Our educational levels are substantially lower.
A lot of the markers that are used by the you know what stream
government are. Recognize that we are
substantially lower but what happens is with the closing, the
Gap, the idea is that we get up to here.
It's never really about how we exceed the Gap.
It's never really about our successes.
It's only about that idea of, of resetting disadvantaged.
And so, part of what we do is to talk about, both to say,
actually we can talk about both, we can talk about how to make
sure that people live longer lives and we can talk about how
we also throw. Thrive in the space that we're
in because of our connectedness to one another.
So I kind of remember what the question was.
Did that answer any of it? It did.
Yeah, you got it. Sorry about that guys cat.
Today. There were a lot of people and
other animals in my room so she's feeling neglected.
Oh Baby, I've never seen her this active.
Yeah, it's because she's feeling neglected because usually, no
one comes. who's in here but anyway, So if you see fluffy
tails in front of you, that's why she also found her toy which
is a discarded piece of plastic that she does not need it to be
on camera and it's adorable. She does play fetch which I did
not throw her toys so she will not fetch right now.
But next question is for Hannah. Can you tell us about the Rogue
30 rug 3? Gosh, you guys have done your
research reg. 3 is is an improv tree.
I have with two friends of mine. Brody who plays trombone and
Ryan who plays recorder, and we haven't been able to really do
too much since the pandemic kicked off because Ryan is based
in nam in Melbourne. I'm Victoria.
And so, you know, we haven't had the chance to get together also
because Ryan and his partner have a very fresh child and so
they yet they're busy doing that.
But Rogue 3 is just I mean it's just a real kind of project of
sounding I guess our relationships and and also our
Like the long-term friendships that we have and also often in
in place in spaces. So like we have one like studio
recording but we've also done recordings in a drain space in
an Ali here, which is, you know, about a 15-minute bike ride from
where I am right now. That goes kind of underneath the
motorway. And yeah, so we played there
together we also did a Cording on my parents still live where I
mostly grew up which is a small farm bit under 100 acres.
I'm not sure if Acres of the unit of measurement of like sort
of land farm size in the US fed out there.
Okay, cool cool on. Yes and I was never.
The ones are the ones that don't use it.
I know. Well, we're the ones.
Definitely used with ya ha but that's much bigger.
So it's a lot harder to measure a small farm in ha.
So yeah, they it's on global and Jetta.
We're country so Southwest of original city called, Toowoomba
and that's where that's where I mostly grew up.
Before I moved to me engine and it's yeah, it's like Got some
olive trees, on it, it's got some cows, it's got there.
There's still one horse kicking around, we had a lot of horses
when I was growing up. So I mean the climate in in that
part it's about a two-hour drive from where I am.
Now it's not particularly far away but that's that's kind of
going almost directly Inland and the last couple of years, it's
been the lenina. So there's been a lot of rain,
but they came into that. Amount of rain from a good nine
years of quite extreme drought and sort of towards the end of
that drought time. Rodion Ryan.
And I did a recording out there. Yeah.
Really like there's just there were just whole areas that
didn't have any grass anymore. And that's, yeah, it's like semi
arid country. So it's usually sort of Fairly
dry grasslands with quite a lot of eucalypt forest and some Some
of the eclipse were were dying and this kind of thing.
And so this is this is what led into the really bad Bushfire
season of 2019 2020 here. And it's not an area that
usually sees bushfires, and luckily they didn't have any go
through that direct area, but it was just so extremely dry and
like Baron in this, like, kind of Haunting way.
And so, like standing on that country and it just looks so
different to when I was growing up.
And now it looks so different again.
And it was yeah, we called it eucalypt apocalypse.
We just were, like really sitting with the state of, of
the land in that moment and you know, the history that's
contained there. I recently, went up to 21 Baba,
a couple of weeks ago for a memorial service for actually,
in a way. I kind of celebratory memorial
service for the What was called the Battle of One Tree Hill or
the Battle of me W, which is a mountain just near to a, to a
mountain range. I mean by Mountain standards.
Look, I have a Canadian partner. Who will tell me that these are
not Mountains? They're just kind of the kills
but like this is part of the Great Divide Valley mountains
that like it's it's still called a mount.
Aunt Mountain anyway, large Hill but Federal a very notable one.
Where there was a really significant battle against the
invading, settlers, the colonists.
And I'm going to forget the year because I'm not, I'm not the
greatest at my history buff, but there's a really great podcast.
I can recommend called Frontier War stories with.
Bose P room, which goes into a lot more detail detail about
this. But yeah, so I went to this
memorial service that is actually for the battle that was
won by the local indigenous people and driving people back
all the way to Logan which is about an hour and a half drive
from her from where that where that mountain is.
And so like a significant days hard riding kind of thing or
like and so that was a really successful defeat of the
settlers of that time. Of course, the Crackdown that
followed was Stream and led to the deaths of a lot of people.
But so this was part of a this was the eighth year, I think of
this memorial service that was honoring.
Aboriginal Warriors in the frontier Wars, which is still
like part of a very unspoken truth from this area and so,
well, it has been. Yeah, it's being spoken by morse
more and more. And we have been speaking about
it for a long time. It's just not indigenous.
People are finally recognizing it.
It's, I mean, we had a lot of battles in barrage really as
well. And you know what, what happened
is, it's the winning battles and losing a war is the kind of
Broader landscape except we didn't lose.
It's still our country and you know there it's not the end War
hasn't ended, you know, so it's so there's still this worked.
Yeah. But worries ongoing and yeah,
and this in digital and Truth complex interesting.
Yeah. Yeah.
Sing here are not that moment of the earlier moment where you're
talking about the making, I didn't realize that you're done,
that work out there. I don't know why I didn't but it
reminded me of, you know, Sara Jane Moore whose power who does
this remarkable work. And we used to do sound work
together about 30 30 or so years ago.
And and we actually went out to dubbo so on My country.
So, on rodri country and we recorded all of this where I was
this work, as well as music, they're not connected, but it
was, it was it was that same space.
So, you know, Australia's Got a lot of droughts and a lot of fun
and a lot of flat tires and you know, a lot of these sort of
natural disasters that aren't so natural.
That That have happened in that are happening increasingly but
it was that moment of the kind of dryness of Dabo that was
happening. 30 might have been 32 years ago.
I think we went out there and you know and I was in my mid-20s
at the time probably and it was, you know, this really lovely
connection back to Country because even when it's dry and
you know that reminds me of the broader issue of representation
is that, you know, we often don't see these Landscapes
played out, Out that are unusual or, you know that in the same
way as we don't see a diversity of queerness, we're often not
seeing a diversity of this kind of, you know, complex rendering,
I guess we see it a little bit, sometimes in American shows that
a shot here because I did, they come here?
And there's this funny thing that happened during the
pandemic where there are a lot of movies and TV shows that they
shot here, for whatever reason people came over here and and
shot them. But because Like 95% of our
trees or gum trees. Are you clipped?
They'd have these you'll see this on Netflix shows that they
have this kind of out of focus background so you can't see it's
a eucalypt while they're driving Hast.
It's hilarious. That's not my visit Italy.
I was like I had such a weird kind of experience because
there's so many eucalypts are such a eucalypt forest and I was
like it's Like Brisbane with hummingbirds and no for parts.
It's true. Yeah, that's right.
But I mean I guess. Yeah interesting because it also
like does its yeah the the land, the representation of the land
but it does things to communities as well.
It does things to how people behave and when we don't see I
mean we see these kind of like some kind of romanticized
representations of drought in like really particular kind of
Australian television but Yeah, I don't think we see that kind
of just like living with drought for a really long time and it
not being like this. Like this is the struggle that's
going to destroy this family in the 19th century.
But like yeah, but the the kind of reality of yeah, the
day-to-day life and how that would become kind of just subtly
changes community. And certainly changes the way
that people live their day-to-day lives is is something
and and similarly with the floods like it's not something
that I think is explored in a lot of of media representation
and it's really interesting. Yeah.
Look, let me think you see it much across Turtle Island
either. You know, I think you frequent.
I mean, it's not just, you know, British Columbia is America.
It's not just that, it's not just, you know, shooting in
particular locations to kind of make make it affordable.
It's more than that. It's also this idea of of, you
know, places like the Midwest, I mean I've did 75,000 road miles
of driving when I was looking at 470.
In the United States. So I spent a lot of time
criss-crossing places in the US and I think what I'm always
surprised by what I'm in the u.s. is how it doesn't feel like
it's represented very well in, you know, an american-based
shows the people too and that's a whole, you know, it's another
conversation but it's it's part of the same conversation about
real representation as opposed to like the desperate just like
that comment that Susie bright has in Celluloid closet, where
they say, oh, you know, they're talking about how few lesbian
films that were at the time. And you know, in their comment
is I think they're about, I think 12 kind of mainstream
films at the time that sounded like closet comes out as a movie
and it's reviewing, you know, all of these these films that
have happened in the past, but they, you know, the comment is,
you know, catching up with a friend and going well, you know,
So this amazing love story between these two women and was
beautiful and they were vampires, you know.
So it's the it's the will take any representation we can get.
Yeah. And you know, and the
desperation means that we don't ask for more and we don't get
more actually and and and people think it's enough and who thinks
it's enough is kind of what we're interested in with the
Queer. As ordered is understanding the
power of who makes those decisions when it's this very
large form work. That, that might have, you know,
queerness connected to it. You can have like a quiz show
runner, but just because someone's queer doesn't
necessarily mean that they understand the complexity of
queerness. They understand their own queens
and they understand what they've encountered and who they've
encountered. But understanding something like
indigenous, queerness people can shy away from it, they can
become concerned that they're doing the wrong thing by
representing in that way and that's intriguing.
And we know that what stops that is in.
Inside a voices. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean Gotta go. We gotta get em in there.
We can the decision making positions.
Yeah, and people getting in there but also, it's hard when
you've still got. So few people things don't
change quickly, even if we see much better representation than
we did, it takes a long time for that representation to hit, you
can have events around kind of the pushback against, says
people playing Trans people that happened a few years ago meant
that you're suddenly had a lot more trans people actually
playing trans people, it did mean that but it didn't
necessarily mean that you had better representation and you
know there's some really good examples of where you have
otherwise beautifully constructed ideas around race
for instance and we saw it with with Lovecraft country.
You know it's got this beautiful representation love country of
critical race work. And then it's got the most
appalling inclusion of an indigenous, a queer indigenous
person. That is so damaging that it's
terrible that they were include, it's terrible.
The way that they're included that assist person playing the
character and somebody swap out from one continent to another
continent weirdly and and the all of the other issues, whether
the character was framed as two-spirit character was
intersex. The character was Was was from
you know and there was no discussion around that the and
then you know the spoilers I guess for this there killed
immediately. The moment that you meet them by
another character as a kind of queer bashing, you know, and all
of this in an otherwise gorgeous work that does this.
And like the complexity is still there.
It's still a gorgeous work but that's a really tricky
representation to have and I don't think any of that would
have happened if they had Somebody who understood where
indigenous thing, right? You know, they wouldn't have
fucked up basically. And I think the, the showrunner
said as much totally and and responses like Beyond like kind
of, I mean, this is like vitally important but beyond the kind of
like accuracy of representation. There's another layer of
complexity that's about in a way like who who is the intended
audience and how that has to be presented and the and the kind
of wrapping Way in which these things are presented.
And so, kind of You know, I'm just thinking a bit of a scholar
whose work that we both know a friend of friend of Sandy's as
well. Prof.
Tell see what ago, a man and jolly and south sea Islander
scholar. Who talks about the importance
of writing, like black riding for black audiences, like
Aboriginal writing for Aboriginal audiences and not,
not catering constantly to this white gaze to the settlor, like,
consumption of these things. And I think this Similarly,
evident in like, some attempts at a complex, queer identity,
and the way that's rendered in television programs as this.
Yeah. But as we were sort of saying
like siloing into these particular categories and like
it's this particular layered identity and then, and
therefore, this person is struggling with these particular
issues in the way that they kind of work through life and it can
be quite productive in a way, that doesn't actually just like
it. Explore the complexities of a
person's life and things. And I don't like this is maybe
talking back a little bit and forward, but this is just
something. I was reading this morning and
it was just so beautiful. Some riding bike, I mean, off
pile, who's a new Chief anishinabe writer and and a
queer indigenous person who like learnt so much from on Twitter
and and in their academic work and in their writing in general.
But they introduced this They just finished a PhD which is
extremely exciting and I really look forward to reading it but
they introduced this concept of instead of like mind body or
Body Mind of land mind body as a single word and just talking in
particular of this kind of like the the complexity of an
identity that like, comes from this relationship.
Not only with yourself and with the other humans in the space,
but with the land that you're on, and And like, particularly
for indigenous, people the way that that relationship has like
this extremely deep and like integrated connection, and like
when that's not having to cater to this audience, that's assumed
to have no knowledge of this. When instead, it's just a kind
of presumption, like, what possibilities are opened up
there and like, you know, instead of having to like hold
someone's hand through it, I mean, look Ike.
I also come from this is like a very different.
Example. But I come from this more like
experimental music kind of thing was sort of my that's my jam.
And yeah if you listen to any of Rogues 3 that's the kind of
thing in this. This kind of idea of that was so
often presented when I was studying with in a European art
music context was like this idea of holding an audience and
through more difficult music. That's not what they would have
been really familiar with because they don't know what to
expect kind of thing. And the possibilities that are
opened up when you drop that when you actually just are the
person that you are you You are the artist that you are and that
just you know you're representing the kind of life
experience and just starting from this place without having
to like explain all of these details it just it's suddenly
opens up a different way of thinking representation and
doing representation. And I think that is only
possible. Yeah.
When these people are when people from this lived
experience in the writers room in the production, kind of
things. So that's yeah, absolutely.
Just thinking this plan mind-body.
Like, it just kind of blows open.
What representation is in can do for me?
So yeah, I totally for a moment there.
I thought you were saying, landmine body.
Was thinking a landmine. Oh, well, that could be bad.
That's right. No, I think I might say that to
some point. Hi, maile.
Great to go with another day in the colony, does a whole lot of
kind of giving up on the idea. Idea, that places are going to
get this, right? And I think when we see complex
identity already, we expect a little bit more.
I mean, that was what happened with Lovecraft country, right?
Like you go. Come on.
This is, this is a team of people who understand where
we're at in terms of raised. So how are you getting your
depiction of another race? So wrong?
And the answer is that, people know what, they know, you know,
they have the experiences that they have and they're often
grounded in that. And so part of it is about that.
Feeling that way. And I think, you know, that idea
that you just said, Hunter about, you know, how do we, how
do we give people things that are unusual?
I mean, we think that it's really shocking and that it's
not that it's not it's difficult or you won't have an audience if
you do something that's out of the box.
But we see again and again, that that's not the case, you know,
audiences actually want to have disruptions, you know, and we're
very interested in the way that people spend time with
characters too. Fan fictions are really
important measure of that. You know, people will spend so
much time that their create texts that extend the characters
lives and extend these Wells buildings and write a judgment.
That's right there, riding riding on to those characters
in, in a way that is really complex.
And we see that happened in indigenous future isms that I,
you know, while we don't really want to imagine that our
futures. Our just this kind of beautiful
world that we've made and we don't know how to get there.
You can still see why there are so many indigenous people that
are interested in this notion of speculative fiction as a place
to play, where it all of that doesn't have to be described to
an audience, you know, where an audience doesn't need to have
this anchored back to them in some way because you're making
worlds. And I think we saw that with I
keep thinking about the fact, you know, my work is about no
session. So I could think about the fact
that it's called a session with the the, and obviously, a
challenge, a sessions are deeply problematic.
And I was really thrilled to see that it was made problematic at
the end. Because I think it is an
incredibly important moment to recognize that these sites that
we get pushed back into as indigenous people are frequently
these problematic sites. And I know I mean, I'm on Cubby
Cubby country right now just north of me engine which is So
it was called Brisbane and, you know, this space is, you know,
an incredibly powerful space of, has been for a long time.
The space that I come from there, a jury, it's like, it's
very big, it's the size of Portugal, you know.
So it's a really large country geographically, you know,
Australia land mass is about the same as the contiguous states in
the in the u.s. in terms of size.
So it's very, you know, big with a very small population of 25
million But, you know, this these spaces are spaces that are
really diverse, they have complexity of people as well as
Landscapes as well as ways that people have engaged in the past
and everything's not about the colony, you know, we do things
in spite of the colony and I wake up every morning and think
this is what it's like to be a colonized person.
I hope and and of course, sometimes we do.
You know, we've had some really horrific things that have
happened just recently for us as a community and it happens
again. Again you know it's important
reminder that we're not front and center representation helps
not just for us but for the broader population and I hate to
say it because it's like you know they shouldn't have to know
that we're a human because we have represented in something
that they care about, but we're still there.
We're still at that moment in time and we're in interim times,
things will change. But we still have to have
represented. So that means it's hard to have
negative. Representation, even though our
arrival point will be having - like batting that are, you know,
they're indigenous characters and baddies that are queer
indigenous characters. I don't think I've ever seen a
non-binary character who's a baddie.
I'd love to be proven wrong, but I don't think they give an
animated one but not as not another one.
Yeah. There you go.
But again when I say there will be some and they'll tell a story
and the ordered is about understanding what their story
is not. Just me going and we don't think
there are any you know it is actually about locating them and
working out what it means when we see them Yeah.
Well hopefully we get all the complexities, the good, the bad,
the problematic as we keep evolving in representation of
media. So something to look forward to
the future one. Last question, for everybody,
before we wrap things up today, we're just curious this Sandy.
This might be a bad, is the question for you.
This may be a long shot but we have to ask.
Ask is there some kind of Aboriginal language translation
of our catchphrase hydrate for lesbian Jesus?
Well, we've got 350 languages. So the answer is no, but also
the had figured I could work on it for a jury so he wouldn't
mind. Yeah, I'll have to come back to
you but I think it sounds fine. Important question, I'm not sure
about Geniuses fits within it. Jesus might not translatable,
but sometimes I think, you know, you know, Maura when and Ghana
this idea of making a world in which you get to be who you are,
might be hydrate for, that's Jesus.
Anyway, okay, that's even better.
That's what happened with language, you know, sometimes
languages and about translation. It's about translation of ideas
as well, exactly. Lee.
Thank you for that. Yes, thank you.
Welcome to. This is this is the only podcast
I can't watch. I mean, well, I mean I was here.
So thank you for doing it. We have to watch our own every
single time anyway, so I think you can still watch it.
Is there any final words? You have for our audience?
Just that maybe don't discount the think he's like, sorry,
sorry. Like don't just count the like I
know you don't intellectual engagement or the analysis that
you do just on watching day-to-day things and like
having conversations about it. And, you know, it's not like
some like high up here. Academics are doing this deep
intellectual work of thinking, with these, these shows, but
like the I just feel like everyone's thinking with them
and so we're trying. Just kind of like, you know,
I'll take you like a bit of a yeah, I guess.
Like the idea of doing an audit is kind of like thinking across
a whole lot of different things but we're drawing a lot on the
lon the like thinking of anyone who's watching these shows and
how that's kind of interacting with life and I think everyone's
doing that every time you every time you sit down to binge-watch
you doing some intellectual labor.
So I just I kind of wanted to okay.
I think some people are doing it more than others but think you
guys are doing all this. Sorry.
I don't care if that sounds a latest.
I mean, I think now it's I think I think people are often looking
at reproductions of the stuff that they know, you know.
And I think what's been remarkable about the work that
you're doing is how much it disrupts that.
And I suppose I'd say audiences want that, you know, years ago,
when I was doing the Museum's project, I was in, I was in the
UK and I Looking at the way that they represent their own First
Nations peoples and it was very you know it's a very fraught
problematic kind of side, you know, with a lot of people going
oh we don't have any, you know, so you don't just arrived.
So you did but what what are you doing?
In terms of that, you know, how are you, how are you
representing this? And, you know, there was this,
entire discussion around the importance of of having that
representation and seeing it as a kind of a through line to the
Past Just random characters that pop up in out of History, you
know, so not just the idea that that we arrived here, fully
formed as queer people, you know, we come from, what we've
been allowed to do, what we've been permitted to do what we saw
on TV. You know what we saw on TV
matters. If you grow up with TV, you know
and it's it's got this incredible power.
So we should demand more and what we're seeing is those
people demand more they produce, do they produce very eloquently?
Not always, But it but it'll get there because there is criticism
there is kind of Engagement and so you know, viewer engagement
fan engagement, if you like but it's viewer engagement.
More broadly matters in this space.
It really does. It not just to keep shows going
and to keep them, you know, they're but also to actually
keep them relevant. Absolutely.
Uh-huh. That's a very good point.
Thank our listeners can resonate.
With that for sure. Absolutely.
Thank you again for taking the time to talk with us today.
Yeah, it was amazing. Yes, and love getting to talk to
me getting love, getting talk to you and know you both better
likewise ideas though, it is a bit weird because remember, I'm
a bit of a fan, so it does feel like a bit of a strange
situation this week. I have questions for you that we
that we can ask here so that this weird
Scream. Oh yeah.
They don't get to know I could but I can imagine what some of
her mom. Yeah, everyone at home
listening, make sure to check out the center for Global
indigenous. Features.
You can follow them on Twitter at in Dish, Futures.
I at IND, igf UT ures, the are made me, spell it all out.
I did. And if you're watching on
YouTube, just everything will be in the description.
Oh, thank you so much. It was amazing.
Hi, everyone. And with that, we've been big
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hide. Ray for lesbian Jesus.