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By Helen Razer
In mildly troubling news, ABC TV has failed to renew comic current affairs program, Tonightly. In a statement prepared today by cheerful bot, the Abysmal Bootlicker Crew alleges that it is grateful for the efforts of Tom Ballard and writing team, but that it is time, these many weeks into the project, “for a fresh
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By Helen Razer
Freedom of speech is spoken about so freely and often, I sometimes daydream of a West in which many, myself included, were afflicted with laryngitis. If we just shut up about our freedom of expression for a minute, then we might be able to think about the nature of freedom itself. Perhaps we’d have something
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By Helen Razer
Across the years, there have been two primary questions prompted by my criticism here at Daily Review. One, “Why are you paying for a menopausal conceit which should surely have been force-fed to rats by now?” The other, “Why won’t she shut up about politics when all I want to read about is art?” The
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By Helen Razer
Some months ago, an imprudent hostess left my mouth empty too long and I began yelling at a fellow diner. This was not my fault. It was due to inadequate catering and ruling class ideology. Understand: there I was with absolutely no goat curd to stop up my gob when some cultural studies tosser starts
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By Helen Razer
When The Handmaid’s Tale debuted on screens last year, serious critics urged us to watch and serious feminists urged us to accept its urgent message: men are mostly deadshits. As the season 2 finale approached last month, producers urged viewers to purchase its range of Handmaid-themed wines. These were not received well and were found by critics
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By Helen Razer
For an entire week, your reporter has quietly mourned the death of media reason. Today, she faces attack by winter power bill and can maintain her reverent silence no minute more. Is it an act of great hypocrisy to recount, for cash, an act of media stupidity then come over all la-di-da about how no worker
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By Helen Razer
Last night, dozens of Australians gave in to the choreography of the Logies. There are reports today that the spectacle is now seen as a “joke”, but I do not fall in with this assessment. This is not the camp of Eurovision, undisturbed despite its self-awareness. This is not the Brownlow medal red carpet parade of
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By Helen Razer
Ours is an era of chaos. The old forms of political order are dying, the new are yet to find life. Within this twilight crisis, we are asleep, but deceived by the brilliance of our dreams. We say we are awake to meaning. We say that we can find it everywhere—this week, in a jacket. No,
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By Helen Razer
“Journalism is not a crime”. Really? I’d say this slogan is hardly unassailable. I’d say this slogan, which began to appear in hashtag and t-shirt form when the Australian journalist Peter Greste was detained for his journalism practice, needs a second, a third, a seventeenth unflinching look. Surely, Sarah Ferguson’s fantasy Putin trilogy, which concluded
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By Helen Razer
The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of ladies struggling to Lean In. This narrow principle informs the ABC’s newest “factual” blockbuster, Back In Time For Dinner, just as it has come to inform all entertainment aimed at the female viewer white and/or wealthy enough not to have noticed that the West
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