Page 24 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
I am sure other members received a press release from former Katter party Senate hopeful Steven Bailey regarding this matter. Mr Bailey’s press releases do vary in quality.
Mr Coe interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR RATTENBURY: But on the merits of this matter he raised quite an interesting point. He stated in his press release:
It is a sad irony that the Canberra Liberals have attacked the ACT Fringe for producing a piece of burlesque with Nazi references, as one of the very hallmarks of Nazism was to restrict and punish those who created art deemed unfit by the regime. Art considered unfit by the Nazi regime was called entartete kunst translated into English as ‘degenerate art’. To condemn those who produce art on the basis of their own ignorance, as Giulia Jones and the Canberra Liberals have done, is to repeat the same kinds of mistakes of the Nazi regime.
That was Mr Bailey’s view. Members may also have seen the letter to the editor by a former colleague of mine, Amanda Bresnan. I think she made some very well-considered points. She said:
Something as horrendous as Nazism has been addressed through comedy and satire many times.
The popular and Oscar winning movie and stage show Cabaret was set in Berlin during the rise of the Nazi party and includes an MC in drag performing a kick-line routine with cabaret girls—which then becomes a Nazi goose-step; and the MC singing If You Could See Her to a person dressed as a gorilla with the line “if you could see her through my eyes she wouldn’t look Jewish at all”.
Jewish writer-director-actor Mel Brooks is most famous for the movie and stage show The Producers featuring the song Springtime For Hitler; and for the song To be or not to be where he is dressed as Hitler doing a Nazi-inspired rap routine along with dancing girls dressed as Nazis.
Ms Bresnan went on to say:
In the Oscar-winning film Life is Beautiful Roberto Benigni plays a father who uses humour to protect his son in a concentration camp.
Hogan’s Heroes was a TV comedy about a German prisoner of war camp. Seinfeld had the Soup Nazi episode.
Ms Bresnan’s point in her letter to the editor is that humour, ridicule and satire are very important ways for people to deal with horror and tragedy.
It also brings me to the irony of the freedom commissioner. One of the federal Liberal government’s first acts was to appoint Tim Wilson as the new Human Rights Commissioner. He had to resign from the Liberal Party to take up the position.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video