Unfortunately, after excitement and anticipation at the new series, I found myself switching off after the first two episodes.
I will outline the purely personal reasons why, given the fact that I exist in the 30 to 40-year-old female demographic that I suspect, after Annabel's highly intelligent and astute offering, and Richard Roxburgh's irritatingly clever attempt to re-endear us to our men, is switching off to Cleverman.
I could completely forgive it for its earnestness. It matters not to me that its black and white portrayal of racism and ethnic tensions is to real life what Dig Dug is to gaming graphics; what does matter to me is that it was advertised to me, along with very cool music, as 'ground-breaking'. What I watched was a program so awfully cliché in its representations of women and the female gender that I feel this was written with only one half of the population in mind as an audience.
I could forgive as clumsy many basic mistakes, like the roles of women as supporting cast members with an infinitely smaller number of lines, to be shagged or shagged against (if you count the infidelity), unless of course they are wise, when they are largely a-sexual. And straight out of a text-book, if you discount the two- dimensional, predictable female protagonists, nice women are involved in community care, and of course, desperate for a baby.
But there are disturbing elements to the story – the enforced prostitution of the main female character designated a 'hairy'; in particular, the scene where two other women of the same ethnicity, despite their superhuman strength and other perfectly useful qualities, are simply shot in the head when not deemed fit for a life of sexual slavery. The message? If she's not a shaggable woman of ethnicity, she's better off dead.
It has been hinted in some early reviews that this is an attempt to include comment on the treatment of women, but while there was plenty of dialogue and effort to counteract the issues of race and ethnic tension (after all this is what the show is all about) there was nothing to balance out this portrayal of gender – unless you are trying to tell me that the plight of women as a minority is being used here as wallpaper for a dystopian setting? Given the lack of balance it did feel far more as if the treatment and portrayal of women in Cleverman is not any sort of comment, but rather the intended effect of writers seeking to set up an environment reminiscent of game-worlds set in similarly dystopian social settings, like Grand Theft Auto, Assassins Creed, Game of Thrones etc., where this is the accepted portrayal of women, despite the debate that rages around it.
Less than two years ago, Evan Narcisse wrote in Kotaku":
"Chances are if there's a woman in a game's side mission—especially if it's a female sex worker— something terrible is going to happen to her, just to drive home just how screwed-up a particular character or gameworld is."
So to the ABC, as a female with what Eddie Izzard refers to as 'a thinking brain', I don't find the portrayal of women in the gaming culture to be ground-breaking, and I suspect a large part of your audience probably doesn't either. So why would it be ground-breaking or even appropriate, to set it within a program aimed at the sci-fi genre, the main premise of which screams so very loudly to be anti- discrimination?
Back in my gaming days, there was a place called 'general chat' or 'trade chat'. Cleverman feels a lot like I've been subjecting myself to hours of lectures in CAPS, by Australian blokes in trade chat.
Unfortunately, I think Cleverman will become a study of discrimination within a very loud message of anti-discrimination.
That's not ground-breaking either.
I will outline the purely personal reasons why, given the fact that I exist in the 30 to 40-year-old female demographic that I suspect, after Annabel's highly intelligent and astute offering, and Richard Roxburgh's irritatingly clever attempt to re-endear us to our men, is switching off to Cleverman.
I could completely forgive it for its earnestness. It matters not to me that its black and white portrayal of racism and ethnic tensions is to real life what Dig Dug is to gaming graphics; what does matter to me is that it was advertised to me, along with very cool music, as 'ground-breaking'. What I watched was a program so awfully cliché in its representations of women and the female gender that I feel this was written with only one half of the population in mind as an audience.
I could forgive as clumsy many basic mistakes, like the roles of women as supporting cast members with an infinitely smaller number of lines, to be shagged or shagged against (if you count the infidelity), unless of course they are wise, when they are largely a-sexual. And straight out of a text-book, if you discount the two- dimensional, predictable female protagonists, nice women are involved in community care, and of course, desperate for a baby.
But there are disturbing elements to the story – the enforced prostitution of the main female character designated a 'hairy'; in particular, the scene where two other women of the same ethnicity, despite their superhuman strength and other perfectly useful qualities, are simply shot in the head when not deemed fit for a life of sexual slavery. The message? If she's not a shaggable woman of ethnicity, she's better off dead.
It has been hinted in some early reviews that this is an attempt to include comment on the treatment of women, but while there was plenty of dialogue and effort to counteract the issues of race and ethnic tension (after all this is what the show is all about) there was nothing to balance out this portrayal of gender – unless you are trying to tell me that the plight of women as a minority is being used here as wallpaper for a dystopian setting? Given the lack of balance it did feel far more as if the treatment and portrayal of women in Cleverman is not any sort of comment, but rather the intended effect of writers seeking to set up an environment reminiscent of game-worlds set in similarly dystopian social settings, like Grand Theft Auto, Assassins Creed, Game of Thrones etc., where this is the accepted portrayal of women, despite the debate that rages around it.
Less than two years ago, Evan Narcisse wrote in Kotaku":
"Chances are if there's a woman in a game's side mission—especially if it's a female sex worker— something terrible is going to happen to her, just to drive home just how screwed-up a particular character or gameworld is."
So to the ABC, as a female with what Eddie Izzard refers to as 'a thinking brain', I don't find the portrayal of women in the gaming culture to be ground-breaking, and I suspect a large part of your audience probably doesn't either. So why would it be ground-breaking or even appropriate, to set it within a program aimed at the sci-fi genre, the main premise of which screams so very loudly to be anti- discrimination?
Back in my gaming days, there was a place called 'general chat' or 'trade chat'. Cleverman feels a lot like I've been subjecting myself to hours of lectures in CAPS, by Australian blokes in trade chat.
Unfortunately, I think Cleverman will become a study of discrimination within a very loud message of anti-discrimination.
That's not ground-breaking either.