Australasian Journal of Popular Culture - Volume 4, Issue 1, 2015

This article extends Nick Perry’s concept of Antipodean camp – that there is a camp style common to settler popular cultures of Australia and New Zealand – by also considering possible differences between the two cultures and by re-emphasizing camp’s relation to gay and queer cultures. The Topp Twins, lesbian, anarchist, variety entertainers, are discussed as an act that both extend and challenge Perry’s ideas and the traditional association of camp and gay male culture. The article finishes by considering the degree to which they articulate a particularly New Zealand style, which I refer to as ‘bush camp’.

Collecting has become a popular hobby within western society, with collectables including anything from ‘bottle tops’ to ‘skyscrapers’. As the nature and size of these collections can impact upon the use of space in the home, the purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the collections, space in the home and the impacts on others. This qualitative study explores the experiences of eleven Australian collectors, investigating the motivations, practices and adaption techniques used within their urban home environment. The themes of sentimentality, sociability and spatial tensions, including physical, personal and use of space are discussed within the context of their home and family environments. Overall the practice of collecting objects is a complex, varied, sentimental and sociable activity, providing enjoyment, knowledge and friendships. Space can be a central consideration to the practice of collecting as collections shape and are shaped by the available space in a household.

In this study, I will argue that Ghostbusters I (Reitman, 1984) and Ghostbusters II (Reitman, 1989) expose the ghosting patriarchal policies of the United States immigration system. These two films exemplify the way in which US attitudes towards minorities and people from other cultures shift from a position of fear and aggression to one of harmony and understanding. This is a complex process that has been gradually evolving since the blossoming of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

This article examines the portrayal of Chinese characters in Get Smart (1965–70). Get Smart was a 1960s American spy comedy based on the premise of good (Control) against evil (KAOS) set against the back drop of the Cold War. Many of the episodes in this comedy featured a Chinese character as the enemy. This article will examine the way the characterization and performance of the Chinese roles play out in Get Smart. It locates them within the long-standing but now highly dubious tradition of ‘yellowface’ casting in American vaudeville, theatre and cinema, as Caucasian actors almost always played the Chinese roles in Get Smart. More particularly it examines Get Smart and especially the episodes with Chinese characters as examples of adaptation. Doing so suggests that different and at times competing conceptions of Chinese archetypes have been brought onto the screen, from the oriental villainy of Sax Rohmer and Ian Fleming to the criminal detective genius of Earl Derr Biggers’ Chan stories. These archetypes (and indeed stereotypes would be a better word in some instances), nonetheless permit the argument that Get Smart brings onto the screen a reasonably complex understanding of its Chinese characters and a critical view of the American characters.

This article surveys a range of relatively recent works in which the Bluebeard figure of fairy tale appears to cut to the paradoxical ‘heart’ of the mythology of romantic love in popular culture. Creative practitioners in Australasia and beyond are using the sinister figure of Bluebeard to critique romantic mythology, probing, in particular, the fraught intersection of love, knowledge and artistry. In the works of Jane Campion, Nick Cave, Sarah Quigley and others, Bluebeard comes to signify the violence that can accompany the lover and/as artist’s attempts to define the self through the other and the other through the self. In recent times, Bluebeard and his wife are doubled in their pursuit of penetrative knowledge of the other in the name of love, and this romantic quest is here equated with an erasure of the beloved’s subjectivity and the reduction of love’s potential. Bluebeard, in the hands of these predominately female creators, lends himself to an exploration of the contemporary dilemmas of love, encouraging us to question the demands we make of each other and ourselves in the realm of romance. This article focuses on Bluebeard in recent Australasian works read in an international and historical context.

Elvis at 21, National Portrait Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 7 December 2013–10 March 2014

head.wear, Caboolture Regional Art Gallery, Queensland, 30 April–5 July 2014