Category Archives: LGBTIQ Equality

Artists, LGBTIQ Equality

Boldly going nowhere: the inequality of Sci-Fi

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SPACE PHENOMENON Patsy Trench (left) as Cadet Tina Culbrick in Phoenix Five.
SPACE PHENOMENON Patsy Trench (left) as Cadet Tina Culbrick in Phoenix Five.

A Writer explores the limits of the universe’s acceptance.

“WHEN I was nine years old Star Trek came on,” actress Whoopi Goldberg told Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, at a casting session for the show’s reboot in the early 1990s.

“I looked at it and I went screaming through the house: ‘Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!’ I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be, and I want to be on Star Trek.”

That ‘black lady’ was African-American actor Nichelle Nichols, in the role of Lieutenant Uhura, a character who inspired even Dr. Martin Luther King to follow the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.

Goldberg’s moment of validation and inspiration is now half a century behind us. In fifty years from now, will stories emerge about children today who saw themselves in the current crop of mainstream science fiction titles, or has Sci-Fi lost its edge within today’s asteroid belt of conservatism?

A bit of time travel might unearth some answers.

When George Lucas relaunched the Star Wars franchise in the late 1990s, he created a character whose name still draws ire across the geek chat rooms: Jar Jar Binks.

Designed to appeal to younger audiences in a similar manner to the Ewoks of Return of the Jedi, Jar Jar, a Gungan from the planet Naboo, with his exaggerated mannerisms and flamboyant voice, seemed to have the opposite effect, and he was subsequently toned down and written into the sidelines of two further prequels.

The fear of flamboyant space travellers and aliens was not always so keen. Doctor Zachary Smith in Lost in Space (played by Jonathan Harris) camped and shrieked his way through the series, defying any notion of being sidelined.

BUMBLING BOOBY! Jonathan Harris as Dr Smith in Lost in Space.
BUMBLING BOOBY! Jonathan Harris as Dr Smith in Lost in Space.

That he was a comically selfish villain, opportunistic in his attempts to get back to Earth, leaving the Robinson family behind, didn’t seem to matter. Flamboyant was fine, as long as you were the bad guy.

More recently the Doctor Who franchise (and its spin-off, Torchwood) experimented with alternate sexuality in the form of the bisexual Captain Jack Harkness (played by John Barrowman), but his intergalactic promiscuity, and the untimely death of his longest love, ensured audiences never had to countenance this high-profile non-heterosexual character in a relationship as progressive as a commonplace same-sex marriage.

Sci-Fi lesbianism is even more marginal, offering only a handful of onscreen same-sex kisses and a whole universe of subtext in everything from Alien: Resurrection to Xena Warrior Princess.

Here in Australia, TV producers were quick to jump on the bandwagon of popular TV series set in the future, with a crop of titles on our small screens by the end of the 1960s.

One of these was Phoenix Five produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from 1968-69.

Amongst the show’s stars was Patsy Trench (now a London theatre guide) in the role of Cadet Tina Culbrick, the only female in a crew of three on the galactic space patrol ship of the show’s title, tasked with protecting the known universe from an evil humanoid and a rebel scientist in the year 2500.

“It was certainly not a progressive series, not in any sense,” Patsy said. “It made no social statements, it was just a series of adventures featuring three humans versus a number of weird aliens”.

“As for gender equality, the characters were all pretty well asexual. We wore identical clothing – a yellow tunic-type top (very cliché Sci-Fi) and very unflattering black ski pant-type trousers. There was absolutely no sense of sexual tension between the three of us and no sense of gender – equality or otherwise. Tina may have objected from time to time to being patronised by her male crew members, but that’s about as far as it went.

HIS AND HERS The key cast of Phoenix Five.
HIS AND HERS The key cast of Phoenix Five in their gender-neutral tunics (Clippings courtesy of Patsy Trench).

“Every single episode I had to say ‘space phenomenon ahead’, whatever that was supposed to mean.

“It became a running joke. I remember pressing a series of buttons without having a clue what they were or what I was supposed to be doing.

“Nowadays a director and actor might pay a bit of attention to that kind of detail, but not then.”

I asked Trench whether she believes Australia was capable in the 1960s of imagining a future that had racial/sexual equality?

“Probably not,” she said. “When I was living there in the late Sixties I did not get the impression the Aboriginal people featured much in people’s consciences, certainly not as they do now. I’m not sure when they were given full voting rights, but I think it was around that time, and I had no idea it had taken so long – the issue was never discussed.”

Does Trench think Sci-Fi has a role to play in imagining a more equal future?

“Of course, because the limits are as huge as our imaginations,” she said.

Territory upon which only the boldest equality explorers tread is one which has long been a source of some of Science Fiction’s most renowned characters: disability.

Few children of the Seventies will have missed the blind, wheelchair-bound Davros who first appeared in the 1975 Doctor Who ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ episodes, probably the most prominent example of a physically disabled humanoid character ever to feature on television screens in our living rooms at prime time.

In her enlightening feature ‘Disability in an alternative universe’ for the ABC’s Ramp Up disability discussion forum, Leah Hobson gets right to the point: “As a fan of science fiction and fantasy – genres which most often ask ‘what if?’ in more playful and profound ways – I notice the dearth of ‘good’ stories about disability”.

“If a character is portrayed with any sort of disability,” Hobson wrote, “a realistic depiction means you’re typically male, and you’re typically either bound to a bitter and/or evil existence with a good dose of sexual openness thrown in just to really show you’re evil.”

Exploring whether there is any positive purpose to depictions of Transhumanism (the human condition enhanced by technology) in Sci-Fi, Hobson found more questions than answers.

I started to enjoy Doctor Who when River Song (played by Alex Kingston) became a regular character, and, in geeky conversations at work about the future of the show, I threw in my view that the show’s producers might be grooming River Song to be the series’ first female Doctor.

And why not? She was riveting, charismatic, intelligent and kept taunting viewers on her backstory with her cheeky warning: “Spoilers, sweetie”.

During 11th Doctor Matt Smith’s unsuccessful regeneration in ‘The Impossible Astronaut’ episode, I hoped to see River’s signature curls emerge from the amniotic glow to be reborn as his replacement. Sure, she was standing right there watching, but this is Sci-Fi, anything could happen, right?

But The Doctor was killed (to tell you more would be a spoiler), along with all my hopes for River Song, who joined Amy, Rose, Martha, Tegan and Sarah Jane, playing second fiddle through time and space.

Dr King made a resounding point when he learnt that Nichelle Nichols wanted to leave the cast of Star Trek. As she recalled, he said: “Gene Roddenberry has opened a door for the world to see us. If you leave, that door can be closed, because, you see, your role is not a black role, and it’s not a female role, he can fill it with anything, including an alien.”

Until mainstream science fiction producers start opening a few more doors, and opening them wider than Roddenberry ever did, equality in Sci-Fi will remain far, far away.

This article appears in Michael’s eBook Creating Waves: Critical takes on culture and politics.

© Michael Burge, all rights reserved.

LGBTIQ Equality, My Story

I have a man here who won’t take off his hat

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HATS OFF or else, in some parts of the world.
HATS OFF or else, in some parts of the world.

A Writer’s encounter with the Catholic faith.

FROM the shade of Bodhi yum-cha restaurant we could see the steeples of St Mary’s Cathedral rising above the bustling lunchtime streets of Sydney.

It was Richard’s birthday, so it was up to him where we spent our city day trip. He’d expressed an interest in going to the Australian Museum, just along the road, but the thought of the cool air inside the cathedral beckoned us both.

I’d also wanted to show Richard the reproduction marble of Michelangelo’s heartfelt Pietà sculpture of Mary and the dead Jesus in her lap, which I’d last seen on a school excursion.

That idea sealed the deal, so we paid for our meal and ascended the steps in the heat of a late summer Sydney day.

“I slid onto the cool marble floor and put my hands together.”

I spotted the ‘no photography’ sign at the last-minute, and the memory of numerous cathedral visits in Europe made me think of removing my hat. But there was no sign, and a flock of tourists in hats beyond the threshold, so I shrugged and left my cap on.

The darkness and temperature drop was immediate, as was the sense of calm away from the traffic and crowds. Richard disappeared towards a set of stunning brass gates, as we started our respectful, slow search for the sculpture.

We were soon separated by another crowd of tourists, and I waited in the half-dark by the gates until they passed.

By a door on the eastern side of the nave, I saw a sad sight: an old man, slumped pitifully against a pew, wisps of hair lifted by the breeze. A homeless man, perhaps, or someone so down on his luck that only time in this place of worship could restore him?

His demeanour was so compelling that I turned away, because looking seemed an imposition.

But as I went to move, a sudden jabbing drove into my shoulder from behind.

I turned in shock as a security guard said to me, breaking the calm: “Remove your hat!”

CATHOLIC GROUND Interior of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.
CATHOLIC GROUND Interior of St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney.

In a bit of shock, I paused, looked at the tourists near me, some of whom had heard the guard, and said: “I will, in a moment,” and turned to find my husband.

“You will remove it now,” the guard said, loudly, “hats are not allowed in the cathedral!”

I turned, looked at the be-hatted tourists, and said: “I will remove my hat, when you ask them to remove theirs.”

I moved off quickly and heard him muttering at my heels. Adrenalin rushed through me, the result of the sudden physical attack on my shoulder, and something about the guard’s attitude towards me in particular.

When I caught up with Richard, his hat in his hand, I ascertained that the original request had been made to him. The guard caught up with us and repeated his demand.

I refused, and repeated my request for hat-removal equality in the cathedral, adding that I would be more than happy to remove my head covering when the same demand had been made of all the visitors.

“Women are allowed,” he snapped, thinking he’d snookered me.

I looked at the group again. Women and men, many of both, wearing hats, a point which I assertively made to the guard, before I turned away and determined to find the Michelangelo reproduction.

His unmistakable footsteps came after me, so I did the first thing that came into my head. Inspired by George Emerson in E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View, who, when harassed in Santa Croce, slumped to his knees in a position of prayer, I slid onto the cool marble floor and put my hands together.

Richard chortled.

The guard stopped, tutted, and waited. I could see him out of the corner of my eye. We were in a waiting game I’d need to play to its end if I was going to stay prone, so I took my time, finished my ‘prayer’ and stood, before calmly resuming my search.

“I’d impersonated a devout catholic, so fair cop that he did his best impersonation of what he thought I was.”

My tactic got him off my back, although he kept his distance and tried a new one of his own. He reached for his mobile phone and punched numbers into it as clumsily and implausibly as a comedian would, and said: “Hello? Is that the police? Yes, I have a man here who won’t take off his hat!”

Suppressing laughter, I told him I’d give him a Logie for that performance, and we did a dance of barely controlled energy all the way back to where Richard and I had arrived, my hat firmly in place all the way.

As I left, I turned and saw the guard attempt a dreadful impersonation of a poof. Limp wrist, hand on hip, and a lisped farewell: “Bye-bye, see you laytaaa!”

I laughed. I’d impersonated a devout catholic, so fair cop that he did his best impersonation of what he thought I was, but when I told my husband outside, Richard stormed back in and demanded the guy’s name.

Holding his hand over his badge, he began a tirade that did not end until we were both ejected through the door onto the steps, the place where thousands, perhaps millions of those in need had sought help from the church: at their door.

Adding to the surrealism of the moment, the poor soul I’d taken pity on by the eastern door came over and joined in the very loud rant about respect, hats, and who gets to wear one and who doesn’t on hallowed catholic ground, saying we could do what we liked in the world, but in the cathedral, it’s their rules. All of it avoided the reality that surrounded us: many men with covered heads, going into the church unmolested.

We were spat out, rejected and thoroughly repelled, but none of it was really about my hat.

As we descended the steps, the Museum in our sights, I asked Richard if he still wanted to go there.

“No, I’ve had enough of antiquities for one day.”

Touché.

We went shopping instead, and within minutes I’d worked out why the incident had happened.

Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which has taken place annually on the doorstep of St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney’s gay heartland – Darlinghurst – was in its final days.

I’d read years before that LGBTIQ catholics from around the world make a point of visiting the cathedral and visibly asking for confession and communion as a form of protest.

Thus the security guards, who, I hasten to add, have very delicate gaydar sensor settings indeed. Richard and I had not held hands or been in remotely close proximity while in the cathedral, but, like most gay men, we have a kind of ‘uniform’ when it comes to clothing.

creating-waves-cover
BUY NOW

We wear hats because we’re both rather bald, but the classic baseball cap (as opposed to the truckers’) is probably a bit of a giveaway for security in a Darlinghurst cathedral.

I’ve never been so quickly labelled as gay without opening my mouth.

And I’ve never so mistakenly labelled a soul in ‘need’.

This article appears in Michael’s eBook Creating Waves: Critical takes on culture and politics. 

LGBTIQ Equality, My Story

Human rights of reply

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FIGHTING DISCRIMINATION Andreas Ohm and Jim Woulfe, Michelle McCormack and Lynne Martin with son Tom, Michael Burge, Maria Vidal and Susan Everingham with daughter Antonia, and Jiro Takamisawa. (Photo: Sahlan Hayes).
FIGHTING DISCRIMINATION Andreas Ohm and Jim Woulfe, Michelle McCormack and Lynne Martin with son Tom, Michael Burge, Maria Vidal and Susan Everingham with daughter Antonia, and Jiro Takamisawa.
(Photo: Sahlan Hayes)

A Writer discovers his voice.

SOMEONE once said: “Don’t get mad, get even”, which must have been on my counsellor’s mind when he suggested something towards the end of my two years of grief counselling after the death of my partner, Jono.

The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), now the Human Rights Commission, were looking for people to make submissions to illustrate various aspects of their Same Sex: Same Entitlements investigation into financial discrimination against same-sex couples in Australia.

“Why not think about writing your experiences?” he put to me.

I said I’d think about it, although my first thought was that my experiences were somehow not relevant. Then I thought deeper.

The death of my partner, with whom I cohabited, ran a business, and had joint financial affairs, had cost me dearly emotionally, but it had also cost me economically.

Unlike straight people in my situation, Centrelink did not recognise the validity of my relationship in any way. I was unable to claim any kind of support linked to my grief or my monetary losses when I had to move house three times in one year, and take time off work.

Centrelink staff had been quite defensive about their organisation’s shortcomings, and told me to apply for Newstart (Newspeak for ‘the dole’) which came with the requirement to be seen to be seeking work and attending mind-numbing ‘how to write a resume’ courses.

I’d taken things into my own hands and gotten a part-time job in aged care, which I happily did for a few months until my car blew a gasket, and needed thousands of dollars for a new engine. I sold it as scrap, had to quit my job (for which I needed a car), and proceeded to hunker down in my cheap accommodation, a granny flat, until I had to move because the property was sold.

I headed back to Sydney and city rent, and tried to speed up my application for Jono’s superannuation, which was slowed by the machinations of his family. They threatened to apply for it in its entirety, then didn’t apply for it at all. None of them were in any way financially dependent on Jono when he died, so none of them were eligible.

I was, but, thanks to all the unwelcome nonsense, it was months before Jono’s super fund could simply do what the law required of them and send me a cheque.

I endured financial discrimination because my country had nothing for me by way of support. What was slightly galling was that certain demographics – straight divorcees over the age of 50, for example – were allowed to access the ‘widow’s pension’ automatically. No job-seeking or resume classes for them.

Me, a genuine widow, could get nothing.

ACTU-Worksite-Australian-Human-Rights-Commission

I didn’t feel like entering into a sob story, but when I contacted HREOC, they encouraged me to submit a written document on these experiences, because they had not received any accounts of people in my particular position, and many of the unequal laws applied to the circumstances of being widowed.

Like my affidavit to the Supreme Court of NSW, my submission to HREOC was easy to put together. They have strict guidelines, I couldn’t just cry: “It wasn’t fair!” and let them sort it out, I had to show where I fell between the cracks because I had lived in a same-sex de-facto relationship.

Part of the deal was the delivery of a live submission to the Commission, and a willingness to submit to media interviews afterwards. I agreed without thinking, because, when the day came, I had a plan to follow the contents of my written submission, but completely overlooked the possibility that emotions would take over.

I watched as other gay and lesbian people expressed their experiences, and, when my turn came, I forced my story out from beneath an aching heart.

Expressing the inexpressible about death is one thing. Defining negative behaviour by other people around that death is another. I struggled my way through my submission, masking hurt with the kind of plosives that hit the microphone with the cut-glass anger that is entirely suitable for such occasions.

As I exited the hearing I forgot about the media, and had more microphones shoved in my face to elaborate further. The interviews went live at midday, and many of my family and friends, and my counsellor, heard me explain the disenfranchisement to a State that finally seemed to be listening.

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Adele Horin, formerly of Fairfax Media, interviewed me at length on the phone after my HREOC submission, for an article which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.

It took her a few attempts to fully understand my position, and with hindsight I understood her difficulty was the same obstacle that many people encountered when coming to terms with my experience, because they simply could not understand why Jono’s mother and brother would do what they did, it was such an aberration.

In the end, I suggested she ask them directly for their reasons, to secure the ultimate right of reply, although I suggested she’d need to be tactful – their son and brother had died, after all, and the illegal actions they’d taken made them vulnerable to heavy fines and/or jail terms, had anyone really wanted to “get even”.

Somewhere in her research, Horin came to realise that my experience went way beyond financial discrimination and spoke to one of the final frontiers of same-sex equality in this country: marriage.

The last twelve months of the Howard government needed to pass before anyone in power was willing to read the Same Sex: Same Entitlements report.

So it was with great delight that many in the LGBTI community watched 11 years of conservative government swept away by KevinO7 and the ALP, who’d made the implementation of the Same Sex: Same Entitlements recommendations an election promise, and finally altered almost 100 pieces of discriminatory federal legislation in 2009.

The fight for full equality continues.

Michael’s story is published as Questionable Deeds.

© Michael Burge, all rights reserved.