Look, I love The Australian. I’m a subscriber, and their actual news reportage tends to be top notch. That said, their opinion pages often host the most baffling and boring manifestations of the culture wars, written by tired old blokes whose last contact with the actual cultural lives of Australians was when they called their local talkback radio show to say The Easybeats were making teenagers too horny and should be in jail.
I blame the ABC. In my view, the ABC has been slowly taken over from the inside, culturally at least, by Triple J. The anti-establishment ethos of the ABC’s home of alternative music eventually infiltrated television and radio. It is fascinating to see how well the Triple J crowd has done. From European correspondent Steve Cannane, to radio broadcaster Angela Catterns, science commentator Dr Karl, comedian Wil Anderson, radio duo Roy and HG, radio announcer Robbie Buck and many more. There are prominent exceptions such as Leigh Sales and Chris Uhlmann but even Q&A and occasional Lateline presenter Tony Jones, admittedly not a graduate of Triple J, affects a Triple J kind of radical chic.
I think Tony Jones would be most surprised of all to learn that he has any form of ‘radical chic’.
Back to my Triple J music theme. Pete Townshend got it right with The Who’s 1971 single Won’t Get Fooled Again: “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.” Except the new cultural leaders turn out to be a pretty moralising, humourless bunch who actually oppose freedom of thought and expression. For political reasons mind you.
And of course, because the 90s never ended, he needs to end with a salvo against gangsta rap, claiming that Triple J are hypocrites for not condemning “the racist and sexist abuse that abounds in US rap”. I want to invent a time machine and find out what Chris Mitchell’s face looked like when he first heard about Ice-T‘s Cop Killer.
