In the Make a Realistic Wish Sketch[1] Morrow subsequently endorsed Mark Scott's view that the sketch shouldn't have gone to air ....
Julian Morrow delivers the 2009 Andrew Olle Media Lecture[2] at about 30:30 (of Entire Talk)
I'm not defending the Make a Realistic Wish Sketch, I agree that the ABC's decision that it shouldn't have gone to air was the right one.Transcript[3]
Placing this in the context of his argument
I think it's fair to divide the majority of people with a negative view of controversial content into three categories, and it's important to distinguish between them. The first is people who are hurt by it; the second is people who are offended or outraged by it; and then the last category is those who don't like it. ...Then, somewhat inconsistently says
So I'd like to make a realistic assessment of the Realistic Wish audience, because I believe what's true of them is true of the Australian mainstream.
The first category - those who were hurt - is by and large are people who've been touched in a personal way by childhood cancer. They are the people that I'm sorry about. I know that they have, arbitrarily, been afflicted with grief caused by one of life's cruellest realities. You've got tears enough in your life if that happens. A comedy show shouldn't add to those pools of grief. Lest there is any misunderstanding, if you are one of those people, I want to reiterate my sincerest apology to you for the unwarranted pain that sketch caused when you have already have too much suffering in your life.
But the next category - people who were offended by the sketch - is in my view different. We live, thankfully, with genuinely free speech, which is a hallmark of a tolerant society. And it's not good speech, or nice speech, that needs to be tolerated. It's bad speech. Mediocre speech. Tasteless speech. Sometimes, hurtful speech. [Emphasis Added].So at once Morrow seems to be allowing that "hurtful" speech can warrant censorship (whether this is "self censorship" or externally imposed) and not warrant censorship.
One could hold, just to entertain a logical possibility, that some kind of hurtful speech should be censored and another kind of hurtful speech should not. But the distinction between these kinds would need to be specified. That specification was palpably absent from Murrow's speech.
I find this to be an insidious thing. As more and more of us realise precisely that "And it's not good speech, or nice speech, that needs to be tolerated. It's bad speech. Mediocre speech. Tasteless speech" ... offensive and dangerous speech too ... there becomes a semantic burden placed on new words that are deployed as exceptions to the general right to speak freely. That is, as "offensive" speech becomes recognized as requiring protection from censorship, speech that others want to censor now gets called "hurtful" or, to take the example from 2013/2014, "bullying".
Ardinius
There is an important concept that you're missing here, and that is the concept of equality of speech, or rather, the concept of voice.
What I find interesting about this entire chaser skit is that the voice of the sick children are completely ignored and entirely removed from the debate. We don't hear the voice of terminally ill children who watched or were affected by the skit found anywhere present in the debate or the news media. If the outrage over this skit truly was about the well-being of terminally ill children, why are their voices entirely missing from the discussion, or even worse, why are they patronized to the extent of 'they're to precious to be exposed to it'?
The intention of the chaser skit was clear - it was to start a debate about the role of charities such as the Make-a-Wish Foundation. It was to question whether charities like the Make-a-Wish foundation using terminally ill children to guilt-trip parents into making a donation have become self serving.
The reason for of the media backlash on the other hand wasn't so clear. Firstly, the large majority of commentators and general public disgusted with the Skit have most likely never had any experience with terminally ill children - I don't believe people who've never even known a terminally ill kid could meaningfully empathise with them being hurt by a bad skit (assuming such kids even were hurt by the skit in the first place). Secondly, there was also a concerted campaign by the right which took this opportunity to fan the flames of outrage in an attempt to stifle, and indeed censor one of the few television programs on mainstream media that challenges the status quo (and does so, not seriously, but entirely through humor).
Interestingly, the voice of the parents of terminally ill children (and never the ill children themselves) came through loud and clear through the mainstream media, because it was they and not the children themselves who were apparently most hurt by the skit (I have yet to find a single article mentioning the anguish the skit caused to a young person actually suffering from a terminal illness). It's interesting to ask why the skit was so hurtful to parents: As a parent, to what extent are you going to feel insecure about giving your terminally ill child false hope about their chances of survival? - furthermore, to what extent do charities like Make a Wish Foundation actually deal with families coming to terms with their child's illness? Given that the most common 'wishes' are computers, cubby houses, and trips to the Gold Coast, is this kind of thing really going to help children and their parents cope? or is it going to just exasperate the problem by promoting temporary escapism for families who deal with these kinds of illnesses? And to what extent could the money spent on laptops and cubby houses for ill children be better spent on actual medical research to help prevent these children from being in the condition they're in, in the first place?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, at least I am asking them. Regardless of how tasteless the Chaser Skit was, at least it brings such important questions to the fore.
To tie this back to the concept of 'hurtful' speech, it is first important to identify who an act of speech hurts, and for what reason. You can't sanction censorship without a clear understanding of such things. But even if we did have an understanding of why someone was hurt, and even if the reason for someone to be hurt by an act of speech was entirely justified, it completely ignores the elephant in the room; does the act of speech give the person who it is directed against the opportunity to respond on an equal platform?
My issue with the Chaser skit isn't the content of the skit. It is the fact that the skit was performed on a media platform that gives families with ill children, and more specifically the ill children themselves no opportunity to voice themselves - there is an enormous imbalance of power, when in a dialogue, the words of one speaker is broadcast to millions of people, and the words of the other is heard by no one. To do so is to abuse the power one has in using the media as a platform of communication. Or in the words of one distraught mother directly affected by the skit: "They no longer deserve a platform in which they can inflict so much pain,".
Ironically, the fact that this mother and her views garnered so much traction in the wider media, and in fact overwhelmed the Chaser team to the point they had to be taken off air for two weeks demonstrates that the voices of those affected didn't go unheard, and in fact was so powerful that it almost had the show axed. That, in of itself, is an indication that the skit shouldn't need to be censored. Furthermore, the nature of the Chaser program, a program that uses humor to say precisely the things that aren't to be said in public indicates that it facilitates the voice of those matters which are censored as a result of public taboo - the program, through it's humor, brings to the fore issues and concerns that most people wouldn't dare voicing in public.
To broaden the scope of the discussion - the questions that we should be focusing on here is not what should and shouldn't be uttered on the basis of 'hurtfulness', but rather how can the platforms upon which words are uttered (whether that be Television, Radio or language itself) can be as equitable and as representative as possible, particularly when the users of such platforms largely serve to amplify their existing cultural/social/economic/(or comedic) privilege over others.
After all, what does it matter how offensive/hurtful what you have to say is, when the person/group you are hurting/offending with your speech has an equal opportunity to respond, and an equal platform on which to respond with?
What I find interesting about this entire chaser skit is that the voice of the sick children are completely ignored and entirely removed from the debate. We don't hear the voice of terminally ill children who watched or were affected by the skit found anywhere present in the debate or the news media. If the outrage over this skit truly was about the well-being of terminally ill children, why are their voices entirely missing from the discussion, or even worse, why are they patronized to the extent of 'they're to precious to be exposed to it'?
The intention of the chaser skit was clear - it was to start a debate about the role of charities such as the Make-a-Wish Foundation. It was to question whether charities like the Make-a-Wish foundation using terminally ill children to guilt-trip parents into making a donation have become self serving.
The reason for of the media backlash on the other hand wasn't so clear. Firstly, the large majority of commentators and general public disgusted with the Skit have most likely never had any experience with terminally ill children - I don't believe people who've never even known a terminally ill kid could meaningfully empathise with them being hurt by a bad skit (assuming such kids even were hurt by the skit in the first place). Secondly, there was also a concerted campaign by the right which took this opportunity to fan the flames of outrage in an attempt to stifle, and indeed censor one of the few television programs on mainstream media that challenges the status quo (and does so, not seriously, but entirely through humor).
Interestingly, the voice of the parents of terminally ill children (and never the ill children themselves) came through loud and clear through the mainstream media, because it was they and not the children themselves who were apparently most hurt by the skit (I have yet to find a single article mentioning the anguish the skit caused to a young person actually suffering from a terminal illness). It's interesting to ask why the skit was so hurtful to parents: As a parent, to what extent are you going to feel insecure about giving your terminally ill child false hope about their chances of survival? - furthermore, to what extent do charities like Make a Wish Foundation actually deal with families coming to terms with their child's illness? Given that the most common 'wishes' are computers, cubby houses, and trips to the Gold Coast, is this kind of thing really going to help children and their parents cope? or is it going to just exasperate the problem by promoting temporary escapism for families who deal with these kinds of illnesses? And to what extent could the money spent on laptops and cubby houses for ill children be better spent on actual medical research to help prevent these children from being in the condition they're in, in the first place?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, at least I am asking them. Regardless of how tasteless the Chaser Skit was, at least it brings such important questions to the fore.
To tie this back to the concept of 'hurtful' speech, it is first important to identify who an act of speech hurts, and for what reason. You can't sanction censorship without a clear understanding of such things. But even if we did have an understanding of why someone was hurt, and even if the reason for someone to be hurt by an act of speech was entirely justified, it completely ignores the elephant in the room; does the act of speech give the person who it is directed against the opportunity to respond on an equal platform?
My issue with the Chaser skit isn't the content of the skit. It is the fact that the skit was performed on a media platform that gives families with ill children, and more specifically the ill children themselves no opportunity to voice themselves - there is an enormous imbalance of power, when in a dialogue, the words of one speaker is broadcast to millions of people, and the words of the other is heard by no one. To do so is to abuse the power one has in using the media as a platform of communication. Or in the words of one distraught mother directly affected by the skit: "They no longer deserve a platform in which they can inflict so much pain,".
Ironically, the fact that this mother and her views garnered so much traction in the wider media, and in fact overwhelmed the Chaser team to the point they had to be taken off air for two weeks demonstrates that the voices of those affected didn't go unheard, and in fact was so powerful that it almost had the show axed. That, in of itself, is an indication that the skit shouldn't need to be censored. Furthermore, the nature of the Chaser program, a program that uses humor to say precisely the things that aren't to be said in public indicates that it facilitates the voice of those matters which are censored as a result of public taboo - the program, through it's humor, brings to the fore issues and concerns that most people wouldn't dare voicing in public.
To broaden the scope of the discussion - the questions that we should be focusing on here is not what should and shouldn't be uttered on the basis of 'hurtfulness', but rather how can the platforms upon which words are uttered (whether that be Television, Radio or language itself) can be as equitable and as representative as possible, particularly when the users of such platforms largely serve to amplify their existing cultural/social/economic/(or comedic) privilege over others.
After all, what does it matter how offensive/hurtful what you have to say is, when the person/group you are hurting/offending with your speech has an equal opportunity to respond, and an equal platform on which to respond with?
No comments:
Post a Comment