When Andrew Bolt rails against Australian government film-funding (as he is often wont to do), he never fails, much like his ideological compatriots Gerard Henderson or Michael Duffy, to point out that a particular film or other is “taxpayer-funded”, the inference being that, each year, hundreds, if not thousands of your hard-worked-for wage dollars are being untimely ripped from your pay packets to subsidise the peculiar hobbies of the lunatic left-wing fringe of elitists and intellectuals that comprise the “fillum-making” community ...
... As far as “elitists and intellectuals” are concerned, I suspect Bolt has never sat down for a chat with a gaffer or a boom-operator. I also suspect that if he were to call Bryan Brown, Colin Friels, John Howard or David Fields an “elitist” to their faces, that those particular individuals would simply haul back and tear him a new one ...
But first, a few statistics ...
"In 2006–07, government funding represented 17 per cent of the total funding for Australian produced and co-produced feature films in production ... In 2006–07, the FFC (Film Finance Corporation Australia) invested $76.1 million in ... new film and television projects ... The total production value of these projects was $195.6 million.
The Australian Government currently funds the FFC with $70.5 million annually."
And a few more statistics ...
"In 2006, the 20 major performing arts companies ... received Australian Government base funding of $16.96 million. Australian Government funding for these companies will now rise to $22.9 m in 2008. The companies include ...
... Bell Shakespeare Company, Black Swan Theatre Company, Circus Oz, Company B, Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company, State Theatre Company of SA, Sydney Theatre Company, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Musica Viva Australia, Opera Queensland, State Opera of SA, West Australian Opera, The Australian Ballet, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Queensland Ballet, Sydney Dance Company and West Australian Ballet ...
Additional Australian Government funding of $36 million for the State symphony orchestras, Orchestra Victoria and Opera Australia, has already been provided separately as a result of the outcomes of the Strong Review of Orchestras."
22.9 plus 36 equals $58.9 million bucks. That’s a lot of dosh.
... Andrew Bolt never tires of rattling on about his love of opera, regularly posting clips over which he is prone to swoon of this peculiar and archaic art form. Frankly, I would rather hammer nails into my testicles with a mallet than subject myself to this form of aural torture, yet I have no problem whatsoever, nor do I have an argument against, opera companies being government funded and supported through subsidy. If opera’s your particular thing, by all means, have a nice night. Knock your fucking self out ...
But ...
... If you are going to rail against the evil spectre of government, that is to say, “taxpayer-funded” subsidies for popular entertainments, rail against it all, not just that which fails to mirror your ideological obsessions and interests or about an industry about which you know absolutely nothing ...
... Yes, we can and we often do make films that are utter rubbish, and I for one will not be queuing up at the video store for first dibs on the appallingly titled “Hey, Hey It’s Esther Blueburger”, and nor could I give a flying fuck about Bruce Petty’s latest effort in left-wing hysteria and conspiracy theories, “Global Haywire”. But then I didn’t bother with “Spiderman 3” or “Alien vs Predator” or “Disturbia” or “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” either and these four pieces of utter shit did quite well with the Australian movie-going public, graceful arbiters of good taste and the finer things in life that they invariably are ...
... As far as “elitists and intellectuals” are concerned, I suspect Bolt has never sat down for a chat with a gaffer or a boom-operator. I also suspect that if he were to call Bryan Brown, Colin Friels, John Howard or David Fields an “elitist” to their faces, that those particular individuals would simply haul back and tear him a new one ...
But first, a few statistics ...
"In 2006–07, government funding represented 17 per cent of the total funding for Australian produced and co-produced feature films in production ... In 2006–07, the FFC (Film Finance Corporation Australia) invested $76.1 million in ... new film and television projects ... The total production value of these projects was $195.6 million.
The Australian Government currently funds the FFC with $70.5 million annually."
And a few more statistics ...
"In 2006, the 20 major performing arts companies ... received Australian Government base funding of $16.96 million. Australian Government funding for these companies will now rise to $22.9 m in 2008. The companies include ...
... Bell Shakespeare Company, Black Swan Theatre Company, Circus Oz, Company B, Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company, State Theatre Company of SA, Sydney Theatre Company, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Musica Viva Australia, Opera Queensland, State Opera of SA, West Australian Opera, The Australian Ballet, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Queensland Ballet, Sydney Dance Company and West Australian Ballet ...
Additional Australian Government funding of $36 million for the State symphony orchestras, Orchestra Victoria and Opera Australia, has already been provided separately as a result of the outcomes of the Strong Review of Orchestras."
22.9 plus 36 equals $58.9 million bucks. That’s a lot of dosh.
... Andrew Bolt never tires of rattling on about his love of opera, regularly posting clips over which he is prone to swoon of this peculiar and archaic art form. Frankly, I would rather hammer nails into my testicles with a mallet than subject myself to this form of aural torture, yet I have no problem whatsoever, nor do I have an argument against, opera companies being government funded and supported through subsidy. If opera’s your particular thing, by all means, have a nice night. Knock your fucking self out ...
But ...
... If you are going to rail against the evil spectre of government, that is to say, “taxpayer-funded” subsidies for popular entertainments, rail against it all, not just that which fails to mirror your ideological obsessions and interests or about an industry about which you know absolutely nothing ...
... Yes, we can and we often do make films that are utter rubbish, and I for one will not be queuing up at the video store for first dibs on the appallingly titled “Hey, Hey It’s Esther Blueburger”, and nor could I give a flying fuck about Bruce Petty’s latest effort in left-wing hysteria and conspiracy theories, “Global Haywire”. But then I didn’t bother with “Spiderman 3” or “Alien vs Predator” or “Disturbia” or “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” either and these four pieces of utter shit did quite well with the Australian movie-going public, graceful arbiters of good taste and the finer things in life that they invariably are ...
... Yet, even though I have no interest in either "Blueburger" or Petty's film, I cannot whip myself up in a lather of indignation that they may received a few bucks of taxpayer's money to be made. No filmmaker deliberately sets out to make a bad film or an unpopular one. Over a period of many years, they gather together a cast and crew, go cap in hand to everyone from the FFC to the local grocer for a few bucks worth of production money or sponsorship and, even then, there's no guarantee that their efforts will even be rewarded with a brief cinema release ("Jammed" for example). Every filmmaker desperately hopes that their product will find an audience, be lauded throughout the land and reflect the popular zeitgeist, yet, as William Goldman put it in "Adventures in the Screen Trade", in the movie business, "nobody knows anything" ...
... No matter how large or small the budget, no matter who the "stars" may be, no matter what the plot or the subject matter is, there are, simply, no guarantees that any film, anywhere, may necessarily succeed ...
... Yet Bolt, self-anointed tastemaker for the conservative masses, seems to believe that if he's not interested, if he doesn't like it, if he doesn't even like the sound of it, then it's simply not worth a pinch of shit and has no right to exist ...
The man is a fool.
... A ticket to a movie costs 15 bucks. Throw in a bag of popcorn or an icecream and a drink and you’ll enjoy a few hours in the dark for less than 25 bucks. A family of four can get in and out for maybe $100 ...
... According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, “The cinema had the highest attendance rate of all the venues and events included in the survey, with 65% of people aged 15 years and over (10,431,400 people) having been to a cinema in the 12 months before interview ... Over half (54%) of those who had visited the cinema during the 12-month period had visited at least five times.” ...
... Given that (again, according to the ABS) the population of the country currently stands at 21,304,515, that works out at roughly 48% of Australians who regularly pop off to the flicks for an eyeball massage ...
... However, “Around one in six people (16%) aged 15 years and over attended musicals and operas in the 12 months before interview in 2005-06. An estimated 2,402,000 people attended musicals and 405,700 attended operas” ...
... Not surprising really that only 1.9% of the population went to the opera considering that, if you wanted a ticket to Opera Australia’s upcoming production of “Don Giovanni” it’ll set you back anywhere from $102.00 to $246.00 ... A family of four? Well, sell the kids to the Russian mafia and you just might be able to manage it ...
... What’s all this bullshit about taxpayer-funded film-industry elites again? Why is an art form that can only attract a paltry 405,700 people in any given year so heavily subsidised by the beloved Australian “taxpayer” (Peace be upon him. And her. And you too.)? Perhaps Andrew Bolt can, at some point on his ridiculous exercise in creative typing he calls a blog, provide a justification for the benefit of us all. No doubt the clusterfuck of cretins who regularly roost there will be riveted ...
However, why the fuck should it not be subsidised? ...
... If it were not for “taxpayer funding”, or “government subsidy”, there would cease to exist in Australia any form of creative and imaginative entertainment industry at all ...
... Instead, we would all soon be reduced to getting our jollies from sitting back on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and watching lognecked lugnuts like Wayne Carey or Barry Hall push a ball around a fucking paddock with their feet, occasionally to plant said ball between two wooden sticks in the ground. That is, when they’re not shoving glasses into the faces of their girlfriends or trying to channel Joe Pesce’s character from “Goodfellas” ...
... So, you. Yes, you. The Bolts, the Duffy’s, the Henderson’s and all you other snotty, snobbish little deriders of the most popular form of entertainment in the country. You lovers of opera, cultural connoisseurs and sippers of fine whines. Each year, each and every one of us pays 6 bucks and 7 cents so that we may have something resembling an entertainment industry, 3 bucks of which goes to film ...
... The cost of a burger with bacon and cheese (which is what I just had for lunch). That’s 1.6 cents a day. And about this, you have a problem? ...
Fuck off, you prissy little tossers.
... Perhaps you’d be far, far happier to see our hard-earned wage dollars put to use (to the tune of 200 million bucks a year) in stuffing our letterboxes with glossy pamphlets imploring us all to talk to our kids and our parents about drugs ...
... But, I suspect my father, now 80 years old, would know absolutely naught about drugs beyond the ones he gets from the doctor for blood pressure, so I think I’ll leave him in peace on that issue for now.
I might go see a movie instead.
UPDATE - I've added a few new paragraphs after the line "finer things in life that they invariably are" as the point of my argument was getting lost in the heat of the rant.
2 comments:
I think you might even find that the footy (which I love, as well as movies, opera, books etc etc) is also partially taxpayer funded. I'l like to see Bolt Head run a piece on that. The rally scary thing is that so many people actually like what Andrew Dolt has to say. Very, very scary.
I didn't look at sports funding, as I have no interest in sport. But I have no problem with it being subsidised either. Different strokes and all that ...
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