Posts by Hilary Stace
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(Damian - you can't have watched 7 Days lately.)
One person's prank or practical joke is another person's bullying. One person's clever witty comment is another person's wound.
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There is a fine line between insider comedy/jokes with an audience and attack or insensitive jokes with a target.
Here is some clever comedy from POTUS
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I’m happy to hear offensive humour on any topic. Any topic. There are pretty much no ‘no-go zones’ for me, as long as it’s funny and/or clever.
I wonder whether this is because you don't fit into any of the common categories of targets of humour. These include: mothers-in-law; old people, young people, ugly people, fat people (as well as short/tall people), disabled people, people with intellectual impairment, people who aren't white, people with red hair, people from other countries such as Ireland, or people who speak another language, people with a different religion or profession, women (most categories including blonde women, fat women, old women and wives).
When the audience is laughing at a stereotype of you, humour is not so funny any more.
Having said that I still think there is a lot of clever NZ comedy.
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Just been reading my father's memoirs. He never talked about the war much although we knew he had been in the Home Guard. Now I have found out it was all more complex than that. He and his work colleague were both called up and deemed fit. However, their employer (who sounds like a real bully) would only let one go, and so my father's friend went (possibly also influenced by my parents being newly married). They didn't think it would last more than a few months, but he was away for 5 years. My father continued to be called up and deemed fit but his employer pulling strings and didn't let him go. So he worked long hours 6 days a week keeping the business going and went training with the Home Guard in Makara on Sundays. I think he was a little bit ashamed that he had 'only' been in the Home Guard. Certainly never wanted to talk about it.
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When I was on the board of a primary school we got permission to shift a 100 year old hall from down the road (which was going to be demolished) onto the school grounds. They chopped it in half and put it on two huge trucks. Then realised that they had to take all the power lines down as it was now too tall. Was a huge undertaking although it only had to go less than a kilometre. But thoroughly worth it for the excellent school hall that resulted. (However, 13 years later it has been deemed an earthquake risk. Ironic.)
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to Danielle,
Stunning movie, and great oral history project. Her 'Home by Christmas' featuring her daughter Chelsea, is based on her father's story. Well worth watching too.
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I found out a couple of years ago that there was a US policy of sending adult men with intellectual impairment to Vietnam. This is hinted at in the movie Forest Gump.
And re WW2 conscientious objectors in NZ, has anyone mentioned the courageous wives of the COs as featured in Gaylene Preston's War stories my mother never told me?
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Sorry, I see that Lilith has already posted it.
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My colleague Michelle shows how you get your academic work into the mainstream media. She is very a very talented woman.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Sacha,
I wouldn't really recommend it. It's quite tedious and rapidly becoming out of date. Only a brief sparkle in the kaleidoscope.