The media has made much of ‘that photograph’ of 2021 Australian of The Year Grace Tame glaring daggers through The Lodge Occupant. The Good Dr. Jennifer Wilson has penned a great piece for this website about the photo and the amazing cultural subtext, and I encourage you to check it out here. I want to focus on the media reaction, and discuss the breathtaking hypocrisy on display from those on the right. I also want to look at an excellent piece by Samantha Maiden on news.com.au (of all places). Maiden rightly puts Tame’s critics in their place.
The response from the media, by and large, has been to condemn Ms Tame as ‘uncivil’ (consider Peter Van Obsolete as Dr Wilson called him). Essentially, this photo-op is a yearly tradition and Ms Tame ruined it by refusing to be a good girl and ‘give us a smile, sweetheart’. It is worth noting that neither Ms Tame, nor anyone else, is obligated to give Scotty from Marketing a good photo-op. She, like most people, has a political stance, specifically an opinion on The Lodge Occupant. She conveyed that opinion and it is somehow a problem.
First, Have No Standards: The Hypocritic Oath, Part One: Free Speech
Many of Ms Tame’s most vocal critics on the right (including Miranda Divine) are part of the ‘free speech’ crowd. As is becoming increasingly clear, the conservative definition of this ‘right’ (which Australia does not have by the by, we never quite got to the whole ‘bill of rights’ thing) is ‘we get to say what we want and the rest of you fall in line’. In other words, for me and mine, not thee and thine. Standard practice? Maybe, but it still reeks.
Ms Tame expressed her political opinion of The Lodge Occupant in the most public and viral way possible. As we will see in the Samantha Maiden piece, Ms Tame knew exactly what she was doing. But back to the point: Ms Tame does not have ‘muh freeze peach’? Or does that sacred concept only apply to certain opinions? That consistency has never been the strong suit of the right is well known, but this gives whiplash.
First, Have No Standards: The Hypocritic Oath, Part Two: The Media and The Office of The Prime Minister
The Murdoch Media Menagerie has made much in the last day or so of ‘respect for the office of The Prime Minister’. The idea here is that even if you dislike the occupant, you show respect for the office. Anyone inclined to make such a suggestion regarding Ms Tame I direct to the following image, borrowed from the Facebook page of a Mr. Kevin Rudd:
Seems the ‘respect’ due to the office of The Prime Minister changes according to whether or not the occupant is from the right party. The brass b*lls it takes to bellyache about ‘disrespecting the office of The Prime Minister’ only when your guy is in there is something to behold. There is a real sense of ‘know your role, shut your mouth’ here that is most unbecoming. Now, am I suggesting that, as a sexual assault survivor and advocate that Ms Tame is insulated from any and all criticism? No. But of all the things to criticise someone with her past about, smiling? Seriously?
But Why So ‘Untamed’?
It should be clear that Ms Tame’s actions do not need ‘justification’ from me or anyone else. But I thought it might be useful to look at history for some motivation for her giving The Lodge Occupant the evil eye. One possible explanation for her ‘icy’ demeanour toward The Lodge Occupant might be his utter lack of action around sexual assault and family violence, specifically his defense (before the facts were known) of Non-Christian Porter around the rape of Brittany Higgins. A little detail here worth recalling is The Lodge Occupant discussing the rape of Ms Higgins with his wife, who encouraged him to think about the incident as ‘the father of two daughters’. Ms Tame rightly obliterated this nonsense when she said:
It shouldn’t take having children to have a conscience
Ms Tame does not evidently understand how the conservative mind works: something has to affect them before they care.
Now, this is but one incident, and it is not the whole story of course. But sexual assault advocacy was her issue. The Let Her Speak campaign was what brought her to prominence in the first place. Of all the issues for The Lodge Occupant not to act on, this was likely to poke the bear
Play it Again, Sam: Samantha Maiden to The Rescue
In a fantastic piece for news.com.au, actual journalist Samantha Maiden eviscerates the right wing narrative around this incident. She notes the hypocrisy of the government by pointing out (with photos) times when LNP cabinet members were playing on their phones while turning their backs on Tanya Plibersek as she addressed the House. Maiden also notes the utter non-issue that was Justice Kenneth Hayne of the Banking Royal Commission saying ‘nope’ when asked to shake hands with Treasurer Josh Frydenburg in 2019. But Grace Tame is the issue because she refused to ‘be a good girl and give us a smile, love’ to The Lodge Occupant? Spare me.
Maiden notes that the critics of Ms Tame are actually attempting to control her behaviour, a harkening back to the abuse she suffered as a child. I had not thought of it this way, and the suggestion is intriguing. But what is the most interesting part of Maiden’s piece is the comment that, through her facial expressions, Ms Tame has taught us something about activism.
The suggestion seems to be that activism comes in many forms, and this was a powerful one for Ms Tame. Her knowledge of how much The Lodge Occupant loves his photo-ops doubtless made this a tempting target. Maiden comments that Ms Tame ‘knew exactly what she was doing’ and I am inclined to agree. She hit The Lodge Occupant where she knew it would hurt him: public image. His obsession with marketing (despite his seeming incompetence at it) made him vulnerable there. She exploited that.
Conclusion: Nous Sommes Grace Tame
The lesson from this is that activism need not be bricks through windows, or even fiery rhetoric. Through her simple facial expressions and the fire in her eyes, Grace Tame has conveyed the outrage of the considerable segment of the population that has, to put it mildly, an unfavourable opinion of The Lodge Occupant. As much as her critics like to complain about her ‘lack of civility’, it is precisely that lack of civility, the idea of not being ‘the good little girl’ that makes her statement so powerful.
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