The Geopolitical Isolation of Australia Online

Perhaps I could be bold enough to make the following assessment of my country, Australia, in terms of how much influence it holds on the internet.

The Yanks don't give a shit about our political issues, but they've learned long ago that unless you yell and scream like a fucking banshee about these problems the government, corporations and other malevolent forces against progress for humanity will walk all over you.

Australia has not adopted this mentality as we seem to see ourselves as this laid back nation where things move very slowly, and people get angry if you change things, but not angry enough if the powers that be down under slip some dodgy legislation in effect when nobody was looking.

Such is life I guess, but I can't help but wonder why America is so heavily utilising its youth population for political movements like Occupy Wall Street whereas Australia's youth population's political clout seems all but dead in the water. I guess you could put it down to the different perceptions of the internet our nations have. America views the internet as its only salvation. A lot of Australians however either don't know what they can do to harness the power of the internet as a force for good against corruption and police brutality or they just feel alienated by the internet's culture.

I will address this later, in a future post, but for now I'm dropping this short little idea grenade into the mix and see if it blows up or not.

Men, Feminism and Boneheading

Recent internet drama has come to light, and once again we come across the problem of men "mansplaining" and women not being listened to, possibly because the men who think they don't have a solution to these problems don't generally throw their hat into the ring with these discussions like idiots such as the "Amazing Atheist" seem to. People who genuinely believe they have no real solution to problems, no matter what their gender, race or creed is, tend to shut up because they don't think they can offer anything to a heated situation that adds real value.

Mansplaining is an odd word, it condemns men rightfully for trying to justify their privilege, yet it is such a prohibitive word that shuts down any, even legitimate solutions to problems men might offer. I propose a new word replace mansplaining, or rather, an old one that has stood the test of time against generations of foolhardy men and women sticking their nose into a complicated situation they have no idea how to solve.

Enter boneheading. Now, I'm assuming not a lot of you have seen a Jean Claude Van Damme movie, but for those who have, from Bloodsport, Cyborg, Knock Off, even Universal Soldier: The Return, there's usually this annoying, poorly thought out and badly written female love interest that gets shoehorned into the plot because either the studio or the screenwriter believed they needed this element in an otherwise serviceable action movie featuring partial martial arts choreography. The female love interest keeps doubting the Jean Claude Van Damme-played protagonist, and adds nothing to the story apart from this emotional brick wall that gets in the way. It's neither a method of writing a good action movie, nor is it a particularly flattering portrayal of women in life or death situations.

And I believe that men can bonehead just as badly as these Jean Claude Van Damme action movie love interests tend to do. Donnie from The Big Lebowski comes to mind in more well meaning cases, described as "like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie" with no understanding of the crisis at hand. Donnie here represents a more naive, well meaning boneheading situation, he's not written hatefully like the Jean Claude Van Damme action movie love interests are, but he certainly is annoying to the other two main male protagonists of the plot. There's no malice there, but there's a sense that he doesn't quite understand why his two friends are stressed out over the matter of a rug.

More negative examples of male boneheading in cinema come from the duology masterwork that is both Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. These movies are an interesting case because not only is the protagonist a woman who is constantly hassled by the boneheading, and the sheer not knowing of the old white men whom her background comes from, who dismiss the worth of the street dancers and the urban positive expression they bring to the black community in their artform not tied to the white establishment of Broadway and studio dancing. But in her own boneheading, she doesn't quite understand why Shabadoo is very hesitant to even bother trying out for a white dance competition when he is quite happy expressing himself on the streets where black males like himself are granted some level of dignity and respect. These two movies are very good at both dance sequences and introducing young students of sociology to how subculture and race intermingle, and also issues of belonging in ethnically diverse communities and culture clash with more ethnically white establishments like Broadway which is mainstream, along with other parts of the entertainment industry.

I'm telling the world, right now, that we need to move beyond mansplaining, for boneheading is a condition of ignorance that knows no gender, race or creed, and that everybody on Earth for just a moment can look like a damn fool when they walk into a heated discussion not knowing what they're talking about.