The Orstrahyun

Monday, August 05, 2013

Original Sapphires Call For 'Racist' DVD Boycott

The original members of the singing group The Sapphires has called for a boycott of the US release of the Australian-produced movie on DVD.

The point of contention is pretty obvious. First, some of the Australian artwork, then the US 'blue' version.

Australian release:

And the US release above.

From here:

'What has upset us is that the DVD cover appears to miss that point [of the film] entirely,'' she said. ''It's disrespectful to the very talented young Aboriginal actors in the film, and it's disrespectful to us as a group.

''But in particular, it's disrespectful to women of colour everywhere who have stood up against this sort of thing all their lives.'' she said.

UPDATE: Even talk of a boycott was enough. From Billboard:

The American distributor of the Australian film "The Sapphires" is apologizing for the DVD cover, which some have called sexist and racist, and says it is considering new cover art for future shipments.

Anchor Bay Entertainment said in a statement Monday that it "regrets any unintentional upset" caused by the DVD, which will be on U.S. store shelves Tuesday.

The rest of the story is here

There has been some interesting, and positive, fallout from this casual backlining of the true stars of the movie. And The Sapphires DVD release has scored some major attention now in the US media, excerpts of the movie are being shown on the news, and the positive result will give the movie's release a massive boost. It's a great story, a decent movie, full of great young Australian stars and now more people than ever know about it.

Friday, July 05, 2013

1973: Rolling Stones Confronted By Australian Media Over Rumored Drug Smuggling

Mick Jagger responds:

"If you want to follow up in TV journalism what rubbish they dish out in the press, you're pretty low."

That's standard operating procedure with most TV news these days.

Also, Mick Jagger: "Australia wants to be a part of South-East Asia, which is very admirable, I thought, after years of isolation. But the only way I can see that happening is if more South East Asian come home, because it's very difficult to be part of South East Asia when you don't understand that mentality."