Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Hope and Wire, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Coming from a master practitioner of the ‘excessive and gross analogy’
I find that rather rich.Ian:
I’ve seen many many television shows I didn’t like for all kinds of reasons.
And I’ve been raped.
One of these things is not even a little bit like the other.
And please feel free to denounce me as a crass and vulgar potty mouth -- wouldn't be the first time, and as often as not it's deserved. But I don't treat rape as a "joke" or some rhetorical flourish, and I really wish people would cut it the fuck out.
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Hard News: Hope and Wire, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Later I showed the first episode of Hope and Wire to a colleague for his reaction.
“It’s like they are raping the city,” he said. “And what shocking acting. I’m off home now, I’ll wade through old-school stereotypes and several skirmishes with skinheads to get there.”Sorry, Ian, I’ve emailed both Vicki and The Press to say I found that analogy not only grossly excessive, but downright offensive and tone deaf on the day Christchurch’s only rape crsis callout service closed. I don’t have words, only a rigidly extended middle finger.
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Hard News: Hope and Wire, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
You need to place it within the work of Gaylene (such as Home By Christmas) and other film-makers who deliberately re-work conventions of veracity, memory and authentication.
I get the context there, Geoff. I just don't think it does so in a particularly satisfying manner.
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Hard News: Hope and Wire, in reply to Alfie,
Do we really need an overpriced Auckland drama to tell the ChCh story?
Hear that noise? It’s everyone who’s ever worked in television in New Zealand ever laughing at the idea that local television drama is “overpriced”. For comparative purposes, the budget for six hours of Top of the Lake was over $15 million.
Considering I'm the house Tory around here, I know I should be bashing New Zealand on Air at every opportunity but I can't. For one, I don't have to like every show that gets funding to think it's incredibly important we don't leave local drama entirely to the tender mercies of the market. And nor am I inclined to apologize for the idea that people who work in the industry should actually be paid decently. If we can't be arsed doing that, then don't bother sneering at those who go to Australia (and England and the US) to work and make a decent living and don't come back.
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Hard News: Hope and Wire, in reply to Russell Brown,
Yeah, but it’s not just that: I wonder if there’s a demographic obligation that’s even stronger here than usual – you must show young people, old people, poor people, rich people, white people, brown people.
Which I would find entirely worthy, because, you know, diversity is just awesome. (And no, folks, I'm not being even a little bit sarcastic.) But you've got to take the next step beyond ticking off the demographic boxes and making them dramatically interesting characters. Sorry to pick on Joel Tobeck, but Greggo might as well have had I AM THE KING OF DOUCHEBAGISTAN tattooed on his forehead; and the rich white folks seem to have wandered in from Shortland Street (uptight prissy snob Mum, professionally and personally skeevy lawyer and slutty bitch teenager, and big bro you just know was doomed the fifth time his sister called him a retard).
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Hard News: Hope and Wire, in reply to Emma Hart,
Charicatures, cliches, terrible stilted dialogue. The precise moment I switched off was the use of the phrase “mega munted”. Wrong, just so wrong.
Thanks, Emma. I've tried to be really sensitive about being aware I'm watching this in a very different place from people in Christchurch for whom this is about their lived (and ongoing) experience. And, yeah, I always knew no matter who was involved Hope and Wire was inevitably going to be like tap-dancing across an emotional minefield while blindfolded and juggling a half-dozen chainsaws. It was never going to make everyone happy -- hell, there's a lot of people for whom, understandably, it would be unwatchable -- but too often it felt really "stagey" in the worse sense.
I also think Russell puts his finger on something here:
We are also seeing the pressures of publicly-funded drama in New Zealand, with beancounters asking “does it need all the earthquakes?” and, I suspect, a demand for storylines and characters that would engage a mainstream audience and tick demographic boxes.
Perhaps a little more trust in the emotional and artistic intelligence of that "mainstream audience" would be a good thing?
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I’ve been trying to write something about this (and on balance, think I’m going to hold off until next week, and see where it goes) but I stand by what I said on Twitter:
The problem with 1st night of #HopeAndWire is that it’s a docudrama that isn’t much of a documentary, and only fitfully works as drama.
And, God, I know the “straight to camera” monologue is a device Preston has used before, and well, but more often than not it felt like I was not only being talked AT but DOWN to. Was I supposed to want to slap Comrade Theoden and Uptight Merivale Mum as often as I did? "Show don't tell" is a very sound principle, and one writers as experienced as Dave Armstrong & Preston shouldn't have to be reminded off. Especially when you've got a cast who can carry it when they're given the chance.
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Hard News: Decidedly Undecided, in reply to Andrew Robertson,
Something that didn't come up in discussion on the show is that, while the NZ Polling Code is binding on all members of the Research Association, it has no jurisdiction over media organisations.
That's true, in the sense that an act of industry self-regulation has no jurisdiction over how that data is reported. But last time I looked, all broadcasters are subject to the relevant Codes of Broadcasting Standards, and the provisions of the Broadcasting Act.
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Sacha,
I don't know about the first sentence there, Sacha, but the math on the rest is hardly that complicated. I'm in one of the safest National electorates in the country, and anyone who thinks Maggie Barry is going to lose this seat need to step away from the P pipe, the magic 'shrooms and the three martini liquid breakfasts.
But there's the other column to think about.
Three years ago Barry managed to increase both National's party vote and the party vote share on a very slightly higher turn out. Winning 62% of the party vote on a 50% turnout... not so useful. It's really not rocket science that National can't take North Sore for granted any more than Labour can Mangere.
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Its almost like he is saying “The polls are rigged to make us look good, don’t believe it” something I have suspected for years but if Steven Joyce says so then…
Oh, come on Steve. Sounds precisely like exactly the same message National was sending at the last election year conference: “Take a deep breath, don’t be complacent and stay focused on the only poll that’s going to deliver this Government a third term.”
Which sounds exactly what Joyce should be saying to an election year party conference. I also have no doubts that unless the polls start moving sharply in Labour's favour, every speaker at that conference is going to be ringing equally unsurprising variations on “bugger the pollsters with a well-lubricated horse cock, we’re in this to win it.”
