Colour Outside The Lines

“It convinces us to censor ourselves, to obey in advance, to down the Kool-Aid before it’s been offered. I’m still afraid. But I’ve just accepted a prize that is not about obedience. It’s not about feel-good narratives, it’s not about marketing, it’s not even about creativity – Stella is about changing the world”. It’s been less than a week since writer, Michelle de Kretser’s gave a spine chilling address as the winner of the Stella Prize, in a speech that has gone viral. In a prolific climate of punishment and censorship of creatives & writers, de Krester’s words represent a brave positioning within a sector that has turned predatorial: “We have two weapons that the powerful dread: words and the truth. That’s why truthful speech is being closed down, and why it’s essential to resist silence.” In this episode of Colour Outside the Lines, Leah Vandenberg and Tasneem Chopra examine the role of creatives and artists, broadly, who have used their platform to promote social justice causes aligned to their beliefs. A comparison is drawn between artists and activism in the past - of those lauded for their bravery, compared to a recent backlash & cancelling of many today who have dared to do the same. What is it that compels creative to risk their craft for the greater good? How has this bravery impacted the current arts landscape in Australia and overseas? What have Leah and Tasneem’s experiences been? Join COTL for a timely conversation on the ‘Cost of Free Speech’

The tired argument of meritocracy when used as a cudgel to put down why women don’t

deserve that seat/promotion/ platform/ opportunity - has become a double whammy for

WOC who find that their worth is too often tied to the visual tokenism they hold- and the

limitations race places on their efforts to experience equity.

Somehow, the diversity agenda at many a leadership level has stopped at gender, as if

this alone were all that were needed to show inclusion. This narrow lens of white-

washed feminism fails to be intersectional.

At the very least, how is such a reductive representation of women (50% of the

population) going to fly when from a cultural diversity standpoint in Australia where 1 in 2

of us are either born overseas or have a parent born overseas, we cannot see this

reflected in leadership nor positions of influence. And that’s before we even discuss the

demonstrated merit WOC bring to the table that never gets tabled.

How this manifests across politics, media, business & the arts - for example, is a blight

on the notion of a fair go this country prides itself on championing. To wit, the Bechdel

test, as a method for evaluating how women are portrayed in media, now has a

counterpart in the DuVernay Test, which investigates the presence of racially diverse

characters in films, TV shows, and other media. On both counts, women and WOC

respectively, are appallingly represented.

There’s a lot to unpack;

Why does cultural diversity all but fade away the higher the rank in executive office?

Why does intersectional feminism matter? What is the ethnicity pay gap? What is the

cultural load? What does the data tell us? What do colleagues tell us? What can we tell

you?