Sandy O'Sullivan (Professor of Indigenous Studies) & Dr. Hannah Reardon-Smith (Postdoctoral Research Associate) Interview

Hello and welcome to Big Gay energy. I'm Bree. I'm Fiora and I'm Caitlin come along with us while we dive into the fun and nuances of queer media representation matters. And we're here to talk about it. Alright, welcome back friends. The BGE team has two very special guests today. Please welcome Sandy O'Sullivan and Hannah Reardon Smith. Sandy is a professor of indigenous studies at Macquarie University. And Hannah is a postdoctoral research associate thanks for

hanging out with us today. Thanks for having us. All right, so Sandy first questions for you, so what was Your Scholastic journey to become a professor of indigenous studies. Um, well, I left school when I was 13, which was in the 1970s and I went back into education, having been a musician for a long time and In the 80s. And then I became an academic 31 years ago. So so I started working in that way.

As an Aboriginal person, there weren't a lot of indigenous people at the time who were in The Academy, it was pretty usual for us to be leaving school, very young and so they weren't there. Just weren't a lot of people who were there to kind of model, what it was to be doing the work that we now do in the Indigenous, studies area.

But I came out of doing creative practice work and I came out of doing work across critical race areas and found my way towards both gender studies and Indigenous studies and about our particular area at Macquarie we actually do both. So we have a very centered approach to say that queer indigeneity is at the center of complexity of who we are as indigenous people and so So that's I guess. That's the very, very rough rundown of it.

But obviously 31 years is a really long time so I won't bore you with all of the stuff that I did in the interim but I think I think it's not an uncommon journey to have been across a lot of disciplines indigenous studies as every discipline of course. It is because we're across every area. So it makes sense.

Yeah question. What but you just pursue a PhD in music and now postgraduate research I'll preface this by saying that I'm not indigenous I'm white settler scholar like a lamb by Caitlin we've lost Kaitlyn but And I'm yeah, living and working on Yeager and terrible country in what the settler, Colonial nation-state noses. Queensland in me Anton Brisbane and which is not where Macquarie is. I should say, McQuarrie is undoubted country which is further south near Sydney and I

Yeah, I'm a musician. Like I've been a musician primarily throughout my like adult life and done a lot of music study and playing and I play the flute and I do things with electronics, I compose I improvise and my like doctoral research was kind of pursuing. I mean, in a way I think for a lot of artistic researchers, there's a kind of like point that you're really trying to articulate Late your own practice and your own identity within your artistic practice.

And so, I think a lot of my PhD was was like, really carving out that space and kind of moving away from the training that I'd had in within, like academic institutions, particularly from a European art music background. And I've also, you know, alongside my music studies I was always involved as a community, organizer and activist anti O'Neill's solidarity activists and and a queer activist. And I was, you know, I was also late coming like being able to really step into my queer

identity in many ways. Like, it was always there and under wrote everything that I did, but I grew up in, you know, a more conservative town and and it was always a bit of a bit too much of a people pleaser and and let that rule my identity for far too long. Long. And there was this kind of like parallel between stepping into my queer identity and stepping into like the artistic practice

that I feel is most myself now. And so a lot of that was involved in pursuing that PhD. And so my my doctoral study was kind of like a queer feminist thinking of freely improvised music. And and to do that, I really wanted to think with what it meant to claim, freedom in music on. Like stolen land in settler, Colonial in a settler Colonial context as a white musician and that, yeah, it's led me into reading much deeper into a lot

of things. And to also engage with a lot of queer indigenous thinkers including Professor, Sullivan, and and also many others, particularly Allison Whitaker and also your to yodel song Woman, and Deb and several others that really like, yeah, shaped shaped my thinking and where I went from there and I got to meet Professor Sullivan at a conference and really got to know a bit of their work and the more that I read of their writing and and of what they're

doing, the more that I really felt felt into how how much I wanted to kind of like, go down this track of looking deeper into the artistic work of queer indigenous people and got to know the department that profit is part of and now I'm part of and just so many incredible people really thinking from this, like central point of queer indigenous people.

And so, yeah. So I then stepped from from doing a lot of artistic thinking, and artistic research It's into into an indigenous studies department and to really thinking with Yak we're indigeneity and and learning so much from from that. So that's that's how I got where I am. Awesome.

Yeah. In fact in fact we met at a music and gender conference that I was doing a keynote for I think a few years ago and so it made sense, then when I saw that you'd applied for the job I thought well we've had that conversation so yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's not a house. It's often how it works. I, you know, we've just, we've got a new PhD who's working with us Leandro, Wellness. Who's one of the people from the engender podcast, who's just come over from Argentina?

So, just joined us from Argentina. It was the same thing. Wow, we'd engaged with them kind of then they'd applied, and it was well, we know the wonderful work that we Andros already doing, so right? That's awesome. That you find you find community. That would like the community always provides. I feel like Community always provides and I think anti-colonial work is always

about relationships. It's always about finding one another and it's important work for us to be doing and obviously, you know, working with settlers like Hannah is incredibly important for indigenous people, because we're strengthened by working with with people who are genuinely here and wanting to challenge. That coloniality and it's no mean feat to find people who are genuine around that. So yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So Sandy you're currently an Australian research Council

future fellow. Yeah. Can you tell us a little more about the fellowship program and your current project? Yeah, it's one of those senior fellowships that, you know, means we got a million dollars off the government to to fund. Some some work for four years that looked at at the capacity for folk. We're indigenous people to effect change across the community, so the Project's called saving lives mapping the the influence of of queer indigenous artists.

It's really looking at people who are making and out of that. There's it's funny, these programs are all about the individual. So they're about the fellow basically. But there's a team of people that I work with including Hannah. So how does the postdoc on the team? And then we have some other students including Leandro who's

doing their PHD. But also a couple of people who are working on the Queer as audit which was actually how we came to know this podcast, my complete addiction to it. So I think I've seen almost everything and of course what's powerful about it, I'll come back to that. But just a few just to finish it in terms of the the program.

Look, it there is incredible power in representation and the way that people are making and being able to make across a range of artistic fields and the way that they're doing it, in spite of the colony is incredible. You know, we know that what happens for a lot of queer indigenous kids that they can feel isolated and all Queer kid.

Kids can but for indigenous kids, that's the kind of extra layer of coloniality that's brought religion and a whole lot of misunderstandings, not necessarily from within the community, but from outside of it, the tend to make us smaller, you know, tend to make us not. So so prominent in that way.

So there's a number of work of bits of work that we do as a part of this and the Queer as ordered is looking at queer representation, but It's really looking at it in the context of cereal screen work for a very particular reason that I'll pop back to. But the other work that we're doing is to work on this on this project called storied, which is

a curated. It's framed as a curated creative, imaginings from queer indigenous artist but it's actually them talking about their connection to representation and their connection to meaning-making in their work and all sorts of artists from visual. Artists through the musicians obviously harder and I both have a background in music and so but also in making other forms of Art and in doing anti-colonial work, your often drawing on

multiples. And in the same way as indigenous studies is across a range of disciplines. A lot of queer indigenous artists work across more than one discipline and this is true for queer artists in general, but it's specifically true for for queer indigenous artists because it's true for indigenous artists and it's for a range of reasons. But it's mostly that Siloing, you know, that kind of having to put things into boxes is the colonial project is to say if you're an actor you're just an

actor. You don't get to be a musician as well, or maybe you do, but then it's going to be a list of things that you do, but it's going to be these silos and so we're seeing people breaking that down a bit. But yeah, it was, there's this other work to that's looking at challenging the notion of session. So this idea of a session, this idea of a of an agreement that was never there to suggest that indigenous. People would be forced into containers into Colonial

containers, including gender. So I do a lot of work on the colonial project of gender for that reason and also because I'm trans you know. So it's so it's part of the journey for me I suppose as an individual but it's part of many people's Journeys. And you know, and creative expression is a great way for to be able to Talk to other people, people from, for instance, my generation and my late 50s. You know, people who are, who are younger, who are wanting to

communicate with their family. We're working on a major project with parents of gender diverse children, which is a National Organization that looks at how to provide support and we're doing a project that develops up resources, but going back to

the, to the Queer, as which we only worked out. recently sounds a bit like queer ass without the complexity of queer representation so it's looking at a queer representation but it's saying how complex can can - be in this kind of serialized form sort of conservative form of TV. You know, where there's actually a large group of people who are not necessarily queer, working on something, where we expect to see queer characters represented.

And so, it's trying to understand that that's doing a lot of different work in that. And so, we've been working with a bunch of people, but particularly with a lot of Lakers and Tamela are two of our students who are, who are are doing an internship with us at the moment to help us build this audit. We're just basically auditing but not like a queer version of the Internet Movie Database.

It's a bit more than that. It's, it's trying to understand where there are weather relationships to, to power in particular ways, but also to representation. So, you know, obvious stuff like, like looking at queerbaiting or queer coding or Any of that, you know, you know, in something like the Internet Movie Database, you could have something that has a list of queer characters, but it's not going to Center on that idea of queerness. And again, we do a whole centering on indigenous

queerness within that space. But then we move out from there and say, what are the complexities of their, you know, what other ways? Can people be represented in that complexity? Because often often times, we know, and you've said so many times across this podcast, that that They'll be a selection of one thing, you know? So people will pick queerness or they'll pick indigeneity or they'll pick race as a pic disability. They'll pick something but they won't understand that.

Actually there's a lot of people who are, you know, the complexity of lived experiences that you're often lots of those things. And, you know, and that is not often what's being represented in this kind of front facing serial TV programs. So so we're TV were also looking at the serialization of some films.

So we've got a bit of a focus on Marvel and looking at the queer and, like, a queer characters and also, the kind of society that the queerness in Marvel, in particular, becomes a kind of dumping space for. Yes. We've got to create character there and, you know, and I guess in light of that, it'll be interesting to see how Echo works because it'll have queer indigenous characters in it, but will that become the no? We did it.

It was over there. Remember for so we don't have to do it again so, you know, and we came to sorry. Not we I came to to listening to this podcast because I mean it was just remarkable, you know to hear people talking for hours about. I mean it is it's remarkable to

have that sort of time. I mean it matters that it matters that you're all, you know, very eloquent and and grated analysis of course, But that's, you know, in its own way that I'm not sure that you'd get those hours out of analyze. But it's remarkable to have that sort of time with with the content, you know. And that's what we're doing, I

guess as well with the career. As archive is trying to spend time with some of the content and trying to think about those moments that come out of it, that are more than just seeing this in a kind of cereal way or seeing one show. And Another show and another show and hoping for the queer representation sorry a million things to say and maybe thinking

about answer and and thank you. And maybe when we're thinking about like yeah, what not just like you know what that representation is and like a DOT point of the different layers of complexity of an individual's identity but also thinking in detail about the work that that's doing like You know what that, what work that's doing for an audience, what work that's doing for people that have maybe that particular kind of wheelhouse of identity complexity but you know but also

yeah like how that's kind of inserted into the story. How that that characterization or or the case of like queerbaiting and things like you know, what role that's playing and then you know looking a little bit also at and this Is this is another point that this podcast comes in, like the kind of fan feedback or the way that viewers can kind of take stories in their own directions and and like, articulate what it is that

they wish they were seeing that. They're not seeing and and kind of looking at how like how that kind of interactive rather than it just being like, this is what's blasted out into the world. It's like it's looking at how that has a actually has a kind of interactive element that.

You know, the kind of like little Easter eggs or the little, the little hat tipping that writers and producers due to an audience that has complex analysis, that has complex engagement with queer characters on screen. So yeah, that's that's another way that it's kind of going that's including than just like listing. Yeah. Including when it's shitty, you know, and absolutely probab probably, especially when it is, you know, obviously the, you know, the idea isn't just too.

To bash these sites that are trying to do something but it's also how much work is involved, too. For instance, queer bait. It's a lot of work but there's also a really interesting thing that happens often for an indigenous characters that are in otherwise mainstream and what we might call White stream shows and that's the there is this.

They're often already having to Some work and so that idea of getting them to do a little more work, but there's also that problem of, you know, how do you know a character is queer if they don't have a relationship or talk about it? So, you know, and we just had a case week, which has been really interesting in terms of, looking for, you know, queer for Ace characters in particular, and of course, where their present is in a lot of animated series, you know, for a range of reasons.

But some of those reasons are Are you know, they're often not analyzed. So so the idea of asexuality is this kind of absence is often how it gets framed in, you know, in, for instance, a series and the problem with series. And the reason that we're interested in series rather than just one off-screen rep, is that you have time with the characters, you have time for them to develop and you have

time to see the potential. And of course, one of the things that happens in writers rooms is that they decide for characters to have relationships and So characters that might otherwise for instance the ace or Arrow or you know or any other representation that you know isn't necessarily that well understood and it's not like there's an arm and in fact there are some and that's part of what we're also you know flagging is that this isn't this is also about locating people so it's

not just about problem at Eisenhower, people are being included or characters are being written. But actually, sorry if I can just add a come back to, you know, there's an amazing interview that you did with Olivia Lucas and in that there's a couple of incredibly important

moments for us in this work. You know, one's the, the representation, as she frames of Afro indigenous people, and that the only reason, That that the, you know, the character was written that way was because there was someone in the writers room, who wanted it, that's incredibly powerful. And we know it, you know, I did this work for donkey's years.

It was about looking at representation in museums and Galleries, and looking at at how indigenous people are represented in those spaces, it's no surprise that it happened where there were indigenous curators most effectively in a more complex way, you know, you're going to get that that Exit e because why not but you know the answer is often because we want to make it as open as possible but open as possible usually defaults to White.

So it's so it's about understanding some of those challenges and and it offered defaults to, you know, sets hat as well. That's awesome. That was such an amazing interview for us and we ended up talking with her. Four hours after we stopped recording. So she's just she was just one of the one of the I think it was probably no offense to anyone else my favorite interview. So totally love.

Learned a lot during it. We learned a lot and that's why it was favored interview because there's a line in there where she says. I'll just write it off the page. Talking about Thelma being queer. Where she says, also for indigenous people, it's so normal. And, and hearing that not only is it a great life. Line that will be is going to begin by us, but, but it's so powerful and so true because the rhetoric is often here for decades.

Here, it was, oh indigenous, people don't like, you know, queerness and they don't do quit and this was what was said about us. But, you know, meantime, we're just there being queer people and actually, it's just not true. Like, even with the power of the church, you know, there is a negotiation that is not necessarily Really understood more broadly and it's part of what happens in, you know, the in the colony, you know, in the resistant colony, is that you still support your own in that

resistance. And so it, it isn't that big a deal. Yeah, that's amazing. Yes. Thank you. It seems like that. Now is a great time for this project and we're excited to see what comes out of this, because it's a fascinating thing to really dive into. So thanks for sharing that Hannah question for you. So you are a producer and presenter for radio reversal. Can you tell us a little bit about what radio reversal is and how you got involved with it? Yeah.

So ready reversal is a Show on community, radio station here in Mangin called for triple said and it's Community run. Its. Yeah. Just it's kind of got a like Punk DIY kind of aesthetic and has a very strong focus on profiling, local musicians, local artists, and radio reversal is a show that's been running now for a bit over 10 years, which is wild. I haven't been involved for Long.

But it's yeah, we just had kind of out ten year anniversary which is, yeah, it was it was a really special episode but it's co-produced thing. It's really a community project so there's about six of us that are really regular presenter. Producers some of us a little bit more regular than others.

There's sort of three main people that and then there's like some very regular guests but then we It's essentially like based in kind of critical theory Community organizing and anti-colonial like solidarity efforts. Yeah, run by a group of queer people and largely queer.

Women that are yeah, really thinking with, as many, you know, thinking with the kind of like work that we're also doing through community Using outfit called the Brisbane free University, which is definitely started as kind of like a public lecture series at the moment. The the most common thing we do is a reading group, so it's the be a few radical reading group.

So there's so my involvement. I guess in radio reversal came through the reading group and through the public lectures and going along to these things and having been, I mean proof talks about like these siloed sort of things, particularly in the art

world. Studying music, particularly studying at a conservatorium like I did, which in the case of the one where I studied the Queen's own conservatorium is like, literally its own building away from the rest of the campus of the University that it's associated with. So extremely siloed, extremely kind of like enclosed space and you're like, studying this one kind of art-making in this particular way and you don't have a lot of contact with other thinking's or other other kinds of Yahweh.

Of engaging with the with the world and ways of engaging with knowledge and like who gets to have knowledge and the kind of politics of knowledge. So I think I was always like just a bit outspoken and resisting that in many ways and I sort of tried to do some like cross institutional stuff that didn't didn't really pan out the way I was hoping.

And so, through more activist circles found my way into bfu, Brisbane for uni and became extremely good friends with a lot of Apple and started that like organizing and doing things with them. So it's kind of the idea is to like remove this like enclosure of like knowledge or thinking from this institutionalized space and to make it really open. So the reading groups really

open. There's absolutely no prerequisite to like have a certain level of like understanding of critical theory or things like this. The idea is that anyone can engage with these texts and even if you haven't read the text or often we have a Customer or screening or something like that, with like they're still openness to be involved in the discussion and to talk about like the understanding that you drew from it and like or the understanding that you're drawing from the conversation

that's happening. So it's a really open space and we make sure that all of our texts are as accessible as we can make them with the limited resources. So it's always presented as a written text and with an audio recording and Yeah, so so then the radio reversals, I guess a little like public injection on the on the airwaves and so it's a good opportunity to be talking with people.

Like interviewing people and having conversations like this, we only we have an hour a week and we also play some music and things so it's it's often you know, quick quick conversations, everything's added a down a little bit but we're hoping to also Branch out into some more frequent. We've done a few kind of like podcast releases but we're hoping to kind of make some How some we sort of had these series sometimes where we are like really thinking with a

particular topic. So recently, there's been a lot of thinking, one of the, one of my co-producers presenters Marissa. She's a new mom for the second time. So she's been thinking a lot with measurement and like, essentially the colonial project of measurement and how how this is used to like like as a system of control. And when you're like a new parent, the the constant weighing of your child and all of these like, Milestones, that that you're going through.

Yeah, like supposed to meet this by this point, and this by this point and the anxiety that that produces for an individual. And so there's been, there's been some thinking with that and then, yeah, so that's that's ready reversal. So but just recently, I had a good conversation with an amazing. Condom UK original and African-American artists Sachem on a show that we did on Friday, which was a really brilliant performance.

But also just to talk about, you know, the developing his this like really young and really great artist is, I only really realized he's like, 22 and I was like, oh well, okay, yeah, cool. Yeah, I've done things. I'm 35 but yeah, really young But yeah, just just hearing his thinking thinking with community and in community and how that comes through in his music and his poetry, it was such a such a beautiful conversation and then to, yeah, like the performance was also really beautiful.

So, you know, it's a wide variety. So I do a little bit of talking with people as a kind of like radical music is of me engine thing, because I'm the, I'm the resident musician for the show. Yeah, that's a bit of a half Hazard summary of radio reversal in the community around it. And it's a it's you know it's a community radio station that's really successful in. What is a pretty big city?

I think there's three million people in Brisbane so it's, you know, so it's got some size and, you know, there is a real sense of it as a community site. So So cool. We talked a little bit that, you know, you knew of us. And that's how we got to know you. But we're curious about what Drew you to motherland' Fort Salem and our podcast family. Oh, actually, I think it might be a slight sacred. I know somebody who works on. I don't suck so that was what drew me to watching her and then

look one of the things. things that I've been trying to do is to is to look at, but I think, I think motherland in particular. It's a kind of pretty, it's great, but it's also a very straightforward showing a lot of ways, you know, it's a mean. I think you've posited that it's surprising, that the there isn't a greater audience for it. And in fact, I feel the same way because it seems like the sort of Highly accessible show that would have, you know, a much bigger fan base than it seemed

to accrue. And obviously there are lots of reasons for that but what Acted me to to finding you was actually I'd been looking at reactors. I've been looking at worked with a reactor had been able to go to to lexicon in 2019 for the beginning of this career has work and they'd they'd gone there. Emily Park had gone there and done a really great review for us, which was the starting point to me. Something to work on this. And at the time there was the

Big discussion. Stoush around trans people and inclusion in lexicon and so I got firsthand kind of knowledge of that I just couldn't get over there that year and in fact we had a couple of our colleagues go to this year's Classic on and have reported back as well and at the time then and even now there are almost no indigenous. Queer. No indigenous. Queer representation.

There was that there was one panel that was Content creators, you know, was on YouTube, you know, was not necessarily the kind of representation that we're looking at, which is largely this kind of, you know, fictional character representation, but also it's not surprising that there aren't, you know, actually, one of the places where a lot of queer indigenous representation is happening, is on this continent. So we've got a lot. I mean, you can see it in heartbreak high for instance,

but you can see it more broadly. We across everything from clever man, through to a lot of things that you probably don't have access to that are from so-called Australia and what's been interesting? Then in looking at spaces like the, you know, reactors is to see what sparks their interest and that's why I've been looking at them is, you know, to understand what your average person is looking at and what they're saying, and the whole, you know, framing of reactors is

that there you are. Rich person. You know, the whole framing of it is that they just will, you're not your average person, you know, your people who have a great level of complexity. No, you know, no disrespect to reactors but they don't necessarily have the kind of in-depth knowledge that that you represent. So, I started listening actually, because what some of them are like three hours when I first started it. No. No, no that's just that we're going to. Yeah, we can you shit.

He should see our outlines. It's brilliant. I feel like I have seen your Outlets have seen implied and Brilliant about. It is not just again, the cleverness and the time with it, but also it's covering a lot of ground that we'd identified was really needed when we were looking at career as, you know, it's not just about how is that

a bit of queer bait? It's actually understanding what's happening with characters and what happens with audiences, what they expect, and you know what's possible. And of course, what you've done is suggested things that are possible and suggested things that are available. As you know, a set of ideas that is like a layer on top of the actual work so it makes it better.

So I think at one stage, it would have been any show but I can't believe I'm saying this but I think I watched three mostly so that I could keep up with where you were at with it. So and I think it's everybody else who's interested in this and people may not find the time to be able to do that, but it is powerful and Powerful to in terms of interviews. You know again I mean the you know, the Lucas interview was really interesting though, stuff drawn out of there.

That we wouldn't have been able to find otherwise and I know because then after that we went to try and find everything that was available and it wasn't there and these other forms. So so giving time over but also having that kind of allowing for that complex discussion, it was incredibly important. Yeah. Thank you. That was why we started. That was like the goal pretty much everything you said is because the or add listen to podcast before that, were that length.

And she really enjoyed the in-depth analysis and and everything. And so we wanted to bring that but also some of our weird humor so Well, the humerus incredibly important, too, because if you don't have that, I mean, what the fuck are you doing? You know, it's, it's yeah, it has to be an essential part of it because there's also humor and what's not being realized in, you know what, you aren't seeing the behind the scenes of a character.

I mean, and you know that there's, there's got to be humor and all of that. And I think especially in a show that isn't focused on humor, I don't think there's no humor in it but, you know, I think Fulham in that instance would be. We're very real about the fact that motherland would be very depressing if you just looked at it from straight on.

So, you're incredibly right? I think this you've got 11 episode that look, I'm not gonna be able to remember which one it was, but I think it's like to for season 2 episode 4. That's really depressing and you kind of set it out with it's depressing. And it's really interesting because I listened to it and hadn't re-watched it since I'd seen it the year before or whatever and went back and watched. And I thought my god really is to was interesting because of here, how you played that elbow

and I think from the powerful. Oh, thank you. Thank you. In my culture and culture we have this expression, you know, marijuana gonna And it's to live well in a world that that you've made good. So you make a world, that's good. And then you live well in it but you have to make the world that's good. And I think again sometimes when you hear reactors, it's great but it's like our response and you don't really know anything about their contexts.

And this whole notion of kind of making a world in which motherland or any Other series enriches. Your life. Is incredibly powerful in these podcasts and I think we all have to do that work. Thank you. Absolutely. Mmm. I love that. That's the first time I heard this podcast, I was like, oh wow, they're really smart and I just come in and I bringing chaos. No, you bring a lot more than the chaos. I'm sure you do. But chaos, isn't it? Bad thing. No, it's not. I don't think we.

Yeah, I'm packing the complexity of things. Yeah. Colonial, the anti-colonial work we do is chaos so I'm sure I'm sure. I think you have to, you have to throw that you have to have that component for things to get shaken up. Otherwise it's just going to remain the same. So change doesn't come without chaos. Yeah, I'd agree. So we have a question for both of you and that is, how does media representation or lack thereof impact? Intersectional Community such as

queer indigenous groups. Um, it's a big question. The Project's called saving lives. Our overarching project is called saving lives and it's called that for a reason. You know, I was really pleased that the government put a million dollars into this. Our uni put another million into it which I think is like 1.5 million or something in u.s. u.s. dollars. So it's a lot of money but it's also what it is is it's a investment in the trust that we might be able to do some work.

That changes people's outcomes, makes them feel seen and also So that they can see how they can be in the world. And I think that issue of representation is even more

crucial for some groups. And it's not just queer indigenous people because that's like that's a monolith to, you know, there's older people as younger people, there's all, you know, variety of people as many as there are people and that idea of, you know, of challenging symbolic Annihilation is incredibly important when we've been subject to Actual Annihilation. You know the The Colony has been about trying to demolish isyou know, I was born a year before

we gained rights as indigenous. People you know there's a very solid argument that you know that we weren't considered people at all before. Then fact we weren't we weren't subjects and we were at least in some ways part of the Flora and Fauna act, so for department but you know, we You know, not considered to have rights, you know. My mother was born in another country and came over to this country and had rights as an immigrant that her children

didn't have. And you know, and this is a really, you know, this is in just my lifetime in the late 50s but still only in my lifetime that that happened and we're still dealing with the after-effects of that that involves people not really. Asking requiring or getting representation. And so it's often just one or two really good actors in the space, people who are doing the work that change that. And we've had that here in TV

and film. You know, we've had a lot of indigenous people who've been making but we've had a few people, like Sally Riley who who put together clever man, who pitched a lot of indigenous representation. Treachery person. So from the same Community as me, we've got over 300 different communities in Australia, and,

you know. So so we have this, this person who's responsible for probably 20 to 30 percent of queer indigenous representation and and particularly, probably much more than that in terms of indigenous representation, you know, and why does it happen? Well, it happens.

When people are queer, an indigenous, you know, it happens when you've Got people who are there in the decision-making and that's been only in the last 20, 25 years and so we're starting to see it more, but it takes that it takes that participation, it takes someone not just wanting to show representation, but knowing what it means and knowing how it affects people's lives. And so, we called it. Saving lives for a couple of reasons. Sorry, I think that was the royal.

We, I called it saving lives for a couple of reasons. One was because we have the highest suicide rates in the world, queer indigenous people. So it's that. And a lot of that is about knowing who we are in the world and knowing that that we will be accepted in the broader community and sometimes within our own Community because of these other, you know, issues. But look, the other reason is The idea of remembering the groundbreaking work that people are doing is incredibly important.

You know, I remember a few years ago thinking you know the I grew up in the 70s there wasn't that much queer representation on TV and 17th, it's not true. There was actually a lot and people like Matt Bauer who does this remarkable work on looking at representation, you know, I would look at I would think about something like Mary. Tyler Moore Show and I think it was like, queer characters on there. They were, I just didn't remember them and see them.

And that's how symbolic Annihilation works. You know, you don't look for things. You remember, things as absent, you know, you kind of erase yourself from these scenarios and I've never seen, you know, up until think eight or nine years ago was the first time I saw Aboriginal people kissing on screen. Yeah, whenever brand new day came out, was it? I don't know musica. It was the first time I can't believe that you know I and I'm talking about heterosexuals you

know. And when we think about queer representation in that way, it's off the charts problematic. And yet the last couple of years we've seen massive changes in that representation that are wonderful but they can't just be lip service, you know. So the power of it is it saves lives. The If it is not also not the extreme, it's not the extreme horror of us losing people kids

mostly in our communities. It's also this, this idea that people don't believe that they belong and they find all sorts of ways to, to not participate in their own life because of that were to change who they are, which doesn't usually end well. So so the. So I think the power Our is in, is in that an anti-colonial work, has to be about calling that out and it has to be about also pointing out good stuff that's happening, you know? It's a dispositive charging of saying.

When you do have complex, queer representation, call it out, and show it and say, look see how easy this was to do, you know, we'll see how hard this was to do but see how easy it is to consume and really recognizing that. And again I think it's incredibly difficult. Four characters where, you know, they're in the middle of a war and you're not going to find out that they're queer because it's not part of the Arc of of a character.

But there are flags and strategies sometimes literal flags and strategies to talk about queerness and you know, they're they're available. And so again, we hope that an audit reminds people of of that availability even if it's just cheating and sneaky, who cares, you know, representation is representation. As well as we want it to be more complex, all right? So again, free for all kind of

questions. So we talked a little bit about how the representation in media has definitely evolved over time. And so we're just curious. What what are your thoughts on the current? Like, how landscape of what representation looks like now? Like quantity and quality in like media today.

Hmm, sorry have good. No no I'll just kind of like throw a bit of wear like I mean part of it is the inability to watch everything and be able to give a comprehensive answer and that's partly why we have the amazing job is just a couple of Alana and Taya who are doing such great work.

Yeah, not only not only watching a lot of the stuff that we don't always have time to watch but also, like really thinking about it and thinking with it and unpacking, a lot of this complexity, I guess we're really thinking about yeah.

Like the kind of the gains that are being made and the and the like the ways that they're, you know, a kind of representations that, you know, we wouldn't have seen before and I think that's like particularly, you know, it's Very intentionally evident in remakes of shows and so like, heartbreak High here. It just because I know that's a show from this place that's that is also available to watch in Turtle Island in the US.

And you know, that's that's a very different thing to the heartbreaker that was on the small screen in the 90s that I watched growing up. It's a very, you know, Intentionally kind of sitting with identity complexities in ways that are that are meaningfully, more aware of some of some of the political positioning than at that time. But and you know, it's this is still got some of the problematic stuff about it too. It's exactly. And that's kind of the thing is that.

Sorry, I'm sorry, honey. I'm so sorry. It's, yeah, it's still doing that. It's still doing that. Problematic stuff of, you know, the school yard is This kind of imagined safe place. You know it like that swap out for a prisoner or where work is

really interesting. And that's the thing is that it's kind of like yeah yeah there's this kind of like claim to or like really trying to make really like articulated in many cases, you know, this is this identity and this is this identity and it's once again kind of a little bit container, add a little It's I load so like and you are a representation of this and your representation of this and therefore we are

diverse. And then when it reproduces some of these like yeah some of these same kind of tropes and and storylines that you know you know you have to question like is this is this like net good or is this like doing further harm?

Just because you've like named this paneer like every weapon So everyone on heartbreak, hi skinny, everyone on hypercars skinny, you know, so that they've got this kind of notion of, I mean, I don't know if they've met other Aboriginal people that they haven't cast in that. But I'm telling you, we're not skinny. So but also, you know, it's about broader representation in that way. I think on Turtle Island, you know, A League of Their Own as a really good example of that, you

know? And And that's got I think we count down 13 kind of characters that have that a queer that have a real profile on the show and 13 is a lot. Like, it's remarkable. What happens when you have 13 is that you can have some baddies, you can have goodies, you can have people who are like morally ambiguous, you can do that stuff. You can't do that.

When you've got two or three, you know, you and we're really interested in that idea of How especially clear indigenous characters are always coded as kind of the hero or not so much the villain. I mean, never the villain actually, but always the hero or the sad character, you know, so if somebody who's suffered from colonization, when that doesn't happen, as when it's like, we're only create like something, like Rutherford Falls, for instance, or, you know, or res dogs, for

instance, you know. Like you see some more complexity where you can have like the baddies and you can have the goodies and you can have the way that they interact with one another, but I'm also really interested in how are just totally took over. What you're saying, then is that okay? Of course.

Yeah, look, I was just going to say, I was just going to say about you know one of the things that we've had to be really careful of. Is this issue of queer actors within this space because there are a lot of clear actors that are not talking about being queer and in particular, that's, you know, it's a concern for us because, you know, the sort of calling out, I mean, I can't play from the kind of saying this in 2022, but here we are, you know, in a space where for

people to identify themselves as queer, particularly when they're playing smaller roles in smaller Productions can actually isolate, you know, their capacity and so we've been really cautious about how we Right about the idea of kind of excluding queerness, and I've had a really funny experience of having. Can I tell the story of this sent, you know what the story is had? Look, I had I'd written something about four years ago.

Now, about four years ago, I'd written about four characters that were queer either queer characters or kind of quick, coded characters in major TV shows, and I've been riding some work around On this and I was writing it to talk about the complexity that was not really possible.

When we're talking about white sis had characters, white says, have characters playing queer characters, there was much more of a swap out of Permitting them and so it was sort of focused on four of these characters and one of my pivot Points was to go and none of them are queer. Like all of them are not queer and I just gone to riding this this piece up. And I was about to submit to the editor when one of them came out and then I then I left it alone for a while.

I thought I don't have time to rewrite. This when overseas was doing some research overseas came back and I had this moment of going oh look, you know, I know this other place that I can submit to so alternative. Actually, it was the addition that Problems putting together. And so I thought I'll get it ready for that. I centered and then immediately recalled it because the second actor came out, no boiled. Again they?

Yeah, something later. I was putting all of my work together and, you know, sometimes you have work that you've worked on for a while, but didn't get submitted somewhere for whatever reason. I've got a few pieces like that, and I had this piece and I thought, Well, this is ridiculous. I can work this around. I can talk about this in some way and I kind of found a way to do it as losing a bit of traction for me, but I found a way to write about it, and I was genuinely no word of a lie due

to submit again. And the third one came out know, it's interesting because I'm saying, Queen us. But obviously there is quite a difference between gender and sexuality. And I think when you look at something like disclosure that are really wonderful film, that talks about the issues of having someone who's sis playing, somebody who's trans and, you know, and the and the Deep problems with that a quite different to sexuality, you know, they're quite different to that space.

I'm not sure there are a million, you know, I'm not sure that it's that it's an all-or-nothing at Arden. I think there is some complexity to it but it is a real concern and I guess at the moment with a lot of the trans exclusionary stuff to there is a real concern over kind of setting that up as a binary problem as well. So, so we're trying to know about it and talked about it, a beard, but also not necessarily play it out as a, this is working in this way in, this is

working in this way. And I think one of the things that happened in 2020 and I won't mention and a name with this this actor that this happened with, but It was really horrible. So so in 2020, there was an actor who had played a queer character on TV who came out as Queer as queer, right? And they played a lesbian on TV, I guess, I don't know if they're a lesbian or bisexual, but they played somebody who is who is attracted to a woman.

And and there was absolute Support there was on across social media, this incredible support and interest and actually it was one of the people who also, who was the one who came out but you know, there was there was certainly a lot of interest and I read nothing but support our.

There might have been a few things that weren't but mostly it was then a year later, they clarified that they were non-binary and The stuff that happened was atrocious, it was all - they ceased their Twitter account. They did all of this work to basically all these people were doing all this work to basically call them out, on being a liar about their gender, you know, and also just a whole lot of transphobic stuff about their body.

So they comment the comments on the body were Markable and, you know, I think that it's entirely possible that because of the scope of that, this is somebody who may not work. Again. I think that's possible. And I think it's appalling and I think it needs to be called out kind of what it is, which is not just we're phobia but also this real problem of how we understand representation

generally. And, you know, that idea that that queerness is only how we Regarded as queer people you know so it's so it's it was a I guess so it's horrible to see any of these things as a you know as a lesson because this is a person's life but it was a lesson in some of the issues around this that we needed to also have an awareness of, you know, again sometimes people have been out at some stage but there no. No longer out or talking about it. And so, in that way, we've been

very careful not to say that. And of course, that brings up, this whole issue of queer people playing the characters and the, the power of it, I guess is still for a lot of people undeniable because they feel it. You know what, people feel as viewers, it's this sense that there's a relationship to truth in playing a character whether there is or not.

And So yeah, so so I guess they're the things that were interested in but, you know, our beginning point, with the end of my row and I'm gonna is to say we make a world worth living in. So we don't do damage to individual people in that way ever, you know, for the sake of, you know, research So Sandy we saw that you are part of the center for Global indigenous, Futures, can you tell us a little bit more about this

organization and your Roland? And yeah, so some of the global indigenous Futures is, is a group that comes out of a group called fire, which is the was the forum, for indigenous research excellence and it was set up by Professor Broman Carlson. Who's the The other professor at the uni are in in this continent only about 5% of people who are academics the professor's. So it's not you know it's a bit

of a different language. So it tends to be very senior academics and so Braun actually does a massive amount of work in the online space rights around indigenous, online engagement, sort of remarkable body of work in that field. And she'd set this up and she'd actually setup fire as a vehicle for the first-ever queer indigenous, Symposium that happened in 2015. So, they'd never been one before

that. And she brought people from all over the world, simply because she had a student who was queer and Indigenous and she wanted to have an opportunity for them to meet other people. And so, I Ron already knew my work and so got me to come down and be engaged in that way.

But as a result about a year and a half ago, I started working at Macquarie which actually hosts the center for Global indigenous Futures and that has the online journals free Lee accessible online Journal that's called Journal of global indigeneity. And we work with indigenous people from On the world.

So we've got a Sami Journal issue that's coming out shortly and focuses on some it community in the area that is now known as Norway and across that across that region and we focus a lot on our relationship with people in Turtle Island. So we've got a lot of connections to people in I guess the Modern Day Canada and one day Us. And the work that we've done is, is centered on a few different

areas. But essentially we focus on the idea of digital lives, we focus on the locating ourselves, which is about where the queerness sits within that's this space and then we do work on the idea of our futures. And so the idea of Futures isn't about going as not really the futurism stuff about Going speculative fiction. Let's make the world better and then we can go and live in that. It's about the future that starts today, you know?

So it's about saying, how to indigenous people make this and how do we make it with our allies? So how do we make it with settlers and others from around the world to make these spaces spaces that that people can grow in? We use this idea of survivors. So it's business idea who's an additional be scholar who Who talks about the idea that if we exist now with existed in the

past, and we always will exist. So, so, so that when people say, oh, you know, there weren't queer, people decades ago were centuries ago, or thousands of years ago, it's like, well, we exist now. So, actually, we did exist. That's how it is. And so it's a lot of work that does challenges to that a lot of work. I do kind of creates those challenges. So I do a little bit of work in the museum space. That's around. How people gender figures of the past. So, you know, people will gender

for instance. Some Venus of Willendorf is a really good example. Lots of people know Venus of Willendorf and you know, the Willendorf figurine is this is this figure that's often framed as a maternal figure as a pregnant figure actually and it's largely not thought of as as pregnant anymore. It's now thought of as a perspective work so it was made by somebody was looking down at their own body. They may or may not have been

pregnant. That's kind of the rendering from the last couple of centuries of how people understand. And also, I have a body, that's a lot, like the Venus of Willendorf and I'm not a woman. So when the character gets framed of the figure gets framed as, as female or a woman, there's a challenge to it, but there's also a kind of contemporary reading that's happening when that happened. So curators are going well.

Yeah, you know how I know the world is that there's the past just Had women and men in it. I'm just going to go through a gender. So so it does this work that's not about kind of recognizing the complexity. So what we do in the center is that we do this kind of complex work that's around trying to make world's better. So we work with a lot of large sites. Obviously, the Australian research Council that provide some funding to be able to do work. That wouldn't otherwise be funded.

But we also work with organizations like in DigiTech like parents of gender diverse children, Like the Victorian government that provided the funding for that like Facebook who have met who have done quite a lot of provided quite a lot of funding for us to look at some of the issues in terms of indigenous people online, you know, there's a lot of myths around that, you know, there was a little mitts years ago that was like indigenous people don't use the internet or they don't

use social media. And in fact, then there were survey Has done that showed that the percentage of which we used, it was about 20% higher than the rest of the population which made all the sense in the world to us. Because part of what it was doing was recognizing that was, we were all recognizing that we needed to find a way to connect with one another, you know in a site where where there was the capacity to do that outside of work and form community.

And so from one's written quite a lot about that but we work with with, with indigenous Scholars from around the world. We work with Percy lizard, who is a remarkable two-spirit scholar from Canada. Skulks scholar, who does

incredible work? And actually did this report that challenged or added to, I guess the murdered and missing women in committee that had set up a real concern around how they were locating and And understanding what was happening for indigenous women and girls and and saying that this is happening for queer people to. Why would we be doing it?

Apparently, when we know that this is affecting queer people who may also be indigenous women and girls and so in its so it became also to Spirit on top of that we don't have terms we don't have a single term in this country like to Spirit me to Spirits. Are relatively recent to, it's only been around for thirty, two years 33 years.

But But it's still a term that many First Nations people in indigenous people in Turtle Island, use, we don't have a similar term that works across queerness but we would say, you know, queer indigenous people and you know, so there is this sort of complexity that's around representation that surround visibility in the case of social media, that's around the work that we do. Recognizing the horrors that can happen in our community and also the successes that can happen in

our community in this continent, we've got this idea of closing the Gap where you know, our health outcomes is substantially lower than the rest of the population. Our educational levels are substantially lower. A lot of the markers that are used by the you know what stream government are. Recognize that we are substantially lower but what happens is with the closing, the Gap, the idea is that we get up to here. It's never really about how we exceed the Gap.

It's never really about our successes. It's only about that idea of, of resetting disadvantaged. And so, part of what we do is to talk about, both to say, actually we can talk about both, we can talk about how to make sure that people live longer lives and we can talk about how we also throw. Thrive in the space that we're in because of our connectedness to one another. So I kind of remember what the question was. Did that answer any of it? It did.

Yeah, you got it. Sorry about that guys cat. Today. There were a lot of people and other animals in my room so she's feeling neglected. Oh Baby, I've never seen her this active. Yeah, it's because she's feeling neglected because usually, no one comes. who's in here but anyway, So if you see fluffy tails in front of you, that's why she also found her toy which is a discarded piece of plastic that she does not need it to be

on camera and it's adorable. She does play fetch which I did not throw her toys so she will not fetch right now. But next question is for Hannah. Can you tell us about the Rogue 30 rug 3? Gosh, you guys have done your research reg. 3 is is an improv tree. I have with two friends of mine. Brody who plays trombone and Ryan who plays recorder, and we haven't been able to really do too much since the pandemic kicked off because Ryan is based in nam in Melbourne. I'm Victoria.

And so, you know, we haven't had the chance to get together also because Ryan and his partner have a very fresh child and so they yet they're busy doing that. But Rogue 3 is just I mean it's just a real kind of project of sounding I guess our relationships and and also our Like the long-term friendships that we have and also often in

in place in spaces. So like we have one like studio recording but we've also done recordings in a drain space in an Ali here, which is, you know, about a 15-minute bike ride from where I am right now. That goes kind of underneath the motorway. And yeah, so we played there together we also did a Cording on my parents still live where I mostly grew up which is a small farm bit under 100 acres.

I'm not sure if Acres of the unit of measurement of like sort of land farm size in the US fed out there. Okay, cool cool on. Yes and I was never. The ones are the ones that don't use it. I know. Well, we're the ones. Definitely used with ya ha but that's much bigger. So it's a lot harder to measure a small farm in ha. So yeah, they it's on global and Jetta. We're country so Southwest of original city called, Toowoomba and that's where that's where I mostly grew up.

Before I moved to me engine and it's yeah, it's like Got some olive trees, on it, it's got some cows, it's got there. There's still one horse kicking around, we had a lot of horses when I was growing up. So I mean the climate in in that part it's about a two-hour drive from where I am. Now it's not particularly far away but that's that's kind of going almost directly Inland and the last couple of years, it's been the lenina. So there's been a lot of rain,

but they came into that. Amount of rain from a good nine years of quite extreme drought and sort of towards the end of that drought time. Rodion Ryan. And I did a recording out there. Yeah. Really like there's just there were just whole areas that didn't have any grass anymore. And that's, yeah, it's like semi arid country. So it's usually sort of Fairly dry grasslands with quite a lot of eucalypt forest and some Some of the eclipse were were dying and this kind of thing.

And so this is this is what led into the really bad Bushfire season of 2019 2020 here. And it's not an area that usually sees bushfires, and luckily they didn't have any go through that direct area, but it was just so extremely dry and like Baron in this, like, kind of Haunting way. And so, like standing on that country and it just looks so different to when I was growing up. And now it looks so different again. And it was yeah, we called it eucalypt apocalypse.

We just were, like really sitting with the state of, of the land in that moment and you know, the history that's contained there. I recently, went up to 21 Baba, a couple of weeks ago for a memorial service for actually, in a way. I kind of celebratory memorial service for the What was called the Battle of One Tree Hill or the Battle of me W, which is a mountain just near to a, to a mountain range. I mean by Mountain standards.

Look, I have a Canadian partner. Who will tell me that these are not Mountains? They're just kind of the kills but like this is part of the Great Divide Valley mountains that like it's it's still called a mount. Aunt Mountain anyway, large Hill but Federal a very notable one. Where there was a really significant battle against the invading, settlers, the colonists. And I'm going to forget the year because I'm not, I'm not the greatest at my history buff, but there's a really great podcast.

I can recommend called Frontier War stories with. Bose P room, which goes into a lot more detail detail about this. But yeah, so I went to this memorial service that is actually for the battle that was won by the local indigenous people and driving people back all the way to Logan which is about an hour and a half drive from her from where that where that mountain is. And so like a significant days hard riding kind of thing or like and so that was a really successful defeat of the

settlers of that time. Of course, the Crackdown that followed was Stream and led to the deaths of a lot of people. But so this was part of a this was the eighth year, I think of this memorial service that was honoring. Aboriginal Warriors in the frontier Wars, which is still like part of a very unspoken truth from this area and so, well, it has been. Yeah, it's being spoken by morse more and more. And we have been speaking about it for a long time. It's just not indigenous.

People are finally recognizing it. It's, I mean, we had a lot of battles in barrage really as well. And you know what, what happened is, it's the winning battles and losing a war is the kind of Broader landscape except we didn't lose. It's still our country and you know there it's not the end War hasn't ended, you know, so it's so there's still this worked. Yeah. But worries ongoing and yeah, and this in digital and Truth complex interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. Sing here are not that moment of the earlier moment where you're talking about the making, I didn't realize that you're done, that work out there. I don't know why I didn't but it reminded me of, you know, Sara Jane Moore whose power who does this remarkable work. And we used to do sound work together about 30 30 or so years ago. And and we actually went out to dubbo so on My country.

So, on rodri country and we recorded all of this where I was this work, as well as music, they're not connected, but it was, it was it was that same space. So, you know, Australia's Got a lot of droughts and a lot of fun and a lot of flat tires and you know, a lot of these sort of natural disasters that aren't so natural. That That have happened in that are happening increasingly but it was that moment of the kind of dryness of Dabo that was happening. 30 might have been 32 years ago.

I think we went out there and you know and I was in my mid-20s at the time probably and it was, you know, this really lovely connection back to Country because even when it's dry and you know that reminds me of the broader issue of representation is that, you know, we often don't see these Landscapes played out, Out that are unusual or, you know that in the same way as we don't see a diversity of queerness, we're often not seeing a diversity of this kind of, you know, complex rendering,

I guess we see it a little bit, sometimes in American shows that a shot here because I did, they come here? And there's this funny thing that happened during the pandemic where there are a lot of movies and TV shows that they shot here, for whatever reason people came over here and and shot them. But because Like 95% of our trees or gum trees. Are you clipped?

They'd have these you'll see this on Netflix shows that they have this kind of out of focus background so you can't see it's a eucalypt while they're driving Hast. It's hilarious. That's not my visit Italy. I was like I had such a weird kind of experience because there's so many eucalypts are such a eucalypt forest and I was like it's Like Brisbane with hummingbirds and no for parts. It's true. Yeah, that's right.

But I mean I guess. Yeah interesting because it also like does its yeah the the land, the representation of the land but it does things to communities as well. It does things to how people behave and when we don't see I mean we see these kind of like some kind of romanticized representations of drought in like really particular kind of Australian television but Yeah, I don't think we see that kind of just like living with drought for a really long time and it

not being like this. Like this is the struggle that's going to destroy this family in the 19th century. But like yeah, but the the kind of reality of yeah, the day-to-day life and how that would become kind of just subtly changes community. And certainly changes the way that people live their day-to-day lives is is something and and similarly with the floods like it's not something that I think is explored in a lot of of media representation

and it's really interesting. Yeah. Look, let me think you see it much across Turtle Island either. You know, I think you frequent. I mean, it's not just, you know, British Columbia is America. It's not just that, it's not just, you know, shooting in particular locations to kind of make make it affordable. It's more than that. It's also this idea of of, you know, places like the Midwest, I mean I've did 75,000 road miles of driving when I was looking at 470.

In the United States. So I spent a lot of time criss-crossing places in the US and I think what I'm always surprised by what I'm in the u.s. is how it doesn't feel like it's represented very well in, you know, an american-based shows the people too and that's a whole, you know, it's another conversation but it's it's part of the same conversation about real representation as opposed to like the desperate just like that comment that Susie bright has in Celluloid closet, where

they say, oh, you know, they're talking about how few lesbian

films that were at the time. And you know, in their comment is I think they're about, I think 12 kind of mainstream films at the time that sounded like closet comes out as a movie and it's reviewing, you know, all of these these films that have happened in the past, but they, you know, the comment is, you know, catching up with a friend and going well, you know, So this amazing love story between these two women and was beautiful and they were vampires, you know.

So it's the it's the will take any representation we can get. Yeah. And you know, and the desperation means that we don't ask for more and we don't get more actually and and and people think it's enough and who thinks it's enough is kind of what we're interested in with the Queer. As ordered is understanding the power of who makes those decisions when it's this very

large form work. That, that might have, you know, queerness connected to it. You can have like a quiz show runner, but just because someone's queer doesn't necessarily mean that they understand the complexity of queerness. They understand their own queens and they understand what they've encountered and who they've

encountered. But understanding something like indigenous, queerness people can shy away from it, they can become concerned that they're doing the wrong thing by representing in that way and that's intriguing. And we know that what stops that is in. Inside a voices. Yeah, absolutely. I mean Gotta go. We gotta get em in there. We can the decision making positions. Yeah, and people getting in there but also, it's hard when

you've still got. So few people things don't change quickly, even if we see much better representation than we did, it takes a long time for that representation to hit, you can have events around kind of the pushback against, says people playing Trans people that happened a few years ago meant that you're suddenly had a lot more trans people actually playing trans people, it did mean that but it didn't necessarily mean that you had better representation and you

know there's some really good examples of where you have otherwise beautifully constructed ideas around race for instance and we saw it with with Lovecraft country. You know it's got this beautiful representation love country of critical race work. And then it's got the most appalling inclusion of an indigenous, a queer indigenous person. That is so damaging that it's terrible that they were include, it's terrible.

The way that they're included that assist person playing the character and somebody swap out from one continent to another continent weirdly and and the all of the other issues, whether the character was framed as two-spirit character was intersex. The character was Was was from you know and there was no discussion around that the and then you know the spoilers I guess for this there killed

immediately. The moment that you meet them by another character as a kind of queer bashing, you know, and all of this in an otherwise gorgeous work that does this. And like the complexity is still there. It's still a gorgeous work but that's a really tricky representation to have and I don't think any of that would have happened if they had Somebody who understood where indigenous thing, right? You know, they wouldn't have

fucked up basically. And I think the, the showrunner said as much totally and and responses like Beyond like kind of, I mean, this is like vitally important but beyond the kind of like accuracy of representation. There's another layer of complexity that's about in a way like who who is the intended audience and how that has to be presented and the and the kind of wrapping Way in which these things are presented.

And so, kind of You know, I'm just thinking a bit of a scholar whose work that we both know a friend of friend of Sandy's as well. Prof. Tell see what ago, a man and jolly and south sea Islander scholar. Who talks about the importance of writing, like black riding for black audiences, like Aboriginal writing for Aboriginal audiences and not, not catering constantly to this white gaze to the settlor, like,

consumption of these things. And I think this Similarly, evident in like, some attempts at a complex, queer identity, and the way that's rendered in television programs as this.

Yeah. But as we were sort of saying like siloing into these particular categories and like it's this particular layered identity and then, and therefore, this person is struggling with these particular issues in the way that they kind of work through life and it can be quite productive in a way, that doesn't actually just like it. Explore the complexities of a person's life and things. And I don't like this is maybe talking back a little bit and forward, but this is just

something. I was reading this morning and it was just so beautiful. Some riding bike, I mean, off pile, who's a new Chief anishinabe writer and and a queer indigenous person who like learnt so much from on Twitter and and in their academic work and in their writing in general.

But they introduced this They just finished a PhD which is extremely exciting and I really look forward to reading it but they introduced this concept of instead of like mind body or Body Mind of land mind body as a single word and just talking in particular of this kind of like the the complexity of an identity that like, comes from this relationship.

Not only with yourself and with the other humans in the space, but with the land that you're on, and And like, particularly for indigenous, people the way that that relationship has like this extremely deep and like integrated connection, and like when that's not having to cater to this audience, that's assumed

to have no knowledge of this. When instead, it's just a kind of presumption, like, what possibilities are opened up there and like, you know, instead of having to like hold someone's hand through it, I mean, look Ike. I also come from this is like a very different. Example. But I come from this more like experimental music kind of thing was sort of my that's my jam. And yeah if you listen to any of Rogues 3 that's the kind of

thing in this. This kind of idea of that was so often presented when I was studying with in a European art music context was like this idea of holding an audience and through more difficult music. That's not what they would have been really familiar with because they don't know what to

expect kind of thing. And the possibilities that are opened up when you drop that when you actually just are the person that you are you You are the artist that you are and that just you know you're representing the kind of life experience and just starting from this place without having to like explain all of these details it just it's suddenly opens up a different way of thinking representation and doing representation. And I think that is only

possible. Yeah. When these people are when people from this lived experience in the writers room in the production, kind of things. So that's yeah, absolutely. Just thinking this plan mind-body. Like, it just kind of blows open. What representation is in can do for me? So yeah, I totally for a moment there. I thought you were saying, landmine body. Was thinking a landmine. Oh, well, that could be bad. That's right. No, I think I might say that to some point. Hi, maile.

Great to go with another day in the colony, does a whole lot of kind of giving up on the idea. Idea, that places are going to get this, right? And I think when we see complex identity already, we expect a little bit more. I mean, that was what happened with Lovecraft country, right? Like you go. Come on. This is, this is a team of people who understand where we're at in terms of raised. So how are you getting your depiction of another race? So wrong?

And the answer is that, people know what, they know, you know, they have the experiences that they have and they're often grounded in that. And so part of it is about that. Feeling that way. And I think, you know, that idea that you just said, Hunter about, you know, how do we, how do we give people things that are unusual? I mean, we think that it's really shocking and that it's not that it's not it's difficult or you won't have an audience if you do something that's out of the box.

But we see again and again, that that's not the case, you know, audiences actually want to have disruptions, you know, and we're very interested in the way that people spend time with characters too. Fan fictions are really important measure of that. You know, people will spend so much time that their create texts that extend the characters lives and extend these Wells buildings and write a judgment.

That's right there, riding riding on to those characters in, in a way that is really complex. And we see that happened in indigenous future isms that I, you know, while we don't really want to imagine that our futures. Our just this kind of beautiful world that we've made and we don't know how to get there.

You can still see why there are so many indigenous people that are interested in this notion of speculative fiction as a place to play, where it all of that doesn't have to be described to an audience, you know, where an audience doesn't need to have this anchored back to them in some way because you're making worlds. And I think we saw that with I keep thinking about the fact, you know, my work is about no

session. So I could think about the fact that it's called a session with the the, and obviously, a challenge, a sessions are deeply problematic. And I was really thrilled to see that it was made problematic at the end. Because I think it is an incredibly important moment to recognize that these sites that we get pushed back into as indigenous people are frequently

these problematic sites. And I know I mean, I'm on Cubby Cubby country right now just north of me engine which is So it was called Brisbane and, you know, this space is, you know, an incredibly powerful space of, has been for a long time. The space that I come from there, a jury, it's like, it's very big, it's the size of Portugal, you know.

So it's a really large country geographically, you know, Australia land mass is about the same as the contiguous states in the in the u.s. in terms of size.

So it's very, you know, big with a very small population of 25 million But, you know, this these spaces are spaces that are really diverse, they have complexity of people as well as Landscapes as well as ways that people have engaged in the past and everything's not about the colony, you know, we do things in spite of the colony and I wake up every morning and think this is what it's like to be a colonized person. I hope and and of course, sometimes we do.

You know, we've had some really horrific things that have happened just recently for us as a community and it happens again. Again you know it's important reminder that we're not front and center representation helps not just for us but for the broader population and I hate to say it because it's like you know they shouldn't have to know that we're a human because we have represented in something that they care about, but we're still there.

We're still at that moment in time and we're in interim times, things will change. But we still have to have represented. So that means it's hard to have negative. Representation, even though our arrival point will be having - like batting that are, you know, they're indigenous characters and baddies that are queer indigenous characters. I don't think I've ever seen a non-binary character who's a baddie.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I don't think they give an animated one but not as not another one. Yeah. There you go. But again when I say there will be some and they'll tell a story and the ordered is about understanding what their story is not. Just me going and we don't think there are any you know it is actually about locating them and working out what it means when we see them Yeah.

Well hopefully we get all the complexities, the good, the bad, the problematic as we keep evolving in representation of media. So something to look forward to the future one. Last question, for everybody, before we wrap things up today, we're just curious this Sandy. This might be a bad, is the question for you. This may be a long shot but we have to ask. Ask is there some kind of Aboriginal language translation of our catchphrase hydrate for lesbian Jesus?

Well, we've got 350 languages. So the answer is no, but also the had figured I could work on it for a jury so he wouldn't mind. Yeah, I'll have to come back to you but I think it sounds fine. Important question, I'm not sure about Geniuses fits within it. Jesus might not translatable, but sometimes I think, you know, you know, Maura when and Ghana this idea of making a world in which you get to be who you are, might be hydrate for, that's Jesus. Anyway, okay, that's even better.

That's what happened with language, you know, sometimes languages and about translation. It's about translation of ideas as well, exactly. Lee. Thank you for that. Yes, thank you. Welcome to. This is this is the only podcast I can't watch. I mean, well, I mean I was here. So thank you for doing it. We have to watch our own every single time anyway, so I think you can still watch it. Is there any final words? You have for our audience?

Just that maybe don't discount the think he's like, sorry, sorry. Like don't just count the like I know you don't intellectual engagement or the analysis that you do just on watching day-to-day things and like having conversations about it. And, you know, it's not like some like high up here. Academics are doing this deep intellectual work of thinking, with these, these shows, but like the I just feel like everyone's thinking with them

and so we're trying. Just kind of like, you know, I'll take you like a bit of a yeah, I guess. Like the idea of doing an audit is kind of like thinking across a whole lot of different things but we're drawing a lot on the lon the like thinking of anyone who's watching these shows and how that's kind of interacting with life and I think everyone's doing that every time you every time you sit down to binge-watch you doing some intellectual labor. So I just I kind of wanted to okay.

I think some people are doing it more than others but think you guys are doing all this. Sorry. I don't care if that sounds a latest. I mean, I think now it's I think I think people are often looking at reproductions of the stuff that they know, you know. And I think what's been remarkable about the work that you're doing is how much it disrupts that.

And I suppose I'd say audiences want that, you know, years ago, when I was doing the Museum's project, I was in, I was in the UK and I Looking at the way that they represent their own First Nations peoples and it was very you know it's a very fraught problematic kind of side, you know, with a lot of people going oh we don't have any, you know, so you don't just arrived. So you did but what what are you doing? In terms of that, you know, how are you, how are you

representing this? And, you know, there was this, entire discussion around the importance of of having that representation and seeing it as a kind of a through line to the Past Just random characters that pop up in out of History, you know, so not just the idea that that we arrived here, fully formed as queer people, you know, we come from, what we've been allowed to do, what we've been permitted to do what we saw on TV. You know what we saw on TV

matters. If you grow up with TV, you know and it's it's got this incredible power. So we should demand more and what we're seeing is those people demand more they produce, do they produce very eloquently? Not always, But it but it'll get there because there is criticism there is kind of Engagement and so you know, viewer engagement fan engagement, if you like but it's viewer engagement. More broadly matters in this space.

It really does. It not just to keep shows going and to keep them, you know, they're but also to actually keep them relevant. Absolutely. Uh-huh. That's a very good point. Thank our listeners can resonate. With that for sure. Absolutely. Thank you again for taking the time to talk with us today.

Yeah, it was amazing. Yes, and love getting to talk to me getting love, getting talk to you and know you both better likewise ideas though, it is a bit weird because remember, I'm a bit of a fan, so it does feel like a bit of a strange situation this week. I have questions for you that we that we can ask here so that this weird Scream. Oh yeah. They don't get to know I could but I can imagine what some of

her mom. Yeah, everyone at home listening, make sure to check out the center for Global indigenous. Features. You can follow them on Twitter at in Dish, Futures. I at IND, igf UT ures, the are made me, spell it all out. I did. And if you're watching on YouTube, just everything will be in the description. Oh, thank you so much. It was amazing.

Hi, everyone. And with that, we've been big gay energy, if you liked this episode check out all of our other episodes on whatever you're using to listen right now and please subscribe and like, all the things if you happen to be listening on Apple, we'd really appreciate it. If you could leave us a review, no matter how brief this is, what Apple uses in their algorithm to help us gain a wider audience. So please Please, please help us out. Yes. And please feel free to reach out to us.

We'd love to hear from you about everything and anything. And if we like it, we'll probably give you a shout out on the air. You can find us at all the things, Twitter at Big Gay energy, pod Tumblr, they get energy, pod, Instagram, big gay, energy, pod, or you can email us at Big a energy pot at gmail.com until next time, stay safe and hide. Ray for lesbian Jesus.