the Hill Shepherd of Vainity Fair

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/vanity-fair-was-right-we-are-nothing-like-the-us-no-one-shoots-our-kids-at-school/news-story/ca7795c079d8fe947aa6622ea98b2f68#itm=newscomau%7Chome%7Cnca-homepage-topstories%7C5%7Clink%7Chomepage%7Chomepage&itmt=1467938492481

AUSTRALIA’S depiction in one of the world’s most influential magazines as a country full of “throwback people” has been savaged by historians and social analysts as ignorant, childish and unfair.

The Vanity Fair cover story profiling Aussie actor Margot Robbie claims Australia is “America 50 years ago, sunny and slow” and Australians “still live and die with the plot turns of soap operas”.

In the gobsmackingly patronising article which has sparked outrage and ridicule across social media, Vanity Fair says the 26-year-old actor from the Gold Coast “grew up in a place where a Dingo really will eat your baby”.

Social analyst David Chalke has attacked the piece by contributing editor Rich Cohen as “moronic”, pointing to Australia’s highly cohesive society and its vast and successful middle class.

“Rich Cohen is clearly a vacuous galah with a claustrophobically introspective ‘America is the World’ view and sadly dependent on lazy cheap stereotypes,” Mr Chalke said.

In the interview Robbie says she does not talk much about her upbringing because she does not like perpetuating Australian stereotypes.

But Cohen gratuitously writes: “In an old movie you might have seen a crossroad sign demonstrating just how isolated it was, just how far from the known capitals — four thousand miles to Tokyo, ten thousand miles to London, seven thousand miles to Los Angeles.

“Now and then she (Robbie) stayed with cousins who lived in the hinterland of the hinterland where there really were kangaroos and a Dingo really will eat your baby.”

The actor was asked if people back home were proud of her success.

Cohen: “She thought a moment, then said, ‘There’s a thing in Australia called tall-poppy syndrome. Have you heard of it? It’s a pretty prevalent thing — they even teach it in school. Poppies are tall flowers but they don’t grow taller than the rest of the flowers so there’s a mentality in Australia where people are really happy for you to do well; you just can’t do better than everyone else or they will cut you down to size.”



Mr Chalke said that purely by accident Cohen was half right in that Australia did have some things in common with the America of the 1950s:

● It does not have mass shootings in gay night clubs

● Australians can walk into any pub, shop or restaurant and get a cheery welcome, ‘G’day

● Australians are interested in and engaged with the rest of the world and seek to learn more about it and its peoples

● Australia is a successful multicultural immigrant nation, and

● Australia kicks arse in the Olympics.

On the other hand Australia has never been like America at any time as:

■ Nobody dies in Australia because they can’t afford the healthcare system

■ Everyone gets to vote in Australian elections, not just the activists

■ Australia does not have nuclear power plants

■ Australia still holds true to its founding ethos of “The Fair Go” for everyone, and

■ No nut job can walk into a department store and buy an assault rifle over the counter.

Historian Geoffrey Blainey said Australians would rather live here than in the US and that had been the case for 30 or 40 years.

veya_victaous wrote:Yes there is, If Margot was a Hill Shepherd She wouldn't have beocme and successful actor on the other side of the planet. She is literally the Opposite of a hill shepherd travelled 10,000's of km chasing dream job.