‘The Wheeler Centre is Melbourne’s home for smart, passionate, and entertaining public talks on every topic’. Or, so the website says. In 2008, Melbourne was designated a UNESCO City of Literature, instigating the establishment of the Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas. Sponsored by Maureen and Tony Wheeler of Lonely Planet, the Centre gained international recognition as well as a contemporary name change to The Wheeler Centre. Since 2010, the Centre has had more than 2200 speakers participate in more than 1616 public conversations. Located in a dedicated wing of the State Library of Victoria, its architecture sits on the edge of Old and New. Lining Little Lonsdale St, it divides the buzz of a contemporary city with the tranquility of a State library’s grandness and manicured lawn. This conjunction of culture manifests itself inside, as well, as discussions raised focus on issues prevalent not only to our modern day, but humanity’s habits and ways, past and present.
This month, The Wheeler Centre held The Festival of Questions. An annual one-day event, which over the course of four discussions, debate contemporary society’s philosophical truths. Deborah Francis White’s UK comedy show The Guilty Feminist concluded this year’s session, selling out weeks prior to her performance. The podcast has gained international recognition since starting in 2015, winning the 2016 Writer’s Guild Award for Best Radio Comedy at BBC Radio 4. Demonstrating through its success, a turn in culture as the podcast ‘discusses the atrocities and insecurities that underline us as 21st century women’.
The topic for the show titled What The Hell? was Hulu’s 2017 adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale. It featured Lauren Duca (a US freelance journalist), Krissy Kneen (author of Swallow the Sound), Celeste Liddle (current National Indigenous Organizer for the National Treasury of Education Union), Jamilia Rizvi (online columnist and commentator), and Quinn Eades (lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at La Trobe University). Evidently, White’s panel was thoughtfully diverse. The show packed out Melbourne’s Town Hall, and included a diverse audience no doubt attracted by its provoking panel. Sitting among peoples of all ages and identities, it was hard to ignore the shared energy one gets when hoping a moment of better. Sitting together, rubbing shoulders, I felt snug in the security blanket one feels when about to share a laugh and insights with strangers. However, as giddy this experience was, examples of the world around us kept seeping in, with audience members attempting to go to the bathroom mid-session, ushered through noisy locked doors, waited on by security guards – delegated to either keep us safe from the world outside or keep us locked in from a disabling escape.
Hulu’s adaptation of Atwood’s novel was generally successful due to its loyalty to the book. However, issues surrounding ‘color-blind casting’ (when a show disregards race in casting despite a text’s original truths) were debated as creator Bruce Miller decided to cast Samira Wiley for the character of Moira despite Atwood’s original separating of race. Sending those of color to the Children of Ham, Miller’s objective, as discussed by the panel, was to make a show that was ‘more about race, then it was racist’. Eager to fulfill Atwood’s initial modernity with current contextual issues, Liddle’s response was interesting, stating that dismissing Atwood’s previous truth didn’t liberate women of color from their confines, but instead white washed their problems into submission. Liddle spoke honestly about this injustice, raising points about how the show seemed like a ‘prophecy’ for future America, was actually the reality and history for women of color.
This is undeniably true, and in this instance, exemplifying white feminists’ fight against injustice felt by many but not recognized or heard before. Accompanied by a panel of Caucasians, Liddle’s point was heard and discussed, taking appropriate time to investigate her point without making it seems tokenistic or redundant. However, as I sat and listened to the conversation continue, inevitably ending with Duca’s discussion about Trump and his atrocities to come, I couldn’t help feel that once again the discussion had travelled to mainstream topics. Characteristically falling short of my expectations, and for so many of the people that surrounded me. Moments like these in public speaking, is when you feel that blanket previously so snug, tighten around you in a suffocating manner.
As Liddle sat mostly silent for the rest of the session, listening to theories of a Trump future, her elimination from the conversation was not malicious or intended, but circumstantial. Not having another person of color on the panel, seemed to disable her voice as race issues became less central than the ones on topic with three or four panel members. Exposing the harsh truth of so many circumstances when it comes to the being marginalized, as attempted solutions fall through the cracks of a still rickety floor. What the Handmaid’s Tale taught us was the importance of allies. Offred’s relationship with Serena Joy Waterford, most commonly referred to as ‘The Commander’s Wife’, demonstrated the desperation one feels when in the orbit of someone that can help, but doesn’t. Similarly, as we sit in a national climate that has purposefully disrupted any illusion of acceptance of difference by an ill-fated plebiscite, it’s hard to continue to ignore the prevailing injustices that previously went unnoticed or unacknowledged. Calling to attention our perhaps unintentional submission, as ‘ordinary… is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary’.
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https://www.wheelercentre.com/
https://www.wheelercentre.com/events/series/the-festival-of-questions
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38517384
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834204/episodes