"So much money has been spent on war, home improvement and breast implants. So little has been spent on education. It is no surprise that Goody, O’Meara and Lloyd are ignorant". Tara Brabazon looks behind the Big Brother Racism Row.
19 Feb 2007 12:00
Tara Brabazon
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And then suddenly – finally – it was all over. All the pseudo-celebrity nonsense. All the anti-intellectualism. All the attention to pedicures, makeovers, hair extensions, waxing, Manolos, ugg boots, thong bikinis, colonic irrigations, pilates, flat screen televisions, stainless steel ovens, gazebos, water features, designer clothes, designer jewellery, designer bags, 4 x 4s, miniature dogs and massive barbeques. All these micro-choices of no importance had created a culture where how we looked was more important than what we thought.
Tara Brabazon is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Brighton in the United Kingdom. She is also the Director of the Popular Culture Collective. Tara has published six books, Tracking the Jack: A retracing of the Antipodes, Ladies who Lunge: Celebrating Difficult Women, Digital Hemlock: Internet Education and the Poisoning of Teaching, Liverpool of the South Seas: Perth and its popular music, From Revolution to Revelation; Generation X, Cultural Studies, Popular Memory and Playing on the Periphery. The University of Google: Education in a (ost) Information Age is released by Ashgate in 2007. Tara is a previous winner of a National Teaching Award for the Humanities and a former finalist for Australian of the Year.