Total Control – The Lady in Redress

Full transcript of Total Control – The Lady in Redress.

0:00KT: It's another week in the For Your Reference household. And unfortunately, now that Neighbours, the Australian soap, the poor man's Home and Away, is coming to an end, there is a growing quality, in Australian television, and we are slowly building a catalog of First Nations indigenous TV and film on this podcast. If you would like to look at the reference Bibliotheca, we have Mystery Road, Redfern Now, and also this lovely, juicy, delicious episode, always splooshing at Deborah Mailman's altar. Let's get on with the show.

1:03KT: Hey, friends and cloak and dagger lovers. Welcome back to the For Your Reference podcast. You got your host, KT.

1:03Oti: And Oti.

1:03KT: Get into bed with the enemy and evaluate the worth of individual ridicule for the advancement of your own. Join us as we punch through bureaucratic red tape with Total Control this week. Let's get into general stats and information. This TV show has two seasons thus far. It was first released in October 2019.

1:36KT: Go and check out our Redfern Now episode. I go into a bit more detail, but this is coming out of the quality ranks of Blackfella Films. So, we have Rachel Perkins directing in regards to writing. We have Stuart Page, Angela Betzien, and Pip Karmel in regards to executive producers, Rachel Griffiths, Kelrick Martin, as well as Sally Riley producers, Darren Dale of Blackfella Films, Miranda Dear, and obviously wonderfully, beautifully shouting, how dare you Wikipedia. I don't know why Rachel Griffiths is first because it is always always always

2:11KT: at least in my pussy valley about Deborah Mailman.

2:16Oti: We love Rachel Griffiths though. Yeah. But, you know,

2:21KT: I don't know. I'll take a Judy Davis over Griffiths any day, but that's my personal preference.

2:26Oti: Maybe you didn't watch sexy thunder.

2:29KT: You won't find me on the anti forums, but I would would always go to bat for Deborah Mailman, especially if we're having that conversation. This genre, Oti, is it on your bingo card? Is this potentially the first political drama TV series we've covered?

2:29Oti: Yep. It is.

2:29KT: Just naturally. Right? I I just realized that while we were talking.

2:51Oti: But we have mentioned West Wing a lot.

2:54KT: We did. And Oti gave a very sumptuous, very sploosh worthy West Wing daddy impression and I believe A Few Good Men. It seems like that's where you would do the impression, right? Yeah. Walking and talking. Snocking, talking. This is an Australian series. We will say spoiler spoiler spoiler. Check your mail, check your mail, check your mail because this is a brilliant series. There's a lot of depth that gets covered in this show. It is available on ABC, the ABC iview, but I do believe there is possibility

3:30KT: to watch it worldwide. Is that correct, Oti?

3:30Oti: It sure is. For them Americans,

3:36Oti: you can watch it on AMC plus and for the Britonians, Acorn TV.

3:41KT: Oh, nice. What's interesting is the show that I don't think we're going to cover, but we do enjoy watching it. Acapulco, I can never say it. Acapulco. Yeah. It only just occurred to me recently, like to call them Americans makes no sense.

3:57Oti: Yeah.

3:58KT: Especially if you're a part of the Americas. But anyway, there'll be a lot of of, you know, lots of talking to PC and wording and all that sorts of thing in regards to this show. But welcome, welcome, welcome friends and lovers. We're going to have a lovely, delightful time. And if you wanna stick around and you haven't seen the show, you can be nasty, but you do need to give us some Paul Bettany lashes and promise that you're going to watch the show after. So before we even get into, I guess the

4:29KT: cloak and dagger meat and potatoes of it all, I just wanna talk about the genre in general of political dramas. I'm pretty sure this is more Oti's lane in regards to general sort of consumption of,

4:44KT: I think this is more your wheelhouse. I don't necessarily go out of my way to avoid it, but it's definitely not something that I would like gravitate to just for general sort of watching purposes. I don't know, you don't dabble in this, which is fine. We get a lot of that in our daily day to day lives anyway.

4:44Oti: Yeah. I find this kind of shows interesting.

5:04Oti: Like we mentioned, West Wing was one of the things that I grew up on, but, know, you still had your frustrations over it. Yeah. But it's something that you sort of go in because of the intrigue and the backstabbing and it's fun

5:18Oti: for me.

5:18KT: Well, you know, we talk about the Taika-isms, we talk about, especially in Boy, when there was a very nice healing moment of a father saying, not only I love you son, but also I'm sorry. And we talked about how that film is potentially a fantasy. You know, one of your favorite sort of venting moments you have on the podcast is about corrupt politicians, yet you really enjoy watching political sort of dramas. So is what you're saying these Americanized

5:46KT: type of political things are more fantasy to you?

5:46Oti: Not really, but you you get to enjoy more stuff that you relate with and that you see on a day to day. And one of the best sort of comedic things in Kenya back in the day was a satirical show of the Kenyan politicians, and it was amazing. It was funny as fuck. And that's what got me into, you know, if I'm watching fucking House of Cards,

6:12Oti: him being all evil and shit, that's exactly how I view every other person that's up in there.

6:12KT: But isn't it also frustrating because it's not gonna change?

6:12Oti: You've reached disillusionment nirvana where you're like, I'm content with this fuck up, so let's see how it is.

6:30KT: Okay. Well, I guess that's, you know, I'm kind of revealing my, not my house, but I'm revealing my cards because I don't find it interesting. And I think just generally, like volunteering, trying to do as much as I can as a little ant in this universe, this Neil deGrasse Tyson Cosmos, Carl Sagan, I acknowledge as well. There is this sense of helplessness and I don't necessarily find it interesting. I think I'm not as disgusted as I am with like true crime, for example, but I just don't find political

7:06KT: sort of the vessel of political genre as a theater. I don't necessarily find it interesting. And that's what I wanted to loop back to in regards to Total Control because there's so much multifaceted dimension that is introduced into this show. And I think the where Australian television really hits its stride is where it can acknowledge the barbaric means in the way this indigenous land was stolen and also try and find a way to move forward. Yeah. Because I think there's a lot of politeness, there's a lot of nodding heads and not necessarily,

7:42KT: you know, acknowledging the colonizing elephant in the room.

7:42Oti: I think one of the biggest things that the show tries to cover is the action after it. Yeah. After all the anger and be it the disillusionment that nothing's gonna change is taking a step farther and being the change that you want to see. And I think that's the biggest aspect of the show as you just don't sit back on your laurels complaining because

8:10Oti: one person can make the change can be the change.

8:10KT: Yeah. And we have a lot of juicy tasty themes that we're going to get to in regards to this show. But is there anything you wanna capture off, like, first impressions wise about this show?

8:10Oti: So I'm also dabbling into the Mailman world. She's amazing.

8:10KT: It's a delicious world, isn't it?

8:10Oti: It is. And it's one of those shows that I I wasn't sure I was gonna expect.

8:35Oti: Like, we've seen it we've had it, you know, Up Next for a bit. And it had to do with a little bit of political stuff, but not really sure. Total Control is a bit it's like Ray Donovan of names, you know. Like, what are you gonna get from Ray Donovan? Like, you don't know.

8:54KT: Interestingly enough, if we're talking about the naming of the show, originally, it was slated to be titled Black Bitch. Okay. And I kind of love it, but also there were elders in the community that didn't like the connotation because of the weight of it. So even the attempt to reclaim the phrase doesn't necessarily undo all of the pain and decades and and fights and protests

9:17KT: that were done to to be seen as human. But I'm not part of the community, but I would have fucking loved the title Black Bitch.

9:17Oti: Yeah. I'm not so sure even though

9:28Oti: I'm not sure about this reclaiming stuff. I think hurtful words are hurtful words.

9:32KT: You're still feeling the state of Tarantino?

9:35Oti: Maybe so, but it is what it is. And I think to this Total Control, like I said, I wasn't really sure what we're gonna get. But at the end of it, I'm happy that we did dabble in this world. The acting and the casting is marvelous in this. You get to see a lot of people we loved and we've seen in the other catalogs that KT mentioned before, like in Redfern Now. We see our favorite.

9:59Oti: And it's one of those shows that keeps on going from strength to strength. And I know that I had some qualms, especially in season two, and we'll get to it. But overall, it's just a it's just a good show and I think it's a special thing for everyone. It's one of those things that you you feel that most of the time you don't really pay attention to, but it's it's the issues that are just in front of you that go begging

10:24Oti: that need the most attention and this show just highlights it all in such a marvelous way.

10:24KT: Oh, and beautifully said, Oriti. The first theme that I have is because we're talking about government, right? We're talking about the bureaucratic red tape. The first theme that I have is indigenous affairs presence in government. I just wanna talk about it because again, the foundation was laid for such juicy commentary and interplay between different characters. And we definitely see that later on in season two. But just the fact that a white guy was the minister for indigenous affairs

11:04KT: and how it was seen as in the hierarchy of prestige, like treasury is at the top. Indigenous affairs is someone you throw to someone, I think is like the equivalent of like a local town sheriff, you know, it's not necessarily going to get you up in the ladder at all. It's like the vice president seat. But I just wanna talk about that a little bit because I guess maybe naturally and maybe you can speak to it because you watch a lot of these, you know, sort of TV shows and films,

11:35KT: but it literally became like pawns on a chessboard. It wasn't even about real people.

11:35Oti: And that's how they view things. I think it's more policies and trying to get those things through. You have to And that's why politics is such a dirty game because you think that these people don't have souls, but they do.

11:54KT: It's

11:56Oti: Unless you're talking about Alex Irving, I don't I I think it's just the system that makes it seem like that. And to get what you need, you just have to toe the line a bit too much. And I think that's when you get to see, like, you'd get this aspiring

12:12Oti: candidates getting into the political scene and you're like, oh, they're gonna be the good change. And then once they get into the system, they're just like every other bastard because you have to fucking toe a line.

12:12KT: Yeah. I guess so. But I guess even if we come back to the minister of indigenous affairs, you know, there were two young women

12:29KT: and one of them died in custody. Right? And he had no interest in investigating that at all. And in the in the vessel of government, he would really be the one with the most vested interest aside from the fact that you're indigenous.

12:43Oti: Yeah. I think he went he took a step farther to to to to the reports, to hide information

12:53Oti: and just hide the truth pretty much.

12:53KT: Well, think it's also they had like preliminary reports where there was a whiff, you know, as Roy Wood junior would say, a residue of negligence. Right? Like that was noted in the report and they had to bury it because obviously everyone needs to be friends and it's a fucking boys club. Yeah.

13:12Oti: I think that's the you rub my back, I got yours sort of culture where you hide disgusting things because you think that people not knowing is better. And it's wild the team being the minister of indigenous affairs looked at that report and thought, hey, people don't need to know this shit. Let's hide it. And I was like, once it got through and it got out that this shit was happening or this shit happened. And I thought Rachel

13:40Oti: being the prime minister would have a bigger quandary with it because she seemed like she was for the people.

13:40KT: Okay.

13:49KT: I have a couple of things I wanna say just in regards to the Minister of Indigenous Affairs but then I wanna come to exactly what you just said right now because that is what I'll be riding on my sploosh very confusing

14:01KT: Paul Bettany altar right? So that's part of the problem that I have is because I'm not naive to think that we're all going to be best friends. There's a reason why we lock our doors at night. Right? I understand that. However, is it too naive of me to think that if you wanna be a bloodthirsty capital, like, humping sort of vessel, can't you do that in other industries? Like, don't do it in government.

14:26KT: Don't do it in big pharma. Don't do it in health care. Like, don't do it in places where you would imagine people are there out of their best interest to actually wanna help people.

14:26Oti: But that's where there's the most money and power.

14:26KT: Yeah. I know I get that. That's what I said. Maybe I'm too naive. I know a motherfucker wants more money and they wanna drain resources and that sort of thing. It was very mining light, I think. For a country that

14:52KT: utilizes a lot of resources, it is very light on that. Don't you think?

14:52Oti: Yeah. We didn't hear a lot of mining stuff. I think the only time we got mining into the question was where we had Benedict Hardie, Sean, come into the picture with his greeny art on being like, oh, we don't want any mining activity or to reduce the amount of money that's done in this and they're like, yeah. And even when the response that it get is like, yeah, that's not gonna happen because we know how Australia is and how

15:23Oti: the industry is. And, you know, at the end of the day, the people that run these corporations are pretty much who control the country because of the money and the lobbying they do.

15:23KT: Yeah. But it's also strong arming native title owners to, you know, relinquish

15:40KT: sacred sort of sites and that sort of thing. That's a whole another conversation. But I guess I'll come to what you were saying about Rachel, the prime minister, as well as the Greens, because far be it for me, but when you have two major parties in control, they do kind of swing on the same sort of pendulum. Well, I'm not even talking about ideologies. I'm just talking about like the filibusting

16:03KT: and the reluctance to make any change and the reluctance to outrightly with their whole chest say what their actual policies are and what they're going to follow through with after they're elected. Right? So this is part of what's really frustrating me because art is never created from conservative sort of views. Like that's not where art happens. That's not where change happens.

16:28KT: I'm not even talking about radical change. I'm just talking about change in general. Right? So I guess the thing you could say about like conservative sort of parties, the one thing you can count on is that they're predictable. Right? You can you can assume that they're not going to vote a particular way or they're definitely going to be pro something. So you you'll always know in which direction they're going to stab you. Unfortunately, when we talk about Sean, for example, in Australia specifically, you know, the greens are kind of like

16:59KT: well, take your pick at Succession. You can say it's Kendall, you can say it's Rome, you can say it's Shiv, or you can really go far and say it's Connor, but it feels like the byproduct of the two major parties. You know? By default, it's better, but what tangibly is being changed? Right? And that's what we talk about in this show. We're with Sean, but let's let's specifically talk about Rachel, the prime minister. So many instances

17:27KT: you saw that she wasn't helping. Don't worry Oti and don't worry friends and lovers. I do have a thing called intersectionality and feminism. So we'll come to that specifically. But if we're going to stay on, you know, I have a bleeding heart and everyone is equal, these are the people that I'm fucking addressing. Right? So we have Rachel as the prime minister. She's, you know, she's sister in arms with Alex. She says she's gonna do everything in regards to the inquiry until

17:52KT: her fucking little finger came along and told her that it wasn't beneficial for her to continue to be, I guess a human, in any sort of compassion in regards to Alex and also in regards to, you know, the young woman in custody and also the two women that died as a result of it, she made a choice. She made a choice and the choice was to choose not to investigate. I guess it remains to be seen whether she was privy to the information, but it was a whole lot of political orchestra

18:25KT: in the fact that she needed to remain her position so she chose not to do it. And this is what's fucking frustrating about me because for a lot of it, you are elected by your morals. You are elected by your principles, which hopefully should follow through to whatever policies you say that you're going to, you know, enact once you're elected. So if you're not the right and you believe that everyone else deserves in Australia a fair go, and you also acknowledge it is disgusting,

18:54KT: it is a disgusting misuse of power that the guards had in in laughing and also throwing that tear gas inside of that cell. Like, you acknowledge the depravity of it. You saw the video where she was actually dying, and for your own personal gain, you chose not to investigate that. I am so sorry. Because what the fuck are you then? What kind of monster are you that you acknowledge that humans are humans and they deserve to be treated with humanity,

19:21KT: but because you want a leg up, you chose not to give them that humanity. What the fuck kind of monster does that make you? That makes me more frustrated than the conservative people.

19:21Oti: A woman in power in a boys club, I think.

19:21KT: A white woman in power. I thought that's what I heard.

19:21Oti: It's

19:36Oti: it's more that she has to balance so many balls. She has to juggle so many balls just to yeah. I know the free thing is a bit weird in has that. To do so much to bend backwards than most just because she's a woman in that position. And she even when we when when Alex came up to her and said, she's privileged and the visceral sort of reaction she has, she's like, what do you mean I'm privileged? For the past twenty years, I've been here

20:06Oti: or I've been in politics. I've had to do shit that you wouldn't even believe because I'm a woman and this is what I do. And for me to even have this power right now, there are things, of course, I'm not I'm a 100% with, but it's a long game. It's always a long game. You don't get things now.

20:06KT: Yeah. But what does that matter to the injustices that are happening right now?

20:06Oti: It doesn't. And to her, I think she's been in the game too long, and I think she's she's

20:33KT: a Zack Snyder 300 Trailer Blood is what you're saying.

20:33Oti: She's just playing the long game maybe.

20:33KT: Like, if I walked into a room and there was an independent member that swung conservative, if he had said some out of pocket shit about my skin color or about my gender, I would expect that. You know what I mean? But if I am in a room where everyone's talking about, oh, this is a safe space, you know, we advocate for human rights and shit, and you're willfully covering up an investigation

21:01KT: and all of the evidence is there. You even don't even need to do a further, like, thorough investigation.

21:07KT: I just don't like when I don't know where I stand with people, where I don't know where poll like, politics lie. I don't like that.

21:07Oti: Yeah. And this is where we come to self preservation. She thought that that's the most important thing for her then. They're coming up on voting and she just doesn't wanna rock the boat at that time.

21:07KT: Yeah. But your morals aren't a fucking outfit. Your principles aren't a fucking outfit and if it is, then what are you? If if you're saying whatever's popular and it's going to get you, you know, and I think that's also the evolution of Rachel where she pandered to the middle, right? Like I just, again

21:41KT: Oti, I just wanna log off and walk into a bush because I don't Like it's fucking disgusting, it's disingenuous. Again, I expect it from conservatives, but it's that egregiousness. It's the same thing of like, you know, you wanting praise because you retweeted something as opposed to what the actual subject matter is. Right? Because that's not true advocacy. That's not true activism.

21:41Oti: Yeah. I hear your point and I take it. It's it's I think to me, it's more

22:09Oti: she just had to worry about that later.

22:09KT: Why do you feel the need to defend her?

22:09Oti: I'm not defending her. I'm just saying it as it is, you know. The amount of shit that goes down, you know, do you think those people tell us everything that happens? Any politician tells us everything that happens or any incident that they investigate. I'm sure we don't know a lot of shit that's happening that's really outrageous.

22:29Oti: So it's not like me defending or anything. I just thought that she took a different route than what majority of the people did and I don't really feel that it's inaccurate. I feel like most people who are not affected by that would do the same thing and that I think that's just the nature of the world.

22:29KT: Okay. Well, let's talk about intersectionality

22:49KT: and feminism because you keep using it as a way to defend Rachel and it's really frustrating to me or maybe it's because I'm a woman and I feel like I need to hold women to a higher account. Maybe that's what it is. I don't know. But there's a lot of there's so many examples and you even brought up a lot of examples as well where Rachel I don't know. If you have to pick up the pennies of your discrimination in the face of a black woman, you can fuck off because because

23:18KT: no one is saying that you're not given a hard go. Right? No one's saying that the seventeen years plus that you've been in government that you haven't experienced shit, but no one's ever going to get to a point of change if you keep trying to talk about your grazed knee while we have unfortunately all these people that are struggling every day in every instance.

23:18Oti: Fair enough.

23:43KT: No. Because I I'm not going to take away from her experience, but read the fucking room. It's not about my life is hard, therefore, I don't have space for anyone else because that's not what it is. There's you know, and we talked about in Judas and the Black Messiah with Bill O'Neal. We talked about it in The Harder They Fall with Bill Cherokee. Very coincidentally,

24:03KT: both from Lakeith Stanfield. I wish Lakeith Stanfield all the happiness, and I hope he finds happiness. He doesn't seem to do it in acting roles, but I hope he finds fulfillment outside because he's always playing treacherous motherfuckers.

24:15Oti: Yeah. But I think that common denominator there is either they die or

24:20Oti: it doesn't end well for them.

24:20KT: I don't think that's this kind of show. But I I think that's what's really frustrating about me. Like, if you're for the people, be fucking for the people. If Rachel is for the women, be fucking for the women. Because we're not even talking about the stats of young men that die in custody, young indigenous men that die in custody. We're talking about young girls, barely teenagers. Right? And she couldn't even find enough in her human organs to decide to do the right fucking thing for fucking once.

24:50KT: And I'm sick of it because there's feminism and then there's white feminism. Can we talk about it? Apparently not.

24:50Oti: Yeah. I see your point and and to some degree,

25:01Oti: I do agree with it. She should have definitely taken action. I think her self preservation sort of mode kicked in, which isn't good or right. And if there was ever a moment for you to change tact, that would have been it. But, yeah, I think it just painted the world that we know and the realisticness of this is the action that she took because any other way, it would have sort of it would have chipped the plot line because we know that in reality, most people will not do the same thing.

25:01KT: Boo.

25:33KT: Hang on a second. You said you enjoy watching these TV shows, but you also acknowledge that it's inevitable that people are gonna be fucking shit. So what do you get out of these shows?

25:44Oti: Slytherin and

25:48KT: Well, there there there is definitely a sense of helplessness and frustration. I'm glad that Total Control exists and it exists to the multilayers that is offered in the show. I'm glad it it talks about a lot of hard to talk about topics, especially the the granular details of intersectionality and feminism. However, as a human, it's fucking thank you, my Zuckerberg human. As a human, it's fucking frustrating to watch this unfold and it never fucking surprised me. Yeah.

26:20Oti: I'm with you. Like, a lot of the things. And we could we could we could go back and forth with all the actions that Rachel took, but I think she sort of redeemed herself in season two where she knew that a, she'd have done wrong and she needed to make amends. And I think sometimes you just need to take a step back to move forward.

26:20KT: Into the crevasse?

26:43KT: I don't know. And without knowing much about politics, I do feel it a bit unrealistic that Rachel as a woman disgraced covering up shit. I don't know. I I just think it's surprising that in Australia, even though it's the the twenty twenties, but like in Australia, as a woman, she was allowed to just reenter the political race and nothing really came out of or no sort of consequences because she would have the left and right gunning for her. And, you know, if we're talking about real life instances,

27:14KT: you know, the country wasn't ready for Julia Gillard, and I don't think she had as rosy of a post political career

27:21KT: as Rachel did.

27:21Oti: Definitely a lot of similarities and parallels we can draw there.

27:21KT: Absolutely.

27:26KT: Let's move into a different theme. This is this is something that's very fun, something that got really meaty in our Redfern Now episode was talking about within the community and holding the community to account. And this particular theme is called, is it better? Is it more effective to make change within your community or within white institutions?

27:50Oti: Within your communities through and through, I think.

27:50KT: For white

27:55KT: laws,

27:55KT: laws don't change within the nitty.

27:55Oti: They don't, but you could still do a lot of stuff for your community regardless. You could set up a rec center, could set up, build roads, you could make the next project or construction project there. And I think these are all things that Alex Irving tried to do. You know? But be it as it may, with her inexperience sometimes, and I think with her naivety, she failed at most, and I think that's where we saw the rawness

28:25Oti: of baby if if we knew that she wanted to do good and she was too trusting or too believing, thinking that, oh, this is all I have to do, and this is what I'm gonna pave the way to to make the deal go through. I

28:25KT: Who was she to believing to to a fellow woman? Right? To Rachel. Correct?

28:25Oti: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At some extent,

28:43Oti: it being politics in the game and the nature of it. You just don't go there with your with your bare back thinking that everything's gonna be okay and every word that someone says is what they believe because that showed her naivety.

28:58Oti: Even when she went to the other side of the political party, she pretty much did the same thing. And I'm like, mate, stop relying on the words of these people because at the end of the day, they don't mean shit.

28:58KT: But why is all the blame going towards Alex's direction and not the white institution that she's embedded in?

28:58Oti: I said naivety

29:15Oti: played a part. She tried to do good and I'm here for that. I'm here for her trying and me

29:15KT: She should have been too trusting is what you're saying.

29:15Oti: Yeah. Yeah. Because she knows the beast. And I think Charlie would have played a bigger role in that if he wasn't too I don't know where he was for the most part of the time other than just looking after

29:34Oti: Alex's kid. Shout outs to Rob Collins because we've talked about Firebite and it was nice to see him. He and while we're doing baby shout out, shout out to Wayne Blair because we fucking I think that's where he would have played a bigger role in trying to help or advise. And I think even when the show started in season one and Alex was gonna give her welcome speech, she'd written something that was possibly deemed controversial

29:59Oti: by her adviser, and she just changed tacks. And if you thought that it wasn't a long game, then you would be angry at that as well. So why are angry when Alex didn't didn't

30:09Oti: say her original speech?

30:09KT: Okay. So we're talking about two different issues now. We'll come back to the initial one of change within the community or change within the white institutions. What you're talking about is how much of your chest do you speak with when you enter white spaces? That's what you're talking about. It's it's a tough one. It's a tough one because

30:30KT: if she had gone ahead with the speech that she should have gone ahead with, she would have been seen as again, black bitch. Right? She would have been seen as difficult to work with, you know, not having any sort of interest other than her own. But she also talked about a lot of the MPs getting kicked back from mining companies. So let's talk about your own personal interests.

30:53KT: But it it is it's one of those difficult things. And I don't think I could ever really answer that because you either come off too strong, too intense, you come off as that black bitch, or you come off as Wayne Blair's character where he's literally just thankful for crumbs because he needs to be amicable if he's trying to position himself as a first first nations prime minister. It reminds me of Jolie from Redfern Now when he was talk when he had a quandary, a Delroy Lindo quarrel

31:25KT: about singing the national anthem because that was a interesting phrase to say, first first nations prime minister. Well, yeah, it it doesn't it doesn't sit right, but unfucking fortunately, we are never going to sit comfortably in this world. But to answer your question, I would have loved for her to say the speech that she wanted. However, it wasn't a third act in a film and it was a TV show. So it would have been very uncomfortable

31:56KT: and it is you need to booj and smoosh and, you know, that's kind of what Rachel was alluding to as well because it is a fucking boys club. So I understand why she did that. I'm a bit annoyed at Charlie for scoffing and being so frustrated with the injustice that he left the fucking room during her speech because he's also lecturing in white universities. So it's like and he's also like using that

32:22KT: using the white guilt as a way to, you know, gain personally as well. So it is a bit frustrating, but how do you feel about it?

32:22Oti: Yeah. I'm with you. I think if she would say that, she would've she would've been seen as the pariah, and I think that's not good for anyone, especially for the people over time when she wants to pass policies to help her Yeah. Or to help them

32:44Oti: be more economically successful and people to have food on the table. And all those are instances where they couldn't even have water or drunk water. They had to bath their kids with bottled water. That's some shit, man. And that's why going back to original theme and thinking that I think fundamentally the end of it, if you're representing a region, you just have to do everything you can to help those people and worry about the bigger picture later.

32:44KT: But let's also talk about it because there was a lot of

33:13KT: commentary about the general sort of indifference that, you know, the I guess we're talking about New South Wales, the the general sort of indifference that, you know, inner city metro people have as opposed to like regional and rural areas. It's it's all about and I guess that also it it becomes a numbers game. It becomes like the influencer politics edition of wherever the most concentrated number of people are, that's who you pander to. That's that's the interest that you talk about. And then unfortunately you have well meaning independent MPs like Alex

33:48KT: trying to do her best, but really if you have a federal government that is out there trying to address, I guess, the most amount of people affected, it's always going to neglect regional and rural towns.

33:48Oti: Yeah. I'm a 100% with you on that.

33:48KT: I wanna talk about Charlie for a second and this is still staying in within the existing theme. Charlie fucking frustrated me. He frustrated me because he always

34:14KT: was ready to open his mouth and say some shit in Alex's direction. Everything she was doing was never enough based on what he wanted, but when did he ever take the mantle of community leader? When did he ever try within his own name to try and make tangible change?

34:14Oti: I don't know. I think I understood where it was coming from. I don't think you need to have taken a step to be critical of something. I think you're entitled to have an opinion

34:41Oti: about something regardless of whether or not you have experience in it or you've taken action for it. Charlie shows frustration because he thought that the system was gonna take a different path.

34:41KT: Well, what is he doing in his universities?

34:41Oti: Teaching people about the shit that's going down. Boom.

34:57KT: But that's if that's what he's hired to do, what else is he doing aside from coming back to the hometown and then complaining about how she's not doing enough? Where was he in all of those native title meetings? He was never there. And that's his, you know, his his mistake.

34:57Oti: And I think he makes up for it in season two where he becomes Alex's campaign manager.

34:57KT: I know. But even when Alex was experiencing

35:18KT: a lot of the harassment, a lot of the it it goes beyond bullying. Essentially, it's the harassment and the violent death threats that she was getting online. Charlie was like, yeah, it's fine. It's fine. Just focus on the race. Focus on the race. And it's like, this is something that is deeply personal because the persecution that politicians feel as a general base level is not the same as something that Alex, an indigenous woman,

35:44KT: was experiencing in this show and also in real life.

35:44Oti: Yeah. And I think we also get to see some naivety in Charlie's part where he thinks that, oh, we'll run a clean campaign. We won't do anything that we feel that is wrong or unsportsmanlike. I'm like, mate, have you have you met any politician out there? Yeah. You can't just come up with that shit and think that you're gonna win because you're not.

35:44KT: Okay. Well, that that perfectly rolls into the next theme that I wanted to talk about Oti,

36:10KT: and that's politics.

36:12KT: Keep it clean or play dirty.

36:12Oti: Yeah. Keeping it dirty because it's all dirty. So Alex had to do everything she had to do to win. Yeah. And I I didn't get angry that she brought up was it Ramsay, the the opposing candidate Mhmm. That he fired someone because she got preggers. You know? It's use everything in your ammunition because anyone else would use it against you. And even if they did, that's their loss because your end goal is to be elected and to fight for your part for your constituency. So anything

36:43Oti: has to go to get there.

36:43KT: Like, you can talk about integrity, but it's the same thing of like, the only humble people are fucking poor people. You know what I mean? Like, doesn't that also feel like a way to like control people to stay in their positions, but also be happy about the fucking squalid positions that they're in while other people are laughing with excess on Billionaires' Row in New York, hundreds of millions apartments, no one's fucking in there.

36:43Oti: Yeah. And the last thing is we we saw

37:11Oti: Alex getting a call from one of her friends who burnt himself alive in front of a bank because the bank was repossessing his home and land for him not having to money to do the repayments on time. And I'm like, fuck sakes. Yeah. When you get situations like that where your town is suffering like that, and you have this moral high ground that is highly ineffective

37:34Oti: and will render your campaign ineffective as well. Yep. I'm like, throw that shit out the window. And I'm like, I'm glad Jolie was there because she had to breathe some sense into it and be like, you know what? When Charlie disagrees, I'll be like, yeah, I'm here with you. But it's exactly what we're both saying that I definitely agree with both of us is you can play it clean and you can sit nicely,

37:56KT: you can cross your t's and you can dot your i's and you can play the game, but you're never truly going to be free until you realize the game is rigged yo. It's always rigged. And let's it's Catan and I beat Oti every time.

37:56Oti: You wish.

37:56KT: But it's frustrating because when you understand the position and the and those that continue to benefit on the position of Australia right now, it stands to reason why the status quo cannot be challenged. Mhmm. And if balance needs to be restored,

38:29KT: there is definitely going to need to be some radical change. Yeah.

38:33Oti: I think anything in this world worth doing that doesn't revolve radical changes,

38:38Oti: just a myth. I think you need to check up the system for you to be able to get an inch.

38:38KT: And we love an inch. And no. But it's like if someone tries to apologize to you and wants to forget everything, it's because they're the one in the fucking wrong. It's in their interest to move on from whatever, you know, the umbrage was or whatever the mistake was. And exactly what you're saying, like, I love that Alex had Jolie because it isn't fucking fair. And again, it goes beyond the senses of humanity

39:09KT: in the level of cyberbullying. And I think this comes very perfectly to the subplot that we had. I think even from season one as well, like the death threats and all of the online sort of vitriol that she was experiencing. How did you feel about, I guess, the wholly realized storyline of it actually being a political staffer in the prime minister's office?

39:09Oti: We suspected as much.

39:34KT: But hang on. I I just wanna talk about it as an actual vessel. So it's not like the taxi driver that's sitting there thinking the world has done him hard. Right? This was a strategic play. So all of these death threats and can I just say, I'm glad that this was loved, watered, nurtured by indigenous people? However,

39:54KT: I don't ever wanna see even in the context of a show, I don't wanna ever see these photoshopped pictures of Deborah Mailman. Even her on the noose, that was too much.

39:54Oti: It was too much. I think that that conclusion of I don't know if it's a conclusion, but how it ended by the time of season two, the perpetrator tried to kill himself. Yeah. You're not the victim here. Yeah. And because Charlie doxed him or put his details online Yeah. That became the main story. Yeah. And people are, like, criticizing Alex for it. I'm like Yeah. Wait.

40:26Oti: Who's the victim again in this? Yeah. So this idiot can do whatever he wants online, but we can't say who he is and why he's doing that because what? I fucking hate the media. And I was like, bloody. That was that was annoying.

40:40KT: And that's why I say, aside from John Cena, I'm not fucking here for peacemakers. Because if the current state is disadvantaging and willfully ignoring the pain of all people, then fucking get in the bin. With your whole chest, if you are saying shit online,

40:58KT: you should be able to say it out in public and everyone to know who the fuck you are. So

40:58Oti: Well, do in stadiums.

41:05KT: Because I guess let's let's bring it to also a real level. I'll leave your football alone, but even with AFL, with Adam Goodes. Right? A young girl hurling insults at him, but he ended up being the bad person in that example. He ended up copping a lot of it. Not the parents that potentially taught her, not not the environment that she was brought up in, not the comfortability

41:27KT: that white Australia has that a little kid can go out there and call him all of those names. None of that. It was all about the angry black man pointing out the injustice. Oh, she's just a little girl. Fuck off. Little girls turn into Rachel, the prime minister. Fuck off.

41:44Oti: I'm with you on that. That was shitty. And turning the story to be, oh,

41:49Oti: it was a little girl who's the victim.

41:49KT: No, it's not. I guess I I guess also going back to the show, we have one of the independent MPs, Gloria. And, you know, she found a connection with Alex and she was talking about, you know, cyberbullying and how that's kind of her bastion for her candidacy.

42:07KT: Right? And she turned her back on Alex as well, which made no fucking sense because she knew all the facts. She knew it was all there. She saw all of the hate. It's not like they were all secret messages. They were on public forums as well. Yeah. Like, she said, she knew that it was wrong. She admitted as much, but her long game of, oh, this is what I base my political. But, yeah, what happens to doxing, whatever it is for someone who spews hate

42:37KT: Yeah. Is not fucking bullying. It's just naming the shame, and and I'm here for it all day, every day. I guess at the end of the day, if we wanna talk about the ABCs, the a stands for accountability. Mhmm. Like like literally just own what you say. Like you said, if you're gonna say it with your full chest, you're going to need to bear the consequences. And also also also also, I understand we're living in a world where you can't just go out and punch people on the street. I understand that. However,

43:06KT: if I were to have a qualm with the penmanship in this show, perhaps it's also considering that it is going to be for all consumption and maybe it'll make white people uncomfortable. However, I hated that Alex just just as soon as she met the parents,

43:22KT: she felt bad for him. I fucking hated that. Don't humanize him.

43:22Oti: Yeah. And I think they're trying to add a different layer to it that, oh, these people are just people like you and me. Yeah. They are. But I think with me, I'm very staunch on the fact that action should have consequences. And whatever shit you try to puppetry out there, it should have the consequences come back and not feel like, oh, I'm protected by, be it free speech.

43:51Oti: Yeah. If it's just free speech and you're speaking shit

43:51KT: But people can have free speech in your free speech direction.

43:51Oti: Exactly.

43:51KT: It's not a one way street. That's how fucking free speech works. All these all these people talking about indoctrination and it's like you've indoctrinated to the colonized Christian community. Fuck off.

43:51Oti: Facts, man. Facts.

43:51KT: Maybe this is why I don't watch political dramas because I get too angry. Go and watch The Shield and go and listen to our The Shield episode. Walton Goggins, are you enjoying him in Righteous Gemstones?

44:26Oti: I am. And as soon as he said ABC, was thinking angles, battles, and koochies.

44:26KT: I don't wanna know.

44:26Oti: Watch The Righteous Gemstones. It's bloody good.

44:37KT: Does it address the whiteness in the room or not?

44:37Oti: Not really.

44:37KT: It's not It's not a show for me then.

44:46KT: But how did you feel I I guess you kind of answered the question, but I'm right I'm talking about like from a writing point of view. How did you feel about that? Do you think that do you think it was a strategic thing because I didn't want people hating like Deborah Mailman as Alex Irving? I don't know. Maybe I just thought that it was a cop out because I wanted to have heads roll. Maybe that that was me being naive as well. But it's like you want some sort of redemption. If we can't get it in the fucking real world. Especially since it's been building up since the first, like, three episodes or

44:46Oti: Just

45:16Oti: for you to forgive and turn the other cheek. Yeah. We're not Jesuses out here. We don't turn shit.

45:23KT: Let's let's talk about Alex's son, Eddie. Because he was going through some heavy fucking shit. Yeah. And

45:31Oti: I like fully accepted his sort of rebellion because who wouldn't? Yeah. With everything that he's been through, he had to watch he he's seen the young girl die in front of him, you know, like, it's not worth. He sees all the bullying, the mother cops. He cop some bullying as well at school. There's a bastard trying to run him over. Like, let him just relax and be who he wants to be.

45:31KT: Yeah. Absolutely.

45:56KT: How did you feel about because Alex was so busy. Right? But there's also a component of, you know, young indigenous children being taken away from their parents. Right? And there's also a talk about Alex's mom being a part of the stolen generation. Right? So there's a there's a weighty long history and painful long history

46:18KT: about young indigenous children being taken away from their parents. So even though it was going to a well beloved family member, it still didn't hurt. Like, it didn't it didn't stop the hurt and it didn't stop the sting from it. And I I hated it when like the child services came around and everything felt so fucking pointed. Like

46:39KT: how do the how do all the other politicians, Ramsey, like how does everyone else go out and have a fulfilling career and not neglect their children? Why is it in this direction?

46:39Oti: Yeah. It's it's Charlie's ideology of playing nice because

46:53Oti: you do that, people take advantage and and calling child services on hold, that was fucked up. And you still have to play nice after that. Yeah. And you can't really do anything about it. And I don't know. The walker was like, I'm sure she's just doing her job, but you could never she

47:08Oti: doesn't have the luxury of taking it lightly when it comes to a kid's land being at stake. So Yeah. Be it a shit complaint, you just have to follow through because you never know.

47:08KT: Yeah. But it's it's I guess it's those tethers and that's what's frustrating

47:21KT: to me about Charlie is because he could have he and all of everyone could have been the best fucking person around, but it doesn't fucking matter. And that's the difference between personal responsibility. You can't personal responsibility yourself out of institutionalized

47:37KT: racism.

47:37Oti: 100%.

47:39KT: Charlie something else. We've already mentioned spoilers. Let's come to the end of the show. How do you think Charlie fares? Do you think he ends up dying?

47:39Oti: No. He seemed like he's gonna be fine. He was stabbed on the right side of the chest.

47:54Oti: It didn't seem fatal.

47:55Oti: So I think if there was gonna be a season three, he'd still be there.

47:55KT: Alright. I thought it was a way to write him out for Firebite.

47:55Oti: No. I don't think so.

47:55KT: It was a lot. It was very dramatic. How do you feel at the end?

47:55Oti: I am hoping we get a season three. How about you?

47:55KT: Me too. Woo hoo hoo, friends and lovers. Thank you for joining us. Just like the show, our podcast provides multifaceted in-depth analysis

48:22KT: on the current state of the clusterfuck of a world. We're gonna finish up in a segment we call For Your Reference,

48:29KT: Oti.

48:29Oti: I'm gonna reference Peter Capaldi's Thick of It. It's one of the most funniest shit you'll ever see.

48:40KT: Right on the vein of it, riding the vein of it, I will reference another Australian show, Utopia. Woo hoo. Nice. If you'd like to, woo hoo. Yeehaw.

48:51Oti: On Twitter and Instagram, we're at fyrpod. Right. That's an email at hello fyrpodcast dot com.

48:56KT: We're also on I've only ever referred to Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair's intergalactic international treasures podcast if you like to leave rating and review. And we'll see you guys next week. See you. Bye.