Fly-by Art Attack Does Not Stack Up
The Sunday Age
Sunday October 9, 2005
YOU have to hand it to the ABC. The broadcaster's latest attempt at a magazine-style arts show manages to both dumb down arts coverage and sneer patronisingly at viewers. If you were hoping to further alienate those who believe the arts are not for them and who suspect that those in the arts are a bunch of insular wankers, you couldn't do much better than the new Tuesday night program Vulture.
Using a panel format - which seems to be the ABC's default format right now - Vulture neither enlightens nor informs, nor does it analyse in any depth the rush of topics presented in its half-hour time-slot. The show ends up being, as one respondent to Vulture's website so aptly put it, like "the dinner party from hell". Anyone who watched the second instalment of Vulture on Tuesday will know exactly what that anonymous emailer (identified only as "bored!") meant. The show started off well enough, with host Richard Fidler launching into an important contemporary issue - the Howard Government's severe new anti-terror laws and their potential effect on writers and artists. One might have been forgiven for thinking that after the lacklustre inaugural episode things were looking up. No such chance. The discussion rapidly descended into a shrill stoush, with panellists speaking over each other, cutting each other off, making smart-arse jibes and provocative comments, seemingly trying to outwit each other. So much noise, and yet so little was added to viewers' understanding of anti-terror laws and whether they might, at best, usher in an era of artistic timidity and self-censorship, or at worst, place artists at risk of legal action for mouthing ideas counter to the Howard-Bush view of the world. This was too important a topic to be dismissed in a frenzied two-minute repartee. Either treat the topic seriously, or don't raise it at all.Analysis and information is sacrificed in favour of gags, heated squabbles and send-ups which, I assume, are supposed to be entertaining. If only they were. Tuesday night's skit about poet Les Murray was diabolically unfunny. Australian artists are not sacrosanct, but the least they deserve is to be sent up with more wit.I've tried to be generous about Vulture, I really have. I've given the show two weeks, and was hoping that finally the ABC might have come up with a decent replacement to all its other ill-fated art shows. But previous shows, including Express, which ended in 1999, have been far better than this. At least host Stephen Feneley knew how to be provocative and informative. It's hard to understand how Vulture could go so wrong. The show has a capable host in Fidler, a more than capable executive producer in Guy Rundle. Some of the panellists have proven records in arts commentary and bring interesting perspectives, particularly critic and columnist Peter Craven and Text Publishing's Michael Williams. Yet two weeks in, the panel was already sounding tired. The only new face was columnist and occasional radio host Helen Razer, and while I enjoy much of Razer's writing, I found her performance on Tuesday night excruciating. National Gallery of Victoria program co-ordinator Helen Thorn, meanwhile, could hardly get a word in. That talented people could produce such a dire program is baffling and disappointing. Perhaps the producers need to cover less ground and deal with issues in more depth. Vary the panel - maybe fresh faces are needed each week. And please, improve the comedy routines. If you don't want to treat the arts with respect, at least treat the audience with some.
© 2005 The Sunday Age