Ken Parked
Margaret Pomeranz, David Stratton and the battle against film censorship
All-round legend and blooming lovely soul Alexei Toliopoulos, host of The Last Video Store podcast, was obsessed with watching Australian cinema hero Margaret Pomeranz on SBS’s The Movie Show when he was a kid, following her and also-heroic co-host David Stratton over to ABC’s At the Movies (That’s a whole other story).
Pomeranz’ gravel-voiced rasp, clip-on earrings, abundant enthusiasm for Australian cinema and exasperated cries of “Ohhhh Daaaaviiid” are the stuff of legend, enthralling a movie-obsessed, 12-year-oldToliopoulos, who held her up as an icon. Especially during one fateful show, just after the rev-head was done torturing Stratton with a hooning review for 2 Fast 2 Furious, Pomeranz spoke up vociferously in favour of Larry Clark and Ed Lachman’s eyebrow-rousingly profane ‘banned’ film of teenage debauchery, Ken Park.
Except thanks to a valiant battle from then Sydney Film Festival artistic director Stratton, you can no longer ban films in Australia the same way that John Waters’ scatologically perfect Pink Flamingos and Pasolini’s, well, *everything out there* Salo were subjected to. Several times. Often in one year.
Instead, the Australian Classification Board must offer guidance on every film, leaving it up to the viewer what they feel up to imbibing, with film festivals exempt from the process, allowed to screen unclassified fare from all corners of the world and propriety.
Only there’s a loophole, a mighty big one that the cops dove right through during a monumental battle for the soul of cinema, sick or otherwise, that thrust Pomeranz onto the frontline with Stratton and his nephew waving from the sidelines of Sydney’s Balmain Town Hall.
Censorship’s a drag
This clash of the titan forms the basis of Toliopoulos and fellow comic genius Zachary Ruane of Aunty Donna infamy’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, Refused Classification. And you must run to see it immediately.
Borrowing liberally – with permission, presumably – from Simon Miraudo’s brilliant Book of the Banned, it’s a madcap drag show of sorts in which Toliopoulos assumes Pomeranz’ identity to Ruane’s Stratton. And a bunch of other folks, including the questionable Clark, cops and one very irritating former pollie and religious figure.
And it’s outrageously funny from the off, particularly in its anarchic embrace of an entirely unrelated fantasy franchise that may or may not involve a very breathy monologue from our Cate Blanchett. You know the one (ring). How on earth either of the makes it through a very physical hour of comedy, given the profuse amounts of sweat drenching through suits, wigs and chest hair, I’ll never know.
While some will tut-tut about the art of drag supposedly demeaning women – utter nonsense – Toliopoulos and Ruane’s adoration for a durry-huffing Pomeranz –and a putting-it-on-serious Stratton – is abundantly clear.
As both a specific tribute to Australian film heroes and history and a universal clarion call to fight censorship in all its most insidious forms, Refused Classification is an uproarious adventure that reverberates all the more in these increasingly puritan times. Heading to Brisbane and Perth next, and hopefully onward from there, it’s a salient reminder that we all must shore up our cultural trenches, whether we like a certain artwork or not.
Because if you let them come for one, who knows what’s next. Don’t do the Dark Lord’s bidding, dingbats.