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One of the most odious conceits of the luvvy class is that they are always, infallibly, ‘on the right side of history’. Never mind that when I hear that grating phrase I immediately think of Cabaret’s preening Hitler Youth singing, “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”, history ought to be a sobering reminder of just how often the luvvy-lefties of the ‘yartz’ establishment have backed the most dreadful people and ideologies in history.
Fascism, for instance, had deep roots in the Futurist arts movement. Beyond European shores, Hollywood loved Mussolini in the 1920s, Thomas Doherty, professor of American studies at Brandeis University, has noted.
Columbia Pictures proposed Italian fascism as a punctual alternative to the clumsy inefficiency of American democracy in a 76-minute compilation of newsreel clips of Il Duce, Mussolini Speaks (1933), “described and interpreted” by NBC radio commentator Lowell Thomas and edited and compiled by Jack Cohn. The precredit inscription reads: “This picture is dedicated to a man of the people whose deeds for his people will ever be an inspiration to all mankind.”
It wasn’t just Hollywood. In a now-excised verse of “You’re the Top”, Cole Porter compared the object of his affections to Mussolini. “I’m pretty high on that bird,” aviation hero Charles Lindbergh said.
Hollywood’s love affair with authoritarians extended to the worst mass-murderers in history. Dalton Trumbo was just one of its legion of fanatical devotees of the Stalinist regime. Later on, the arts class were just as ga-ga for Mao. In the ’60s and ’70s, they hosted parties for the murderous, racist, gangsters of the Black Panthers, and feted the paedophile ‘philosophers’ of the nascent ‘Queer’ movement. Just a decade or so later, they’re grooming children with Queer Theory and feting ‘virtuous paedophiles’.
Now, they’re all-in with the slime of humanity yet again: this time, religio-fascist anti-Semites.
Archibald and Sulman Prize winning painter Tim Storrier has accused cultural leaders and artists of “callous” indifference and a lack of “moral courage” over the sector’s rising antisemitism, a “disturbing” trend he attributes to the growth of “woke” identity politics.
In a provocative address to the Sydney Institute think tank to be delivered on Wednesday night, Storrier says he is “deeply concerned by what I see as the increasing marginalisation of Jewish Australians within significant parts of our cultural life”.
The NSW Southern Highlands landscape painter – one of the country’s leading artists – says the culture industry is increasingly driven by ideology and identity politics rather than by aesthetic judgment. He adds: “We have arrived at an unfortunate alliance of convenience: the ‘woke’, LGBTQIA+, indigenous, feminists, progressives and radical Islam, and I believe it is from this that a culture of hatred for Jews has emerged, sadly, yet again.’’
This, if nothing else, is appalling ingratitude from these pampered ninnies. The Jewish Australian community has long been a leading supporter – and financer – of the arts. From the Sydney Myer Music Bowl to a roster of theatre companies and galleries, Jewish Australians have done more the arts in this country than 50 years of government grants.
Noting how Jewish gallerist Gisella Schienberg of Sydney’s Holdsworth Galleries gave him his first solo show in 1971, Storrier says “Jewish Australians have shaped our theatres, galleries, publishing, music, and intellectual life disproportionately – not because of privilege, but because of commitment to education, debate and cultural seriousness. That is why the silence of so many within the arts community is so distressing.’’
The nasty, ungrateful, spiteful brats of the arts community are spitting in their faces.
The artist, who characterises his hard-hitting address as a personal reflection, claims that when a series of 2024 and 2025 concerts by singer Deborah Conway and her husband Willy Zygier was cancelled, the duo, who are pro-Israel, were being “targeted because they are Jewish’’. Conway, he says, “encountered the same callous indifference from parts of the music industry that I have observed across the wider arts sector – a reluctance to stand up for Jewish artists … and a readiness to abandon individuals’’.
Or worse. Never forget the roster of ‘luminaries’ of the Australian arts establishment, from odious misandrist Clammy Ford, to children’s book author and illustrator Matt Chun, who eagerly circulated the infamous ‘Jew List’, doxxing Jewish Australian creatives.
Still, if there’s one faint silver lining in all this, it may be that it’s bringing down yet another of the leftist Nuremberg rallies laughingly called ‘writers festivals’.
Could it be the Sydney Writers Festival’s turn to implode under the runaway power of radioactive Randa Abdel-Fattah?
The festival’s decision to host the pro-Palestinian writer at its literary jamboree in May sparked widespread condemnation this week.
Even better, it’s hitting them where it really hurts – in the hip pocket.
On Wednesday the list of “supporters” on the Sydney Writers’ Festival page mysteriously vanished, to be replaced by a “404 Error!” message and a cute quote from Margaret Atwood.
“In my dreams of this city I am always lost,” it reads.
It’s more of a nightmare for organisers, and one entirely of their own making.
Margin Call understands that shortly after Abdel-Fattah was unveiled as a speaker, KPMG got in touch with the festival to ask their name be removed from the website […]
Will others follow suit? Margin Call reckons it’s a pretty safe bet.
Here’s hoping it will bring it down, as it did its South Australian incestuous sibling – and may it just be the beginning of the end for them all.
