Drawn And Pale

WHEN Eric Jolliffe is remembered at all these days, it is as a minor bush artist and cartoonist for the long-gone Pix magazine, a slightly racier rival to Australasian Post, also no longer at the newsagent. Times and sensitivities have changed so much it comes as something of a shock to unearth samples of the sketcher's handiwork, like the cartoon below, which probably dates from the Fifties or Sixties. If Joliffe was thought shocking in those primmer times, it was mostly for his pert-breasted cheesecake, not his racist and chocolate cheesecake. (follow the link to see this and other full-size Jolliffe cartoons).

"I'll have to reduce or nothing I've got'll fit me!"

A minor figure in what the academy is even now making a major discipline, the depiction of Aboriginality, Jolliffe might be worth  a dissertation or two at most, and then only at LaTrobe.  There is another side to Jolliffe, however, one that came to light only with today's re-publication by Andrew Bolt of a young doctor's biographical profile. It seems Jolliffe was also something of a seer and prophet. Judging by the caption and the pair of proto-hippies coming over the rise, the below cartoon must have been sketched not long before the 1967 referendum.

 "When we get a job, a vote and are civilised -- will we have to look like that"

(Again, apologies for the cartoons' size. For some reason Blogger cannot render them large as the originals)

Well here we are, forty-plus years on, and Aborigines really can "look like that" -- right down to striking all but administrators of grants and scholarships (and Federal Court judges) as being entirely white.

"Leila was admitted to medicine as part of the indigenous program."

And Witchetty's Tribe?  It is true they now have the vote, but they're still black, still in the bush, still jobless -- and still regarded by too many patronising and civilised eyes as little more than caricatures. It is a cruel joke, one that makes the dated innocence of Jolliffe's bad taste seem as nothing at all.

Mills Bomb

IT IS not entirely original, being inspired as the author announces by a satire published by Granta in 2002, but Jennifer Mills' “How To Write About Aboriginal Australia” is well worth reading. Oh, and it is in Overland, which makes it even more remarkable. Finally, the taxpayer is  getting a little something in return for those six-figure sums the magazine receives from the Literature Board. That assistance, by the way, is vital to our nation's vibrant political conversation, as Overland might say. Without it, editor Jeff Sparrow might not find the time to brand Israel a despotism and its supporters fascists, which he did to the applause of the Max Brenner blockaders  last Saturday on the steps of the State Library.

Here is one small slice of Mills' Overland essay, followed by a video that that makes her point wincingly well:

…talk about how you were adopted by the tribe as family and given a skin name and how this made you feel that you belonged in Australia for the first time. Sprinkle your article liberally with skin names.

Now, fast forward to the 1:30 mark to enjoy the best bit.

Going by some of her other thoughts, Mills would likely make a difficult (and very annoying) guest at a Billabong barbie. That said, you cannot fault her keen eye.