Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Titles are hard. I got nothing, but I'm sure it will be fine.

Gina has been slated as referring to the Australian worker as lazy, indulgent and overly entitled. Honestly I cannot dispute those claims on an international level. We get the second most paid leave in our region and are well up there on the international level.
Remember that year in which a public holiday, ANZAC day I believe, fell on a Saturday and the government didn't let the public holiday carry over to the following Monday? for those of you that don't remember, everyone went absolutely berserk, it was called "un-Australian" and treated as if it was a massive, shameful, disgrace to our country as a whole.
For the longest time we were able to behave this way as we were virtually unrivalled in terms of production exports, now that is no longer the case and we want to keep out industry while not working at the levels or our competitors, well, we can dream at least right? How about we go full ostrich syndrome and hide our heads in the sand and hope the problem just goes away? That might work...



"My plan is to hide under a pile of everyone else's coats and just hope that everything all works out somehow."
- Homer Simpson, the Simpsons (episode 3, season 5, Homer goes to college)

What Gina said essentially equated to "work hard and sacrifice is the most likely way to get rich", which does sound a bit hypocritical coming from someone who effortlessly inherited such an immense starting capital that it would actually be difficult NOT to succeed.
But we all hate her based on how perceive her, how she is represented in the media. We only see the things they show us, that they let us see, that they want us to see. But they wouldn't have an agenda against her right? its not like she has been trying to muscle her way into their industry resulting in yet another shark in the tank for them to contend with or something... oh wait what?

Not saying that is the case, and definitely not trying to say she would treat the media with the respect it deserves should she succeed. Just raising the point that perhaps the current media's motivations towards their portrayal of her might not be quite so noble as the pure ideal of "Truth".

Another discussion that could arise from this topic is whether or not public figures are entitled to a private life,  which could really go either way. Sure it seems fair that they get their alone time, but if they truly need their time off screen it suggests that the public image is merely a persona they assume when being watched by the masses, are they perhaps lying to us? Only one way to find out isn't there, and now we're back where we started.

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