Draw as if no-one is watching

from w
Sometimes at meetings you just feel out of sorts and want to be 'the naughty girl in the class'. The topic was Human Rights, Racial and Religious Vilification laws, etc. and it was meant to be serious, but I had to ask 'What about cartoonists? It's their job to make people look stupid. To pick on people, even a cultural group at times?' Well, the two guest speakers - public relations (dowm to Geelong from Melbourne) scrabbled for their guidelines and eventually said that artists can be excused. Their presentation with powerpoint was by reading the texts in a monotone(which we already had in a handout) and utterly serious. Of course it is bad to pick on people, call them names, refuse to give them jobs, just because of their race, religion, looks, etc. I did a drawing, using one of those large yellow envelopes, drawing the two speakers quietly as if no-one was watching me!

I reckon that a presentation on this topic could have been really interesting - it is important - by telling stories, or even 5 minutes of the movie 'Gran Torino' where Clint Eastwood's character tells people to get off his lawn and calls the Hmong people next door names. That would have been a good starter for a discussion on harassment, racial vilification, neighbours, and so on. I thought it was an excellent film, one for senior students to watch and discuss.

A pity that our meeting last night wasn't better than speakers reading texts. Now next Tuesday I have to do a presentation at our Interfaith Women's group meeting - about 20 minutes on Human Rights in Fiji - so I know now not to be a know-all and give them ten pages of notes full of jargon from politics-speak.