peoplewantducks

The Tribal Mind: The cool acid test

by David Dale
The horror writer Stephen King recently ventured beyond his area of expertise to discuss who is cool and uncool in the entertainment industry, provoking this column to attempt a similar foolish exercise for Australia.

Writing in Entertainment Weekly magazine, King doesn't define his terms, but apparently a cool person does his or her own thing with competence and flair, without caring how it looks to others. King says Jack Nicholson, Holly Hunter and Morgan Freeman are always cool, even in bad movies, while "the best consistely uncool actor" is Tom Hanks on the male side and Charlize Theron on the female side.

King continues ... "In 3:10 to Yuma, it's the hat. Russell Crowe is cool because of the hat. But here's the thing -- you or I could wear that hat and not be cool. It's Russell Crowe under the hat that makes it cool.

"On TV, Prison Break isn't very good, but it has stayed cool. Battlestar Galactica? Was cool; last season started out cool, then warmed up. It may regain its coolness factor, but probably not; that rarely happens. Lost has stayed cool because it's so weird ...

"There's no rhyme or reason to the coolness thing. Look at politicians, the ultimate entertainers. Barack Obama is cool. Hillary Clinton, who will probably win the Democratic Party's nomination to run for president, is not. "

In Australia the only cool politician is Bob Brown, but that's not this column's department. Here's our first annual listing ...

The coolest people in Australian entertainment:
1 Shaun Micallef
2 Julia Zemiro
3 Justine Clarke
4 Frank Woodley
5 Juanita Phillips
6 Chris Taylor
7 Glenn Robbins
8 Sonia Kruger
9 Shane Bourne
10 Cate Blanchett.

Being cool requires a certain elusiveness, which is why Cate Blanchett is almost Not There. She seems to have developed the ability to walk red carpets simultaneously on three continents. We need to see a lot less of her this year if she's to make next year's cool list.

Same problem for Sonia Kruger. Although anybody would look interesting when placed next to Daryl Somers (who shares with Eddie McGuire the title of Least Cool Person on Australian Television), Kruger earned her spot on the list through a quality of mischievous nonchalance that is now being diluted by too-frequent appearances on morning radio. Much depends on who becomes her support host on this year's Dancing With The Stars.

This is not to say that Micallef and Zemiro got the top spots because their SBS shows attracted fewer than 400,000 viewers last year. There's more to them than cult appeal. Like Frank Woodley, they have a deep-seated strangeness that makes them eternally intriguing.

Like Juanita Phillips, Justine Clarke exudes a calm intelligence in all her endeavours -- -- singing on Play School, frowning in Look Both Ways and The Surgeon, and playing straightman to Richard Roxburgh in the play Toy Symphony.

Shane Bourne is cool in City Homicide and not cool in Thank God You're Here (because he's overshadowed by the likes of Micallef, Woodley and Zemiro). The Chaser boys stayed semi-cool despite their success last year, but Chris Taylor made the list because he seems to seek fame less than the others. The key to cool is not wanting to be.

Who else would you include on the 2008 list of Australia's coolest?

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. For further observations of Australian attitudes and behaviour, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.
Posted by David Dale
January 21, 2008 10:51 AM

bbcentral

"It's strange to have a segment consisting entirely of American newsreaders mentioning our name," says Shaun Micallef, anchor of upcoming comedy news program Newstopia, on SBS. "With Port Arthur there was almost this sense that we've made it; that we're up there with any number of mass shootings across the world."

This is pretty spot on, if something big happens they'll not only cover the incident, but also the press coverage of the incident!

This perverse pride is not the only quirk of our TV news. There's our tendency to laud disaster victims as heroes even before they've demonstrated courage. ("All you have to do is survive," Micallef says). World news is crammed into a 90-second overview. And how many other countries devote half their bulletins to sport?

Isn't it amazing how only 10 minutes of newsworthy events happen on the weekend around the entire world? And then at 6:10pm we have to hear about how some football player stubbed his toe and might miss a few games. Or 5 minutes of discussion about some guy's groin...

Why? Well, his absurdist, Python-esque flourishes are a world away from the f-words and Frankston jokes of most Australian comics. He doesn't even do stand-up. As producer Gary Reilly once put it, he's a "come-to-me" comedian.

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Hi all, just found this fantastic community and being a massive Micallef fan as I am I thought id' join up. As you may have all ready detected my favorite of Shaun's characters is the ex welter weight boxing champion by forfeit Milo Kerrigan! I also like David McGhan, Fabio (and his dance) and practically everything Shaun has ever done.

 So apart from the radio show and TGYH I haven’t been seeing much of him lately. I definitely think he should get back into another show; directing, writing, acting or maybe a tour. Anyone else agree?