On Desire, Football Fanaticism, and Why Detectives Dulcie Collins and Eddie Redcliffe are National Treasures
Guest post by Yazmin Bradley
Hello saucy minxes,
I’ve been lucky enough to guest appear on Read, Watch, Binge. And guess where I’m taking us? That’s right: Queer Town. Destination: The Ladies. Population: Me and the entire Matildas team. Currency? It’s just Fiona Shaw’s face on the back of a coin.
If it’s your first time reading my work, then hello. My name is Yazmin (she/her) and I’m an Australian writer on Dharug land. I’m halfway through a Master of Creative Writing although my background is in international relations and the film industry which I may or may not have dramatically exited with many tears, pomp, and fanfare. But more on that another time.
As I become more comfortable in my own queerness throughout my life, I am finding a lot of solace in queer media. And my, oh my, it is deliciously wonderful. I’m talking sci-fi genre bending books kind of wonderful, national athletes breaking world records kind of wonderful, and satirical odd-pair detectives in small Tasmanian towns kind of wonderful.
It’s me mid-shoving a packet of chips into my gob screaming at the pub whenever Sam Kerr gets on screen, “GOD I LOVE WOMEN.” It’s me sobbing my little heart out over a piece of artwork I’ve never even heard of thanks to the electric novella by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. It’s me quoting, “She’s fucking diabolical!” every time I see a woman exceed in something. This media is important. It’s clever. It’s magical. It’s game-changing.
And perhaps it’s seeing my own desire reflected on screen or on paper instead of the desire of me. The focalised becomes the focaliser, the eyes which normally bore into me are diverted, reflected onto a complicated lattice of mirrors which line up to a tiny clay talisman right at the height of the winter solstice to open up a secret cave of wonders: mountains of trophies and idols that I’ve squirrelled away, feelings and gut-churning emotions I had pretended to banish. They’re all still here, they never went away. And now it’s time to tend to the fullness of me (armed with a feather duster and coconut and lime room spray).
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
I picked up this wee queer novella from my library earlier this year in a bid to support my own book-buying ban (which is going terribly I don’t want to talk about it) and I’d heard this title being thrown around Bookstagram. Now, for the record, I don’t particularly trust Bookstagram’s recommendations. Nearly all of them I’ve disliked or been disappointed by but I was deeply intrigued by the fact that this book had been co-authored, namely by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Co-writing is something that really interests me. The siren song had begun.
Flash forward two days later and safe to say I was in a state of shock. I was curled up in my bed as I want to do (I’m an aspiring lady of leisure) and I felt that I had been rocked to my core. How can such an epic have been compressed into so small a book? How can the infiniteness of the universe, the ephemerality of time, be bound in two-hundred-and-eight pages? Yes, I repeat: in two-hundred-and-eight pages.
And, unfortunately, for you, I’m not going to give you a blurb. That’s right. No blurb. It’s the kind of thing that is better with no expectations and no understanding. Let yourself be dazzled.
This Is How You Lose the Time War is one of those rare books that lovingly bashes you over the head with its brilliance. I felt at once gloriously, profoundly stupid and ecstatically smart. It was visceral, bloated, tight, exhausting, uplifting, a tiny volume of the human condition.
In regards to worldbuilding I also found it astounding that so little was explained (so little needed to be) and yet I understood complex, abstract rules: in This Is How You Lose the Time War, the future of time, of the universe, is a plait, is a woven thing. It didn’t waste time on hard science, instead it leant into images and the sensory and the visual to explain key and difficult concepts.
Something that I also adored was almost a sort of Chiaroscuro, an intense contrast of light and dark, of mouth bleeding, bone crunching imagery with soaring romantic ballads, the flower of time, the budding of life opening and closing. It also wove in intertextuality as tight and malleable as a sailor’s knot; it was a constant and delicious assault on the senses of literary, film, and cultural references.
In lieu of a blurb, I’ll leave you with my favourite quote so you can’t say I didn’t give you nothing:
Hunger, Red—to sate a hunger or to stoke it, to feel hunger as a furnace, to trace its edges like teeth—is this a thing you, singly, know? Have you ever had a hunger that whetted itself on what you fed it, sharpened so keen and bright that it might split you open, break a new thing out? Sometimes I think that’s what I have instead of friends.
The Matildas take on the World Cup (Women's FIFA World Champions match: Australia v England)
I’ve never much cared for soccer—apologies, football. But here Down Under, it really is called soccer. Don’t ask me why, I’ve told you already that I don’t really care much for it.
At least until now.
And I find it amazing how many women, straight and queer alike, have turned into raging football fanatics. In two weeks I went from not knowing any of our national team’s names to ordering a jersey with Ellie Carpenter’s name and number (#21 of course), watching every single game at the pub, listening to The Guardian’s women’s football podcast, and picking my teams for the European and Premier League (Olympique Lyonnais Féminin and Chelsea FC respectively). As a self-proclaimed die-hard Matildas fan, it’s been a busy two weeks.
I’ve said it time and time again, but watching the response to the Matildas is a great way to shut the naysayers up. Spend the money and the crowds will follow. The talent is already there (and then some), we just needed FIFA and Australia (luckily a co-host!) to lavish the team and coverage with oodles of money. And, look, we’re not quite at the oodles of money level yet but it’s a lot bloody better than before. And the result? Absolutely electric.
For those of you who missed it, the Australia v France game on Saturday night broke a number of records. First, it was the highest watched televised sporting event in Australia since Cathy Freeman won gold at the 2000 Olympics. And second? It was the longest penalty shootout in FIFA history, a whopping ten penalty kicks each. It was my mum’s first game too and she spent the majority of it screaming into her champagne glass and covering her eyes. We ended the night singing and cheering. Others were dancing on tables.
So what have I learnt over the course of this World Cup? The technicality and pure athleticism of our women’s team is second to none. I have genuinely been blown away by the footwork and the endurance (I’m talking about the mid-field powerhouse that is Emily van Egmond and rising superstar striker Mary Fowler) of the Matildas. It’s the kind of stuff that’s once in a lifetime. I want to be a rickety old lady tucked away in the corner of a coin laundry banging on about the World Cup of ‘23. Hang crazy cat lady give me crazy football lady.
In fact, I’m so committed that I’m about to start Matildas: The World At Our Feet, a documentary on how they’re not just smashing goals on the pitch but which also follows their personal lives and their LGBTQIA+ advocacy. The six-part series is available on Disney Plus. I’d advise a strong cup of tea and vegemite toast to accompany the viewing party.
If you want to check out our Minister of Defence in action (goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold) at the Australia v England semi-final match then tune into Vine Time, aka 8pm AEST on Wednesday the 16th of August. You can watch it from home, at a pub, in the loo doesn’t matter. Just make sure to bring your best shirt that you don’t mind staining with whatever beverage you’re sloshing (including water) and watch us do it ‘til it’s done’.
I’m not sure if it’s smart to start a glowing review with the statement, “At first I hated it and only the mild encouragement from my partner kept me watching,” but I think it’s important to start with a bit of objectivity.
Deadloch is a Prime original, the lovechild of Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, and gained notoriety for its controversial use of profanities (namely using the C-bomb with careless abandon). But it’s a choice about Deadloch that I absolutely loved since the context entirely merits such a copious overuse of the F-word. Australians swear. A lot. So much so that when the Two Kates pitched the show to Amazon, they included something called the ‘C*nt Manifesto’ which was a bound document explaining and justifying the Australian vernacular. Amazingly, Amazon greenlit it.
Hailed as ‘funny Broadchurch’ without the darker stuff, it is exactly that; a queer feminist noir spin on grizzled detectives with shady pasts and a long body count of dead women. As senior sergeant Dulcie Collins (played by the unflappable Kate Box) says to Police Commissioner Hastings when giving a rundown on the homicides:
It’s sharp, it’s funny, it’s downright bizarre yet still keeps us grounded in the ponderous melancholy of foggy, craggy Tasmania. I think my partner and I binged the entire thing over two days. A short rundown on the story is that Senior Sergeant Dulcie Collins (Box) and her wife, Cath York (Alicia Gardiner), moved to the bucolic town of Deadloch five years ago and local ‘legend’ Trent Latham (whom we are naturally dubious about) is found naked and murdered on the beach (said dubiousness is confirmed by his own name tattooed on his ribs). Dulcie, a former detective, is told to hold the fort until a ‘cowboy from Darwin arrives’; one Eddie Redcliff (the incomparable Madeleine Sami) and boy, oh boy, isn’t she a cowboy. It’s lewd jokes let off one after another as quick as a firecracker and general unprofessionalism in crap sandals and a t-shirt most likely pinched from the sale section of Lowes. As the body count rises, Dulcie and Eddie are forced to fend off a simmering town of angry men and an ever-doubtful office of sexist police officers all while zeroing in on the killer. One Guardian article described it as a ‘ripsnorting whodunnit pumps new blood into old tropes’; it’s got a Rotten Tomatoes score of 100% for the critics and 89% for the audience respectively.
But back to my original statement: the pilot was not great. It felt forced, it felt grating. Eddie Redcliffe (who I think I would genuinely take a bullet for) comes across like the world’s worst caricature like a crap version of comedian Carl Barron without the mild speaking manner. All the townsfolk felt like stereotypes at best (although I will admit that Shane McAngus felt alarmingly not like a stereotype, he unfortunately exists) and the pacing of the humour felt off.
But then everything somehow changed.
Deadloch found its feet. It went from absurd and ridiculous to witty, acerbic, lightning quick. There is a fantastic social critique that rears its head like a calculating snake. The characters settled as sediment does in a river bed, Dulcie and Eddie begin to play off each other in a way that feels like we’re going to catch the Bad Person with a few well timed (albeit) vulgar quips and a chiko roll from the servo. I think our titular women characters deserved to be enshrined as national heroes. They’re smart, they’re funny, they’re downright bonkers; they breathe life into Australian TV, something our media desperately needs.
The start of Deadloch reminds me a lot of the first season of Parks and Rec which, in my opinion, is entirely unfunny as is the first season of The Office (U.S.). But then look how both of those shows turned out: brilliant, warm, funny and touching comedies which had undercurrents of social and bureaucratic analysis.
And isn’t that the way with most things? With a little time and a little grace, don’t we all find our feet in the end?
Alright, that’s it from me! I want to hear down in the comments if you’ve been keeping up to date with the Women’s World Cup, any favourite players you’re harbour a crush on or whether you’re joining a local footy team. Has anyone read This Is How You Lose the Time War? Did you love or hate the florid prose that made this novella a sensory delight? Likewise has anyone binged Deadloch and does anyone also want to try Skye’s nose-to-tail fresh produce degustation experience because I know I do.
Ta!
Yaz
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