Stories about: media
It’s a horrific experience, editing print deadlines, and one of the lesser-known challenges of old-school journalism. I’ve just sent my seventh issue of Archer Magazine to the printers, and the bad news is, it doesn’t get any easier. The good news is there are coping mechanisms that might help you keep it together (or not). I’m …
Member of poetry duo Darkmatter, Alok Vaid-Menon, chats to us about performance, faggotry and being freakishly queer. This is an excerpt from Archer Magazine #7, the THEY/THEIRS issue. Q: How has your trip to Australia been so far? Politically and racially, everyone has a different idea of what’s going on here. US frameworks around race, …
Alex Lahey is a singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Australia who is having a pretty fantastic year. From winning the $7,500 Josh Pyke Partnership and playing on the stages of Splendour in the Grass festival to the release of a seriously successful debut EP, Lahey is getting a lot of love from the music industry. I meet …
As an author, taboo is a tricky field to navigate. My desensitisation to certain words and scenarios has been altered through my research and experiences. Depictions of violence, gore and sexual content fuel my curiosity to see how such descriptions guide readers into deciding what is acceptable in narrative and what is taboo. Queer literature …
Step behind the scenes on our fashion shoot for the transgender and non-binary issue of Archer Magazine, out December 2016.
Transgender children in the media: telling responsible stories
Transgender children have been the focus of considerable media attention in Australia over the past two years. Two examples this year are episodes of Australian Story and 60 Minutes, where viewers shared in the journeys of Georgie, Emma and Izzie, three transgender teenagers. The episodes highlight how the media can either contribute to or inhibit the …
The fourth annual Queer Screen Film Fest is around the corner, kicking off in Sydney on 20 September. In addition to 12 films at Event Cinemas George Street, the festival includes a free screening of Inside Out (one of our favourites) in Sydney Park (18 Sep), and screenings in Canberra and the Blue Mountains in October. To get the low-down …
JD Samson is best known as a member of electroclash band Le Tigre and the art/performance collective MEN. She helped form the Dykes Can Dance troupe, and contributed to Broadly documentary The Last Lesbian Bars. Lottie Turner interviewed JD Samson for issue #6 of Archer Magazine, which you can buy here for the modest price …
Dale Woodbridge-Brown is a queer Kamilaroi man from Mungindi, trained in acrobatics, flying trapeze, baton twirling, and dance. He joined Circus Oz in 2012, and is the MC for the currently touring Twentysixteen show. A: Being queer, being a Kamilaroi man, do you see your performance, your acrobatics and MCing as a way of giving …
Archer Asks: Cash Savage chats to her wife, Amy Middleton, editor of Archer Magazine
Cash Savage is a country-blues musician and a Melbourne institution. Her new album, One of Us, is currently at #1 on the Australian community radio charts. Here, she is interviewed by her wife Amy Middleton, founding editor of Archer Magazine, about her national tour, being a woman in music, politics and married life. Q: Hi …
ORDER ARCHER MAGAZINE #6 HERE “We know what ‘she’ isn’t. ‘She’ is not a uterus. ‘She’ is not having a child, or being a daughter. ‘She’ is not always paid less, though she is more likely to be. ‘She’ may change her pronouns; perhaps many times. We do know that gender is highly complex, entirely individual, …
On International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), it’s important to consider how the representations of homophobia, biphobia, interphobia and transphobia in our news and fictional media are impacting how we view these issues, and how they affect queer youth. The way we position trans youth in relation to their families paints a …
I have been thinking a lot lately about my own body hair, hair in general, and how media censorship is particularly harsh on pubic hair. Canadian artist and writer Petra Collins had her Instagram account deleted over an image of pubic hair. She responded with a great article on censorship and the female body …
In this photo essay, photographer Charlie Brophy captures the youthful characters and playful antics of her first forays into sharehouse living. There was a sense of youthful innocence in most of the sharehouses I entered from the age of 18. Each housemate enthusiastically explored new possibilities and ‘first times’, and I became obsessed with that freedom …
Lady Sings It Better is a comedic cabaret made up of four women who perform misogynistic songs by the likes of Robin Thicke, Usher, and Nine Inch Nails. This tongue-in-cheek cabaret quartet is bringing their show to the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and Charlotte Long caught up with one of their members, Maeve Marsden, for a …
Esther Godoy is the editor of a new zine, Butch is not a dirty word, which had its launch in Melbourne in March. Lottie Turner caught up with Esther to find out more about the project. A: Tell us about BINADW? EG: Butch is not a dirty word is a publication that celebrates butch identity and culture.Whilst we …
Trans visibility, Safe Schools and living vulnerable: fighting back against the demonising of Transgender people
Today is Transgender Day of Visibility. It is a day – like many other such ‘days’ – that celebrates or makes prominent something in the public mind. For a day. Of course, the people who are represented by these days are living the issues associated with it every other day. International Women’s Day, for instance, is …
Deciding which films to attend with the myriad on offer at this year’s Melbourne Queer Film Festival? Don’t stress – we’ve made this painstaking task easy. Here are our top picks: Chemsex London’s hedonistic gay club scene is saturated with drugs, thumping music and men who want to fuck. Documentary Chemsex examines the intersection between sexuality …
It bubbles. The sensation in my ear is just like the pop rocks mixed with Pepsi I had as a kid – explosive, intense and overwhelming. That percolating noise my phone makes when the other person is typing a message to me is my kryptonite. The simple circular shapes as someone is typing their message is …
“When are you going to stop writing about [Insert issue]?” An author’s guide to writing about your own oppression, part two
This is the second in a two-part series from author Charles O’Grady, whose play Kaleidoscope is currently showing in Sydney as part of the Official Mardi Gras program. Part one can be read here. 5. Everyone will assume everything you write is about you One of my best friends from high school came to see Kaleidoscope. …
“When are you going to stop writing about [insert issue]?” – an author’s guide to writing about your own oppression
This is the first in a two-part series from author Charles O’Grady, whose play Kaleidoscope is currently showing in Sydney as part of the Official Mardi Gras program. Part two can be read here. It’s hard to forget the very first time you share work with others that concerns your own identity. For me, it …
Writer/Director Julie Kalceff has created a world where intense, emotional and intimate relationships between lesbians are explored without using sexuality in a dramatic way to drive the narrative.