"We'll decide
which lies
are the truth"

Miramax outrages Howards over Rabbit-Proof PR
Harold Hark
17 June 2002

Schoolyard bullies take note: there is no better role model in the world than John Howard's Coalition. The collective head of this many-tentacled network of shallow tyrants is ready to burst from outrage over Miramax Films marketing campaign for "Rabbit-Proof Fence," due for release in Umeruhca in August or later:

"What if the government kidnapped your daughter? It happened every week in Australia from 1905 to 1971."

Eric Abetz, Li'l Dubbya's special minister of state, has gone ballistic. Doesn't Miramax read the newspapers? For Thatcher's sake, didn't Australia's answer to Mr Magoo (without the good intentions) just return from a successful audience with America's answer to Cletus the slack-jawed yokel (without the rigorous intellectual perspicacity)? Did he blacken his boot-licking tongue for nothing?

How dare Miramax slur Australia's good name with the truth! According to Elaine Dutka of the Los Angeles Times, Abetz has demanded that Miramax apologise and desist from such scurrilous anti-Aussie propaganda, threatening to publish his own propaganda if they don't. Using that bottomless well of taxpayer funds for such purposes, Abetz no doubt has formulated a plan to hire hundreds of unemployed Umeruhcans to hand out his blackwhite pamphlets at each screening.

Miramax' Los Angeles based President, David Gill, has refused to pull the promo, citing what wowsers the world over never seem to comprehend, that a little scandalous publicity is the only way films outside the blockbuster loop ever get seen.

Who knows, the Howeirds may go so far as to sue Miramax. Hey, that ought to bankrupt Oz, where six years of economic mismanagement have failed.

Top