(Continued fomr last post)

The two men regularly visit the pub on their own, but apparently according to MacLennan and Hookum disabled people don't enjoy alcohol, so that Noonan has filmed them doing it is offensive.
Also, a little more context. One of the men has a goal to get a girlfriend. That is what he wants, it is discussed in an earlier documentary that the two men participated in. That is where the questions about single girls come from. The two were not prompted to say it.

"Philistines of relativism at the gates" is an insult to the two men involved in the film project. It assumes that they have no personality, no wants or needs, because they have a mental disability. It assumes that they have no sense of humour, that they are barely even alive.

The point of the documentary is to get the viewer to see them as not a "disabled person", but just a person. Like you. Like me. It achieves its goal. After viewing the footage, when "William and Craig" came to the front of the lecture, I saw two men, two people who I could relate to. Not two "disabled boys" who are "less fortunate than us". Less fortunate how? MacLennan and Hookum seem to assume that simply because their mental ability exceeds "William and Craigs", they have less to offer, that their lives will automatically be not quite as rich as ours.

I would also like to note that I have Gary MacLennan as a lecturer as well. I love his lectures. He is inspirational. I was disapointed to see that he could not see the potential and the beauty the work Michael Noonan is doing. Perhaps if he had watched more of the work or perhaps met the two men before commenting.

Thanks WWSBD,
Seems like your points are in the same thrust as those I made about the Borat spoof. This is reassuring if it means that students have NOT been herded into mass-consumer savagery as seemed to be the article's assertion.
I can't presume to know the position of MacLennan and Hookum here, but I think there is a real and rarely expressed worry about critics who miss such essential aspects of this personally confrontational approach to satire. Maybe there's a prevailing, established mindset, ossified and unself-critical to the point where the very existence of such deep-seated bigotry is dismissed as unthinkable?
Note that a later, related thread ('Australians are all conservatives now') has mired itself in squabbles over dessicated definitions: "conservative", "progressive", "left", etc. In such a sorry excuse for an intellectual, educational and demographic environment as we now have, I expect that Noonan (like Borat's Cohen) would be labelled as 'reactionary', nihilist', and so on...

Then again, on second thought, it seems Noonan has probably shone so brightly in his field that he's embarrassed others. Perhaps there has been some networked push to marginalize and even vilify him, so that he stops showing up the lazy, smug, backward and mediocre?
I hope this is not the case with the Maclennan/Hookum article, but am now very interested to see their response - if any.
That uglier possibility is always useful to keep in mind though. Probably happens in every field.

Good on you guys for raising you voice. It makes me sick to hear of the situation these boys were put in. My brother is mentally disabled and I can only imagine how horrified my family would be if he was put in this situation. Michael Noonan has lost all of my respect as one of my past tutors at uni. And so to the Governing body that would condone such material. Humour without respect requires very little wit, doesn't it!

I am annoyed at the slight manipulation Gary and John have tried (and succeeded if measuring the responses) to impose upon the readers of this article. While they have a valid point; since we cannot censor programs such as "Big Brother" and shouldn't in fact censor them for they are programs which the audience wants. The academics, the elite intellectuals should act as to sway the society away from the interest of such shows. It is the education and parenthood level we need to bring higher and not the level of crap that we can see on television.
I cannot understand the train of thought of a parent that says "I can't control the child. I tell him to turn it off and he watches it behind my back." If that is the case then you should strongly enforce your instruction not to watch the show and while most children will find a way to watch it, they will understand it differently since the context is different. For now it's "wrong" to watch it. And the "wrong and right" are then deducted by your way of raising your children up to that point.

About the manipulation I was talking about earlier and my main point. We are being shown a one sided opinion from two individuals (as respected as they may be) that have seen footage of the project and have formulated their own ideas about it. A critique of a piece; be it a PhD thesis or a 3rd grade final English essay should be read only by people whom have read/encountered the piece before reading the critique.
It is extremely unfair towards Michael and towards ourselves that our mind is reeling on the side of the opposition before we ever spoke to him about the project and seen it.

I have been a under the tutelage of both Michael and Gary and hold them both in high regards as to their academic prowess and their personality. Regardless, I refuse to formulate any connotation to the material before I've seen it in the proper context; as Michael has intended.

I am at the student at the centre of Hookham and MacLennan’s attacks.

I thank WWSBD for understanding and appreciating my work in its context. I appreciate the words of Anecdote, who understands that a work must be seen and placed in context before it should be attacked. And I am disappointed for bedwin, who has lost all respect for me on the basis of an uninformed and incorrect article.

Much has been assumed about my project, my integrity and my intentions. Very little of it is based on truth. The simple facts are these: the excerpts I showed at my PhD confirmation seminar were presented in the context of exploring and discussing issues of authorship and representation in disability. My project seeks to empower the disabled, to give them a voice through comedy. Each clip was prefaced with my own thoughts about whether or not this had been achieved.

As a sessional staff member at QUT, I can think of nothing more deplorable than attacking a student’s incomplete research in a public forum. Hookham and MacLennan have made no effort to read my PhD confirmation document (it was offered) and they rejected my attempts to meet and discuss their concerns.

To date I have not sought to respond to their attacks in print. But I refuse to be further bullied and vilified before the public, my peers and my students.