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Benjamin Law

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Benjamin Law is a freelance writer and a senior contributor to frankie magazine. He is the author of The Family Law and Gaysia.

@mrbenjaminlaw

Articles by this author

Equality, acceptance and the Safe Schools scandal – a ‘Quarterly Essay’ extract
Moral Panic 101
In February, the Australian’s editorial referred to it as the “so-called Safe Schools Coalition”; by March, it was the “not-so-safe schools program”; by May, the “gender fluidity...
 
On Cory Taylor and her classic novel
The big escape
Never trust an adult who didn’t want to escape their hometown as a teenager. Okay, that might be an over-generalisation – a too-harsh assessment on folks I’m sure are perfectly...
 
Lee Lin Chin’s rise from SBS newsreader to queen of satire
Lee Lin’s double life
It’s often said you should never meet your heroes, as they’ll invariably disappoint. Occasionally, though, you meet someone famous who doesn’t so much disappoint as disorientate,...
 
How the television adaptation of ‘Wolf Hall’ transcends the usual Tudor tale
The king and I
Several months back, the United Kingdom fell victim to an illness so contagious that it tore through the adult population at an average rate of 4.4 million people per week. They...
 
Behind the scenes of ‘Maximum Choppage’, a new kung-fu comedy
When Asians attack
You wouldn’t have seen many Asian faces on Australian television in the late ’80s and early ’90s, despite the fact that by 1990 roughly a third of all new immigrants were Asian....
 
‘James Turrell: A Retrospective’ at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
A light touch
Deep in the Arizona desert lives a man who has spent half his life creating an observatory at the dead heart of a 389,000-year-old volcano. His motivation isn’t religion or...
 
© Julian Kingma
Pigging out with the star of stage and screen
Eddie Perfect unleashes the beast
It’s entirely possible that Eddie Perfect has the most resplendent hair in Australia. The composer-performer might be 35, an age at which most men have started to thin out up top...
 
Lucas Stibbard in 'Boy Girl Wall'. © Al Caeiro
Have play, will travel
Boy Girl Roadie
Three years ago, just a few performances in to the opening season of Boy Girl Wall at Brisbane’s Metro Arts Theatre, the one and only star of the play, Lucas Stibbard, suddenly...
 
Illustration by Jeff Fisher.
Nick D’Arcy
Redemption Lane
St Peters Lutheran College, Queensland’s largest private school, is so vast you actually need to drive between some of its facilities. Before dawn, parents drop off children from...
 
Eloise Mignon and Anthony Phelan in the Stone-directed 2011 Belvoir production of 'The Wild Duck'. © Heidrun Lohr
Meeting theatre director Simon Stone
Hurtling Stone
If director–playwright Simon Stone were to write himself into one of his plays, his entrance would read:   SIMON STONE, a scruffy man of about 27, although he looks five...
 
Members of the Sydney Convicts. © Sydney Convicts
Sydney’s Champion Gay Rugby Team
Same-sex Union
Seven pm and the Bondi sun is still caressing surfers, bikini girls and topless males pulling up from their cliff-top runs. Near the lifeguard tower, 30 men have gathered for...
 
'Outland' by Kevin Carlin (director), ABC1, 6-part series, from 8 February
'Outland' by Kevin Carlin
On paper, the premise of the new ABC1 sitcom Outland seems too self-consciously quirky for its own good. Homosexuals and sci-fi nerds? While we’re at it, why not make a series...
 
Illustration by Jeff Fisher.
Our animal instincts for eating meat
Gourmet gore
Here is how you cook a pig’s uterus. First, visit your local abattoir’s Vietnamese section, where they will happily take requests for ‘special offal’ – which includes intestines,...
 
Illustration by Jeff Fisher.
Dancing in the dark
From the outside, the Snoezelen Room at the Gold Coast’s Mudgeeraba Special School (MSS) doesn’t look like much. The room’s padlocked entrance is almost creepy, resembling a fire...
 
Illustration by Jeff Fisher.
Tuckshop duty
Someone should make a reality TV show called Tuckshop Ladies. The drama would be explosive. Elimination episodes would take place at Parents & Citizens’ Association (P & C...
 
Illustration by Jeff Fisher.
Bush love
In retrospect, we had been warned. Days before we arrived at Wooroolin’s Peanut Pullers and Backfatters Ball – an annual singles’ event in rural Queensland – I’d spoken to one of...
 
Illustration by Jeff Fisher.
Supermarket sweep
It’s 4.20 am in Kingston, 30 minutes out of Brisbane, and already the place is a hive of human activity. In the darkness, people haul crates out of a huge delivery truck – the...
 
Illustration by Jeff Fisher.
Dead, wrapped in cardboard
People might flock to the Gold Coast to feel alive, but it is increasingly also a destination for the dead. Drive inland, away from the scorching beaches, breakneck theme parks...
 

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