Read Online The Best Australian Essays 2014 by Robert Manne - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Manne
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breastfed the child, Rolf marvels at the âminute size of everythingâ, and lets his eyes travel from Bindiâs neck to her âdelicate shouldersâ and smooth tummy. Then he nears a border zone, trespasses across it, and backtracks: âI reached her genitals and skipped that part. My brain was saying, âDonât be ridiculous. Why are you so uptight about nudity?â I couldnât help it.â The taboo is artificial, but all the same necessary; those who defile innocence may do so because they envy it and want to share in it.
The Rolf Harris Show featured a chorus line of girls in micro-miniskirts and hotpants, and was nicknamed The Twinkling Crotch Show. Backstage, the shy host says, he âtried not to watch â or be seen watchingâ the cavalcade of semi-clad young women. Throughout one season he flamboyantly flirted with âa tall, leggy brunette called Glor, short for Gloriaâ, who finally chastened him when they were sitting with some colleagues in a hotel lounge. After listening to a bout of his amorous drollery, she reached across, âunzipped my fly, put her hand into my underpants, took a firm grip of my old fella and flipped it out for all to seeâ. What, she asked, did he intend to do about his supposed infatuation (which apparently hadnât extended to that flipped, floppy member)? Rolf turned âseven consecutive shades of redâ, just as he flushed scarlet when his mother slapped him; then, in an image that begs for psychoanalytical exegesis, he wished he could âdissolve into a grease spot and soak into the carpetâ. Gloria suffered no further harassment.
A cartoon by Rolf represents grown-up sexual relations as a balance of terror, predicated on the threat of pain. In the drawing, an angry blitz of black scrawls surrounds a glaringly spotlit dental chair. A male dentist aims his drill at the gaping mouth of a prone female patient, whose teeth are as razorlike as a sharkâs; she defends herself by grabbing his crotch and squeezing what ought to be his testicles, though it looks as if she has fastened onto a bulbous penis. The rearing organ doesnât appear to be discouraged, but the drill is paused in midair, hesitating before it ventures into that vagina dentata. The caption to the drawing is âWeâre not going to hurt one another, are we?â Cuddles, hugs and tickles, like those to which Rolf initially treated his alleged victims, are â at least in theory â exempt from such nasty adult recriminations.
In the caricatures Rolf usually adds to his autograph, his face consists of a grinning mouth sandwiched between his goggles and his goatee. His smile is evangelical, as well as something of an artwork: he often warned sulky children who cried or frowned that they were âsculpting their faces for the futureâ and ruining their chances of looking benign in old age. Despite this amiability, his glasses and beard tell another story, because both, in Rolfâs case, were disguises. Spectacles, as he commented when taking his own off to paint a self-portrait on television, reflect light and thereby deflect attention from the eyes of whoever you are painting; they interfere with your interrogation of another human being. As for whiskers, Rolf first experimented with them in 1949 when cast as a sailor in a musical at teacherâs college in Perth. He grew them again on his way to England in 1952, protectively preparing a face with which to meet the new faces he would encounter there. His beard was a frame for his grin, and it also served, like a garden hedge, as a barricade to deter intruders. His wife preferred him with that cosy camouflage: when she first saw him clean-shaven, Alwen likened him to âan American car with all the chrome removedâ â an extraordinary image, which implied that beneath the decorative trim there was only a noisy, revved-up engine and a motorised mouth that puffed
The Rolf Harris Show featured a chorus line of girls in micro-miniskirts and hotpants, and was nicknamed The Twinkling Crotch Show. Backstage, the shy host says, he âtried not to watch â or be seen watchingâ the cavalcade of semi-clad young women. Throughout one season he flamboyantly flirted with âa tall, leggy brunette called Glor, short for Gloriaâ, who finally chastened him when they were sitting with some colleagues in a hotel lounge. After listening to a bout of his amorous drollery, she reached across, âunzipped my fly, put her hand into my underpants, took a firm grip of my old fella and flipped it out for all to seeâ. What, she asked, did he intend to do about his supposed infatuation (which apparently hadnât extended to that flipped, floppy member)? Rolf turned âseven consecutive shades of redâ, just as he flushed scarlet when his mother slapped him; then, in an image that begs for psychoanalytical exegesis, he wished he could âdissolve into a grease spot and soak into the carpetâ. Gloria suffered no further harassment.
A cartoon by Rolf represents grown-up sexual relations as a balance of terror, predicated on the threat of pain. In the drawing, an angry blitz of black scrawls surrounds a glaringly spotlit dental chair. A male dentist aims his drill at the gaping mouth of a prone female patient, whose teeth are as razorlike as a sharkâs; she defends herself by grabbing his crotch and squeezing what ought to be his testicles, though it looks as if she has fastened onto a bulbous penis. The rearing organ doesnât appear to be discouraged, but the drill is paused in midair, hesitating before it ventures into that vagina dentata. The caption to the drawing is âWeâre not going to hurt one another, are we?â Cuddles, hugs and tickles, like those to which Rolf initially treated his alleged victims, are â at least in theory â exempt from such nasty adult recriminations.
In the caricatures Rolf usually adds to his autograph, his face consists of a grinning mouth sandwiched between his goggles and his goatee. His smile is evangelical, as well as something of an artwork: he often warned sulky children who cried or frowned that they were âsculpting their faces for the futureâ and ruining their chances of looking benign in old age. Despite this amiability, his glasses and beard tell another story, because both, in Rolfâs case, were disguises. Spectacles, as he commented when taking his own off to paint a self-portrait on television, reflect light and thereby deflect attention from the eyes of whoever you are painting; they interfere with your interrogation of another human being. As for whiskers, Rolf first experimented with them in 1949 when cast as a sailor in a musical at teacherâs college in Perth. He grew them again on his way to England in 1952, protectively preparing a face with which to meet the new faces he would encounter there. His beard was a frame for his grin, and it also served, like a garden hedge, as a barricade to deter intruders. His wife preferred him with that cosy camouflage: when she first saw him clean-shaven, Alwen likened him to âan American car with all the chrome removedâ â an extraordinary image, which implied that beneath the decorative trim there was only a noisy, revved-up engine and a motorised mouth that puffed
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