There’s a changing of the guard — and we’re on notice

Australian of the Year Grace Tame. Picture: Eddie Safarik

Do you feel a seismic shift all around us? In terms of old gods, old ways, crumbling. Meanjin editor Jonathan Green recently tweeted, “A strange feeling with the death of [Prince] Philip, of the accustomed, certain pillars in life falling away.” I feel it too. Yes, the old pillars seem like they’re falling away and a fresh, vocal generation is rising strong and it’s exhilarating, something to be celebrated.

We older types are on notice, in a healthy way. We’re being called out about what we say and what we do and how we do it. Calcified sensibilities are being questioned as new sensitivities demand to be noted. It’s keeping us on our toes. We need to listen and make way if need be, as rusted-on ways of thinking are veered.

It’s part of the wonder of ageing; of seeing fresh shoots rising strong. My teenagers constantly pull me up about old turns of phrase I often don’t even think about and I’m grateful, actually; they’re teaching me how to be in their new world. “To everything (turn, turn, turn)/ there is a season (turn, turn, turn)” sang the Byrds in their joyous mid-’60s anthem, and I feel like we’re amid another cultural revolution right now.

It’s that new breed of mighty young females cutting through with their confident, fearless voices. Australian of the Year Grace Tame, as she calls out the Prime Minister for his handling of the sexual assault claims that stain his government. Former Coalition staffer Brittany Higgins for refusing to be silenced over her alleged rape. Our mighty female warrriors of journalism for speaking out loud over the past few months, not because they’re “hysterical” or “a mob” or “activists” – as some male commentators and politicians have so tellingly, sneeringly labelled them – but because serious crimes have quite possibly been committed here and the alleged perpetrators were perhaps expecting them to be brushed under the carpet. As they so often are.

It’s in the literary world, too, as we take a fresh look at the gods the male-dominated world of letters has anointed in the recent past, gods like Murakami and Roth. Both feted writers whose careless depiction of female characters is being freshly examined and their legacies called to account. All these reckonings should be getting us thinking, all should be opening our hearts to the wonder of The Other.

It’s in the faces I see presenting SBS News that seem to reflect what’s actually out in our communities in a way no other broadcaster does. It no longer seems “exotic” to see black and Asian and indigenous presenters in everyday bulletins; it is an Australian reality, what’s actually on our streets. Opening up the Oscars to a more diverse pool of filmmakers feels good, necessary, about time; ditto all the fresh faces in US Vogue. This is the world now, the western world. Old kings and queens are being toppled, traditional gatekeepers are being forced to concede. Turn, turn, turn.

It is Taylor Swift magnificently re-recording her 2008 breakthrough album Fearless. Why? Because she lost control of it when her former record label was acquired by her enemy, Scooter Braun. Her genius solution was to make that original album worth significantly less to its new owners by putting out fresh version of her songs. Check-mate. For years Swift has been painted in the male-dominated music press as unimportant in the pantheon of genius. She is magnificent. Strong and talented and I tip my hat to her. She strides a fighter’s path, fearlessly.

Yet many cling to the old ways. It was ever thus. Meanwhile the world is changing, fast. I’m happy to sit back, to watch and marvel and applaud, perhaps because I’m not invested in the realms of power and control. It is selfish not to let go, surely; to let others, younger, have a go. Particularly when it feels like they’re on the right side of history.