Now your bangs are curled, / Your lashes twirled, / But still the world is cruel.
I wasn’t going to blog about Schappelle Corby’s conviction, but after reading Miranda Devine’s insightful comments I can’t resist:
The Australian public has seen what Corby’s defence team saw long ago: a transcendent grace that makes her guilt implausible. Her … careful styling and stunning good looks, improved in recent months by jail-time weight loss, have bolstered her claim she is innocent…
What. The. Fuck.
I have two objections to this. The first is flippant: beauty must be in the eye of the beholder, because in all the media coverage Corby has received, I’ve never been prompted to think, “Wow, what a stunner!”
The second is that “transcedent grace” is no evidence of innocence. Crying on camera is no evidence of innocence. Being baptised is no evidence of innocence. Vague claims of corruption against unidentified baggage handlers are no evidence of innocence.
Twenty years is certainly a harsh penalty for her offence, but Corby was found guilty because the evidence was overwhelmingly against her, and the fact that her supporters are now clutching at straws — “But… but… she’s so pretty!” — reflects the weakness of her case.
Spot on, Rob.
What you say is true, but her appearance has enhanced the public (that is, the general populous that really dont have a clue) perception of her supposed innocence. They are reacting almost entirely on emotion and this is bolstered by her being easy on the eyes. In propper legal terms it means fuckall, but to an irrational public it helps her case.
Trackback.
Easy on the eyes in who’s book?
I did but see her passing by, yet I’ll love her until the day I die. PUKE.
Yes, well thank fuck for her she didn’t get fat in jail, ‘cos that would have the effect of making her look more guilty, wouldn’t it?
Nothing like a diet inadequate to sustain health to help a young lady’s appearance in the eyes of the world.
And what about Miranda Devine’s reference to Corby’s “Princess Diana-like popularity”? Where’s she going with that?
As I’ve said before elsewhere many times.
Attractive?
Good Looking?
Who thinks this?
Not me or anyone I know. Amazing.
I’m with Nic White. The fact that she was a young attractive female certainly didn’t hurt in attracting supporters to her cause. My understanding is that there are 150 or so Australians serving time in foreign countries and 2 on death row. Most Australians couldn’t name one of them.
Well, yes, Michael. The fact that she is of European and not Asian extraction is probably the most important factor, and the fact that it is marijuana and not heroin also helps. But Devine has gone a lot further than saying her “transcendent grace” attracted supporters — she says it is evidence of her innocence!
Wasn’t Pauline Hanson supposed to be sexy? Am I surprised? No. We’re conditioned to accept mediocrity from our public figures in Australia. I’m not sure if this is some kind of cultural decline or just the result of a small population.
Anyway the empathy that has latched on to her really functions as I kind of vanity. Depending on how people relate to this, if she were ourselves, a friend, or our daughter, she has enough looks to be an acceptably flattering visualistion.
There are lots of people who think she is innocent just because she is good looking. Its quite sad.
My viewpoint is that I do not know enough about the case and the evidence to suggest that she is either innocent or guilty. My personal opinion is that there is a substantial, though not certain, chance that she was actually responsible.
The two concerns are the length of the sentence which is manifestly excessive, but perhaps not surprising compared to other south-east Asian countries that have appalling record on human rights and a generally draconian legal system, and the fact that the presiding judge has not acquitted a single similar case, which would be unheard of in the West and begs the question whether she received a fair trial (and, most trials of the sort in Asia are far from fair).
Downer has said that if she is able to participate in a prisoner exchange program then her sentence back in Australia could not be reduced. Whether this does play out remains to be seen (and I would suspect doubtful).
Disturbing, too, is the reaction from people and the media in Australia: today’s Herald Sun in Melbourne showed calls to boycott Bali tourism and withdraw tsunami aid. This is an overt example of this nation’s narrow-mindedness and I think says a lot about the current state of Australia’s morals and values.
This has been a tumultuous week, with IR changes, the ongoing asylum seekers/detention centres issue, as well as the Corby case. The next Newspoll due out tomorrow will have been taken on the weekend and will reflect all three of these concerns. I predict that the net effect of the Corby judgment on the Howard Government, in terms of electoral opinion, will be nil.
She certainly did conform to the traditional damsel in distress stereotype – Crying, fainting etc.. Though I may have done the same in her position.
There is a figure of 80% or 90% of Australians believe that she is not guilty that is being bounced around everywhere by the media. Is this a random poll or one of those meanless 1900 phone call polls that make phone companies rich? If anyone knows can they point me in the right direction.
Media Watch tonight was also interesting as to who is controlling the story and how the journalists were to too scared to write negative stories on the defence.
Also I would have to say I don’t find her very attractive myself, but that is beside the point really.
Dear Osama,
When you send assassins, please make them Western ladies and very pretty. Blue eyes an advantage.
They will get off.
- yours,
Mr Observant.
“Vague claims of corruption against unidentified baggage handlers are no evidence of innocence.”
*You’re* the one guilding the lily, and plucking the proverbial brows, here, Rob.
There is/was more than “vague” evidence of corrupt baggage handlers. Yes, they remain largely unidentified, thanks to clear AFP non-interest – or worse, a la Mick Keelty’s egging on the Indon prosecutors – in the matter. Domestic drug trafficking – albeit through the Syd Int’l terminal – is thus supposedly a completely different thing from international drug trafficking.
Yeah, right – and pigs fly. One thing’s for sure: pigs lie. Or do you go along with the party line, Rob, that the AFP is Australia’s only police force currently untainted by corruption?
\
Sure, I’m not impressed by the AFP’s role in this debacle, but that doesn’t change the fact that the evidence wasn’t before the court. We should criticise the AFP, not the Indonesians, for their reluctance in this matter.
And there is quite possibly grounds for appeal, but nothing I’ve seen in the media has given any details of what they might be, and on that basis I have no reason to think she’s innocent. Happy to be proved wrong, but jumping up and down stamping your feet will not convince me.
And even if that evidence were before the court—just because the defence claims somebody else was committing a crime doesn’t prove that the defendant was not.
I’m with Mike Sutcliffe here. The BIG issue here is the how the Howard Government sees its duty of care to its citizens in trouble overseas. The lesson from Corby, Hicks/Habib, even Doug Wood and John Martinkus when they got kidnapped in Iraq, is that Howard and Downer have rarely moved heaven and earth to ensure that the rights and safety of Australian nationals (guilty or innocent, irresponsible or unlucky) are protected when they are in trouble and out of reach. This is what we should be talking about. This is the plain as day pattern that the media should be screaming bloody murder about. Isn’t it?!?
To be frank, Rob, I don’t see too much of a difference between those members of the media and public that are completely convinced of Corby’s innocence and those who are completely convinced of her guilt. What we should be aiming our guns at is the inadequate provision of a fair trial (taking a leaf from Max Soy here) and the protection of human rights for Australian citizens on criminal charges overseas. And this applies as much to Nguyen Tuong Van, Tran Van Thanh and Nguyen Van Chinh as it does to Schappelle Corby. I don’t have any opinons as to the guilt or innocence of these people. All I care about is their rights.
It appears to me that the Howard’s minimised Australian counsel (in the general sense) to indonesia during the trial has been so as not to dent the rapprochement in Indo-Australian relations that the journos keep telling us has happening since the start of the year. This attitude is ripe for criticism, and should be the focus of public discussion about the case. In my humble opinion.
Now Chapelle is moderately attractive, but it is the girl next door image created by Channel 9 and the tabloid media that has really got the ignorant masses going.
I mean she is lower middle class, studying at tafe, enjoys her sport, loves (at least she did) Bali, looks innocent, and has a marrying quality. She could be the daughter, sister, girlfriend, or wife of the typical person who settles down to ACA or TT at 6.30pm.
It is this image created by the media that has so many people declaring her completely innocence despite the fact they did not sit through the trial and wouldn’t have a clue about the prosecutions case.
It is truly fucking scary the number of people who have launched into an anti-indonesian tirade, and the media have started to remedy the situation they created.
I mean when Piers Akerman is trying to calm the rednecks (rather than his usual tirades that encourage them), things have obviously gone way too far.
“Sure, I’m not impressed by the AFP’s role in this debacle, but that doesn’t change the fact that the evidence wasn’t before the court. We should criticise the AFP, not the Indonesians, for their reluctance in this matter”.
Rob,
Your consistent making fun of Australian rednecks/white-trash in this matter suggests that you are far from serious about criticising the AFP’s role.
Where do you think the racist/xenophobic outpourings of the last few days have come from? Although it might be convenient for you to believe it, mass racism is rarely an autochthonous thing, rising up from the underclass (or whatever word you choose to describe them). History shows that virulent, mass racism is usually a thing orchestrated from above – and for the ruling class’s own purposes, of course.
Clearly, your (and many others) being able to point-and-chide at Those Xenophobic Rednecks has been a PR godsend for the AFP and Keelty. Note that no awkward questions, much less recriminatory statements, have been fired at Keelty, post-verdict.
So never mind what they’re saying over the back fences of Thornlie, Rob. Look to who’s benefiting – if not also actually behind – this smokescreen of racism, and ask what they’re hiding.
Paul, you might have noticed that I haven’t written a substantial post about anything in the last few days, let alone the AFP. Give me a break here. If you want to write something and email it to me, I’d be happy to put it up as a “guest post”.
There was one thing I noticed. And no, I don’t blame her at all for getting sly.
Corby began wearing a crucifix visibly in her pictures some time before the time, with the result that there were several letters to the ‘West’ and other papers pleading for the release of the ‘nice Christian girl’ Corby to be released. (Yes, ‘nice Christian girl’ were the words used).
If anyone’s into their legal history, it was reminding me somewhat of the Madame Fahmy case- ‘let this white Western woman go back into the light’ and all that.
What made this so funny was that she only became a Christian very recently, and toward the end of her trial!
Sorry, Rob. I had only kind-of realised that you were in the middle of exams – which fact, I guess, excuses your judgment in linking to oh-so-upper-class Ms Fits’ attempt at humour.
As far as the AFP thing goes, I don’t think that there is much more that needs to be, or indeed can be, said by me. Hopefully, truth will out, and soon.
And if it doesn’t, then I hope Ms Fits gets accidentally framed by some crooked cops one day, and so gets to rot in jail. Now *that* would be funny.
I think she’s guilty because her eyebrows are way too thin.
Bruce, if Corby suddenly decided to start sporting a prominent crucifx, it probably wasn’t due to advice from her legal team.
She was pleading her case in front of an Indonesian court, remember? Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but if you’re being tried in a country with the largest Muslim population in the world (whose state apparatus is nominally secular but is in practice wary of denominations that don’t conform to the norm of Islam), then making not-so-subtle appeals to the judges about one’s Christian wholesomeness isn’t necessarily going to be a surefire cure for what ails you. Regardless of how much the Aussie press approves of your neckwear.
C’mon people, aren’t we a little too willing to pay out on someone just cause we think their image is being manipulated into a figurehead for bogan Australia? I’ve said this before, but isn’t this distracting us from bigger fish?
Grace is the embodiment of everything she has not displayed.
Unfortunately for her the inversion of Devine’s inexplicable summary will also have applied in Indonesia, where wide-eyed aggression and shouting create a magnified impression given their dissonance with local cultural approaches. It’s a shame she wasn’t given a PR advisor by the government- ideally one of those reviled-and-hated-elite academics who actually take an interest in Indonesia and its customs.
Calling her graceful is like calling her sister Mercedes…
[the camera pans into the Don Russell Performing Arts Centre, cue smoke machine]
Paul: People! We must end the manipulation of the upper classes and reclaim autochthonous racism as our own!
[engage fans: revealing the upper class conspiracy of Ms Fits]
Grateful masses: Huzzah! No longer are we blinded by chains!
Ms Fits: Officer where are you taking me?
Well, I guess this has just blown up in everyone’s faces.
In the end, Ms Fits had the last laugh where the debate in this thread was concerned, but I guess its a pretty dubious honour to have your point of view confirmed this way. Jeez I hope they catch those guys.
As for the Indonesians, all their most fearful stereotypes about Australians just about confirmed right now. Why can’t we all just get along?
The opinion pieces in the Australian today about the Corby case were surprisingly quite good and I agreed with them shockingly, particularly that of Paul Kelly and Janet ‘ABC’ Albrechtsen.
(I’ve fixed up the formatting in a couple of the comments. Hope people don’t mind.)
Paul, I’m not interested in an “I’m more working class than she” pissing contest. Ms Fits’s post was funny. I’m sorry that some of us enjoy crass humour now and then.
Xenophobia and stupidity is xenophobia and stupidity, and we shouldn’t turn a blind eye because it’s “what they’re saying over the back fences of Thornlie” — racism is most effective when it divides the working classes, and in this case it appears to have destroyed solidarity between the working poor in Thornlie and the dirt poor in Bali. I’m not happy about that, and sure, the system has a lot to do with that, but it doesn’t excuse the “boycott Bali” crowd.
But feel free to email me with ideas for a guest post next time something worthwhile grabs your attention.
welll…
I sit firmly in the middle. I am cynical towards the ridiculous reasoning displayed by Panda and all the other dimwits out there… but I am also critical of Shapelle being found guilty.
I know they don’t have reasonable doubt in Indonesia and to impose that would be unfair, but I have major concerns around 1) the quality of the evidence and 2) the method of evidence collection.
As much as I am loathe to impose Australian legal standards on Indonesia, the penalty is VERY harsh considering that most of the evidence would have been ruked inadmissable here.
I find the whole media circus thing to be absolutely depressing and a poor reflection on our society – it gave bogans a “cause” without knowing the facts, and without the intelligence to work things out for themselves.