Thursday, March 22, 2007

research: ABC/Four Corners' 'The Ice Age'

[This is what I just watched]
'A shocking close-up study of the new drug of choice: ice'

I guess it had to be done in order for me to understand what I'm getting myself into.. as far as my leading man is concerned. but fuck. Some of that doco is just purely and utterly disturbing. And there really is no other way of putting it.

I guess it's difficult to remain truly objective in the face of an illicit addiction. It is also very hard to rationalise that kind of thing, and the sorts of people they use on their programs really typecase addicts in a way that I don't agree with. Why do they scour the streets until they find the most derelict individuals with children they cannot name and cardboard boxes for homes? That is so disturbingly inaccurate of Australian drug culture it isn't funny.

Most of these addicts have jobs, lives, and friends that they try to hold down, while most of their suffering happens in private. That is the side I want to expose - the boy(or girl)-next-door aspect that gets overlooked in favour of what society deems palatable. If 'people' really knew what went on behind their neighbours' closed doors, they mightn't be such a judgemental mob. Because I know for a fact that drugs are *that* imminent.

It isn't always the junkie sleeping in the cardboard box whose life has been reduced to next-to-nothing.

Damn representation shits me sometimes. I'm going to have so much fun next semester ripping these freaking docos apart. Still, at least now I have some proper food for thought.

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