Up The Arts

WHY TALL POPPY SYNDROME IS A GOOD THING SOMETIMES

According to the Roman author Livy, writing about five centuries later, King Tarquin the Arrogant and his son Sextus Tarquinius (whom Classicists and Shakespeare scholars will recall would grow up to rape Lucretia, triggering the overthrow of Etruscan rule and the foundation of the Roman Republic) were one day wandering in the royal gardens. As they passed a bed of poppies, Tarquin senior began chopping off the heads of the tallest ones as a visual aid to explain to junior how one should treat the leading citizens of a conquered town in order to prevent future rebellions. This little story has bequeathed to us the popular Antipodean expression “Tall Poppy Syndrome” – the Great Kiwi Knocking Machine.
Often those of us who aspire to greatness decry the New Zealand crab bucket (any crab that tries to climb out gets dragged back in by the others and all end up in the pot), but upon observation it may serve a higher purpose in our society. Our garden is small; it can cope with a few tall poppies. But as we have become increasingly inoculated to Cultural Cringe, a few socially awkward egos have avoided the gardener’s hawkish eye and pruning shears and turned into resource and attention monopolising kudzu.
Director Peter Jackson, the Mussolini of Miramar, is a case in point. He is now so powerful that he can influence Government to pass constitutional law changes in his favour. His position is unassailable because he forged an unholy alliance between aesthetics and politics, basically nationalising culture into a populist pabulum. It is a trick popular with tyrants, and gives him control of a mindless army of brownshirt fanboys. Weta is now in the business of knocking up the sort of grotesque public kitsch that both Hitler and Stalin were fond of.
Other unholy cheesemeisters dominate, pillage and starve other cultural spheres. In music I might point my finger at the self-important and rather overrated Finn dynasty, but it might get bitten off. The horrors of World and Trelise Cooper bloat to control fashion. Every play, movie and television programme produced in New Zealand cycles through the same familiar, Shortland Street-weary faces through everything. There is no room for anything new.
Tall Poppy Syndrome also had the useful side-effect of forcing talented little birds out of the nest and into a wider world better resourced to nurture their gifts and hone their skills. One cannot remain in the cradle forever. Sure, they can come back later and visit occasionally, or even remain based here, so long as they continue to pursue excellence on a larger stage.
Those that stay must be prepared to focus on exploring the meaning of New Zealand-ness (equally as laudable, but more of a sacrifice). Unfortunately Generation X seems to have been the last echelon willing to suffer in order to build. The first decade of this century saw the rise of spoiled little hipster dilettantes who fetishise a third-hand urban bohemia as a fashion statement. They cannot pick a a single discipline because they lack it themselves and so they form crappy half-arsed bands, make pretentious videos and do a bit of collage at the weekend – Jacks and Jills of all trades, and masters of none. They are irksome precisely because their much vaunted quirky individuality is simply another kind of uniformity and derivative at that. They like to delude themselves into thinking they invented anarchy and rebellion (kiddo, GTFO – I remember the eighties, my mother remembers the sixties etc etc) – and they are so fucking earnest about it. Their low-stakes intellectual inadequacy is masked by a twee nostalgia for innocence and childhood (cf: cartoon imagery, stupid fluffy hats and backpacks, the horrible vocal mannerisms of some female singer-songwriters). They thing Wes Anderson and McSweeney’s is clever. The things they produce are disposable, forgettable and soulless.
There’s no point waiting for the barbarians. They are already here.