Street roots., April 21, 2017, Page 12, Image 12

Commentary
Page 12
Street Roots • April 21-27, 2017
"The kind of Catholicism I was
raised with was social justice. For
me the core Christian
message is to defend the weak
against the powerful."
P H O T O B Y R O B E R T C O N N O L L Y /F L IC K R
Rachel Griffiths on the set of “Underground: The Julian Assange Story.
The “Six Feet Under' actress is taking more activist roles, most recently as Diane in the
drama “When We Rise, ” a miniseries about the personal and political struggles of the
gay rights movement in the late '60s. The Australian star reflects on how she got here.
B Y RACH EL G RIFFITH S (AS TOLD TO
A N A S T A S IA SA FIO LEA S)
collaborative than university, so that was kind
of a revelation. I didn’t have any interesting or
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
challenging tutors; the lectures had, you
hen I was 16 I was drinking too much know, 2,000 people, which is too much.
I knew I wanted to study in a way where I
and killing far too many brain cells.
would be more engaged and had a greater
It’s so frightening as your own
So I went to teacher’s college to do
children approach that age, knowing what purpose.
you
a degree in drama. At that stage I was more
got up to - the self-destructive behavior, the
media-oriented. I was interested in
self-loathing and the risk-taking behavior. I
communication beyond the essay form. It was
think we understand now that at that age
smaller and more intense and I just fell in
there are even more challenges and you take
love with the acting while I was there.
risks that aren’t great. But I think my 16-year-
“Muriel’s Wedding” was a huge
old self would now say I’m really awesome. I
think she would be hugely relieved that things opportunity. It also had international reach. I
love telling Australian stories. And I love that
ended up pretty OK.
I’ve been able to put myself in the shoes of a
I went to Melbourne University and had a
Yorkshire working-class lass from the 1860s,
very unhappy year. I didn’t know that
or a spoilt upper-middle-class product of two
university would be three years of no
psychiatrists in Los Angeles. It’s just great to
collaboration - school was so much more
W
have that range. Without that I wouldn’t have
been able to play a lesbian nurse who is
critical at a devastating moment during the
HIV/AIDS epidemic in America (Diane Guy in
“When We Rise”) and the amazing impact she
had by leading a life of courageous example.
The kind of Catholicism I was raised with
was social justice. For me the core Christian
message is to defend the weak against the
powerful. When I sat down and watched
“Roots” - I’ve been calling “When We Rise”
the gay “Roots” - it made me see the impact
storytelling can have, and how much stronger
emotion is than facts. Emotion is what
changes people’s lives. You can tell people a
string of facts, but put them in someone’s
shoes for an hour or a day, it changes how
they view things. We are entering a time of
fear in which we seem to be trying to
marginalize those who are already lacking
power, and that never sits well with me.
Growing up with the nuns within our own
community, they were very strong
authoritative figures. My first role models
were my teachers growing up. I had
extraordinary teachers, their love of
communicating about their subject, and their
authority and conviction. I discovered Joy
Hester very young. I did a project on Nancy
Wake at school and she was massively
influential. Even Marie Curie, Helen Keller,
Vida Goldstein, Enid Blyton and actors like
Judi Dench and Sissy Spacek. You find these
role models among artists; you find them in
those with a political voice, as well as among
women community leaders.
My speech at Breakthrough (the Victorian
Women’s Trust gender-equality event) was
about me being a bad feminist. I’ve coasted
on the sacrifices made by my (metaphorically)
older sisters and aunts for the kind of work-
life balance that so many of my
contemporaries require. I think we’ve taken
certain things for granted and I think they are
inevitable. It is very shocking to see a
pullback in female representation in cabinet
and in Parliament in the last few years. But at
the same time I’m also really humbled by how
we live in a time where Channing Tatum says
he’s a feminist and Beyonce says she’s a
feminist and Taylor Swift says she’s a feminist
and how very proud young women are about
the ownership of that word. As for the
misogynistic media, which was very male-
dominated in the 7 0 s and 80s, I think they
were very afraid of the word and its power
and did a great deal to discredit us from
brandishing it more proudly. It means
continuing to insist on women’s equality and
women’s representation, and to laugh when
people say they couldn’t find more women to
do the job. You know when there are six men
in a picture and they say, ‘we couldn’t find a
woman’? We just have to laugh.
Courtesy of The Big Issue Australia / INSP.
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