Trevor Marmalade defends principal
The Footy Show's Trevor Marmalade weighed into a debate over a school allowing photographer Bill Henson to scout for models.
- Published by David Knox
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The AFL Footy Show‘s Trevor Marmalade today weighed into a debate over photographer Bill Henson scouting school grounds for photographic models.
His comments on Radio 3AW follow press reports that criticised the St Kilda Park Primary School for allowing Henson onto the grounds.
A passionate Marmalade came to the defence of former principal Sue Knight. His children attend the school which he describes as nurturing, artistic environment with high rates of literacy.
“If every primary school had a principal like Sue Knight we would have no problems with education in this state. I have to say… I really do. I have to leap to her defence.
“There is no way known that those children were placed in a situation where they were at risk,” he said.
“She is singularly the most wonderful principal I have ever witnessed and she is a marvel.”
Knight is co-operating with an investigation by the Education Department. Early reports quoted parents as criticising the incident.
“That’s cheap sensationalism, that’s running down someone who we should be holding up as an example to the rest of the community, as someone who we should aspire to be like.”
Olympian James Tomkins, whose daughter also attends the school, also defended Knight saying he had no problems with a well-known artist going to the school.
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16 Responses
I totally agree with jimmy & EJ on this one. 1. Scouting should not be done in the schoolground and 2. how the hell do you tell the difference betwen an ‘artist’ and a paedophile! Just because he tells you! I don’t think so!
Without knowing the facts, I would generally not have a problem with someone seeking “talent” in school – as long as the parents and their kids know what’s going on and give their consent.
As David said, we really don’t have any details on what the circumstances actually were in this specific case. A lot of people seem to be getting upset by the blanks they’re filling in themselves, rather than what was really going on. Wait until we know what actually happened before unleashing the outrage.
Why couldn’t he just use a casting agency?
Why troll school grounds? That’s why casting agencies were invented
What BS!! These St kilda ultra leftys better wake up to the world we REALLY live in. Children are being abused every single day by people we never expect and by people who claim they have no problems. Its a GLOBAL problem. They may have the Brighton houses and can afford to pretend the world has no issues (expect getting Doctors to endorse wine is good for you), but if this was a school in the outer western suburbs or even the outer North, there would be a lynching.
I don’t give a crap who you are, from a chimney sweeper right up to the leaders of our world, no class/econmoic bracket/social stance or level of popularity doesnt make one immune from certain diseases or evil intentions. As we all know EVERYONE hides something. We still don’t know if this guy has issues with children and it’s not like he is going to say anything, we simply don’t know.
An elderly guy rocks up to a “hip” Primary school, ages 5-12 he wants to photograph some of them naked, with no ill intentions. He asks if he can walk around the playground and “scout” for kids. This guy walks around the playground, inspecting the childrens physical form, trying to imagine them without clothes and thinks about filming them. Oh no this isn’t Bill Henson!! It’s actually a method used by a bad bad person who was caught in 1989, then convicted in 1991. Im sure there were people in that persons life who had no idea and of his evil nature and some people I’m sure couldn’t believe it.
Trevor, you used to be a human like all of us, I remember you back from ages ago and we both know the guy who gave you your name. Don’t try be a person your not mate. You cant take the North outta the boy, no matter how much St Kilda ya have in your life.
I agree with EJ McKenna. I don’t think any scouts of any kind should be allowed onto school grounds. One minute people are screaming “Just let the kids be kids!” and then they’re defending something like this. So it’s ok for kids to grow up too fast when you can live vicariously through them?
There’s no clarification if these were for naked photographs or not. Again, due process to see what the circumstances were is yet to be completed by the Vic Education Dept and the principal is co-operating with enquiries.
Dear Artists,
Wanting to take naked photographs of children, unless they’re your own, is morally wrong.
If you can’t see that, allow nearly all parents to help you understand that your ‘art’ is not even remotely close to important as you think it is.
Depriving the world of seeing naked children is an absolute ZERO loss, get over it.
Agree with EJ on this – as someone who grew up in a country town (but now lives in a city) we never had scouts of any persuasion come into the school for any reason, surely students are there to learn, not to be ‘discovered’.
Second point is whichever way you slice it – this Henson guy is creepy, looks creepy, sounds creepy and what he does is especially creepy, this principle displayed IMO a serious lack of judgement.
Thirdly not only do we have Trevor Marmalade (what the hell does he actually do?) weighing in, but also James Tomkins the rower who if memory serves was recently awarded Victorian Father of the Year!!! As if the credibility of those stupid awards wasn’t bad enough with their habitual honoring of retired sports stars!
End of Rant!
I don’t agree with ‘scouts’ of any persuasion (ie, sports scouts, talent scouts etc, even dib-dib-dib scouts) being in a school, during school hours.
If you need child models, approach a reputable agency! Take out an ad, do a casting call. Do it outside school hours and most of all do it when their parents are right there so they can give their informed consent.
No issue about a respected, yet controversial artist doing this, but it should have been handled better by the school. Parents should have been notified before the event. Pretty simple I would have thought?
Zambora,
Stop trying to hide behind kids to rationalise your predjudce. As someone living in the suburbs, I am tired of being used a pawn in the culture wars
Admittedly Marmalade was a bit passionate when he was on radio, but his grammar doesn’t detract from his obvious faith in the school. He also mentioned consent from parents for photography which you can hear if you click on the link. I think it would be best to wait for the investigation to ascertain what the circumstances were.
And Marmalade has credibility or better knowledge than the man in the street ?
Gimme a break especially with trite comments of his like this
“She is singularly the most wonderful principal I have ever witnessed and she is a marvel.””
Let’s play , spot the holes in the argument.
1/ How many principals have you witnessed ?
2/ what makes a great principal ?
Fair dinkum, if Joe Blow or Mary Average walked into a school or swimming pool and just said, i want to lookat all the young kids and decide who can be in my photos or a model – what would you think ?
How about the obvious, send notes to parents first asking if any kids interested and if so, arrange meeting between parentsand photographer in publlc place.
um they don’t take naked pictures of children and put them in their catalouge do they?
gee i tell you it’s a dangerous thing cause i could go and take pics of naked kids and blow them up and then when i am arrested i can scream it was art and that i am a new artist. It’s crap this guy has a screw loose and i hope they do some digging .
I was very upset with these anti-Henson reports, painting him as behaving furtively and trolling the schoolyards for innocent children to corrupt.
As an artist myself, I’m not so sure I like his photography, but that’s neither here nor there.
He approaches a Principal of a school, asks if he can scout for models for his art, is accompanied and supervised when he does it, probably in a very controlled environment (and not just wandering around in the bushes spying on the kids as they play), then selects a few who have potential. Then he contacts their parents and requests permission to follow through. If he is denied permission, he acquiesces.
It’s not too different than casting children for a commercial or finding a model for a clothing catalogue, by foregoing using an agency, which is not uncommon.