All good things come to an end
Even Spinoff themed weeks
Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend. This week, The Spinoff has had our first ever Porn Week, in partnership with independent non-profit Netsafe. Our fearless editor Madeleine Chapman has a great intro about why talking about porn matters — to support children who are exposed to sexual content online, just for starters. I’ve learned a lot — like that two companies corner the market in the very profitable world of online porn — and hopefully you have too. As Porn Week comes to an end, we have a piece this morning on the porn cinema that is now a comedy club and we hear from a writer who went to the sex cult at the heart of a new Netflix documentary. We have some non-porn content too, don’t worry! It’s a great moment for a fresh brew of Coffee Supreme and a scroll onwards.
-Shanti Mathias, staff writer
Watch the climax of Chris and Eli’s Porn Revolution today!
Chris Parker and Eli Matthewson in Porn Revolution (Photo: Screengrab/The Spinoff)
Porn Week has been centred around a webseries in which comedians Chris Parker and Eli Matthewson talk to experts and try to figure out how to run a campaign to help New Zealanders talk about their relationship to pornography. Along the way, they’ve found New Zealand’s first (and only?) fully produced gay porn star, talked to the queen of ethical porn, and found out what working on OnlyFans is like. In the final episode, which will be released today at 12 pm, Chris and Eli host a TedXXX event to discuss what they’ve learned. If you’ve missed the Porn Revolution episodes so far, they’re truly thoughtful and interesting – definitely worth a weekend binge.
Porn Revolution director Kate Prior: how we made a show about pornography
Make your morning Supreme
Coffee Supreme has been serving New Zealanders great coffee, since ’93. Their commitment to living up to their name: being the Supreme choice, extends from their rich coffee to how they care for all their people, from producers to baristas to customers.
It’s called Supreme for a reason. Fill your mug now at Coffee Supreme.
Number of the Week: 90 minutes from West Auckland
Writer and comedian Amanda Kennedy lives in West Auckland. After being diagnosed with post-Covid epilepsy, she’s had to start using public transport to get to work, and has been incredibly frustrated by how poorly served West Auckland is for people without cars. Train services are frequently cancelled, or very full. Buses never show up. West Auckland is home to disadvantaged communities and dense housing, but public transport isn’t set up to meet this need. Kennedy’s problems are a reminder that for the thousands of people around the country who don’t or can’t drive, investing in good alternatives is vital. As a car-free human who also lives close to the dramatically unreliable Western Line, I empathised with this piece way too much.
Embracing the inbetween cultures of my Puerto Rican, Pākehā, Māori family
Image: Tina Tiller
When Eli Rivera’s kids were born, she wanted to help them feel connected to their cultures as Pākehā, Māori, and Puerto Rican. This was a lot harder to do when her family lived across the ocean, far away, and she was ashamed of the ways that her own Spanish ability failed her. “By no longer knowing how to speak Spanish, and never learning to speak te reo Māori, am I now placing this same burden, this shame, on my son?” she asks. I am learning, at times, to make friends with my clumsy Hindi vocabulary and all the things I can’t say. Eli’s beautiful piece is a reminder that there are so many people who are in the same boat, and if we listen to both kaumātua and rangatahi, we can still share the gifts of our languages with the generations that will come after us.
Let’s talk about Bad Sex, baby
Feminist writer Nona Willis Aronowitz split up with her husband, in part, because the sex was bad. Then she wrote a book, Bad Sex, about it. Emily Simpson, reviewing the book, appreciates how the personal and the political twine together, with Willis Aronowitz drawing from her own life and also the journals of her mother for her unique book. Even for a fervent feminist like Willis Aronowitz, raised by left-wing organisers, sex and marriage have complex cultural baggage. Simpson spares a thought for Willis Aronowitz’s erstwhile husband and exhausted friends as the writer looks for new and old narratives about sex.
Dawn Cheong has always been a star
Actor Dawn Cheong (Image: Tina Tiller)
Sam Brooks talks to Dawn Cheong, who stars as The Showrunner in new Auckland play The First Primetime Asian Sitcom. I had a privilege of watching and reviewing the play this week – I thought it was excellent – and I really liked how this profile of Cheong covers some of the same ground as the play itself, which is a very meta commentary on how representation always falls short. Cheong went to drama school in Aotearoa but has mostly worked overseas ever since, allowing her to play roles that are rarely available to Asian actors here. The profile also notes that Cheong does a New Zealand accent for all of her performance in the show, which makes her acting all the more impressive. The play is on until November 27, and I can’t recommend it enough.
Everything else
Firstly! The Black Ferns are playing in the Rugby World Cup tonight. If you want to get hyped, perhaps watch new documentary Wāhine Toa about the team? Or if you’re more into sports and cultural analysis, Dylan Cleaver and Scotty Stephenson have a yarn in
about what's happened in this RWC on and off the field.What is Mayor Wayne Brown communicating through photography?
If you’ve been following (or not following – fair enough) the US midterms, I’ve loved the last month of midterm-related episodes from fun US podcast This Day in Esoteric Political History, which takes single moments and talks about how they speak to a broader political context.
When in Sydney last week I had a very good time swimming in wave-fed saltwater pools and loved this dreamy photo interactive from The Guardian of sea pools throughout New South Wales. Extremely calm and soothing weekend scrolling!
Sabotage has been in the Crimes Act since 1961 but the trial of the first person to be charged with it is only happening now.
Cop27 headlines are kind of dire! I recommend the latest issue of
which talks about putting human resilience on the agenda – and this Quartz article discusses the role of carbon offsets on the agenda.A beautiful and kind of mysterious essay about living with polluted air.
In the ‘rich people losing money in dumb ways’ category – what is going on with crypto platform FTX? (and let’s not get started on Twitter! or Mastodon!).
What happens when you gender swap Greek myths?
There are too many options for watching TV now.
Duckrockers evokes the 80s in a good way, says Sela Jane Hopgood (plus, Chris Schulz talked to the team behind the show about recreating the Queen Street riot last week).
An ode to the adventures of the TVNZ bouncey ball.
The Side Eye: the differences between porn and real sex.
Nicola Willis says National would review how Reserve Bank governors are appointed (listen).
Wellington’s first social supermarket opened last year. Now there are more throughout the country.
Banks are currently raking in huge profits. The open banking model could change that.
I remember the thrill of being taught ‘Jingle Bells, Batman smells’ in the playground. This article discusses how ‘childlore’ – kid’s folklore – spreads and evolves.
Sam Brooks finds out if the new season of The Crown is as bad as everyone has been saying.
High profile art exhibits have become an arena for climate activism. Are New Zealand cultural institutions prepared for the same to happen here?
The article on the reserve bank governor seems light on comments from govt but heavy in comments from TNP