What is The Curb?
In short, culture, unity, reviews, and banter.
The Curb has a keen focus on Australia as a whole. For the most part, Australian culture is one that deserves celebration. Whether it be Australian cinema, Australian music, Australian politics, Australian literature: Australian life is something that we at The Curb are passionate about.
The world feels like it’s in an ever changing vortex at the moment, with politics, arts, society and general day to day life feeling unsettled. The Curb can’t fix that problem, but it can certainly be a place where these things are discussed.
We at The Curb strongly believe in representation of diverse voices covering diverse topics. So, with myself (Andrew Peirce), Little Pink Typewriter guru Jeanette Muscat, and all round great guy Travis Akbar, there is already a small array of diversity on board to talk about anything under the sun.
But there’s always space for more voices. The long term view for The Curb is to provide a platform for underrepresented voices from all over Australia to talk about whatever they like – whether it be their thoughts on the latest superhero extravangza, all the way down to why they think the chicken parmigiana at their local pub is the best in Australia, The Curb aims to be the place for that to happen.
It won’t happen overnight, and it may never happen at all, but hopefully you’ll stick with us on this ride through culture, feel united together, enjoy our reviews, and given the banter a good listen as well.
Stick around, and you’ll notice that The Curb touches on all kinds of topics. Yep, there’ll always be chats about Australian films, and wherever possible, amplifying the voices of those underseen and undervalued Australian flicks. We’ll continue talking about cinema with the minds that make films. But we also want to branch out past the dark room of the cinema and take a look into the world of music, literature, politics, gaming, and the bloke down at the local fish and chips shop.
We want to hear from everyone.
Culture is a huge part of The Curb, but so is being united. In a world where everyone feels like they have to look over their shoulder for fear that somebody is going to do them in, unity suddenly becomes a major necessity. Now, The Curb isn’t going to solve global issues at all. We are optimistic, but we have limitations. But, we do feel that by sharing things that bring people together and help people tell their stories (like the Scribblers Festival campaign in Perth, or a crowdfunding campaign for a short film) may just help a little bit.
If you’ve already listened to the first few episodes of the first podcast, Not A Knife, then you’ll have heard mentions about other campaigns that will hopefully bring more people together in Australia, such as, the great Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and their efforts to assist asylum seekers in Australia with legal matters. This is sort of cause that The Curb aims to support and highlight.
Australian culture regularly feels under attack. Almost every month or two, a new article appears predicting the imminent death of Australian cinema. Australian politics is as far right leaning as it ever has been, with the society at large seemingly being ok with the atrocities that the government enacts in our name. Indigenous voices are routinely ignored and undervalued. There are many who are pushing back against the oppression that exists in Australia (and the world at large), and The Curb aims to add to that push back. It’s not all aggression and doom and gloom – there’s a lot to celebrate about Australia, and The Curb aims to help remind people why Australia is a great place.
Over the next few months, you’ll see articles, reviews, and podcast episodes, covering Australian cinema and Australian culture. By covering Australian cinema, new and old, we will aim to look at how it reflects Australian culture and how it adds to Australian identity. There are some exciting interviews coming up with minds behind Australian films, but also outside of cinema. We aim to look at how the Australian identity has changed over time, and how it’s evolving to be more inclusive to the first nations people and the minorities who call Australia home. There’s a list of voices from all over Australia that we aim to talk to, and we aim to bring you that regularly.
In August, we will launch the first month dedicated purely to Australian cinema – AUSgust. Every day there will be a new film recommendation for you to seek out and explore, and we encourage amplifying the discussion around Australian cinema by using the hashtag #AUSgust on social media. Hopefully this will be an annual event that will get bigger each year.
So, that’s the culture, that’s the unity, that’s the reviews, and that’s the banter. That’s what makes up The Curb.
Now for the hard sell.
The Curb is a site that is owned and operated by me, Andrew Peirce. For full transparency, I don’t get paid to run this site, this is simply something I’m extremely passionate about and have found great joy in being able to talk about Australian cinema with people who maybe aren’t all that familiar with it. You’ll notice that there’s advertising on the site, and while that can be obnoxious and annoying, it does provide a miniscule revenue stream for the website. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to cover the costs of running the site, and in turn, not enough to start paying writers for their work.
There are a lot of big league websites out there who are able to pay their writers, and The Curb can’t ever compete with those. It’s not the intention to surpass them, but simply to add to the conversation around Australia, and in turn, the world.
One of the main goals of The Curb is to value the writers who write for The Curb and to pay them for their words. Words are time, and time is money. With that in mind, if The Curb seems like a place you’d like to support, and you’d like to see diverse voices being paid for telling their stories, then please consider throwing a few dollars behind the site over on Patreon.
With all that said, The Curb is going to exist regardless of whether it makes enough to pay writers or not. If the least The Curb manages to do is to get people to check out an Australian film they’ve never heard of before, then it’ll be a success. If it manages to grow into something more than that, then it’ll be even better.
If you have a story that you want told, or a project you think would be of interest to The Curb, then please get in contact with us at TheCurbAU@gmail.com or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. And if you feel that The Curb is a place that you’d like to write for, then please, get in touch. We’re always looking for more voices to share what they have to say.
We want to share indigenous stories. We want to share LGBTIQA+ stories. We want to share political stories. We want to share small stories. We want to share big stories.
We want to share your story.
Hopefully you’ll stick with us on this journey, and see where what paths we head down from here.
Thank you.
Andrew Peirce
