Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This clip shows Ron (Dennis Miller) trying to discuss the facts of life with his son, Ben (Ken Talbot). It becomes clear that they are at cross purposes; while Ron is talking about sexuality Ben is talking about issues of inequity in ‘Third World’ countries. In the next scene Ben pursues these topics with his mother, Di (Anne Grigg), who slowly realises Ben is not interested in the naked woman on the cover of an Oceanic and Geographic magazine, as she had supposed, but in an article on the Ethiopian famine.

Educational value points

• This clip uses humour to highlight serious issues such as inequity and to illuminate the misunderstandings between Ben and his parents. The humour works through Ben’s parents’ misreading of his seeming interest in naked bodies, leading them to attempt to talk about sex with him, and Ben’s apparent misunderstanding of their intentions. The humour comes from the audience clearly seeing both viewpoints while the characters misinterpret each other.

• This clip quickly establishes the well-intentioned but flawed attempts made by Ben’s parents to understand their son. Ben’s father is trying to do the right thing by having a conversation with his son about sex while Ben welcomes the opportunity to speak with his father about his most pressing concern, the problem of starvation in Africa. Ben’s mother tries to engage him but is blind to the bigger world picture that Ben is intent on understanding and engaging with.

• The scene at the lunch table presents another irony – Ben’s sister cannot or will not eat her lunch, which suggests that she too is interested in the issue of starvation. However, her preoccupation is with her body image only and reflects her preoccupation with self, in contrast with her brother’s attitudes.

• This clip illustrates the concerns of the young and juxtaposes them with the lack of understanding and self-interest of some adults. The parents’ attempts to discuss the facts of life (sexuality and reproduction) pale into insignificance when compared with Ben’s much greater concerns about the injustices of the world.

• The film’s ironic title, The Other Facts of Life, plays on the traditional meaning of ‘the facts of life’ – reproduction and sexuality as discussed between parents and a child. While it is often considered a difficult topic, in this clip the father makes a valiant effort. Although willing to engage in this conversation, the father and later the mother are completely thrown by Ben’s wish to discuss other ‘facts of life’ such as famine, affluence, consumerism and inequity.

• The video clip and magazine article that have concerned Ben deal with the Ethiopian famine of 1984–85 in which nearly 1 million people died. In March 1984 the Ethiopian Government warned that 5 million people were at risk of starvation due to drought, disease destroying the crops, forced resettlements and the ongoing disturbance of the civil war in the northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigre.

• This clip provides an example of Morris Gleitzman’s humour, which works, according to Gleitzman, by turning the rational, logical, predictable world order upside down. A humorous situation is created when the viewer’s expectation of what appears to be a logical sequence of events is either physically or conceptually challenged, such as in the scene with Ben, his mother and the magazine, which challenges her ideas about his interests.