On Tuesday night at the 2017 ARIA Awards, Sydney musician Kirin J Callinan decided to repeatedly flash his genitals while posing for cameras on the red carpet.
Callinan lifted up his kilt as a large group of photographers continued snapping away, holding the tartan garment up for several seconds before dropping it back down and sauntering away.
The Sydney artist is being widely criticised for the move, particularly the absolute tone-deafness of choosing to ignore the concept of consent while Australia engages in a highly-publicised national conversation about sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Callinan is known for his abrasive schtick of 'ironic toxic masculinity', which many of his supporters adamantly declare an intelligent and nuanced take on ingrained, conventionally-'masculine' behaviours and actions caused by generations of damaging patriarchal demands on men.
As a performer, he leans on our country's love for iconic Aussie rock, and our tendency to idealise hypermasculine culture (Footy! Beer! Meat! Chicks in the kitchen, men at the BBQ!) while supposedly 'highlighting' the sexism, racism, and homophobia that comes deeply ingrained with these things. Fans say he 'shines a light' on the harmful nature and root causes of these behaviours, veiled underneath music heavily reminiscent of classic Australiana nostalgia and pub sing-a-longs.
In the past, the musician has copped flak over a poster which shows him reclining in the nude, painted completely in blackface. He also received backlash in 2013, when his Sugar Mountain Festival performance was pulled at last minute, and it was revealed he'd planned on playing an epilepsy-inducing show reportedly to invoke seizures on a purposely-placed epileptic person named Billy, seemingly as a 'kooky' stunt.
But Callinan's latest stunt at the ARIAS shows that no amount of backlash to his 'no-I-swear-its-totally-meta' defence will force him to critique his own actions.
Social media users have responded very negatively, with many agreeing that exposing his penis to unsuspecting people is an issue of consent, as well as being a serious crime (indecent exposure holds a 6-month prison term and a fine of $1100 in NSW).
Much like receiving a unsolicited nude picture over the internet, revealing your gentialia ~IRL~ to someone who has not agreed to it deems the act non-consensual, and goes far beyond the idea of 'parodying' toxic masculinity - it simply just *is* an act of toxic masculinity.
Parody can be a powerful form of critique, but if you're just simplistically performing the problematic acts you're supposedly analysing, your review is, without question, severely lacking in depth - especially if you've just committed a sex crime while doing it.
Callinan's fans often rely on the 'maybe you just don't get it' defence, but there's far better ways of creating nuanced, intelligent parody of the dangers of toxic masculinity than getting your dick out on a red carpet. But why would you, when you've based your career around doing whatever you want to get a reaction, and passing it off as a illuminating comment on society?
Extraordinarily, Callinan has long managed to get away with all of this on the basis of artistic immunity; the vague, self-congratulatory assumption that he's not part of the problem, he's simply "lifting the lid" on the roots of these ingrained issues - as if no one ever has before.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Callinan could considering listening and learning from women, who've been shining a light on the dangers of toxic masculinity for generations.
