Bruce Petty’s satirical cartoons have graced the pages of The Australian for decades, so it’s with surprisingly small fanfare that his extraordinary work makes the leap from newsprint to celluloid; from a single frame to some 118,000 of them. In his sights is the magnificently intricate mechanism of civilized humanity, which spans thousands of years and still doesn’t work. September 11 is the springboard for a quick history lesson asking the relatively simple question – how did we end up in the cultural mess we’re in today?
Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal are among many prominent commentators who posit their views, yet rather than compile another series of talking heads intercut with historical footage (yawn), Petty takes us somewhere quite unique and unusual indeed. A Committee populated by humans, cartoons and Virginia Wolf is convened to establish what went wrong – and goes some way to illustrate the line taken by Global Haywire. It’s irreverent, caustic and entertaining: Terry Gilliam meets Douglas Adams.
Although Petty’s voice is singular and his message occasionally cluttered, he balances intent with entertainment and brings new energy to a familiar argument: global democracy is a myth and there will never be peace until Western self-interest is broken.
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