The ravenous Monique Schafter
| 23 February 2010
Monique Schafter is on her way to being our new ‘It girl’.
Now a staple on the ABC’s cutting edge current affairs program Hungry Beast, Schafter’s rising TV star is looming. However, there’s also her electronic band The Kill Room, doco making, boxing training and a lot of BMX riding to be done.
Rachel Cook caught up with the multi-tasking dynamo.
Monique, how did Hungry Beast come about?
At the very start of it Andrew Denton’s production company, Zapruder’s Other Films, put the call out looking for people aged between 19 and 30 who weren’t happy with the sort of news that they were seeing on TV – people who thought they could approach things from a different perspective – and I applied.
I was shortlisted with 60 other people from around the country. Then we all got an interview, which was more like an audition, and that was unexpected because the only preparation we were told to do was to pay attention to the news for two days and to think how we would do things differently.
I had about 50 different stories. I got through that all right and thought, ‘Cool, that must be what’s going on here.’ Then they sprung this impromptu piece to camera on us, where we had to sit in front of an autocue and read a piece on carbon trading. Then the autocue conks out and we had to fill for five minutes, and I was like ‘What, speak for five minutes on carbon trading?’ I think I spoke for about 30 seconds on the topic, then I started to talk about how to block a punch in the boxing ring and all these other tangents. I just kept talking about all this random stuff, but they seemed to find it amusing.
Once that was over we had to do an impromptu interview with [a pretend] Malcolm Turnbull, then for the final component of the interview we were put in a room by ourselves for 50 minutes. We had to produce a three-minute video story on anything we wanted and all that was in the room were these random props, like garden gnomes.
I did a story based on these kids who put a rap song on MySpace about a crime they had gotten away with. They had assaulted a girl and had gone to juvy, but then came out and were boasting on MySpace and they wrote this really crap rap about it. My take on that story was to put these kids in a rap battle against the rest of the country, urban justice style, like if that’s the way they want to communicate then we’ll communicate with them on that same level. I ended up reenacting that with the garden gnomes playing 50 Cent and then after all that, I got hired as a web content producer! But when we all came together we were all multi-tasking and everyone was doing everyone else’s job and now I’m doing reporting and some presenting.
What are some of the things you don’t like about mainstream media, and how would you do them differently?
Well, because I’m a lesbian I like looking at queer issues, and that’s what I bring to the table in this group of nineteen. Last year I did a story on fake lesbians, it was kind of a comical debate with one of the other girls about how celesbians use the idea of sexy girl-on-girl pash as a marketing ploy to get attention, people like Katy Perry and Madonna and Britney. It gets so much attention in the mainstream media, but it doesn’t get looked at in a critical way. It does by the queer press, but not by the mainstream press. And it was about taking a look at it in an amusing and interesting way for a broader audience, not just a queer audience.
Do you ever feel like you have to pull back on the queer stuff or do you have free rein?
It’s free rein, but I also do a lot of other stories that aren’t queer focused. The queer stuff is an aspect of what I do, but it’s not everything. I guess, though, when I look at a queer issue I like to look at it from a different perspective that also challenges me and what I know about the issue. For instance, I’m doing a story on gay conversion therapy at the moment, which of course is something I am very anti. But I found a guy who has had a same-sex attraction to guys but is now living a heterosexual life because of his faith. He believes that homosexual acts are sinful and he is a very, very devout Christian and so he is married and has two children. I’m doing a piece on him and why he is ignoring his instincts. Something like this is quite challenging for me to approach objectively, ’cos you wanna just slam it down and say religion is shit. But I’m trying to really get a sense of why he is living his life like this.
You have quite an extensive media background. Can you tell us how it all began?
I never knew what I wanted to do. When I was in high school I was doing so many random subjects, I was doing chemistry and math and literature and media and I loved it all. I eventually picked media ’cos I thought I would miss out on the least number of things in life because the media is all encompassing. I thought it would give me the most variety.
I’ve probably worked in TV since about 2001 when I finished uni. I was picked to be in this development team with Grundy Television, which later became Freemantle Media. We were a five-person think tank for new TV shows. I was the token youngie, fresh out of uni with piercings and asymmetrical haircuts (laughs) – a cliché pretty much. I was part of that for about five years and pitched a lot of ideas. I got a bit sick of development and I moved into the digital media department, so I became their Melbourne producer coming up with original content for online – there was a lot of variety there as well.
Talking about variety, there’s also your electronic band, The Kill Room, which you do with Rhia Moulds. How did that start?
That started when I was about 23 or 24 and it was more about me becoming really comfortable with my sexuality and wanting to show it off. I think I was really inspired by Peaches and that idea of ‘fuck the pain away’ and her exhibitionist nature of performance and that sense of humour she often has in her music. It was initially a solo project and then when I met Rhia she was keen to get in on it as well and we thought with two people and a band we could take the music somewhere else.
What was behind the Missy Higgins song and video?
I love Missy [laughs], I have a big crush on Missy Higgins and I was hoping she was ‘bi now gay later’ I think.
So were you disappointed when she came out as bisexual?
Well, it’s bitter sweet – I’m still in with a chance.
Did she ever hear or see it?
Well, word got back to me through a friend of a friend kind of thing that Missy had seen it and thought it was hilarious. But I’ve never heard the words come out of her mouth, so I don’t know.
There was also your doco, Girls Kick Balls. Tell us about that.
Oh yeah, that was a couple of years ago now. I met some girls who play footy for the MUGARS [Melbourne University Girls' Aussie Rules Squad] and I was just really, really interested in their world and their culture, because these girls are so obsessed with footy. They live and breathe footy and I thought it was worth doing a profile piece on them because football gets so much attention in the mainstream media but we never hear of these fanatical girls who live and breathe it too. Not only do they watch the guys on TV, but they play it themselves. It was an opportunity for them to tell their story. I was looking at all the clichés, such as they must all be dykes (laughs), which turned out to be pretty true. But they dealt with that with a good sense of humour.
What about your love of boxing, could that be a career move down the path?
Oh man, I would totally love to do something like that, you know, now that it’s an Olympic sport and everything. I would love to work towards something like that. I think training will have to pick up once Hungry Beast wraps because at the moment it keeps really interfering with my boxing training. I’ve just joined a new club here in Sydney. In Melbourne I trained at three different boxing clubs and the last once I was at was Fitzroy Stars on Gertrude Street, which is the Indigenous boxing gym. I joined them because some of the boxing clubs I’d been to didn’t really appreciate girls being there and it was a much cooler environment. In Sydney I’ve found an equivalent gym called the Tony Mundine gym and it’s another Indigenous gym. I go about three times a week.
Are there many Indigenous girls training there?
There’s a couple there and maybe two or three white girls as well.
I’ve also heard that you’re into BMX. What’s your best trick?
(Laughs) I’m a bit of a lame arse. For me it’s probably doing a mono over a speed bump. I’m not that hard core – I try to be, but I’m a bit average. For me it’s more like my wheels. I don’t drive anywhere. I ride it to work every day, I ride to boxing. I love on a Sunday afternoon going out on my BMX with my iPhone in my pocket and just stumbling across random shit and if I see something interesting I’ll tweet about it.
It’s so hilly in Sydney compared to Melbourne – you must be getting fit.
The leg muscles are doing well!
Monique can be seen on Hungry Beast ABC1 Wednesday 9pm, ABC2 Thursday 8.30pm
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