It's Been A Longue Time

20 September 2008

Sofas can play a surprising role in career development, writes Jim Bright.

Remember Matt Brown?

He was the NSW police minister who, after a few days in the role, was sacked after it was revealed he had danced about in a state of semi-undress on a Parliament House sofa.

Just an amusing footnote in the annals of NSW politics, you might think. But it reminded me of the central role sofas often play in careers, particularly those of high flyers.

Take the case of Tony Blair. Swept into power on a wave of popular support, he was determined to bring in a relaxed style of government where decisions were taken out of the hands of civil servants and bureaucrats and instead made during comfortable discussions on sofas. The lounge was moved figuratively and literally from the back room to 10 Downing Street and informality was encouraged.

Sadly it all ended in tears. Critics lambasted Blair's attempt at easygoing rule as "sofa government". Commentator Max Hastings wrote in The Guardian that the result was "chronic indiscipline".

Not convinced?

Chesterfield sofas were also a potent symbol of the demise of the Howard government. During his reign as prime minister, John Howard made a conscious decision to remove the modern furniture from his Parliament House office and replace it with a conservative green chesterfield lounge suite. He also installed a desk once used by Robert Menzies that had been cut down to suit his frame.

Alas the sofas did him no good in the end and he was voted out of office last year. When Howard was ousted and Kevin Rudd moved in, the removal of the furniture aptly caught the change in style and government.

In Germany the sofa was central in another political scandal. In 2006 it was revealed a security camera of Berlin's Pergamon Museum had for some time been improperly trained on the sofa and lounge room of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among the images captured were those showing Merkel's husband, chemistry professor Joachim Sauer, watching television.

Of course, inevitably when you look at sofa moments, Bill Clinton's name is going to pop up. At the height of the Monica troubles he was reportedly banished to the sofa by Hillary.

You might be seeing an emerging pattern here, that sofas spell trouble for politicians, but they are not alone. Sofas threaten the careers of people in many different occupations.

Take Tom Cruise and his sofa antics on Oprah. Now take a look at his box office takings pre and post sofa. Get the picture?

In Tinsel Town, we can hardly overlook the role of the sofa or couch as a potent force in the careers of many starlets and apparently a few stars too. The casting couch has been one of the most powerful career development interventions in Hollywood history.

You can imagine my delight when I discovered The Sofa Project, a collaboration between designers Mattia Velati, Yoto Yotov and Kim Skjoldager-Nielsen from the University of Copenhagen, who are studying sofas and how people interact with them using cameras. They hope their work will raise social, ideological, and political questions about sofas. Apparently watching what people do with or on sofas involves meta-layers, iconicity and serial motifs.

So, dear reader, what advice can I give you if you have had your career blighted by an unfortunate sofa moment? Well, if you believe the stereotypes about psychologists like me, why not come over to my couch and tell me all about it?


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