How is national identity represented in film australia tv#In those countries long-term lobbies maintain pressure on the major TV stations etc to ensure fair representation. Yet the situation that persists in Australia would never be allowed in the UK, Canada or the USA – or even NZ/ Aotorea. Others point to second generation actors turning up as “Aussies” in TV soaps more regularly. continues, with few parts being cast with a democratic and cosmopolitan eye. Some commentators argue that the marginalisation of actors of colour etc. There is considerable debate as to whether this situation has got better or stayed as abysmally poor as it was twenty years ago. When the “visibly different” are allowed in they tend to be shown as caricatures – Black Face on Hey hey it’s Saturday as sound and movement in advertising (eg the KFC kerfuffle) or as the Chinky Chinese cook in Buz Luhrmann’s “Australia” (reminiscent in more ways than one of Ken Hall’s 1937 ” Lovers and Luggers”). So with half the population less than two generations “deep”, and many of them from non-Caucasian backgrounds, why is diversity better represented on British TV (with a lower proportion visibly different) than in Australia? And this in a society that now has almost half the population either born overseas or with one parent born outside the country. Most of the visible difference on Australian television that entertains Australian audiences comes from the USA, the UK, or SBS. Indeed if we want to discover where the daily media narrative delivers on Australia’s cultural diversity, it’s most likely to be in the news (where the issues are threats of violence or sports superstars) or in sporting coverage. The Australian media do a lot of “work” on race relations – firstly they ensure that there is very little presence of people of colour, what Canadians refer to as “visibly different” anywhere in the media landscape. In multiracial/polyethnic societies such as Australia, the media play a central role in the production, circulation and transformation of ideas about race. Professor of Sociology, University of Technology Sydney
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |