ARTS2090 – Distribution Research Project

When publishing changes, so does society. Investigate and compare the impact of two publication technologies, one pre-1900 and one post-1962, on a specific aspect of society (e.g. education, politics, creative industries, science, entertainment, social relationships).

As we see today music has penetrated and soaked through many aspects of modern daily lives. Waking up to a series of songs on the radio, watching morning news on television with effect music and advertisements between programs with music, leaving the house with headphones in the portable music player… there are countless encounters of music wherever you go that it is hard to imagine what it was like to have limited or no music at all in your life. This is all possible because of the development of publishing that delivers us an ever-expanding variety of music to our ears. There are multitudes of purposes of music we hear today – for instance, it was one of the strategies for a restaurant I worked for to have relaxing and atmospheric music playing to accompany the meal, wine and the harbour view. I believe, however, that music in its nature is for the entertainment sake. This wide range of music of different genres have categorised our entertainment activities for us to choose where to go for a night out, what to wear, if it was for an adolescent it may even determine how to intoxicate yourself to have fun.

What I am interested in exploring is to what degree and how the two modes of publication of music – sheet music and MP3 – have effected our lives in entertaining ourselves. This achievement or perhaps a confusion in creating limitless genres and taste in music seems to be taken for granted in our modern lives, which would have been a complete alien concept for those who were utilising sheet music as the only source of music.

Sheet Music

The earliest recorded form of sheet music is manuscripts, which emerged at around mid 15^th century. These sheets of music were manually written and copied by hands of church relatives, usually priests and monks, to preserve its religious chants. Apart from those of the Catholic church, only a small proportion remains for they were extremely time and effort consuming, could be moved though fragile for the quality of ink and paper they were using. Consequently the entertainment value in music within this period seems quite low. Not to say that there would have been no joy in listening to this type of music, for there would have been nothing in comparison. However, by having a clear record of what is being played or sang, it could have possibly resulted in performing better than before as well as distributing the same sheets to unify what is played. Therefore the manuscripts were likely to have helped in better performance and unity hence an achievement of its intended purpose.

This mode of sheet music continued until the first legitimate printing facility was invented by Ottaviano Patrucci in Venice in 1501. This invention incorporated a technique called the ‘triple-impression’ method, in which the staff lines, words and notes were printed separately in three processes. The results were very clear and precise though still time-consuming and expensive. The music recorded on the first collection consisted mostly of French secular music, which was called Harmonice Musices Odhecaton. The tradition of manuscripts, by this time, had already ceased, taken over by the prints for its far more efficient and precise results. Here the entertainment value has risen for the music recorded has transformed into products of art from a commodity of tradition/religion. In 1520, the English developed a single-impression method, which, as the name tells, printed the content in one process instead of three. This made the process mush faster though left the product messier than the triple-impression method. It was a revolutionary change in the history of music, for as music became products of art, the consumers began to perceive it in a different light. At the same time, as it incurred cost to print and distribute it caused an extra emphasis on the class difference because it was financially only available to the upper and sometimes the middle-merchant class. They would enjoy studying the sheets, practising the material as well as going to occasions such as opera and theatre plays where their familiar pieces are performed. Then what were the lower-class supposed to listen to? Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine the lower-class having access to any of these publication or any entertainment activities that involves musical performances, which leaves their experience of music only to attending church services. Although majority of it consists of classical music, the history of sheet music extends to the present day for its specific purpose still remains strong in the act of preserving, distributing and studying the music.

MP3

Since this time, there has been numerous inventions of music publications such as vinyl records, cassette tapes and compact disks (CD), however, the advent of MP3 together with the internet opened up the opportunities as well as risks for the music industry and the consumer entertainment. MP3, MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, marks the start of digital music industry and expansion of consumerism. In 1994, the first song in the digital format of mp3 was released, though due to small capacity of the computers at the time, heavy compression was required to store these data. With the efficiency and accuracy of the product, it rapidly develops from this point to where we are now. This latest mode of publication has also caused problems that is crucial to the survival of the music industry. Online peer-to-peer file sharing is the most dangerous of all, in which second-hand owners (those who purchased the mp3 files from artists) would upload the files on the internet for the others to download it without any cost. This means that, ultimately, if one person purchased the product and uploads the files no one else would have to pay any cost for the access to the product.

The shift of consumerism for entertainment is largely in its focus on individualism, and this shift is not only conducted by the music industry but also by other industries that have foreseen the potential of music as money making business. The files will almost always be accurate, can be moved regardless of space and time through the internet to wherever they need to go at any given time according to the consumer’s needs and wants. Again, they can be replayed wherever and whenever the consumer wants with their portable music player which are developed by accompanying businesses of the music industry.

Another possibility opened by this form of music is its ability to revitalise the past. Music published through other means in the past, when mp3 did not exist, can also be transformed into this format and treated in the same way as other mp3. The consumers are not only receiving new material but also able to revisit the past by listening to old publication in the new format. Leading from here, and the fact that retaining the soft copy of the music (perhaps a sign of reliance on technology) could result in losing all of it once the technology crashes, the novelty of keeping the products in hardcopy is attracting the new age consumerism. Due to this emphasis on its tactile aspect and revitalising the past, artists are now pressing vinyls on top of their usual sales line of CDs and digital mp3. There is a sense of exclusion in mp3 that might be credible for this new aspect of consumerism – that it only contains music. The process of releasing a musical creation involves more than the artists, which can be detected if you purchase a hardcopy for it contains the artwork, producers, studios, record labels and others who contributed in making the product.

The entertainment of music used to be a mass culture because it was so scarce that wherever they had the music everyone gathered – people would come to church for a service and hear a liturgical piece performed. Looking at the rich and dense collection of music, it seems that one can only consume a tiny proportion of the whole with their choice of music according to their taste and the trend of the time. This is not to say that music nowadays is only consumed solely, but it is to say that this specificity has sorted us into different categories to an extent that alters our social behaviours. Moreover, the ease to publish music in the mp3 format has allowed many individuals to become artists themselves. With instruments becoming more affordable, consumers are creators at the same time, adding another dimension to the entertainment of music. It is interesting to note that this massive trend of individualism and consumerism towards music has its origin in the sheet music that made music as products of arts. It is true that music is now an enormous money making monster with CDs, vinyls, books, shows… all purely for entertainment of the consumers.

ARTS2062 Course Esasy

How useful is the label ‘national cinema’ in describing Australian film. Critically evaluate the usefulness of the term using at least two films.

By the sound of it, ‘national cinema’ designates an assumption that it aims to portray the nation as consolidated as it as and to reinforce the unification of its nationals within this framework of the nation. Nations, as opposed to countries, are not the physical entities in which individuals reside but are conceptual entities in which the individuals of the countries share languages, sense of belonging and identity. This ideal would have functioned perfectly for Australian national cinema if it were not for the diversity we see today. In addition to this, there are economical, ethical and political demands for the national cinema not only within Australia but also outside the country. This is to say that cinema is no longer or has never been a pure artistic creation with implications due to these demands. Films, whether they are considered as national cinema or not, must make their budget back in order for the film-makers to continue making films, hence it is unavoidable for film-makers to purposefully choose what is to be represented and what is not to reach for wider audience, which in return will bring the figures back. This dilemma between the desire for full creative control over the products and the need for alterations in the content due to financial and economical demands for the continuous opportunities is what is making the term ‘national cinema’ more and more elusive.

So who constitutes the Australian nation? Rural areas mainly consist of indigenous people and Anglo-Saxon Australians, though the closer it is to capitalist cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, the more diversity there is, which consists of English, Irish, Scottish, Chinese, New Zealander, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Indian, Italian Philippine. The question with this diversity is – what is the chance of seeing this dense combination of races in our Australian films? We are mostly exposed to Anglo-Saxon Australians, and the Aboriginals for there is a historically enormous emphasis on the equal representation of the Aboriginal race to that of the Anglo-Saxon Australian. If the above statement about the aims of the national cinema is right, then the national cinema in its current state is portraying Australia in a different light.

There are two possible escape routes, provided by Jacka, from this precarious position for Australian national cinema. One is ‘the nationalist, the populist, the touristy – projections of a mythicised essentialist Australian image, which has a reassuring and consensualist force at home and an impact overseas that is a mixture of the spectacle of the exotic and the presentation of nostalgic myths of innocence that bring comfort to audiences caught in confusing, difficult and even violent times’ and the other is the focus on the local for ‘the local doesn’t necessarily mean the veristic, in the sense o mirroring or reflecting a society or subculture, because the local can be intensely medicated or mythologized or fantasised or transformed by generic and other operations’ Jacka, 1993). These possible directions sit on the extreme ends of the spectrum and are more concrete conceptual directions than the current indirect direction the film industry is following, or to be more precise, forced to follow. With these two opposing positions in mind this essay will examine two major Australian films, one of Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Red Curtain Trilogy’, Moulin Rouge! (2001), and Peter Faiman’s Crocodile Dundee (1986) with guidance of SAC (Significant Australian Content) from Screen Australia.

Screen Australia provides SAC (Significant Australian Content) to examine whether a film is eligible for funding. The test is based on key components of the film: the subject matter of the film, the place where the film was made, the nationalities and places of residence of the persons who took part in the making of the film (including producers, directors, authors, scriptwriters, composers, actors, editors, directors of photography, production designers and other film technicians), the details of production expenditure incurred in respect of the film, and any other matters that Screen Australia considers to be relevant (Screen Australia, 2009). The criteria does provide guidelines which the film-makers could follow, though there are no clear definitions of what the Australian content is. The decision is made upon discussions by the senior members of the agency. The two films chosen are both considered Australian with difference balance of distribution of Australian-ness across various aspects of the film. Let us examine the two films.

Baz Luhrman, the director of Moulin Rouge!, is an Australian citizen, and so are a number of other cast in the film including Nicole Kidman, Kylie Minogue, Richard Roxburgh, Garry McDonald, and Natalie Mendoza. Due to Kidman’s injury, although the completion of filming was in Madrid, Spain, majority of filming proceeded in Fox Studios in Sydney. Accordingly, the expenses for the set entirely created within the studio in Sydney was to circulate around the country. Although some alterations, which took the film away from being authentically Australian, might have been necessary for the film to be musical, these are the possible Australian-ness of the film that granted it the funding for containing a ‘significantly Australian content’. The film, however, definitely does not look any Australian. What connections with Australia would one make upon watching this film? The only significant Australian content would be, for an ordinary spectator, would have been the director, who is highly recognised globally as an Australian director, the star, Nicole Kidman and perhaps some other minor casts such as Kylie Minogue. The scenery within the film reminds us more of the glamourous town of Paris than Australia, which is emphasised more by the costumes, accent, attitudes of the people… etc. Despite all this the film was a major success not only in Australia but also globally, producing more than double the amount of the fund. This is a very good example of the problems Jacka points out, ‘private greed tends to overcome public purpose, and the desire to realised these dreamt-of-riches (which can only be achieved in the American market) means that movies are made here whose “souls” are trying very hard to lie elsewhere’ (Jacka, 1993).

On the other hand, Peter Faiman’s Crocodile Dundee, is an original mixture of Australian-ness and American-ness, succeeding at connecting and satisfying both Australian and American audiences. This cheesy and corny love comedy seems to do more than to make the audience laugh at seeing Dundee failing to adjust himself to civilisation in overpopulated America. The subject matter of the film is not strictly but mostly Australian as the contexts in which the Australian character exists change but the camera is almost always with Dundee, displaying him as the focus of the narrative. There are numerous scenes of the usual pub where Dundee and his ‘mates’ go to, which allows the Australian audience to familiarise themselves with the context while the American audience is informed of the bourgeois culture – and this locality is the key to its authentic Australian look. The glorified legend, Dundee, becomes closer to us or the general crowd as he reminds us of the Ocker era, with his masculinity, violence and sexist yet somehow embracing treatment of women. The major cast, Dundee (Paul Hogan) and Sue (Linda Kozlowski) are Australian and American, and perhaps there are more American characters that play an important role in the film, though the authenticity depending on this is questionable for much of the time spent in Australia consists of just the two and wild animals such as crocodiles and snakes! In terms of the locations of the film, the balance between Australia and America is quite even in both the sequential time and narrative structure. The film succeeds in involving the Aboriginal race by having Dundee as their friends and making available the ‘sacred ritual’ of the tribe – and making the spectator aware that it is strictly secretive by deploying Sue’s presence.What is interesting about this film is (and crucial for it to be Australian) that wherever Dundee is he is praised of his nationality, his masculinity and his confident (perhaps arrogant) talk, which in the end steals the heart of the bride from an arrogant and self-obsessive boyfriend who happens to be American. The only exclusion visible are those considered as the outcast of society devoid of their nationality (kangaroo hunters, pimps and the wicked boyfriend of Sue’s). It is the celebration of the Australian legend striving in the unknown civilised society which results him to have a beautiful and intelligent American girl, who also appreciates the Australian rural culture, that leaves no collision between the mentioned cultures. It could also be assumed that the locality of American culture is exposed especially in the closing scene where Sue finally reaches Dundee in a overly crowded subway station where the locals kindly and warmly operate as the bridge, both metaphorically and physically, for the two to be together. Perhaps this explains why this film was well appreciated by both cultures and satisfied Screen Australia for its potential of attracting a wide range of audiences whilst representing the Australian nation.

It seems inevitable to recognise the external influences on the framework of the so-called ‘nation’, for the sense of ‘being one’ as a nation is becoming far more detached from us with the general trend for individualisation. What is more problematising for Australia is that the external influences we receive are not only outside but also inside the nation for the diversity we experience today. Would it then be a promising future to unify the country based on our multicultural heritage, to say that Australia is Australia for its ever-changing and increasing diversity? This is where localism comes into play to deny the unification as a whole, but to concentrate more on the local scenes, to represent what we witness in our daily lives because this multidimensional crossovers of culture is what makes real Australia unique. This is not to say that the films have to stay ordinary to our eyes – just like Crocodile Dundee alteration or exaggeration of the content might be necessary to fuel the narratives. However, as long as we have our distinct Australian accent, local locations and perhaps a more diverse cast could establish the sense or the ‘look’ of Australia to revitalise our national cinema.

Reference List

Bell, P. and Bell R. (1998). Introduction: The Dilemmas of Americanisation. In AmericaniZation and Australia. UNSW Press. pp.1-14.

Freebury, J. (1987). Screening Australia: Gallipolli – a Study of Nationalism on Film. In Media Information Australia.

Jacka, E. (1993). Australian Cinema: Anachronism in the 1980s? In Turner, G. (ed.) Nation, Culture, Text: Australian Culture and Media Studies. Routledge. pp.106-122.

Rattigan, N. (1988). “Crocodile Dundee” : Apotheosis of the Ocker. In Journal of Popular Film and Television. pp.148-155.

Screen Australia. (2009). Producer Offset: Guidance on Significant Australian Content (SAC).

Comparative Analysis – Lantana (2001) & The Cars That Ate Paris (1974)

It is interesting to see two timely distant films, Lantana (2001) and The Cars that Ate Paris (1974), seem to have several conceptual similarities. Despite the fact that they are both defined as an art-house film at local video stores, their stories entail completely different moods to navigate the audience throughout the films. The conceptual similarities between the two could be categorized into three; suburbia Australia and connection with/separation from the land.

Lantana revolves around the emotional journeys four couples (one of which is divorced) in the suburbia Australia experience, triggered by an accidental disappearance and death of the wife (Valerie) of one of the couples. The characters, especially the protagonist Leon, learn to take a step forward from their midlife crisis as their lives somehow intertwine with one another. It is in this ordinary looking environment surrounded by the nature and lantana bush in particular, that we find a combination of extraordinary events gathering together. The opening scene denotes the whole film very precisely; the film opens with a scenery of bright green leaves decorated beautifully by the colorful flowers and as the camera sinks into the bush, we reach into the dense vines to find a dead body of a woman. This extreme contrast between the beauty of the nature and cruelty of human beings is the exact definition of the suburbia in the context of this film, which involves immoral affair, murder of Valerie’s daughter, Valerie’s success as an author of her book about her daughter and her failing sexless marital state, lonely divorcee who seeks attention from any male in her gaze and so on.

The Cars that Ate Paris, on the other hand, is set within a town called ‘Paris’ in rural Australia though the village more or less looks like a suburbia. The two brothers looking for a job are driving through a rough rocky road, when the older brother finds a sign that points to ‘Paris’ with employment opportunities. The two follow the navigation and are tricked by blinding lights to fall off the cliff. The older brother dies but the younger survives and is taken care of at the town. The town relies predominately on these tricked and killed incoming tourists as their source of income and things. The naïve younger brother, Arthur, appreciates the people’s support and believes his diagnosis as having two dead men in his mind and excessive fear of driving. This seemingly peaceful town as a whole is in fact involved with the business of tourist killing and, like lantana, the protagonist overcomes his complex after successfully escaping from ‘Paris’.

Talking about connection with/separation form the land, both the incidents occur within and because of the bush, and both the protagonists gain a superior understanding of the self in the end of the film; Leon rediscovers the importance of his wife after seeing how depressed Valerie’s husband was to lose both his daughter and wife, while Arthur defeats his fear of driving and achieves the escape without the hands of his older brother who supposedly hated him. It seems that the characters are once defeated by the overwhelming power of the nature, whether directly or indirectly, by getting in touch with the land and in return of conformation to the power of the nature, are given a reward – Leon reconciles with his wife and Arthur is freed from the deceptive town.

Concept Analysis – Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a film that explicitly speaks of cultural adaptation in need at the time. The film was released in 1975, around which time Australia was under enormous pressure to integrate various cultures that were coming into the country. This was due to the abolition of the White Australia Policy in 1974, which encouraged differences but at the same time became more or less a duty for the privileged white Australians to regulate their behaviours and perceptions of the other to a non-racist level if there were any.

At first glance the narrative of the film seems to operate only within the society of the white Australians, and indeed the whole film is comprised only with the ‘superior’ race or perhaps the ‘true’ Australians. The Apple Yard College is a girl’s school for the relatively wealthy and the students are well-behaved, disciplined, educated and respectful. It is only when they all go to the Hanging Rock on St. Valentines day that we find their naiveness and underestimation of the wild. Four curious girls wander off to the rock and three of them, and later a teacher as well, somehow disappears without a trace. Despite one of the girls comes back mysteriously, the others remain vanished.

There is a peculiar mixture of two cultures in the film; one being the still very ‘English’ members of the college with their dress, accent and the way they carry themselves around, and the other the nature, including the Hanging Rock. To see the English girls at the Hanging Rock observing the nature and relaxing under the sun is perhaps ordinary devoid of any cultural significance, though the whole of the community (college) is faced to deal with the disappearance of the four members. This could be seen as a confrontation with the nature, which clearly represents the social unrest the country was going through at the time, for the land is the Aboriginal cultural architect. Although we do not see any other races in the entirety of the film other than the English settlers, it is as if the nature were instilled with life to advocate for the culturally segregated.

Sequence Analysis – Bad Boy Bubby (1993)

Bad Boy Bubby (1993) is a film about a boy named Bubby, who tragically gets locked up in a room with her mother, by her mother, for well over thirty years believing that the air outside is poisonous. When it comes to language Bubby only possesses ability to mimic what others say, and in addition to this he has no ‘common sense’ about society, manners, life or death.

The whole film is taken from an anti-Christ perspective, portraying the downfall of not only Christianity but of religion as a whole category. The mother keeps brainwashing Bubby that whenever she is not home, she tells Bubby ‘Don’t move, Jesus can see everything’. After killing his mother and father, who triggers to collapse the family, Bubby eventually escapes from the house. In fear and with anxiety of the unknown outside world, Bubby wonders off into the world. The chosen sequence begins here.

Looking over the town of Adelaide, Bubby is mesmerized by its size and the number of neon lights, when he overhears a hymn. The camera follows Bubby running fiercely through the demolished industrial area, which could be perceived to represent the collapse of the/his world. In a long-shot, Bubby is seen to be chasing the sign of the God in an open industrial field, to arrive at where the Salvation Army is singing a hymn. Here, the heavily reverberated hymn from the first scene sounds no longer soaring and holy to realistically display the choir as far from divine but as ordinary people. Still half believing that it was something holy, Bubby touches some of the members of the choir and without any knowledge of self-restriction, touches a woman’s breast – a sign of offense to the divine. After joining the line of the choir, he is taken to a local pizza restaurant by a young girl of the choir through the rainbow-colored curtain, which represents homosexuality. The group pays for their meal from the donation can. The sexual exchange of glances between Bubby and the girl is seen with close-ups of the two, with his gaze wondering off later to find Angel (who later becomes his wife) on another table. This immoral conduct is even more emphasized by Bubby going to the girl’s house. Ironically, the first frame in the house consists of the hat of the Salvation Army, whilst the girl is teaching Bubby how to give her oral sex. The two, while having sex, continuously sing hymns, with two significant objects of Christianity: a small Mary statue on her desk and another enormous one just outside the window next to the bed. The camera rolls around the bed with the two in focus on bed, but all the while there is always one of the two statues in the frame whilst they are having sex. A punchline by the girl blatantly express the undignified form of the religion – ‘when I want to feel close to my special friend, Jesus, I sing him a very special song.’

The whole sequence explicitly portrays the fall of religion, which keeps becoming more clear with various characters denying god; an organ player at a church telling Bubby that ‘it is our responsibility to think of God out of existence’ or Angel’s parents going through difficulties with diseases such as cancer and mercury poisoning. The sequence is merely an introduction to the denial of religion, which in return provides Bubby with a loving wife and mother, Angel and two children.

Film Review – Strictly Ballroom (1992)

One of the three films in Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Red Curtain Trilogy’ is Strictly Ballroom. This beautifully constructed film is full of rich visual stimuli of the 1990s glamorous fashion of ballroom dancing, emotional drama revolving around competition for glory and fame in dancing, and love drama about the two protagonists whose love for dancing eventually embrace them together.

The story unfolds in the suburbia of Sydney most likely around Waratah, where the national pan pacific dancing competition is held. The two protagonists, Scott Hastings and Fran meet in the dancing studio owned by Scott’s parents. Scott makes an attempt to win a dance competition with his partner Liz but fails by dancing his own original steps, ignoring the standards and rules set by the federation. As he looks for a new partner to dance his own steps with, he becomes close to Fran and her family of Spanish background. As a consequence of incorporating Latin dance routines into his original steps at the Pan Pacific Grand Prix, the couple gets disqualified but ‘wins’ the competition first by impressing his close family and friends and in the end pleasing the whole crowd.

The film seems to follow the classic narrative structure of Hollywood, in which the protagonists encounter and are defeated by an obstacle but reach their ultimate goal in the climax of the film. Despite all this, there is a number of interesting factors that can be interpreted to be directed at what Australia was going through at the time. In short, the film speaks of the integration of different cultures to achieve multiculturalism within the country. Scott, who is of Anglo-Australian background, is nurtured with Fran and her family’s Spanish dance routines. At first both entities oppose each other, yet through dancing they accomplish a thorough understanding of both cultures.

Fran encounters Scott’s mother, ex-dance partner (Liz) and Liz’s friend who convinces that Fran does not deserve to be dancing with Scott. Surprising enough, they are all of Anglo-Saxon background and two of them are completely blond with insane amount of make-ups. Perhaps we can see a slight form of racism in this sequence. In the end, however, not only Scott, who had already established his authority as a long-time dancer, but also Fran is thoroughly appreciated as both a dancer and Scott’s partner. It is this integration of cultures that brings the couple the praise and whistling of the crowd at the competition.

The truth is only in your eyes

Week 9 – Documentary Ethics

Documentary films hold somewhat an authority to convince the audience to assume that what they are consuming is ‘truthful’ of the reality. Given that it is the case, what progressive changes has this genre gone through to strive and survive against other media forms such as television?

Is it a valid statement to say that documentaries are representation of the truth? Amongst all the surrounding discourses about the clarity of documentaries, it is, I think, crucial to note one specific aspect on the nature of filming. The moment you decide on what to film and roll the camera the ‘truth’ becomes subjective. If the definition of ‘truth’ relies on its objectivity, that it is unmediated and unprocessed, the real ‘truth’ only exists through your eyes. Funnily enough, as soon as it is registered through your eyes it becomes subjective, and to tell that to anyone is to take a stance in subjectifying the object.

Introduction of television has meant for the mass audience that their exposure to media no longer required this certain attitude to rethink their assumption about the society, country and the world. This is due to the fact that documentary films, by nature, was to promote challenge and action within the society against what they depicted as ‘wrong’. Television, which did not require attentive consumption, dispersed throughout the society. This spread and popularity were reinforced by incorporating the ‘truthful’ aspects of documentary films (doco-soap, reality-TV). While at the same time documentary films were, to compete against this trend, also forced to incorporate aspects of fictional television programmes to redesign themselves ‘as a cheap alternative to drama’.

In addition to this, the invention of camcorder, which allowed an ordinary individual to capture their stories, shifted the importance of thoughts-evoking objective truth to subjective narratives for the light entertainment sake. These subjective confessional narratives were perfect for television programmes, because ultimately the consumers were to be at a private and domestic location in this time. However, the dispersion of television continued on to an extent where television sets were now at reasonably affordable prices for them to be viewed anywhere, even in public spaces.

Looking at public spaces such restaurants, bars and cafes placing television sets on their premises, the private nature of viewing of television seems to have lessened. Instead, it has broken its boundaries to manifest the public domain where documentary films were originally shown. So where do the documentary films belong now?

By strategic incorporation of elements of fictional television programmes, documentary forms are now also available on television through pay TV and minor-stream stations. If television is for the light entertainment, I would like to see more authentic documentary films, not on television, but as a separate domain like the cinemas.

The gardern is yours, I will take the kitchen

Week 6 – Suburban Mayhem

The period of 1990s saw the uprising new trend for both the film-makers and the social topography – the discovery of the suburbia. As educational opportunities spread to incorporate more women, so did the film industry, bearing more stories told from women, who now had more authority with knowledge over their creative products. It was, then, a natural progress to see the shift in the themes of films of this era from the outback to the domestic situations, as women still spent more time at home than the man. The suburbia, a blind-spot caught between the central city (urban) and the rural, was considered to have no worth for attention, perhaps because the Australian narratives had/have strong associations with the land. According to this, the suburbia would have no characteristics of the Australian culture without belonging to neither of the opposite ends of the spectrum. This was, however, proven to be wrong by the female story-tellers, who resided in the suburbia to witness the hybridity of characteristics of the two ends mysteriously dwelling in their suburbia culture as Simpson phrases, ‘ Australian suburbia is a bizarre, mysterious and even threatening place – but far from aesthetically empty’ (Simpson, 1999). Moreover, it seems that the portrayal of the backyard of these houses reveals a lot about the revolutionary changes of the gender power relations of the time.

As a common notion, male figures usually maintain the backyard while female figures are taking care of the inside of the house. The depiction of this notion in films can already be taken as a metaphor of equalisation of the different sex, for the male figures on screen are taken back home from the empowering and emphasising outback, to share an equal amount of household work. The configured balance of these two separate parts of the house (inside the house and the backyard) sums up to ‘a sphere of cultural (and domestic) maintenance’ (Simpson, 1999). As the mother burns the unmaintained backyard prior to the suicide, the corruption of the family is revealed through the depiction of the backyard – Perry abandoning his responsibility to mow the lawn, the absence of the father and Muriel and Tony’s inability to alter the situation. The analysis of the backyard that appears in Muriel’s Wedding (P.J. Hogan), provides a perfect guide to understanding the shift of power from the masculine to the feminine in both domestic and social sense.

Sex not only sells but also motivates

Week 5 – Masculinities, Blokes, Ockers & Sheilas

The emergence of the Ocker films during the 1970s, despite the critiques on its depictions of the worst cultural representations possible, had a significant impact on the national as well as international economy and the film industry, the national image of Australia, and most of all the consciousness of the audiences of Australia. It fuelled and praised the bourgeois culture of Australia at the time – ‘working class, hedonist, beer-swilling, and the masculine’ (O’Regan, 1989).

The potential brainwash of the middle-class with these Ocker films, which are highly entertaining for its familiarity and ignorance of the ‘other’ (because the films revolved around and were predominately about the Anglo-Australian masculine figures). These represented characters were to be perceived as ‘vulgar but lovable in our vulgarity’. These highly entertaining yet anti-intelligence films were deemed potential of decentralising the hierarchical social structure, which most often the case for any given country based on the works of the intellectual. Consequently the funding for these Ocker films were cut short, which resulted in other film makers to subtly remain influenced by this phenomenon.

What became apparent in this instance, this outstanding break out of the genre, is the crucial aspect of target marketing of films. The primal reason why this genre had its glorious fame is that these films were set around the people who did not possess a degree of intelligence, with which to understand and consume the previous forms of films. As stated above, this phenomenon was also a motivational boost for the national film industry – with proven fact that it was possible to create potentially popular films within the country.

The Hollywood produces, especially those that involve super-hero, action, sex, drugs, could be perceived as a compensation for the loss of sheer entertainment for the mass audiences. Mainly comprising of the middle-class, the public is in need for a simple, enjoyable and unintelligent films! (perhaps not to the culturally degrading extent like the Ocker films.)

Our city and our language

Week3 – Australian Culture Americanized?

In the reading from week3, Yuri Lotman’s semiological approach to comprehend cultural imports caused by Americanization is nicely stated in 5 steps.

1. Cultural imports are imitated and overvalued as ‘pure’ and strange but superior to local equivalents.
2. local and local versions of imported cultural forms ‘negotiate’ with each other, but the local examples continue to ‘refer out’ to the external models.
3. (a possible stage from the 2nd) local versions are more highly valued than the imported ‘original’ or competitor.
4. imported texts are ‘absorbed’ into receiving culture, coming to be seen as local anyway.
5. the local culture need not even proclaim its difference from, or superiority to, the other; it is described as having its own identity, transmitting meaning on its own unique and authentic terms.

These steps are, I think, highly relevant in the sense that everything that originated in the foreign culture and imported will eventually be absorbed into the culture of the receiving end. This is, however, not to say that it is only relevant in the case of Americanization. Receiving influences from external environments is almost inevitable with modern technologies such as the internet! (Unless the ‘elites’ want to shut your country from any external inputs like some countries do.) Artistically, economically and politically developed countries like the Unites States and England don’t seem to be emphasizing that their cultural products are ‘theirs’. We, on the other hand, seem to be desperately overemphasizing that whatever comes from our culture is ‘originally ours’. This is causing our film industry to awkwardly portray our ‘culturally significant artifacts’ like the land, the beach and the Aboriginal people. So as a result we are caught in between the denial of the external influences majorly from the United States (hence Americanization) and our furious attempt to solidify what is Australian by representing something that is merely creating stereotypes of the Australian culture.

What if our cities looked different from the cities of the United States? What if our language, precisely the accent, sounds different from their ‘American’? What are the significant themes Hollywood films have to proclaim of its originality? I think that if we have our accents and the land or the city (not necessarily the outback, although it still functions in that our land marks our culture), we are on the same ground of representation the powerful others are on. For instance, Candy (Neil Armfield) with scenes of Newtown and the familiar accents clearly convinced me that it was a decent Australian film, even though the drug theme or the consequences surrounding the drug culture are not original. What if we acknowledged that we ARE under influences of other cultures and we ARE Americanized to a certain degree, but keep producing films that aren’t as significantly and superficially as Australian but subtly with more focus on the familiarity of the content?