Include all but one

Week11 – SBS, Multiculturalism, Racism…

No, I don’t see any Asian faces nor have I heard any advocates about them not appearing on the screen up until now. The reading for week 12 talked about the sacrificial nature of the Asian race in the white dominated Australian cinema and television with examples of four Australian films: The Year of Living Dangerously, Turtle Beach, Heaven’s Burning and Japanese Story. I have not seen any of these except Sue Brooks’ Japanese Story. But I remember vividly the scene where the Japanese man in the Australian outback dives into a pond/lake and dies.

It’s not so much about not being represented, though it is true that it is quite rare to see Asian faces on Australian screen, and apparently even if they do appear they are killed in someway to compensate for an undesirable situations or for the sake of other characters’ learning. Japanese Story takes the latter form in the sense that Toni Collette is glorified as the only witness and messenger of the Japanese man’s death. Hiding that she was his lover, Collette reads out her letter written in Japanese to his family who flies over from Japan, depicting her affection and respect as his lover. It seems that his death was necessary in order to show this traumatic drama.

As an Asian myself, I do not see any excessive need to incorporate more Asian actors/actresses for one reason. The Asians do not need to be treated equally on the White screen, because they have their own. The call for equality for the African-American or Aboriginal race was and is reasonable because they did not have their own – their representations could only exist on the white screens for the lack of education, technology and fund. But as for the Asians, they are not forgotten or neglected – there is just no need.

Take a walk around the city of Sydney and we will see domesticated areas of different races, of which the most outstandingly sufficient one is Chinatown, but there are countless number of communities entirely based on their nationality. In fact, there is not much depiction of the white race in the Asian screens. Their products almost always consist entirely of their own race. Then doesn’t that mean, with some appearance of the Asian race, they appear more on screen in total??
Perhaps the lack of Asian faces is more apparent because of the domination of white films and television programs.

In touch with the land

Week4 – The Problem of Landscape and the Imagined Continent

There seems to be a large emphasis, or more even an obsession with our connection with the ‘land’ to portray Australian cinema and TV as ‘truly Australian’. It is true that the large proportion of our land consists of the nature and that the Aboriginal have their attachment to the land. There is, however, a clear distinction and separation between the educated and wealthy who reside in the developed coast side of the country and the ‘others’, who are meant to be residing in the ‘true Australian land’.

There’s much discussion about our inability to cope with the influence and invasion of the overpowering Hollywood cinemas and television programs, and yet what we have as a counterpart of this influence is our Australian cinema with the ‘land’, to which not many of the modernized audiences find easy to relate to. Out of the 34 Australian films produced in 2009, there is a significant number of films either set in or somehow related to the outback of Australia (Beautiful Kate, The Boys are Back, Charlie & Boots, Last Ride, Prey, Samson & Delilah). Is it only the connection to the land that makes these films ‘Australian’? What is the significance of the language? The content? The multiculturalism? There are so much more than the landscape that signifies the aura of Australia that films could still be genuinely Australian without the connection to the land. Perhaps this display of the land is more to do with international success by providing this stereotype to evoke interest in Australia. Though the truth is that our lives are nothing like what we see on the films.

Personally, I think it would be a better strategy to accept the inevitable external influences and let them do their job – of producing a limitless number of commercial films for the entertainment of the mass. On our part, we should focus more on inspiring and motivating the film from within. Most of my friends tell me that ‘Australian films are boring’. Gather our attention with topics relating more on our daily lives – there must be enough content in our lives, hopefully.

Australia’s got talent

Week1 – Introduction: A National Cinema?

‘The show that uncovers the most incredible new acts and gives them a chance to change their lives forever.’ – Grant Denyer

Great, so I was watching Australia’s Got Talent. I don’t have a TV at home, and this is what caught my attention when I was looking at some programs on Youtube.
The audition for the year 2010, which took place in Melbourne, has some stunning acts. Although, this is not all. It is a nation-wide program, which ‘uncovers the most incredible new act sand gives them a chance to change their lives forever’ in both a positive or negative direction.

Elvi Pes, a 45 year-old male contestant who claims to be an artist/musician, comes on stage and sings a song with original lyrics on a Static X song. The act is, I think personally, terrible. And it is no surprise all three of the judges gave him the cross. To be precise, the judges gave the public audience a chance to press the disqualify button. It’s all understandable, because the act is ridiculous and pitifully funny. It’s hilarious. But it doesn’t stop here. Two of the judges, Kyle Sandilands and Brian McFadden somehow decide to let Pes through to the next round. While Sandilands shows a little bit of reasoning, which seems to make sense, McFadden has a quirky laugh, obviously enjoying patronizing Pes and willing to expose more of him to make more fun of him.

This is a national television program that anyone can witness. Being in the public eyes, with an authorized judge’s patronization, which resulted him to be exposed once again just for the sake of another humiliation, will definitely not be a positive change for Pes. It is certainly true that the act presented by Pes was humorous in its lack of common sense of art or/and music, though one nation-wide humiliation is enough. I’d hate to see him again not because I dislike his act, but because I am sick of authorized television figures exploiting their praised talent to degrade the public.