Pedersen calls for affirmative TV action
"I believe we need to get to a level where every Australian show has to have an indigenous person in it," says Aaron Pedersen.
- Published by David Knox
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City Homicide’s Aaron Pedersen has called on the Federal Government to implement affirmative action policies for indigenous Australian actors.
The actor, who will also return for a second season of SBS’ The Circuit (pictured), has told The Sunday Age he has been negotiating with the actors’ union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, to ensure Aboriginal actors appear routinely on TV.
“I know a lot of indigenous people get a lot of power out of the fact that I am on a commercial network,” Pedersen says. “They can say to their kids – see that? I look like him, you look like him. It’s possible. They can see a little bit of their soul there.”
“I believe we need to get to a level where every Australian show has to have an indigenous person in it,” he proposes.
“And a mainstream role. Not an indigenous role. A human role. And from within that you get the indigenous experience.”
Whilst there is no doubting diversity on television is lacking in many shows (and not just ethnic diversity), it could also be argued that any call for affirmative action should be widened to others that are too often overlooked.
That’s assuming a call should even be put out in the first place.
Still media discussion on the issue is a good thing, because it furthers visibility and ongoing dialogue might make some network executives rethink casting issues as a whole. The most diverse show right now has to be So You Think You Can Dance Australia -oddly enough a show that puts a call out to young Australians to step up to the plate.
It seems this is a talking point which just doesn’t want to go away this year.
Source: Sunday Age
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- Tagged with City Homicide, So You Think You Can Dance Australia, The Circuit
20 Responses
If the US has shown the world anything is that affirmative action continues the basis of making race an issue with everything. Simply put more has to be done to work with minorities to give them the tools to fish rather than handing them the fish. You can’t expect putting in laws will fix everything. I mean does Aaron use facts and statistics to show aboriginal actors are not getting work? Is there any studies out there that show productions are not taking on minority actors? The state of television and film production in this country is not exactly healthy enough that it can tackle the issue of race head on with healthy results.
I think what Aaron’s getting at is the fact that there are far too many shows like Home and away with vertually all white casts and its ridiculos, this dosen’t reflect real life Australia.
Another thing that bugs me is the fact there are vertually no gay people in our soaps and Tv dramas, I think having gay people in them is essentail in 2009!
2.6% of the total population, so approx 546,190 aboriginals. How many of those are actors? Me thinks Aaron is just trying to get a job in every Australian show 😛
He has had an amazing career on tv which is hard to believe because he is quite boring to watch.Even when Secret Life finally found its feet (and unfortuanetly was cancelled), Aaron you were boring.And your constant ranting is tiring.Aboriginals have been a constant on tv/movies/docs.What do you want?Enough of the us us us!!!
I agree 100% with you Bernadette. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
Well whatever positions there is for Aboriginal males it always seems to go to Aaron. So maybe he needs to step aside 😛
i agree with benno, if this law goes ahead the aboriginals will not have any more satisfaction because they will know that any indigenous actor it is 100% tokenism, instead of actually earning their way there with talent just like an equal.
if 2.6% of australians are aboriginal then 2.6% of actors should be aboriginal. so yes we still have a way to go but 1 per show??? why should aboiginals get such good treatment when there are so many more asians, africans, caucaisians, etc. out there.
Did I miss the bit where Australia became some kind of fascist dictatorship? What an utterly ridiculous proposition. I don’t think there’s be many people that deny the power of positive role models but there are some huge flaws with this proposal:
(a) Aboriginal people aren’t the only ones who need them. How about a law that says each show must have a gay person who is not only on the show for the story lines related to sexuality issues? I think a greater percentage of the population self-identifies as gay than is Aboriginal so it’s only fair right? Or how about ‘every show must have an overweight person who isn’t there to be the object of ridicule”? Or every show must have a disabled person? Or an Asian person? Or an Atheist?
(b) Do we really want our government getting even more involved in things that don’t matter? Do we want a Department of Compliance for Indigenous People On Television with all the paperwork and bureaucrats and money it would waste? ‘Cos you know as soon as you have a law you have exemptions (that’s how lawyers make their money). So The News might be exempt if there’s only one newsreader/anchor. But what about game shows? Reality TV shows? Sports coverage – what if there are no Aboriginal people on the teams? Perhaps if our governments around the world were less involved in bulls**t like television programming (don’t forget our own Senate held an inquiry in Gordon Ramsay’s use of the F word last year) we wouldn’t be having a global financial crisis because someone somewhere would have been paying attention to the things that actually matter.
Rant over.
is City Homicide on tonight? Not another piece of strategic PR from the networks I hope? Although I guess it’s not the Herald Sun, as they usually fall for that trick hook line and sinker, so perhaps this is a genuine article 🙂
But I agree with earlier comments that actors should be selected according to their ability not just because they happen to be a certain race.
I agree that there shouldn’t be a token black situation where someone who may be a better skilled actor may be overlooked to fill demographic quotas. It would be like the situation in South Africa following apartheid which is not ideal. If good indigenous actors are unavailable, they could look into having more indigenous or ethnic people in lifestyle, reality or game show programming since there is very little or no conflict between qualifications against the need to fill demographic quotas.
What a stupid idea. I already see more aboriginal actors on TV than I do walking down the street. This man really needs to get over himself and realise that race really isn’t a very important thing. It shouldn’t be seen as a defining factor in a person.
Trying to have the government dictate how producers cast their TV shows just demonstrates how much people like this are overly obsessed with race – to the point where they are willing to use their own race to get a political agenda across.
Does this actor have nothing else to talk about.
He always comes across to me as an arrogant git.
Wherever I go in Oz, I see a lot of people of Chinese & Indian origin who are rarely depicted on mainstream TV. I see very few people of aboriginal origin any where except NT or SBS. So ability and equality first ahead of racial selection. Sorry Aaron, I think you are a good actor, but your idea is wrong.
Although affirmative action does seem rather drastic, I do think that tv productions should be encouraged to reflect society in general.
The problem (and not just with Australian tv) is they only seem to only use different ethnic groups when their ethnicity is part of the storyline.
Why not consider choosing them as the policemen, lawyer and doctor for the type of role they can portray?
Agree with Bryce. Actors regradless of race should be in TV based on their abilities. Forcing a representative of any race onto TV unecessarily is ridiculous. All these sorts of stories are racism in disguise.
To make it law is a bit OTT, i agree that it will just encourage tokenism. If they would make a valuable addition to the show, then absolutely go ahead and cast an indigenous person, but to make it a legal requirement just to suit a minority is absurd.
“I believe we need to get to a level where every Australian show has to have an indigenous person in it,”
thats a pretty bold statement as indigenous australians currently only account for 2.6% of the population and there would be an imbalance if aboriginies were in every aussie show.
however i do agree that a more diverse local tv industry would benefit the whole society.
Yes Aaron and why not transgender people in mainstream roles in every show as well. My god the possibilities are endless
But if we end up making networks and producers include “an indigenous person” won’t we just end up with another ‘token black’ situation?
Shouldn’t actors be cast on their skills, not their race? What about the struggling white actors who go to casting after casting while an indigenous person gets to skip to the head of the queue because of their race?
I’m all for equality and closing the gap, but the operative word is equality not superiality.
Yes they should be encouraged to have more indigenous people in mainstream productions and non stereotype roles. But I would hate the government to step in, telling shows how to run their business, is this a dictatorship? If they did productions would move offshore!