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Is that all there is?

Australian audiences love a good drama about families. But is there more to us than middle-class, anglo-saxon, suburbia?

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Australian families on TV: Packed to the Rafters, Neighbours, Home and Away, Offspring.

Is that all there is?

If you landed here from outer space (or worse, from overseas) what would your impression of Australian families be based on what’s offered by Australian drama?

We are middle-class, anglo-saxon, and mostly suburban.

A hug from Julie Rafter will fix what ails you. Wise words from Dr. Karl Kennedy will set you right. Alf Stewart will get to the point without any fancy words. And Darcy Proudman will remind you never to repeat his mistakes.

These are the dramas that currently represent us on the box.

The ratings for Packed to the Rafters will reiterate the power of the TV family. While we are surrounded by procedural dramas, all of which are on a slide, it is seeing ourselves on the screen that offers ratings gold.

The death of Melissa Rafter (Zoe Ventoura) reminds us of the way we invest in characters we love, and in this case it was in an entire family.

Nobody can deny the success of Rafters, now nearing the end of its third season. Yet there is an audience that wants to see another side to Australian contemporary life. Offspring is currently their other choice. The Proudman family is adult, imperfect and living under separate roofs.

Neighbours and Home and Away comprise blended families, the end product of cast members coming and going over the years. They are what they are and good luck to them.

But as I look around the box at a snapshot of Australian life, I find myself wondering where are the ethnic families?

Where are the working classes?

Where are characters who are struggling with their weight? Where are all the seniors? Where is the gay sibling who is comfortable in their own skin? Where are the families who struggle to show affection? The families whose lives are lived in the cracks of subtext? What are we saying about regional Australia? Where is anybody who, heaven forbid, lives outside of Sydney and Melbourne?

Britain gives us the Gallagher clan in Shameless, New Zealand has the Wests of Outrageous Fortune and America has the Whites of Breaking Bad.

Cinema audiences loved The Castle, but the nearest the small screen has come was Kath & Kim.

In Australia the most recent contributions to family life have been the Kovacs in Showtime’s excellent drama Tangle, and the Darlings in the quirky Spirited from Foxtel. Both should be applauded.

I am encouraged that ABC’s new drama Rake is a character-driven piece. But family life at the ABC is largely the domain of the genial Bed of Roses (at least it has rural and seniors represented), which returns next month (East of Everything had a valiant shot at coastal life).

The last family drama series SBS had was Kick, which certainly attempted to capture a multicultural slice of life (it even had Zoe Ventoura). Carla Cametti PD had some family elements, but was a legal drama. At least The Circuit took us to the outback. Meanwhile police drama East West 101 rightfully remains its pride and joy while its next drama Dusty wll be a detective series set in Darwin.

I am also looking forward to Showcase’s period drama Cloudstreet in Perth, based on Tim Winton’s novel, while Denise Scott and Francis Greenslade head up the Gross family in Seven’s forthcoming Winners and Losers.

The Nine Network is sorely lacking a melodrama, or a quirky drama -something that revolves around a family who aren’t rescuing people off cliffs or dealing in drugs under the noses of cops.

Worth a mention too are some family representations in kid’s dramas such as My Place and Lockie Leonard.

Which leaves us with Packed to the Rafters, Neighbours, Home and Away and Offspring.

Kudos to TEN for trying something different with Offspring. Congratulations to Seven for tugging the heartstrings, and delivering the numbers week in, week out with Packed to the Rafters. Long may they prosper.

I just hope we remember there are other families, and other ways of telling stories, that deserve to be seen on screen too.

29 Responses

  1. @ Andrew those great SBS dramas you mentioned (apart from Kick which was disappointing) were championed by Glennys Rowe over 10 years ago – drama lead times from development to on air are so slow many other execs have taken credit for them over the years – but it’s not warranted. Plenty of people are more than prepared take credit for other people’s vision.

  2. To me, this article just confirms that SBS & ABC should never be merged! East West 101 starring Kerry Armstrong? Pour me a beer & pass the nuts…

    PS: Richard W (10:01am), that’s a massive generalisation about US television. You sound like another unoriginal anti-American.

  4. I find most Australian drama’s very repetitive. They seem to be the same idea re-hashed time and time again, let’s face it do we really want yet another cop show??? I don’t relate to Packed to the Rafters, but I applaud it for breaking the traditional aussie drama mould and being creative. It deserves all the success it gets.

    I’ve always wondered why there’s never been a drama that revolves around the mining industry, after all these days it is our country’s backbone. You have fly in fly out workers, which creates stress with many of these families and could be interesting to explore. There’s the opportunity to show the rest of us what life as a miner is really like, both in terms of work and lifestyle.

  6. Although in theory they could be axed and made for just the UK market,
    Seven and Ten only do Neighbours and H&A for Aus quota reasons. Not all Aus critics are sucking Rake. The Courier Mail’s TV critic
    Di Butler wasn’t all that impressed with it.

  7. There are shows like Swift and Shift Couriers and Home and Away is rural.

    If it fits in the story then good, but diversity just for the sake of diversity isn’t a good thing.

  8. Agreed. We need some diversity in our local shows, we need shows which push the boundaries in terms of story telling and the struggles other people deal with. British and American television do yet I just don’t see Nine, Seven or Ten putting out a show which pushes the boundaries in any way in the near future.

  9. Great article David. IMHO Tangle is the stand-out drama of the year, and will probably go on to win well deserved AFI awards. The ABC and SBS have disgracefully been letting us down for a decade with their drama commissioning process that does not reflect Australia’s cultural or economic diversity – they have an obligation to be more risk taking, but it’s Showtime that’s led the way. (East West and Circuit belong to another era). Rafters is a hit zeitgeist show, but the ratings for the rest of the dramas on Nine and Seven are falling at an alarming rate – for many of the reasons you point out. They just don’t reflect who we are now, whatever that permutation is at yours. Hopefully one day they’ll decide to treat their audience with a bit of respect. I find the waspy/white/blondeness of their series, frankly, a bit weird and off-putting. Part of the success of Masterchef has been the cultural diversity of the contestants. No big point made of it.

  10. Dave says: November 4, 2010 at 7:59 am I think half the problem is that all the people that make film and television in this country live on the north shore of sydney. they only know what they know

    Good point. As someone who lives in Sydney’s western suburbs I am amazed at the totally different demographic make up I see when i go there. it’s just totally out of kilter with the Sydney i know.

  11. Hi David, Agaion a great review of the state of Tv Procdural dramas.

    I agree with Richard W at least we have more realistic and less affluent families. I feel that families in Bed of Roses, Offspring and Rafters do struggle financially as it has been a theme on all shows for one or some of the characters.

    I also agree that we need to have greater diversity of characters. I don’t just want the token gay character or ethnic character. How about a whole family? Why not have them arrive and be treated like any other and make no storyline address their minority issues…. or do so down the track when they are established.

    I also agree with Neil, that the media is responsible for the portayal of middle class caucasians.

    Overall Well Done!

  12. Wonderful article, David – right on the money. I think this brings up the old rub of art vs commerce: producers must create dramas that a large number of people want to watch (or wash over them) in order to receive great ratings, create overseas sales, and therefore be viable as ongoing series. It’s no surprise that dramas which appeal to smaller segments of the population, address more serious or controversial issues or are just a bit more out there are to be found on publicly funded broadcasters and/or Pay TV. I for one would love to see edgier fare on commercial TV but the reality is it’s a business and so I’m not holding my breath.

  13. Great article. The contemporary Australian social fabric is far richer, more intricate, and more diverse than the antiquated ‘model’ families and communities presented on popular tv dramas would have us believe.

    But in the interests of ‘playing it safe’, producers and networks follow the lead of our politicians in striving to appeal to an ever dwindling demographic. One which may have represented the heartland of our culture 40 years ago, but which bears little resemblance to the Australia of today.

  14. The reality is that if the program creators and the broadcasters want a show to rate its a*se off like PttR, they’re not going to make the family working class, aboriginal, or “ethnic”. PttR does nothing for me (I’m a Six Feet Under person) but its ratings show that I am in the minority.

    It’s the same with advertising. How often do you see an aboriginal family enjoying the taste of a particular brand of margarine, or a Vietnamese woman being amazed at how white her clothes are after washing in ‘Brand X’?

    Even the pawnbroker ads have happy middle-class people hocking their old TV or exercise equipment. It’s strange that I have never seen those people in my local Cash Converters. Maybe I’m in the wrong area.

  15. I think S&S Couriers, Pizza etc. were an accurate reflection of working class Australia. It seems that the producers of drama and soap opera live in a world away from the working class as they only see what is between their home and their office.

  16. Fair point David…there should be more diversity on TV soaps/dramas, and they need to push the boundaries more…but I live my life, I don’t want to see it on television…the box is for fantasy…

  17. Great article David!!! Gotta say the middle-class, anglo-saxon, and suburban representation of Australia is not only in the depiction of families on TV but in media in general.

  18. Fantastic article David, and agree with every point you make. The Circuit and Offspring are two that I absolutely love. I also like Neighbours, but I think that’s just a guilty pleasure and an alternative to the horrible current affairs programs.

  19. Well we make better TV than the US who usually make soaps/dramas which are based around very rich successful families who are nothing like the everyday suburban families. Brothers & Sisters, Desperate Housewives, Bold & Beautiful, etc.

  20. I don’t really watch TV to be reminded of what family life is like. My family is nothing like the Rafters, the McLeods or any family in the immaculate looking cast from Home and Away.

    As long as these drama’s star waaay too perfect looking people and their plots still follows typical storytelling conventions and sterotypes, none of them will interest me.

  21. Agree. I love the Rafters. Their the most believable family on screen, they deal with issues we do so we can relate. But their not your typical family. Sure there’s families that love each other all the time, but i see all my family once a year at Christmas.

  22. Quite right. Lockie Leonard is a children’s show that would appeal to adults. I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff in that show that would go over kids’ heads. Mortified is another good one too that focuses on family life. I believe there’s another season filmed taht has not screened yet. The networks should commission a prime time show that’s as good as Lockie Leonard and Mortified.

  23. I think half the problem is that all the people that make film and television in this country live on the north shore of sydney. they only know what they know. To lazy to dig further than the white anglo saxon ways of sydney. they should all be forced to live where the real people live for a year and then produce a family oriented show.

  24. i am so sick of the middle of the road drama we get in OZ. where are the six feet unders, the wires, the sopranos? why must everything be ether a soap or a seachange rip off? absolutely sick of it.

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