Australian comedy in an American media dominated world.
We need only look at the recent US election to see just how deeply invested we are in American culture as a result of our disproportionate consumption of American media. The sheer scale and spectacle of the 2020 U.S. election has whipped previously apolitical Australian’s on my social media feeds into outspoken fervour. I find myself equally guilty, since the American politic has inspired a level of engagement that I should be applying to preventing catastrophes in my own backyard. The Australian predilection for following a foreign race featuring a cartoonish buffoon, over our own politicians villainy, is both easy to criticise and to understand. According to Historian, public intellectual and author Yuval Noah Harari; Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. The U.S. has the resources, the size and the media power to tell a more compelling story and to tell it relentlessly on multiple platforms.
At the 2019 Melbourne International Comedy Festival gala, iconic Australian comedian Anne Edmonds briefly impersonates a self assured American comic before delivering the following in her signature, self-deprecating style; I can’t be sassy, I can’t, don’t make me. If you want that, go to America. Go and see how unnaturally high levels of self-esteem have worked out for them. I’ve thought of this bit often during the U.S presidential pandemonium. The United States has never appeared more divided with protests, riots and over 240,000 Covid related deaths all colluding to demonstrate the consequences of Trump’s hubris. America, as a brand, may be in free-fall but it never ceased to occupy prime position in the media landscape. American’s can be confident they will never want for American stories.
Our commenters and politicians cannot compete with American-strength grandstanding gall or generate anywhere near the world wide frenzy. Media manipulation, massive handouts for the wealthy, and an unprecedented reduction in government services are features of both the former American and current Australian governments, but the globally-produced and consumed coverage of these issues is vastly different. American stories pervade and dominate the Western world whereas Australian stories seem barely to register on even Australia’s radars. The result is a nation of people who have more precise and passionate views about another countries narrative than our own.
Australian’s have long been accused of believing that art, literature and culture are best produced elsewhere. Some of us know this Australian trait as ‘cultural cringe’ a term coined by A.A. Phillips’s in the pages of Meanjin over seventy years ago. A.A. Phillips’s intention was to rouse the creation of an Australian arts culture that conceded no inferiority to British arts, and was unembarrassed to be Australian. A.A. Phillip’s had conviction in the value of Australian storytelling and fought for Australian writing in the 1930s which he believed was unfairly denounced overseas and at home, purely for being Australian. We took up A.A. Phillip’s phrase but not his fight and by the 1950s our preference for imported culture continued with the new medium of television. During the first decade of televised broadcasting in Australia over 70% of commercial programming was produced in the US and the UK. Fortunately this alarming ratio was righted by Gough Whitlam’s government in 1973. Whitlam utilised Australia’s cultural producers and arts workers to fortify our unique cultural identity. In a mere three years Whitlam’s government supported the creation and distribution of Australian art and culture like never before or since. The Whitlam government recognised the power of storytelling and cannily equipped the Australian film industry to counter US and British influences on Australia. It was during this era the Australian Film and Television School (AFTRS) and the Australian Film Development Corporation (AFDC) was established to create, refine and support Australian storytelling. Whitlam’s commission funded projects with cultural and artistic merit over profitability and provided Australian filmmakers with substantial financial support which resulted in an Australian film revival. The Whitlam government also established the National Gallery of Australia, expanded the Australian Council for the Arts; created Double J, later to become Triple J and put in place policies that not only regard Australian Art with respect but reflected a celebration of art as a worthy vocation. In its first year alone the Whitlam government opened the Sydney Opera House, held the first Biennale of Sydney and created the Aboriginal Arts Board. In the Whitlam years the Australia Council was the largest single client for Aboriginal art and bought works direct from artists, which were sent to American and Canadian galleries and museums. The ‘cultural exchange’ of Aboriginal art implemented by Whitlam is one of the reasons the international commercial market for Australian Aboriginal art remains strong. Whitlam’s support is also one of the reasons a broader understanding of Australia’s Indigenous artists, writers, musicians, performers and culture has become central to a progressive vision of Australian identity. Whitlam firmly believed access to art was a fundamental human right and a condition of a functioning democracy. The Whitlam eras support of Australia’s arts proved that when given a fair go, Australian artists are world class.
The Morrison government has taken the opposite approach, rather than supporting Australian artists in a bid to fortify an Australian identity distinct from foreign influence - they have repeatedly withdrawn support previously granted to our creative producers. Rather than investing in Australian storytelling and our film industry the Morrison’s government has given an extra $400ml to entice overseas film and TV producers to make their stories here. The Morrison Government has additionally suspended quotas for Australian content on streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney plus while reducing funding allocated to our national broadcaster the ABC by $84m. The Coalition, supported by Centre Alliance and One Nation has passed university funding cuts designed to deter young Australian’s from pursuing creative studies and divert them into allegedly more ‘job-ready’ STEM-related courses. These cuts to our tertiary institutions have seen fees for creative and performing arts courses increase by upwards of 100% or eliminated all together. These changes are not only devastating to current arts and academia workers, they pave the way to a culturally impoverished Australia. Conversations around ‘The arts’ may be stymied by a national reflex away from anything elitist. Ironically failing to support aspiring artists from less than privileged backgrounds creates an environment where only the elite will be able to make art or enter a creative field of study. We cannot know the true cost or loss caused by theses systemic changes. We’ve likely robbed ourselves of countless unique Australian voices and the stories they might of told us.
Perhaps the most blatantly anti Australian artsaction by the Morrison government was the eradication of a federal department with Arts in the title. The Arts now fall under the new Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communication. The Morrison government’s passion for cutting funding and departments previously allocated to the arts hasn’t prevented them from giving flailing Murdoch-controlled, American centric subscription service Foxtel $40m in handouts since 2017. Our embarrassment and internalised feelings of inferiority are precisely how the Morrison government has succeeded in attacking Australia’s artists without arousing adequate outrage.These decisions have not been fought against by the majority of Australian’s who, like our current government are not listening to Australian artists.
Like many events in 2020, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival did not run as scheduled. Many Australian performers who rely on the festival and its promise of ticket sales were prohibited from doing their jobs and were overwhelmingly denied government support. If any sector of Australians can be described as battlers, it’s our performing artists, who overcome one of our most common causes of anxiety according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics by publicly voicing their stories despite the stigma, dismissal and lack of financial reward. My life is significantly richer because of the diverse range of Australian plays, live music and comedy shows I have been fortunate enough to experience, yet often the performers themselves aren’t. Despite the incalculable value creative industries bring to Australians and the billions of dollars these industries annually bring into our economy, many Australian performers are job insecure. The combination of a lack of opportunity and funding has meant many of our most talented and ambitious creatives leave Australia to pursue viable careers overseas. The result is a self fulfilling cultural cringe, where our low opinion of our own arts industry seems justified because it can’t compete with considerably more supported producers. So Australian’s continue our tradition of importing stories from overseas at the expense of anything locally produced. In stark contrast, American audiences want their narratives tailored to their context and accents, an English series such as The Office, Australian comedies and European feature films like Let the Right One are routinely remade with American’s rather than enjoyed as a story for elsewhere.
My experience behind the scenes in Australian arts has shown me how hardworking, industrious and resilient the average performer has to be to stay above the poverty line. Much of our nation’s most gifted storytellers create brilliant work in spite of this. Prompting the thought of what incredible creations could be made if they weren’t forced to divert much of their energy into fighting to survive. Venues, platforms, spaces and resources have become severely scarce for Australian artists and unless we do something soon things look unlikely to improve. Australia is supposed to love an underdog and despite the odds stacked against them, I back Australian artists, performers, comics, writers and storytellers. This underdog position is perhaps why our national style of humour remains self-deprecating. There is a subtlety, irony and darkness present in Australian humour and stories not commonly found in our American counterparts that I hope we never lose or dilute. Perhaps it’s our Irish and British cultural heritage that makes us less forthright, more apologetic and generally less inclined to make a fuss? Maybe it’s our larrikin nature, our anti-establishment skew or our tall-poppy syndrome that prevents us from asserting ourselves in fear of seeming pompous? Australia no longer seems to suffer as it once did from feelings of British inferiority but remains stilted and undefined as a nation. We’ve lost our place in our own story and become consumed by the juggernaut of American media. How do we ever hope to understand ourselves and each other as Australian’s if we can’t hear Australian voices over the volume of the U.S. media?
My appetite for Australian stories is not satisfied by our current programming of reality television and sports coverage, not that this programming doesn’t have its place but there is more to us than that. I’ve rarely seen the diversity of my community or the nuance of my Australian experience reflected back to me in Australian media. Due to decades of worsening conditions for local productions of drama, documentary, narrative comedy, broadcasts- telling diverse and compelling Australian stories is not just bloody difficult, its nigh impossible. The lack of support for Australian storytellers creates a lacklustre selection that doesn’t adequately reflect the immense talent and potential of Australian storytellers. When I’m repeatedly more likely to find a book, series or film produced outside of Australia to identify with then one produced within my own culture - my cultural allegiance shifts. From earliest infancy we acquire a taste for plentiful and moorish American media which many of us consume more hungrily than our own. I’ve spent countless hours staring into screens passively imbibing the American cultural lexicon, history, and identity through their film, literature and television and now I’m deeply vested in the narrative of a country that is more or less indifferent to mine.
On a very basic and important level watching Australian storytellers reminds me that Australian lives are as rich and worthy a material to create art from as any. I am prompted to see that stories worth telling don’t only come from overseas and that what we need is a collective will to hear and tell Australian stories.When I watch great Australian performances I am given a rare glimpse i of a contemporary unifying Australianess beyond outdated and exclusionary notions of mateship and alcohol abuse. The deepest and most important laughs are born of recognition, when I see aspects of our unique social, environmental and political identity relayed by one of our own. There is something about the stand up of Anne Edmonds, Sam Campbell and Hannah Gadsby that speaks of a distinctly Australian and often disavowed part of our artists lives, of the lack of reward and often outright hostility suffered at the hands of the very audiences they seek to entertain and delight. We need Australian stories and Australian performers to help us navigate our collective darkness. What what previously convict colony cringe has given way to a deeper national shame born of our inhumane treatment of asylum seekers, our First Australian’s and the land we stole from them. Rather than engaging with these painful conversations about Australian identity too often we opt out and switch on American media, which promises respite from blame as its preoccupied with itself and rarely mentions us. The power of storytelling cannot be overstated. Seeing elements of your lived life depicted in media is incredibly powerful. To give a human face to an otherwise depersonalised issue transforms a nations awareness and attitudes. Telling stories that pertain specifically to one of the many cultures co-existing in Australia is elucidating, it breeds awareness, understanding and conversation and we’re missing out.