I’ve posted before about how fledgling the Australian entertainment industry is. Well, the new season line up is being advertised at the moment and I am not happy. Basically Australia is trying to be America and it’s not a good move for us. Why? We can’t do it and we’re falling for the most obvious traps.
Currently, the biggest TV programs we produce are the Australian versions of American/British originated talent shows; the amount of new Australian programs we produce is probably limited to the five fingers of my left hand; and now we’ve turned to creating trashy American reality TV rip-offs.
As a good illustration of the climate we’re in right now, over the past three days I have witnessed the airing of an American series of The Voice (we already finished ours this year) on one of our primary channels, advertising for a competition called “Dance Off” featuring American judges Kelly Rowland and Jason Derulo, and a story about a Floridian teenager being attacked by an alligator (we only have crocodiles in Australia) on national news. I’m not so concerned about the American judges because that could actually be quite positive but you can understand how Australia is really struggling with a practically non-existent media identity.
There is about one promising new Australian series that I’ve seen advertised but what worries me most of all is that, in what smells like desperation, Australia has decided to rip off the two most pitiful American shows. “Lara Bingle” is a show following the life of Lara’s family. Who’s Lara? Good question because I didn’t even know until the show started. She’s apparently a model who is really most famous for sleeping with a sports personality and ruining his marriage. Nice to see that we’re celebrating that, Australia. Good fucking work. It’s fairly obviously a response to the “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” joke of a series. She’s vapid and immature and the day the show goes off air couldn’t come sooner.
But that’s not the worst of it, because Australia responds to the abominable program known as “Jersey Shore” with it’s own “The Shire”. And what else can I say…it’s literally just as confoundingly shit as the original show. It’s about morons with money who live on the beach.
This is Australian TV currently.
Please let me out of here.
