damianneighbours: trashy soap or pure genius?
July 30th 2008 03:18
When it comes to producing quality, hard-hitting Television drama, Australia does not enjoy a significant reputation on the world stage. While some may think this ignores the contribution of shows such as the critically acclaimed – though short-lived – MDA, or groundbreaking shows such as Brides of Christ, the reality is these shows haven’t succeeded internationally. Indeed, many locally-produced dramas struggle to compete even for an Australian audience with slick, often surprisingly complex international shows.
US cable channel HBO has led the way with shows such as Oz, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under, and there are a variety of other US and UK-produced medical, legal and police dramas on offer every night of the week. In fact, so complete is the devastation of our local TV industry that we even have to import shows such as the New Zealand ‘reality’ police drama Road Patrol. The one episode that I saw of this show stands out in my mind, not for someone going on a car-crushing rampage in a tank or something similarly exciting, but for one particularly callous and carefree Kiwi hoon who was pulled over by the police for going at 40 k’s an hour on the freeway. Well, bugger me with a broom handle! If this isn’t scraping the bottom of the barrel, I don’t know what is!
Yet, amid the doom and gloom, there is one light still shining when it comes to Aussie drama. What’s more, it has been sitting under our very noses for years and yet somehow we have managed not to notice the one local drama constantly bringing out the big guns and addressing the burning issues of the day. And no, I’m not talking about Playschool, with its hidden agenda of promoting sexual impropriety amongst our children. I am, in fact, referring to that erstwhile staple of Aussie TV, Neighbours.
Often ridiculed as being downright laughable, it is true that Neighbours has not received the amount of critical praise one might expect from a show that tackles the biting issues of the day. In fact, this is in many respects a reflection of the subtlety of the show. Many of the themes are confronted in a way that flies straight over the head of the average TV critic, and yet are not so inaccessible as to be out of the reach of Joe Bloggs after a hard day’s work.
Take for example a recent episode in which legal eagle Toadie is called upon to represent Steve, who is protecting Bridget even as the case against him mounts. Toadie is called in as a result of Samantha’s inability to handle the case herself due to her bipolar and secret plans to have a baby with her partner Dan, which, as it turns out, Dan already knows about. Meanwhile, Libby is working overtime to set Ty and Rachel up so that he can move on and hopefully encourage Rachel to start singing again.
On the surface, it might seem like a fairly standard soap opera plot line, but if we dig a little deeper we can see the undercurrents at work here. Samantha turning to Toadie for help with Steve’s case highlights the burning issue of a lack of mental health care services available in Australia. Rather than seeking professional help as she knows she should, she instead turns to a guy who has no real qualification for his job other than the fact he had been on the show for so long that the producers felt the urge to give him some kind of legitimate purpose. In the real world, we as spectators know that this guy would have been the first one in the bread queue in Howard’s welfare state, passing off his phoney mechanic’s qualification as proof to Centrelink that he was working for his dole cheque. Yet, here he is, coming in as Samantha’s ‘knight in shining armour’. Moreover, the implausibility of it all suggests to us that if Samantha had the option of a legitimate, government-funded maternity leave scheme, things would never have got to this stage.
This leads us to the question of why Samantha had to keep her plans to fall pregnant a secret from her partner, and indeed how this is possible in the first place. The fact that Dan is blissfully unaware of her plans, despite the fact that her pregnancy would require his participation would seem to be a harsh indictment of the parlous state of education in this country.
Then there is Libby and her desperate attempt to set up Ty and Rachel, in a bid to kill two birds with one stone, i.e. to stop Ty stalking her and also – should he and Rachel shack up – to get Rachel a spot on the upcoming series of Australian Idol as the token pregnant chick. Clearly, this is a sad comment on the nature of the Australian entertainment industry when Libby feels someone with a talent as obvious as Rachel’s is forced to get knocked up and parade the fact on national TV to get noticed. Ultimately though, Libby knows that Rachel’s attempt at stardom is destined to fail because all the Australian Idol voters are members of Hillsong and won’t vote for an unmarried pregnant chick.
Through building up Rachel’s dream only for it to be brought crashing down around her, Libby will get her ultimate revenge on Ty and draw attention to the error of judgement by the magistrate in not granting that application for a restraining order against him. In this way the writers provide a damning critique of the Australian legal system and its failure to protect women. And while these issues are addressed with a subtlety that can admittedly sometimes escape the inattentive viewer, this is merely illustrative of the fact that the producers do not wish to preach morality, but rather deal with the issues they raise in a rational and even-handed way.
So while it is true that the Australian TV landscape is for the most part a wasteland as far as quality local drama is concerned, Neighbours continues to serve as a shining example of what the industry can aspire to. It is time the show received the critical recognition a hard hitting drama of this calibre so obviously deserves.
US cable channel HBO has led the way with shows such as Oz, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under, and there are a variety of other US and UK-produced medical, legal and police dramas on offer every night of the week. In fact, so complete is the devastation of our local TV industry that we even have to import shows such as the New Zealand ‘reality’ police drama Road Patrol. The one episode that I saw of this show stands out in my mind, not for someone going on a car-crushing rampage in a tank or something similarly exciting, but for one particularly callous and carefree Kiwi hoon who was pulled over by the police for going at 40 k’s an hour on the freeway. Well, bugger me with a broom handle! If this isn’t scraping the bottom of the barrel, I don’t know what is!
Yet, amid the doom and gloom, there is one light still shining when it comes to Aussie drama. What’s more, it has been sitting under our very noses for years and yet somehow we have managed not to notice the one local drama constantly bringing out the big guns and addressing the burning issues of the day. And no, I’m not talking about Playschool, with its hidden agenda of promoting sexual impropriety amongst our children. I am, in fact, referring to that erstwhile staple of Aussie TV, Neighbours.
Often ridiculed as being downright laughable, it is true that Neighbours has not received the amount of critical praise one might expect from a show that tackles the biting issues of the day. In fact, this is in many respects a reflection of the subtlety of the show. Many of the themes are confronted in a way that flies straight over the head of the average TV critic, and yet are not so inaccessible as to be out of the reach of Joe Bloggs after a hard day’s work.
Take for example a recent episode in which legal eagle Toadie is called upon to represent Steve, who is protecting Bridget even as the case against him mounts. Toadie is called in as a result of Samantha’s inability to handle the case herself due to her bipolar and secret plans to have a baby with her partner Dan, which, as it turns out, Dan already knows about. Meanwhile, Libby is working overtime to set Ty and Rachel up so that he can move on and hopefully encourage Rachel to start singing again.
On the surface, it might seem like a fairly standard soap opera plot line, but if we dig a little deeper we can see the undercurrents at work here. Samantha turning to Toadie for help with Steve’s case highlights the burning issue of a lack of mental health care services available in Australia. Rather than seeking professional help as she knows she should, she instead turns to a guy who has no real qualification for his job other than the fact he had been on the show for so long that the producers felt the urge to give him some kind of legitimate purpose. In the real world, we as spectators know that this guy would have been the first one in the bread queue in Howard’s welfare state, passing off his phoney mechanic’s qualification as proof to Centrelink that he was working for his dole cheque. Yet, here he is, coming in as Samantha’s ‘knight in shining armour’. Moreover, the implausibility of it all suggests to us that if Samantha had the option of a legitimate, government-funded maternity leave scheme, things would never have got to this stage.
This leads us to the question of why Samantha had to keep her plans to fall pregnant a secret from her partner, and indeed how this is possible in the first place. The fact that Dan is blissfully unaware of her plans, despite the fact that her pregnancy would require his participation would seem to be a harsh indictment of the parlous state of education in this country.
Then there is Libby and her desperate attempt to set up Ty and Rachel, in a bid to kill two birds with one stone, i.e. to stop Ty stalking her and also – should he and Rachel shack up – to get Rachel a spot on the upcoming series of Australian Idol as the token pregnant chick. Clearly, this is a sad comment on the nature of the Australian entertainment industry when Libby feels someone with a talent as obvious as Rachel’s is forced to get knocked up and parade the fact on national TV to get noticed. Ultimately though, Libby knows that Rachel’s attempt at stardom is destined to fail because all the Australian Idol voters are members of Hillsong and won’t vote for an unmarried pregnant chick.
Through building up Rachel’s dream only for it to be brought crashing down around her, Libby will get her ultimate revenge on Ty and draw attention to the error of judgement by the magistrate in not granting that application for a restraining order against him. In this way the writers provide a damning critique of the Australian legal system and its failure to protect women. And while these issues are addressed with a subtlety that can admittedly sometimes escape the inattentive viewer, this is merely illustrative of the fact that the producers do not wish to preach morality, but rather deal with the issues they raise in a rational and even-handed way.
So while it is true that the Australian TV landscape is for the most part a wasteland as far as quality local drama is concerned, Neighbours continues to serve as a shining example of what the industry can aspire to. It is time the show received the critical recognition a hard hitting drama of this calibre so obviously deserves.
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