Hi everyone I hope you're all well so the mainstream cultural arena nowadays
seems to be dominated by two distinct voices one comes from a small but noisy
minority who insists that despite abundant evidence to the contrary the
world is an inherently antagonistic unequal place where anyone who doesn't
look like this is routinely subject to unfair discriminatory treatment the
other voice is quieter but represents the majority of people who say that
while modern society still has a few kinks to iron out largely we have come
an awfully long way in terms of how we treat people and how we represent
minorities for instance in the media and in popular culture so who is correct is
popular culture in 2019 and indeed society at large still a reflection of
the bigoted disrespectful attitudes of yesteryear or are the hand flappers
simply making a big fuss out of nothing as per usual well what better way to
ascertain this then to go on a trip down memory lane to arguably where 21st
century popular culture actually began to that piece of extraordinary
entertainment that kept millions of people glued to their TV screens back
when people actually watch TV every Sunday night for years everyone let's
take a look at Australian Idol
let me back up for a second and explain how I got to this point the other day I
was taking a bit of a nostalgia trip back to my teens and I remembered just
what a huge part Australian Idol and actually American Idol as well played in
my adolescence and that of my friends I absolutely worshipped that show I loved
it point to make for all of my viewers who
are under 18 you have to visualize a world without Netflix or Stan or YouTube
or any other kind of streaming service social media was not a thing there was
barely any internet and you're only really used it for homework or MSN
Messenger or gaming if you were a nerd if that so the general public's idea of
entertainment was for everyone to sit down at the same time on a Sunday night
watch the same show talk about it for the next week and then watch the next
episode the next Sunday night there was no such thing as binge watching a series
because nothing was stored anywhere on the Internet
you only did that if you had the DVD boxset of something and that was only
available after the whole series had been aired much of mainstream
entertainment was appointment viewing of reality TV shows and Australian Idol was
the biggest and most popular show of them all first airing in 2003 it topped
the ratings week after week and ranked as the ninth most popular show of the
last century in Australia in 2007 it was the cornerstone of popular culture it
was also in retrospect and to ironically use the language of the easily offended
hugely problematic you see because TV was such a huge thing in the early 2000s
and because there was an explosion of reality TV around that time Australian
television really was the Wild West and while reality TV has tied itself up
over the past decade 2003 to 2009 was worthy of a few raised eyebrows even the
family-friendly Australian Idol there was stuff said on that show that simply
would not get up nowadays on TV you Americans watching this you think you
had it interesting on American Idol with Simon Cowell we had Kyle Sandilands
call to UCL your way to have a goal people yes
Mark Holden what's what's with what you're wearing girl you you you never
fail to sing brilliantly but whoever convinced you to wear that I wouldn't
listen to a movie and Ian dico Dixon dancing because it's making you look a
real teeth we also had Marcia Hines but she was lovely
well mostly that's not what I call singing it was kind of more like
assaulting you gotta remember here this was a show that spent a very large chunk
of the early episodes putting people on TV some of who seemed and how do I put
this gently intellectually differently-abled in the incredibly
vulnerable position of singing solo to a camera without music with the sole
intent of ruthlessly ridiculing them in front of the entire country so while the
later round sounded like this
the early rounds usually sounded a bit like this baby hot just like an oven
which often generated reactions like this look Daniel you are amazing to look
at you're gorgeous but awful to listen to all this you are shocking and you
will only get sympathy money from busking or this we've certainly got the
body of Justin Timberlake unfortunately you got the head of Susan Boyle
even the tool seemingly innocuous phrases that were mentioned on the show
would nowadays be met with at least a little bit of scrutiny alike and this
one did he make you feel like getting nasty or this one the fact that you've
bought ugly all this beauty the better they look the worst they sing the monkey
things always sing real well but then of course there was the failsafe racial
stereotype that was guaranteed to get a love while American Idol had William
Hung Australian Idol had Faline as you can imagine from that audition Flynn got
three noes from the judges nevertheless he became a national sensation as one of
the so-called unforgettables garnering legions of fans all over the country and
even scoring a performance at the grand finale of the show held at the Sydney
Opera House but was this adulation because he was an underrated talent that
the judges simply got wrong of course not the Australian public loved Flynn
because aside from the fact he really did have some sick dance moves he very
much fit the fresh-faced Asian stereotype which at the time was
evidently socially acceptable to exploit
after the Glacial equity to bother me in China can you imagine the freakout on
Twitter and in much of the media if this was presented today
I mean honestly watching all of this fling footage plus a few other clips
which I felt made me realize that in the early 2000s Australia's national brand
of humor was at least in part very much ha ha look at that Asian trying to sing
a shade oh yeah I want to be a singer I'm gonna say because of your bikini
cousin
you sound like a sexually frustrated mosquito we really thank you
no that wasn't a compliment in your
brown and gray next up is she Wang where's itchy Wang I've got an itchy
Wang here an itchy Wang Shiwei it's been a long road getting from there to here
no one's gonna bend or break me what's happening here imagined is no heaven
it's easy if you try somewhere over the rainbow then of course there's this
parade of what those in the so-called moral enlightened class would call
microaggressions you should choose more appropriate clothes or shed some pants
I'm sorry that you were super hot I just don't
this I think that's it's just not I don't really like that it's not what I
think it's not how I have my brain works you are well thank you pleasure really
it is gratifying to know that wherever you go in the universe you are able to
find dodgy transvestites now for the record here I am in no way saying that
anyone involved with Australian Idol of the judges or hosts or contestants or
producers or anyone is in anywhere racist or sexist or anything else of
course they're not it's just interesting to observe what was socially acceptable
to not only say but to put on main stream at primetime TV 10 or 15 years
ago and how different it is from today so to any little social justice
aficionado who dares to say that we're not progressing in our social attitudes
get your head out of the ground and watch the wild wild west of early 2000s
Ozzie TV you will be very very pleasantly surprised at just how far
we've come
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