Two polar opposite comedy experiences last night–Sal and I spent a lovely evening out in Melbourne town watching the excellent Daniel Kitson’s musings on life and death. It was a wonderful, uplifting hour and a half of intelligent, life-affirming comic joy.
Meanwhile, Australian network television was casually winding the clock back to 1972 with some good old fashioned racism.
The comments on the story on The Age website — that would be the supposedly more liberal of our two local Melbourne newspapers — make particularly depressing reading: the overwhelming reaction appears somehow not to be “how the hell did this make it on air?” and “isn’t it a deeply embarrassing reflection of modern Australian culture that anyone could possibly think this was acceptable?” as I might have expected most sane people to react, this being the 21st century and all that, but rather people actually seem to be defending it.
Jesus Christ! I mean I know that there’s plenty of right-wing racist fuckwits back in the UK (I only have to look at spEak You’re bRanes if I need reminding of that), but I was sort of hoping my adopted home might be a bit more enlightened. Apparently not…