There Goes The Neighbourhood
A group of filmmakers have taken the blowtorch to Ramsay Street, writes James Norman.
Most Australians have some kind of relationship with TV soap Neighbours. Regardless of what we might really think of their daily trials and tribulations, the friendly folks from Ramsay Street have had a significant impact on how Australians view themselves and how we are viewed by the world.
Now eight Melbourne filmmakers have devised their own versions of it in Neighbours (the remix). The short films all present visions of contemporary Australian suburban life at odds with the innocuous lives of their TV blueprint. Now in its 18th year, Neighbours is Australia's most successful television program. It has 120 million viewers daily worldwide, screens in 57 countries and launched the superstar careers of Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Guy Pearce, Natalie Imbruglia and Holly Valance. Yet Neighbours has always attracted criticism. Germaine Greer once said: "Neighbours is a fiction. Most Australians don't know their next-door neighbours or care what becomes of them."
Neighbours (the remix) curator Spiro Economopoulos, of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), says the motivation behind the project came from the belief that Australian suburbia is not always as rosy as Ramsay Street. "Neighbours is the ultimate expression of a particular fantasy of a 'perfect' Australian life," he says. "A life in which suburbia is always sunny, always welcoming, and, of course, always white." Neighbours executive producer Ric Pellizzeri says the show is not above criticism. "We're public property," he says. "We are a show about middle-class Australia. We represent a perception of what the country is in people's minds and hearts, we are not reality television."
Filmmaker Katrina Sawyer is also interested in who is excluded by Neighbours, but hers is a much more overtly political take. She begins her short film Decent, Generous, Tolerant, Open-minded (White) People with Aboriginal kids sitting around a television set in an impoverished neighbourhood, watching Neighbours. "I saw this as a chance to re-imagine and explore Australian identity," Sawyer says. "Clearly the original Australians and the newest Australians had been excluded from popular culture programs such as Neighbours."
The treatment of refugees in Australia is also included. Sawyer juxtaposes the theme song to Neighbours with graphic footage of refugees at Woomera detention centre. "In the theme song they present values that they would like to see as Australian values - neighbours should be there to help each other, a friendly wave each morning makes a better day. They are good values, but I don't think that's the truth. Anyone who sees how Australia portrays itself through Neighbours or other tourism promotion would think Australians must be decent, kind, tolerant, generous people." She and her fellow filmmakers are not advocating that Neighbours should end, or that every TV show should represent all of Australian society. "But it does have a huge influence of what people overseas think Australia is about. It seems like an innocent soap opera but it is presenting a false image."
Decent, Generous, Tolerant Open-minded [white] People
(2004 / 9 mins / documentary)
Director: Katrina Sawyer
Camera: Katrina Sawyer & Leonie Dickinson
Sound: Leonie Dickinson & Katrina Sawyer
Editor: Dan Kerr
Country: Australia (in English )
