Soap Opera in a Multicultural Australia: Home and Away v Heartbreak High Hawthorne, Lesleyanne “Soap opera in a modern, dealing with 'hip' issues such as street multicultural Australia: Home and Away v. kids, incest, drug taking, teenage anorexia and Heartbreak High” Bureau of Immigration, pregnancy, the first thing to note in relation to Multicultural and Population Research Bulletin, 'Home and Away' is the extreme social No. 15, 1995, pp 32-35. conservatism of the genre. Summer Bay men undertake a fair range of jobs. The women, by by Lesleyanne Hawthorne contrast, fundamentally feed and nurture - even the few female teachers promptly find Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and additional catering work at the Diner. Population Research Despite Sydney being a mere hour away by bus, Representing Difference? Summer Bay kids confound contemporary The Australian Media educational patterns by rarely electing to proceed to tertiary study. Bright girls, in A UK soap opera was recently designed to particular, abandon their dreams of law or present the life, loves and (occasionally) work of medicine to become teenage mothers or brides, an attractive female res e a r ch scientist. The explicit to stay at home and serve coffee or milkshakes. aim in this was to persuade British teenage girls These destinations are sanctioned by the to view science as a potentially 'feminine' and example of Pippa, the earth mother who centres charismatic career. In taking such an initiative, the series, an ex-nurse with a voracious maternal science planners were saluting a fundamental instinct, who bakes up a storm while civilising principle of advertising - that if you wish to a succession of foster children. The arrival of reach an audience, and influence its values, you these children in fact is crucial, for like many target the appropriate media to do so. soap operas, 'Home and Away' offers viewers a modern version of the morality play.Teenage In relation to this it is a fascinating exercise to runaways are brought to Summer Bay in a state analyse the extremely popular teenage soap that is preferably feral Their problems are opera genre in Australia to consider the explored and resolved with considerable messages implicitly and explicitly transmitted voyeuristic zeal. In the process, homeless deviants about the nature of Australian society, including are socialised into good, upright citizens. the acceptability of ethnic diversity. How, you might ask, does 'Home and Away' 'Home and Away', the Seven Network's top- connect with the topic of cultural diversity? The ranking, long-running soap opera, is set in answer is simple. It doesn't. Summer Bay, a place of sea and perpetual sun on east coast Australia. Given its programming What the series offers viewers, instead, is ethnic frequency (five nights per week), for many invisibility of the highest order, a comforting committed adolescent viewers 'Home and Away' pre-mass migration vision of Australia, peopled fictional families will almost certainly be the with unassailably Anglo citizens. Unlike the prime families known outside their own, and bulk of Australian country towns, Summer Bay highly influential. While the series sells itself as lacks even an Italian Pizza Parlour, a Chinese Making Multicultural Australia Soap Opera in a Multicultural Australia... 1 restaurant, a Greek or a Lebanese milk bar. Over migration, a huge media advance it would seem, more than six years of watching the program, I in line with the program's promotion. Yet even have seen four vignettes centred on 'alien' within the first series, before ratings pressure bit, Aboriginal, Yugoslav, Italian and Chinese clear inconsistencies were evident in the characters. Each was ruthlessly despatched program's characterisations. Yola, the 'Lebanese' within a matter of episodes, the Chinese girl counsellor, was presented as a powerfully hip recalled overseas, the Yugoslav father killed in a young Australian woman - a cheerful libertine light plane accident, the Italian exchange with no family or Lebanese values in sight. student obliterated by an express train. Apart from Vietnamese Jack, not a single ethnic character spoke with a trace of a non-Anglo The device of centring 'Home and Away' accent, not only second generation kids, in around a succession of fostered children in fact whom this was predictable, but the first provides a brilliant rationale for systematic generation. ethnic exclusion. NESB-origin actors may occasionally be cast in the series, in at least one Despite such anomalies, 'Heartbreak High', was case as Anglo (Sophie). Two boys (Frank and definitely promising and far more 'real' than the Jack) are briefly acknowledged as being of standard teenage fare on commercial television. Italian and half Lebanese descent. Yet by The focus began to insidiously change, however, definition each has been abandoned by his through the second series. By the third natural family, leaving him free to identify as (currently underway), the changes had 100 per cent Australian in terms of language, amounted to a covert transformation of the culture and personal style. program's explicitly stated values. Such patterns should come as no surprise Concurrent with the struggle of 'Heartbreak perhaps, in a place like Summer Bay a fictional High', for ratings, a none too subtle process of construct based on a huge nostalgia for 1950s purging was progressively being carried out. In Australia. It should be different in relation to the second series Nick (the Greek stud) was 'Heartbreak High', an infinitely superior teenage killed off in a disastrous boxing bout and series set in contemporary eastern Sydney, replaced by Matt, a NESB origin actor actually proclaimed from the start to be culturally cast as an Anglo. Jack, the Vietnamese high- inclusive. Within the first series we were indeed achiever, was transferred out of the series to presented with an overwhelmingly ethnic continue his education at a selective entry high school, reflective of the newer as well as the school, presumably designed as a prestigious older migrations which are a vital hallmark of exit. Prior to leaving Hartley High, Jack Sydney. In Hartley High, the 'Skips' were impregnated Lebanese Rose, returning briefly in outnumbered by kids of Greek, Italian and the third series to marry her in a charming Lebanese origin, as well as by large numbers of Vietnamese-Lebanese wedding, before she in relatively new arrivals from Southeast Asia. The turn was promptly exited! key characters in this first series included Nick, the resident Greek stud, his process worker With one exception, these 'ethnic' characters father, and kid sister Effie; Con, Nick's Greek- were replaced in 'Heartbreak High', by Anglos, Italian cousin (a marvellous hustler); Rose a entering the series in the guise of incoming Lebanese girl with serious career aspirations; students, a long-lost sister, or new girlfriends. Jack, her Vietnamese boyfriend; Yola, the An identical pattern prevailed in relation to Lebanese student counsellor; and Christina, a teachers. Christina left suddenly after marrying teacher of southern Mediterranean origin. an Australian academic and departing for Indonesia (a somewhat deviant destination for a These genuinely diverse core characters were set good Greek girl). Yola, the Lebanese student against a sea of background faces, offering a counsellor, became pregnant to an Australian powerful visualisation of contemporary Sydney policeman and was also abruptly transferred out, Making Multicultural Australia Soap Opera in a Multicultural Australia... 2 replaced by an Australian spunk named Sam, and societal acceptance. with a taste for full-throttle motorcycling, male students and leather. (Fertility seems a besetting 'Home and Away' offers a clone of 1950s problem for Lebanese females in the series. ) Australia, a place whose surface acceptance of Simultaneous with this process, a progressive NESB migrants masked a collective will to and unexplained obliteration of the Asian and conformity and a loathing of difference. Middle Eastern faces originally thronging the 'Heartbreak High' offers an initially brave classrooms was occurring. Not one Asian or attempt at ethnic representation, punished by Middle Eastern character currently retains a major ratings problems, resulting in an speaking role in the series. Further, a re- attempted 'solution' based on abandonment of assignation of class was being imposed, ensuring any real sense of inclusion. the ethnic lifestyles more closely approximated the Doncaster/Chatswood dream of migration. The thinking behind such contemporary In the process, Effie's blue-collar father was program 'adjustments' seems clear - if you get despatched to Greece, despite the previous rid of the accents, the factory jobs and above all strength of his attachment, facilitating the the Middle Eastern and Asian characters, this relocation of Effie to the home of her wealthy show may survive. These are powerful uncle and aunt (Con's parents). Architectural subliminal messages for teenage Australians. preferences aside, this uncle and aunt appear They may be particularly potent for teenagers extraordinarily mainstream in terms of social who happen to be racially or culturally different. values, even to the stage of encouraging the 12- year-old Effie to accept an Australian boyfriend. By early September the series increasingly revolved round Anglo-Australians named Steve, Matt, Jodie and Peter, enlivened by the wit of Con and the nubile presence of Katerina. Despite the series'