Hyperreal Australia the construction of Australia in Neighbours and Home & Away Melissa McEwen March 2001 This volume is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts of the Australian National University in the Department of Australian Studies I wish to confirm that the thesis is my own work and that all sources used have been acknowledged. Melissa McEwen 30 March 2001 TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of authorship ii Table of contents iii Acknowledgments iv 1. Introduction 1 2. Neighbours 5 Employment 7 Education 10 E thnicity 12 W om en 14 Masculinity 18 Relationships and sexuality 20 Lifestyle 22 Disease and mental illness 25 C onclusion 26 3. Home & Away 27 Employment 30 Education 32 Ethnicity 34 W om en 37 Masculinity 42 Relationships and sexuality 45 Lifestyle 48 Disease and mental illness 49 Conclusion 51 4. National Stories 52 What is soap opera? 52 National myths and representation 56 Jobs and education 60 Ethnicity and racism 64 W om en 67 Masculinity 72 Relationships and sexuality 75 Lifestyles 77 Disease and mental illness 79 C onclusion 80 iii j. Constructing Australia 81 Construction and reception of soaps 81 Impact of television 88 Hyperreal Australia 92 Conclusion 107 i. A Moment’s Reflection 108 Mbliography 111 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As this thesis has been a long time in gestation, there are a number of people to thanks for their assistance and help: Jon McConachie for starting me down this path and John Docker for guiding me to the end; Ann Curthoys and Noel Purdon for helping to ensure that I could actually undertake my various course of study at both the ANU and Flinders; Chloe Fox for sending me articles and Caro Greenway for finding me websites and news clippings; Sanchez Kay for his website and for snippets of Neighbours information; Harvey May for various discussions and copies of his research on actors in Australian drama; The anonymous authors of several Home & Away and Neighbours websites whose episode guides in particular have proved invaluable to supplement and confirm my own memories and notes; My various workplaces and supervisors, particularly at the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts for their support and understanding through the duration of both my coursework and thesis; My friends and colleagues and family who have endured and engaged in discussion of soap operas over the last seven years and provided me with insight; Sam, my borther, and Natasha, my friend for their love and support; Lucy for being my co-conspirator in the watching of daytime soaps, Dynasty and others; Annette for sharing our hours of watching Neighbours; Rachel for our endless discussions of Home & Away and her support and insight; Liz for her support, interest and fabulous efforts in editing; Dad for teaching me to think analytically and Mum for teaching me to love writing; and James for his support, assistance and putting up with soap opera—and because without him any achievement would seem less important. “No homeland can survive being processed by the films which celebrate it, and which thereby turn the unique character on which it thrives into an unchangeable sameness.” Theodor Adomo Culture Industry Reconsidered vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Like almost any other person who has grown up in the past thirty years, television has played an important role in developing my understanding of the world around me and in the construction of my identity. A constant presence in the home, television is more than just an entertainment medium. While I was at primary school, my parents directed my television viewing towards documentaries and literary adaptations made especially for children. My enjoyment of The Eagle of the Ninth led me to read all Rosemary Sutcliffe’s novels and left me with a fondness for tales of Roman legionnaires, while watching Gerald Durrell’s wildlife documentaries sparked a life long interest in endangered species and conservation. However, twice a week at school I felt deprived and alienated from my peer group. These were the mornings when the previous night’s episodes of The Restless Years and Prisoner were discussed. The eleven and twelve year olds of my class discussed these programs with fervour and passion, while my parents refused to allow me to watch such ‘trash’. Thus my interest in soap operas began through my observation of the fascination they held for others. As I grew older and my television viewing choices became more autonomous, soap opera began to play a more substantial role in my life. My sister and I would watched Texas, an American daytime soap opera, whenever we were home sick until it was cancelled. Dynasty became my first real soap addiction with its fascinating and glamorous characters. By the end of high school, discussions of Days of Our Lives were de rigeur, with absentees being interrogated the next day for plot updates. While I did not start watching Neighbours til much later, when Home & Away started, so did my viewing of it. As an undergraduate at university, a semester course in media studies allowed me to watch E-Street for purely academic purposes and by the time Beverly Hills 90210 started I had complete control over my television as I no longer lived with my parents. Watching both American and Australian soap operas, it became clear to me that, while the different programs had many features in common, they were also distinctly different 1 in a number of ways. Soap opera is television drama which is characterised by its on­ going nature and its focus on the private, rather than public, lives of characters. Soap operas appear to be endless, while their beginnings quickly also become lost. They deal with the emotions of characters and often have a strong focus on family. Generally they privilege talk over action, unlike action-oriented police drama. They mirror the time space of the viewer and rarely is every storyline resolved at the end of an episode. I am not alone in my fascination with Australian soap operas. The country’s preoccupation with its televisual heroes is symbolised by the presence of Kylie Minogue/Charlene Ramsey’s wedding dress from Neighbours in the Vicotiran Museum. “Kylie and Jason” have represented an iconic couple to most Australians and it is rare for (particularly younger) Australians, to not have at least one favourite soapie star of past or present. What I explore in this thesis comes from what I observed while watching soaps—the national character of soap opera. The soap operas of the US, for example, have a very distinct flavour and identity from those produced in Australia. Further UK soaps dwell in a different world, highlighting the lives of working class Britains. From this basis of difference, I will then examine the construction of a particular kind of Australian identity within these programs. Neighbours and Home & Away have both been on television for over ten years and, as such, are Australia’s longest running soap operas. While Neighbours has a suburban setting, Home & Away is set in a small beachside town. Despite their different settings, the programs have much in common, including their core approach to the presentation of Australian identity. Both programs have had enormous success internationally and, as such, have also presented their construction of Australian identity to the world. Given their long running nature, popularity and my own familiarity with them (I finally started watching Neighbours while at university), I focus on these programs to draw out their depiction of Australian society and, by looking at early episodes as well as those from 2000, how that depiction has changed over the last decade. Chapter two will focus in depth on Neighbours while chapter three will examine Home & Away in detail. 2 While I have given a brief definition of soap opera above, I will draw out its meaning in more detail at the beginning of chapter four in order to gain a stronger grasp on what soap opera actually is. Soap opera is an amorphous term, used generally in a derogatory sense. While soap opera has developed and changed, there are some core components which remain consistent. I will draw out the most important components of soap opera to try and find a workable definition. The remainder of chapter four will be used to examine the differences and similarities of Australian, United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) soaps. By comparing Australian soaps and those from the US and UK, I examine the structural features of soap operas, while also being able to compare and contrast the national mythologies which suffuse them. Much of the difference between the soap operas of the three countries is a result of the class basis of the programs. Soap operas from the United States tend to emphasise class mobility and the professional classes, while UK soaps are generally mired in the world of the working classes. Australia stands between, with Neighbours and Home & Away in particular centred in the world of the middle classes. This class difference permeates much of the rest of the programs with other differences developing from this basis. A question that can be posed is why should it matter how soap opera constructs Australian identity? To pre-empt this question, the first half of chapter five examines the debate about the influence of television and the role of the viewer in interpreting programs such as soap opera. Television can provoke emotive arguments from both sides of the political spectrum with the right concerned about levels of sex and violence and the impact of the decaying moral values espoused, while elements of the left see television as an overwhelmingly hegemonic force which encourages viewers to accept the status quo.