Australian Stereotypes

"The Australia I know is, on the whole, happy, hard-working, easy-going, kind, practical and ready for a laugh. But the one I read about, or see in films, is usually racist, dull, cruel, shrunken in spirit and grim." Andrew Bolt - Journalst

Around the world, people are raised not to stereotype others. Nevertheless, they often define their own cultural identity by stereotyping themselves. Not only do the stereotypes provide the behavioural model that individuals seek to emulate, they also provide a sense of commonality that makes people feel that they are part of a community. For example, in China, the website ww.index-china.com describes Chinese people as:

"peaceful, hardworking and easily contented. They respect elders, love children and are patient with their fellows. Chinese in general are reserve and humble. They believe in harmony and never look for confrontation."

It is not only the Chinese that like to self-stereotype. The Italians self-stereotype themselves as having great style, the French as having elegance, the Japanese as being hard workers, and the Spanish as being lovers of life.

In Australia, there are some individuals who can likewise appreciate the benefits of a cultural identity and who have subsequently created stereotypes to affirm that identity. One such Australian is Peter Cosgrove, ex-Chief of the Army. According to Cosgrove,

"Without doubt the best quality we observe across the entire Australian community is a natural willingness to pitch in and have a go, to help others. We see it of course whenever there is an emergency or a worthy cause. We see it in every community volunteer organisation from the lifesavers to the bushfire brigades through to the thousands of youth and mature age sporting clubs and those great international service organisations like Rotary and many others. We see it in our professional bodies such as the police, fire and ambulance services and of course in the defence force. It is a generosity of spirit and a selflessness that is perhaps our most precious heritage to hand on to younger and newer Australians - a nation of people who care for and look out for each other."

It is impossible to ascertain the accuracy of Cosgrove's stereotype. Certainly not all Australians volunteer to fight fires, guard beaches, join the army, work in a Salvation Army store, or pick up rubbish. Furthermore, many Australians will only contribute to the community if they get a government grant first. However, even though a stereotype may not be true in practice, it may be true in myth and for this reason, belief in the stereotype is a fact in itself. Furthermore, when evoked in certain circumstances, the stereotype can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Individuals who believe it may conform to the positive social identity that the stereotype promotes. A myth of behaviour can then become a fact of behaviour.

While some Australians use stereotypes to define their cultural identity, other Australians create fictional stereotypes to deconstruct Australia's identity. Their strategy is to create ugly Australian stereotypes that other Australians will recoil from. This strategy can be seen in left-wing humour, in movies exploring the Australian identity, in media campaigns by left-wing academics and in speeches by left-wing politicians.

The anti-values site, http://valuesaustralia.com/ by Roger Migently provides a good example of how stereotypes are used in left-wing Australian humour. The site's slogan is:

"Preserving social harmony by blaming the diseased and antisocial blackfellas."

Presumably, the slogan makes left-wingers chuckle, as does the content of site, which evokes various ugly stereotypes about Australia in order to make readers laugh. For example, when talking about the Australian lifestyle, the site says:

"Barbecued burnt bacon, eggs and sausage for breakfast, barbecued burnt sausage and onion sandwich for lunch and barbecued burnt steak and sausage for dinner. Barbecue meat is always marinated in VB (except in Leichhardt and Carlton and the whole of Adelaide, where they have barbecued wogmeat for every meal washed down with a barbecued imported chardonnay before they go off and have a committee meeting of the marxist socialist alliance or what is called the "greens")."

For left-wingers such as Mr Migently, creating a negative Australian stereotype and subsequently conforming to it in a sarcastic fashion is very funny. It also masks their desire to insult people in order to feel better about themselves. In a nutshell, it is a form of bigotry.

Aside from left-wing humour, the creation of ugly stereotypes has commonly been seen in Australian movies. Ever since ex-prime minister Paul Keating destroyed an independent film industry, many Australian movie makers have tried to make Australian stereotypes appear as negative as possible to fit left-wing political objectives. One of the most notable of such movies is The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). Directed by Stephan Elliot, Priscilla was created as a homosexual "correction" to Paul Hogan's Crocodile Dundee (1986). It followed the story of gays bringing some sophistication to the backwater that is outback Australia. In one scene, Elliot showed outback men watching a Filipino woman shoot ping pong balls out of her vagina. The scene aimed to build a stereotype that outback men were uncultured, racist, lewd and intolerant. The stereotype proved contagious and many film critics had trouble differentiating fact from stereotypical fiction. One of these film critics was Paul Byrnes, from the left-wing Sydney Morning Herald. According to Byrnes,

"The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert went further than any of these in attacking the Crocodile Dundee mythology of the essentially harmless heterosexual outback male. These same types of men, usually depicted in bars in Priscilla, can be suspicious, violent, vulgar and extremely intolerant, especially when confronted with alternative definitions of masculinity." (3)

Again, Mr Byrne's comments were a form of bigotry. Just because outback heterosexual males were depicted as violent, vulgar and intolerant in a movie doesn't mean they were violent, vulgar and intolerant in reality. To use a fictional movie to justify a negative stereotype of reality was an example of bigotry at its very worst.

Media campaigns by Australia's academics have also shown a strong manipulation of ugly Australian stereotypes. One such campaign has been run by Dr Tanja Dreher, the University Technology Sydney Shopfront Research Manager. Dr Dreher has actively gone searching for examples of the fair-go stereotype being inaccurate so that she can then publicly deconstruct it, and replace it with negative stereotypes regarding Australian intolerance and ignorance. Subsequently, she has released press-releases of the vein:

"There is in fact evidence of a serious gulf between the myth of 'a fair go' Australia and the reality. As a society we need to start taking responsibility for the intolerant and frequently ignorant nation we have become." (1)

For the likes of Dr Dreher, it was fair to use an isolated attack on an ethnic group to stereotype Australians as racist. Such stereotyping was really no different from using a terrorist attack committed by one Muslim to stereotype all Muslims as terrorists. Admittedly, if a group is held accountable for the actions of its individual members, then there is an incentive for the group to bring dissident individuals into line. However, if such a theory is applied, it needs to be applied equally. It is prejudiced behaviour to hold Australians accountable for the actions of individuals that act in a bad way, but not apply the same levels of group accountability to ethnic groups.

In addition to left-wing comedians and academics, left-wing politicians have also built negative Australian stereotypes. For example, Whitlam Minister Al Grassy tried to create the stereotype that something as simple as identifying one's ancestors as Australian on a census form was an act of racism comparable to the killing of six million Jews. According to Grassy:

"It would mean there was a secret master race that considered themselves pure Australians...It would be worse than the Third Reich." (4)

In 2006, 37.1 per cent of Australians cited their ancestry as Australian on the census forms. If the Grassby stereotype were to be believed, then Australian businesses that construct gas chambers should be doing a roaring trade.

While left-wingers frequently use stereotypes to define other Australians, they rarely use stereotypes to define themselves. Admittedly, they often use words such as "we" before the negative stereotype, but the "we" exists in label only and is really just a weasel word. There is no shared identity and the "we" really means "them."

There are numerous explanations for why a large number of Australians have so shown a fondness for proliferating negative stereotypes of Australia. For ex-Labor PM Paul Keating, negative stereotypes of rural Australia caused friction between the coalition of the rural-backed Nationals and the city-backed Liberals that opposed Keating. Furthermore, by portraying Australia as a racist society with severe social problems, Keating could portray himself as the open-minded humanitarian that would cure the problems.

Keating’s stereotyping found wide acceptance amongst a demographic that had bigoted tendencies, but had been raised in a culture that denounced racism. These people wanted to be bigoted, they just didn’t want the social shame of being labelled a bigot. Strawman stereotyping provided the solution. By sarcastically assimilating a stereotype of a racist Australian, the individuals were able to act out their racist subconscious desires, but make others carry the shame of them. As an added bonus, they could then look down on the “racists” that were not open-minded like themselves. For example, when Priscilla director Stephan Elliot showed a Filipino woman shooting ping pong balls out of her vagina, he was creating a very racist and sexist scene. However, by putting the scene in an outback pub, Elliot was making outback males seem racist and sexist, unlike gays. In a nutshell, Elliot wanted to make the outback males carry the stigma of his own prejudices.

A final explanation was that the sarcastic assimilation of a negative stereotype provided an excuse to conceal the left-winger's own failings. Many left-wingers knew very little about the outside world and were perhaps ashamed by their ignorance. Criticising others hid their own inadequacies. For example, the anti-values site, http://valuesaustralia.com/ had a note at the bottom of each page:

"Do you need help understanding this site? Need a translation into another language? Too bad. Learn to speak English."

It was likely that the site's author, Roger Migently, couldn't speak another language and felt ashamed by that fact. Rather than deal with the shame by studying another language, he created a fictional stereotype of an equally cultural naive Australian and insulted it. In Mr Migently's mind, the insults of others lessened his own shame. In other words, he used bigotry to see himself as open-minded.

 

 

Stereotypes of Aborigines in Australian movies

In 1988, Paul Keating announced a massive shake up of the successful Australian movie industry. Keating announced that film produces would no longer have any tax concessions. Instead, the government would fund film distributors, sales agents, and broadcasters. It was a system that gave Keating control over the type of movies created and promoted in Australia. Comparing the depiction of a corroboree in Crocodile Dundee (1986) to the depiction of a corroboree in Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994), provides food for thought on how government involvement in the Australian film industry changed the stereotypical depiction of Aborigines as well as those who related with them. In Crocodile, Aborigines were given respect. They were neither stereotyped as ignorant to modern technology or stereotyped as ignorant of traditional culture. In Priscilla, they were stereotyped as victims who love gay culture.

 

Corroboree 1) Crocodile Dundee (1986)- Outback man gains status by becoming Aboriginal and by showing respect for tribal culture.

Corroboree 2) Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) - Aborigines are social outcasts like homosexuals. The homosexuals perform a dance and Aborigines clap them on like testimonials in a sales campaign. The homosexuals' status comes from assimilating the Aborigines to a gay lifestyle.

 

1) UTS Experts Making News October 2005 -www.uts.edu.au/new/experts/media/2005/october.html

2)What Lies Beneath: Postgraduate Conference 2003 - The University of Melbourne

3)http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/priscilla/

4)Stephen Gibbs, Wannabes and ethnicity, Sydney Morning Herald April 26, 2005

 

 

 

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