Beginning on November 29th the SBS Australia show “First Contact” will air its second season. The aim being to enlighten the Australian public, alongside those globally, about Aboriginal culture and history and the problems that disadvantage the Indigenous people of Australia. The show investigates the sources of these problems and takes on issues such as racism and the lack of representation of Aboriginal culture in mainstream Australian media. The show follows the journey of 6 well know Australians with varying opinions (some conservative, some liberal) through land inhabited by Indigenous people and exposes them to different issues they face, all while challenging the group’s pre-conceived notions and educating them and their viewers about Aboriginal culture and the problems that threaten it.
Because the show hasn’t aired yet, I’ve only gotten the chance to see the trailer. From the short three-minute video, half of which was simply focused on the fights and arguments that are predicted to become elicited out of the group televised, I began to question the show, and asked myself:
Is the concentration on conflict for entertainment value discarding the aim to educate and enlighten those in the show and the viewers?
Please do not mistake my contention for my being against the aim of what this show is trying to accomplish. I believe the show’s intentions are extremely wonderful and especially needed to achieve understanding and enlightenment, but it cannot be overlooked that the show itself and similar ones such as SBS Australia’s “Go Back To Where You Came From” have a heavy emphasis on the clash of people’s opinions to create drama. As the trailer depicts, the conflict of different values and opinions about the Aboriginal community is shown in a way in which only half of the trailer focus on the Aboriginal community itself. The other half of the show’s trailer is filled with exclusives of the experimental group (those who are televised being exposed to previously mentioned issues) in various stages of arguments and realizations. Considering that the show’s goal is to embody the Aboriginal community, seeing the trailer’s depiction of the community almost dismissed for the entertainment value of people fighting over their clashing opinions bothers me.
I ask: does the focus on drama contain the possibility of the aim of the show being lost? Also, as the show gains a larger audience, will the use of drama be even more emphasized to a point that the deeper significance will be lost further?
More than ever before our society eats up drama like the first drop of water after a year in the desert. That said, this is something I too am guilty of. Drama in television shows, if applied to word association, is often linked to shows such as: “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and “The Real Housewives” series. In both shows, each episode is filled with conflict and arguments that draw in a large audience. While this is something that is continuing to be normalized, in shows such as “First Contact” that focus on such a serious topic, does the need for drama to entice an audience take away and diminish the impact of the deeper message of understanding and respecting the Indigenous community of Australia? That’s not up to me to decide but it is inevitable that the role of drama surrounding such a serious topic has the chance to weaken the impact of its deeper message.
Television shows like ‘First Contact’ are taking great strides in promoting respect and appreciation for communities within Australia and I for one do not want to see them go. Change is needed in Australia urgently to achieve acceptance and kindness towards the various communities, in this instance, the Indigenous community. If shows like this did not exist, then we, as a country, would be even more behind on the path to change. Although the aim of this show and other shows like it are refreshing to see in Australian media, my apprehension to them lies in the prominence of the dramatization of political incorrectness and its clash with political correctness and the possibility of dismissing the relevance of the issues and threats that face the Indigenous community of Australia.
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