Standing up for Australian culture

by Rob Gowalnd

The Australian Film Awards, the annual honouring by the 
Australian Film Institute of this country's best work in film and 
television, was marked this year by the number of recipients who, 
instead of thanking everyone in sight, got stuck into the Howard 
Government.

Not over the Federal Government's lack of financial support for 
the production and distribution of Australian films and 
television programs, although that would have been a legitimate 
complaint, but over something even worse: the potential 
destruction of Australian film and television production 
altogether.

The cause of this angst is the proposed Free Trade Agreement 
(FTA) between the US and Australia. Promoting the FTA was a major 
reason for George Bush's recent visit to address our Parliament.

A Free Trade Agreement would give US businesses unfettered access 
to our market for their produce, their manufactured goods and 
their service industries (finance, legal, accounting, 
hospitality, travel and so forth).

Only goods or industries specifically excluded from the Agreement 
would be secure from unrestricted US competition. And this is 
what is worrying the Australian film and television industry.

To the capitalist class, including its government leaders like 
John Howard, film and television programs are not aspects of our 
culture, part of the constant process of defining our national 
identity, but essentially just more commodities.

With only one or two exceptions, the filmmakers, writers and 
actors honoured at the AFI Awards were united in their opposition 
to the FTA and what it could mean for the Australian people's 
right to see and hear themselves on the screen.

It was a bold display of unity and determination.

AFI recipients take stand

Two days later Gerard Henderson, from right-wing think-tank the 
Sydney Institute, held up "the success of Rupert Murdoch at Fox 
studios" (which makes films for the American market) in The 
Sydney Morning Herald as evidence that there was no problem 
with the Australian film industry.

But as most of the contributions at the AFI Awards indicated, 
filmmaking is and should be part of our culture, Australian life 
and the Australian experience should be visible on our screens.

Globally, the myriad national cultures around the world are today 
under threat from the ruling class of the USA, which, as the 
leading imperialist power, unashamedly seeks to impose its will 
on every other country on Earth. One of its most potent weapons 
is to impose its own particular variety of bourgeois culture 
everywhere.

Hence the perception on the part of the speakers at the AFI 
Awards that Australian culture was under threat, and that the FTA 
provides the perfect tool to carry out the threat, is not an idle 
fear. It is a sober, realistic reading of the situation.

The AFI Awards were televised nationally, and the outspoken 
protest of the film community was front page news the following 
day. Within a few days of the Awards, the right-wing responded 
with a co-ordinated attempt by heavyweight columnists to rubbish 
the filmmakers.

Gerard Henderson weighed in with a sneering critique of the 
filmmakers' views, essentially supporting the notion that the 
only test of worth is whether something (in this case the 
Australian film) makes money.

Henderson put forward the absurd proposition that "the problem 
with the film industry turns on the inability to find, and tell, 
Australian stories". This was based on a foolish remark by film 
director George Miller (Mad Max, Babe) made a few days 
prior to the AFI Awards in an interview with the Daily Telegraph 
to the effect that "we've just about covered most of our 
events" on film and TV.

Culture as a commodity

Miller is one of those local filmmakers who accept the capitalist 
concept that films should not be subsidised, that they should 
recoup their costs and make a profit from sales alone. The 
result, since Australia is a small market, is that his films must 
be made with an eye to possible sales in the US.

Consequently, he has to seek out the big stories, or those with 
gimmicks, like Babe. And these do get used up (although 
they have by no means all been used up yet). In any case, there 
is always room for a new interpretation.

The problem with basing your film production on sales to the US 
is that the US makes plenty of films of its own. At the AFI 
Awards, Miller asked plaintively, "Why is it that we're so good 
at exporting so much of our great talent, but so few of our 
stories and so little of our culture?"

Because, George, as I said earlier, the US industry heads aren't 
interested in our culture; they want us to accept theirs.

Henderson indulged in the sophistry of arguing that "those who 
tell Australian stories in print, fiction and non-fiction authors 
alike, are not protected from overseas competition. No exception 
can be made for film". The slight difference in costs between 
making a feature film and publishing a book seem to be of no 
concern to him!

I have devoted so much space to Henderson because he encapsulates 
the views of those who have no interest in the concept of 
depicting and protecting Australian culture on the screen. 
Henderson is concerned only with the financial success of those 
operating in the industry, never mind what they are making.

"Consider the success", he says smugly, "of Rupert Murdoch at Fox 
Studios. Or such directors as Jane Campion, George Miller and 
Peter Weir. Or such actors as Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe, Judy 
Davis, Rachel Griffiths, Nicole Kidman and Geoffrey Rush. Or the 
large number of first rate Australian technicians working in 
Hollywood".

Precisely: working in Hollywood. Making American films, 
portraying American culture.

Large numbers of Italian workers have to work in Germany because 
there are no jobs for them in Italy. It is not a sign of a 
healthy Italian economy.

That Australian film technicians cannot get decent jobs in the 
film industry in Australia is similarly not a sign of economic 
health.

Pro-FTA forces respond

In a bad case of overkill, the pro-FTA forces added Paddy 
McGuinness to the attack on the AFI Awards protestors' attack (in 
fact, on the same page as Henderson). McGuinness's writing these 
days is so rabidly right-wing only One Nation supporters could 
possibly read him.

Like a right-wing talk show host, he lashed out with gratuitous 
insults at the actors who spoke up at the Awards presentation: 
"Film stars are notoriously ill-educated and ignorant — their 
opinions are worthless, regardless of their talents".

This is such a silly statement it beggars belief. But he has 
more: "There is clearly a great deal of genuine talent [in the 
Australian film industry], as is evidenced by the fact that so 
many end up in Hollywood. This does not make them any the less 
Australian — no more than a scientist or a novelist who works 
overseas".

Contrary to McGuinness's view, there is a great deal of 
difference between an Australian-born artist living and working 
abroad, and an Australian artist working in Australia.

Most importantly, McGuinness, like Henderson, chooses to ignore 
the matter of content altogether. Just what do these Australian 
filmmakers in Hollywood make and how does it contribute to 
Australian culture?

Let's take Henderson's choice, George Miller (the one who wanted 
to know why "so few of our stories and so little of our culture" 
got exported). Between the Mad Max movies (a financially 
successful but otherwise dubious and highly derivative 
contribution to our culture) and Babe, Miller made, in 
Hollywood, one episode of Twilight Zone: The Movie, and 
the very American movies The Witches of Eastwyck, and 
Lorenzo's Oil.

Cultural occupation by US

But the commentator who really gave the game away, who spelt out 
the pro-FTA lobby's position, was Terry McCrann in The Daily 
Telegraph.

McCrann is so much a collaborator with the US army of cultural 
occupation that he dismissed the AFI Awards for not being "the 
real thing": that distinction was reserved for "the Oscars". 
Cultural imperialism, anyone?

McCrann went on to extol, in candidly revealing terms with his 
own gratuitous insults, the virtues of the FTA: "The particularly 
nauseating aspect of [the AFI Wards] was the implicit — I'm sure 
literally mindless — disregarding of the interests of the other 
20 million Australians".

"Never mind that we've been offered the chance to share in the 
benefits of the biggest and most dynamic economy in the world". 
When you have picked yourself up and wiped your eyes, remember, 
this guy is serious.

The capitalist class and its hangers-on like McCrann really do 
think that the FTA will bring them lots of lolly, just like their 
counterparts in Mexico and Canada thought the North American FTA 
would for them. The reality has been very different.

In case you're still in doubt McCrann, gives us the full picture: 
"That this would deliver export markets, new investments, cheaper 
goods for Australian consumers, and real rewarding globally 
competitive jobs".

"Cheaper goods" will undercut Australian manufacturing and lead 
to more unemployment. But that's all right: aren't "globally 
competitive jobs" ones that pay lower wages than those in other 
countries?

McCrann found the succession of celebrities voicing their strong 
opposition to the potential effect of the FTA on our film and 
television industry "vomit inducing". He's afraid that if they 
hold their position the whole FTA might founder.

With our culture, our jobs, our future at stake, we should all be 
out there giving the filmmakers, technicians and actors in our 
film and television industry all the support we can. Because 
their fight is truly our fight.