Also on the ABC, this week’s episode of You Can’t Ask That (airs Wed., Apr. 10 at 9pm) focuses on African-Australians, a community that has been the subject of much media scrutiny in recent times, but rarely from their perspective. If for no other reason than to balance out the demonisation of African-Australians from certain corners, this episode is as important as the finale of the recent season of Get Krack!n (available on iView), which saw Miranda Tapsell and Nakkiah Lui take over hosting the fictional morning show.
Giving a voice to different sections of the community is something Australian TV hasn’t always done that well, but things have improved, with everything from The Family Law to Black Comedy to Gogglebox showing that being Australian doesn’t look like one thing. I enjoy nothing more than watching Gogglebox and seeing how the different families and friends react to the same programs – diversity of opinions is important.
Another show doing its bit to represent different parts of society is Neighbours, which has come a long way since its more tokenistic gestures of decades past. The announcement that transgender woman Georgie Stone has been cast on the soap was met with a predictably mixed reaction, with some up in arms that a “family show” would include such a character. Guess what? Transgender people have families, too – and they should be depicted on-screen like everyone else.
For those worried about children being confused, I say this – why not have a conversation about transgender people with them? There’s only so long you can pretend they don’t exist before kids will find out anyway. Better still, watch and learn together. Thankfully, we live in a country where that’s now possible.