I wouldn’t normally look to the old-fashioned television soap opera for restrained treatment of delicate and serious issues – I’d be more likely to find gold dust by dragging my beard across a beach.
Soaps are so adept at drawing epic tragedy out of the mundane that even the mere act of popping out to the shops for some cereal can turn into a fatal love tryst, complete with amnesia, drowning, resurrection, and everything spontaneously combusting, including the cereal.
It’s been impressive, therefore, to see Home and Away (Seven) not only explore the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli, but also manage a critique of how teenagers engage with a “legend” they feel is no longer relevant to them.
A school trip to the Australian War Memorial set things in motion for the Summer Bay gang. While the evergreen Alf (Ray Meagher) went from exhibit to exhibit visibly affected by his own memories of serving in Vietnam, the pupils of Summer Bay High school wandered round typically unimpressed, yawning at the glut of dates and old photographs, occasionally pausing to say something offensive just as Alf walked round a corner.
Seriously kids, whenever you’re about to mutter something disrespectful about the Anzacs, just know that Alf is going to emerge from behind a cannon. You would have thought they’d twig after the first two or three times: the man’s a moth to the candle of insensitivity.
Arguably the most accurate reflection of how we now engage with the past came as the students sat on the steps of the memorial, having a good moan about how boring it all was, before pausing to take a selfie. A somewhat two-dimensional take on Gen Y perhaps, but a uncharacteristically realistic moment for Home and Away.
That a soap is exploring the ethics of commemoration is worth at least some praise, especially when we’re probably not far off seeing Anzac burgers in fast-food chains or Digger-themed selfie sticks that allow you to take mid-puke photographs of yourself throwing up all that “commemorating” you’ve been doing.
Home and Away’s solution to the teenage apathy was simple: give the disrespectful little runts a good talking to, send them back into the memorial a second time, then lay down a soulful pop track as, simultaneously, they all realise “what it’s really about”. The teachers even took their smartphones away and chucked them in a replica trench. Could a similar approach make the #QandA hashtag more bearable?
OK, so the students’ journey towards a greater cultural awareness was a little contrived, but what else do you expect from a soap opera? A lot less, to be honest.
TV returns to normal
Last week saw the final episode of Gogglebox (Ten), television’s own version of a selfie. Now you’ll have to suffer the worst of TV without the meta-buffer of other people being there to tell you it’s awful as you’re watching it. You might have to do something mad like decide it’s awful for yourself and switch off. Alternatively, get a mate to broadcast themselves on Periscope while they hurl abuse at their television and noisily eat another packet of Doritos.
