The announcement of any awards show’s list of hopefuls is always a fraught occasion, but the nationwide response to this week’s Gold Logie nominees list – among them SBS’ Lee Lin Chin and The Project’s Waleed Aly – was especially unpleasant.
We had Lisa Wilkinson and her lantern jawed co-presenters merrily exclaiming that she was “too white” to get a nod. In a conversation that wouldn’t have been out of place in a 1940s newsreel voiceover, Karl Stefanovic chortled, “I’m dark on the inside”, while Wilkinson laughed, “I got a spray tan and everything”. (We have of course been assured that they didn’t mean it “that way” – “that way” in this instance presumably code for “as culturally sensitive as Birth of a Nation”.)
Then the Daily Telegraph’s nominally “feminist” RendezView section ran a truly mysterious piece by Victoria Hannaford, titled “Six reasons why Waleed Aly should not win Gold”. Not even Guardian Australia’s own Elle Hunt could work out what on earth she was on about.
Writing for SBS, Osman Faruqi – who I would like to see on television so that I may nominate him for a Logie – decried the disheartening response as indicative of how far Australian television has to go: “The Australian media industry needs to fix its diversity problem,” he wrote.
As well as Australian television’s enduring diversity woes, the inclusion in the Gold Logie lineup of Chin and Aly – along with their fellow nominees, respected and awarded journo Carrie Bickmore and the talented actress Essie Davis – speaks to one of the Logies’ enduring issues: the struggle to celebrate both excellence and popularity. (As much as Scott Cam seems perfectly nice and Grant Denyer is quite amusing, the other two Gold Logie nominees clearly represent the “popularity” end of that spectrum.)
The Logies has always claimed to be a “by the people, for the people” awards show; less Emmys than People’s Choice. But even that notion is a misnomer; it’s really “by the readers of TV Week and whichever show has the most active street team, for whoever still bothers to watch the broadcast”. The winners are the most popular within a very particular sample group.
Perhaps the strangest thing about this brouhaha is that we find ourselves discussing a patently very silly event as though it were a serious cultural force.
This has become overwhelmingly obvious as the ‘golden age of television’ has reached our own industry; however enjoyable they may be, we can’t continue to claim Logie favourites like Offspring and Home and Away as the best television we’re producing.
The industry-voted handful of Silver Logies, the “most outstanding” gongs, are the Logies’ nod to excellence, and where our finest television gets its time in the Logies spotlight, from Redfern Now to The Slap to Puberty Blues. But the tone of the industry-voted Silver Logies is at odds with the school-formal-rave-up of the rest of the ceremony, leaving viewers likely to nip off for a cup of tea while waiting for the next appearance by someone from My Kitchen Rules.
What, then, is the answer? It seems patently obvious: Australia needs another dedicated television awards.
It’s true we have the Aacta awards, though with their reputation as ‘the Australian Oscars, the television component often fades into relative insignificance. Similarly, for television news reporting, there are the Walkley awards, but those are considered a niche industry event by the inhabitants of most armchairs.
Consequently, the Logies are left frantically trying to keep all their plates spinning: as a crowd-pleasing popularity contest, legitimate television awards show and celebration of journalistic integrity. It’s too much for one little lumpen paperweight to bear.
If we are to consider our industry to be world-standard (and why shouldn’t we?) there’s no reason we can’t have another award. As anyone who follows awards season will tell you, both the US and UK have so many film and television awards ceremonies it borders on self-parody; another won’t hurt us. As Australian cultural critic Peter Craven once wrote: “Our true terror is not cultural imperialism but cultural excellence. Why are we so scared that we won’t measure up?”
The abysmal response to this year’s Gold Logie nominees list demonstrates, aside from the wanton idiocy of many members of this country’s media, that Australia is and long has been in desperate need of a proper television award. When excellence and integrity rubs up against those who have the most Facebook fans, nobody comes away satisfied.
Let the mouth-breathers have their Logies. It’s time for those of us who care – about diversity and equality, good television and true excellence – to forge ahead without them.
