By Dominique Tassell
Growing up in the early 2000s, there was a plethora of good Australian media for me to consume.
We had Delta Goodrem and Jess Mauboy at their most iconic, we had books like Looking for Alibrandi and Tomorrow When The War Began, and we had Blue Water High, H20, and more on TV.
We had it all.
But when I saw the movie version of Looking For Alibrandi drop on Netflix the other day, followed by the 2010s version of Puberty Blues, I wondered what in the world Australian teens have on offer nowadays.
The only Australian media I can think of currently targeting teens is Bump on Stan. And something about that seems very targeted at parents for some reason.
I honestly can’t think of an Australian novel written for young adults in the last decade, and I’m in their prime target audience. I had to look it up. We’ve had a few, sure, but it doesn’t seem to be a priority.
While Australia has truly iconic music, it’s rarely highlighted in our media. The ARIA awards don’t even play our own songs sometimes.
We’re in an age where American kids are learning to speak in Australian accents because of Bluey, but our teenagers are consuming pretty much entirely American content via streaming services.
The majority of our young actors seem to be showing up on streaming services, but not in content about their own country.
Amazon Prime’s The Wilds has a cast that is, if not half, almost entirely Aussie and Kiwi. The new season was made in Australia. But they’re all playing Americans.
Consistently throughout the pandemic, major productions came to Australia to film. With the fracturing political scene in America, that could be even more of a necessity in future.
Recently there has been talk of changing the guidelines governing our free-to-air services so that they can more effectively compete with streaming services. Years ago, there was similar talk.
One of the suggestions years ago was to make streaming services like Netflix produce an amount of Australian content equal to the percentage of income they receive from our country.
If I remember correctly, our free-to-air services said they didn’t want new requirements for streaming services, but did want their own requirements reduced.
Currently, they’re required to air a certain amount of Australian scripted drama. Basically, they said they wanted to make more reality TV and air more scripted drama from overseas.
Nothing came of that, but something may come of the renewed effort.
I for one think the organisations who make media in this country need to dedicate more time to making content that represents Australians instead of annoying us into yelling on social media about who cheated on who in their fake marriage.
No one will remember what happened on reality tv in years to come. But a generation of kids still remembers what happened in Looking For Alibrandi.
