farmdoc's blog post number 170

Eleven days ago I wrote how Australians seemingly prefer to be life spectators rather than participants. That led me into a rant about reality television which has little if anything to do with reality, and much to do with contrived nonsense. In contrast, a program much closer to reality is Australian Story which is broadcast weekly on ABC TV. It also streams on the internet via this site. I try to watch it each week. As Wikipedia says, ‘Australian Story is a weekly biography program…(that)…aims to present a varied and contrasting picture of contemporary Australia and Australians, both known and unknown’. I find all the profiled people fascinating, which is saying something because it usually takes little to make me uninterested. I like the lack of breast-beating by the central characters and browbeating by the interviewers. Come to think of it, there’s no interviewing; rather the central and subsidiary characters tell the story interlinked with some voice-overs but without questions and answers. Some of the central characters have existing public profiles of varying heights; and others, maybe most, have no public profile but have done something interesting or had something interesting happen to them. Nothing about this program is contrived; at least that’s the impression it gives to me. Have a look at it some time – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.