Has Political Correctness Killed the Age of Australian Innocence?

The world this month appears to have become a much darker place, excuse the pun, as Australia has been declared a red neck wonderland due to a poor taste skit on a much maligned TV special. Was the world-wide debate warranted when the skit itself was performed by a troupe of Australians who were themselves not white or of Anglo heritage.

Firstly it must be pointed out and agreed to that Australia's treatment of its own indigenous people is less than satisfactory and that its history on human rights concerning this disenfranchised people has been poor at best and downright deplorable in some cases. However, and this is the elephant in the room, there is no stigma in Australia related to people 'blacking up' as there is in the grand old USA. There has not been a lamentable tradition in Australia of white actors portraying coloured people in circumstances that can only cause pain and suffering to those it meant to represent.

Secondly, the program itself, is collection of poor taste humour that is an indelible part of Australia's family entertainment history. The part of the show that the skit was executed on is widely known as delivering little in the way of palatable entertainment. It is a collection of amateur acts that are there purely for their own embarrassment value more than anything else.

Furthermore, the world has to realise that the program was meant for Australian consumption and nowhere else. Harry Connick Jnr was the story in Australia, not the skit itself. Coming from the Deep South, the social baggage that he carries over this sort of act is understandable. He himself pointed out how the act would be received in America and there is no doubt that he had to protest the skit because of how it would have affected his image Stateside.

This is where we have to draw the line over whether the skit was racist. If it had been white Australians depicting aborigines in a distasteful light then it could have been declared racist. As the airing was an anniversary reunion of a long deceased family special, the amateur act was invited to perform the same skit it had 'entertained' the Australian public with 15 years previously.

Harry Connick Jnr had every right to feel personally offended because it raises the ugly guilt associated with similar portrayals in his own country. Is it right to judge Australia guilty of racism because of this piece of entertainment tomfoolery? No.

There is no doubt that Australia has much to do in improving race relations within its own borders but no more so than any other country that has forgotten generations of its own indigenous people. The skit showed poor judgement by the television producers and was at best a very poor piece of tacky entertainment. To judge an entire nation of multi-cultural citizens racist on the basis of it just shows how the modern media world latches on to the banal and the ridiculous instead of what is happening in the real world.

More column inches were devoted to this story than the devastating effects of the tsunami in Samoa, than soldiers killed in Afghanistan, than China's persecution of its own citizens in the Uighur region. The fact that the world chooses to call Australia's moral fibre into a question over a TV skit rather than challenge sovereign nations over the persecution of its own citizens says more about the rest of the world than it does about Australia.

Instead of focusing on the what a fading pop star finds offensive perhaps American commentators should turn their attention to what's happening in Tibet, Zimbabwe or even their own back yard. Australian's have an innate ability to laugh at themselves and focus on those things in life that are important. Perhaps the rest of the world should take a leaf of out of their book and laugh a little more and sneer a little less.