First things first. I need to declare an interest. I am from The Shire — born and bred in god’s country, raised on the fair plains to the south of Sydney, reared on a steady diet of white bread, meat and three veg.
My reaction to last night’s televisual train wreck? It was like when you meet someone really stupid.
You spend the first ten minutes in a state of total disbelief — jaw on the ground.
You spend the next ten minutes staring in wide-eyed amazement, trying to work out if they are real or not (which, in the case of Channel 10’s new “dramality”, I think we can all safely assume they are not).
Related: In defence of The Shire (the place, not the show)
Then you spend the next ten minutes trying to look away, your head hurting from the hideousness of it all.
As a Shire boy, was I offended by last night’s show? Not in the slightest. We’ve had much worse thrown at us.
This is the place, after all, that served as the setting for Puberty Blues — a book and movie that made the immortal words: “Hey Freda, you slack-arse mole” synonymous with an entire people.
This is a region that invented the school-yard fruito (or if we didn’t invent it, we sure as hell perfected it); a place where not a day at school went by when you didn’t run the risk of having your head flushed — and all of it good, stern, character-building stuff.
True, The Shire is one of the more mono-cultural pockets of Sydney. A tiny corner of our fair country in which (at least when I was growing up there) lasagne was considered exotic and a night of gastronomy meant honey prawns and beef and black bean down at the local Chinese.
Perhaps the only place in the world that turned a race riot into an expression of patriotism: “We grew here, you flew here” being one of the more choice slogans to come out of the 2005 Cronulla beach riots.
But to have the likes of Beckaa and her creepy dad flying the flag for The Shire? To have the more-plastic-than-actual-human Vernesa and Sophie daring to set foot on the hallowed sand of North Cronulla beach and try to pass themselves off as typical Shire girls? It’s an insult that we’re not going to take lying down.
Now I’m not entirely sure I agree with Sutherland Shire Mayor, Carol Provan, who has called for State Government intervention to stop Channel Ten from filming the series.
I’m offended by fake tans, collagen lips and shopping trips to Dubai to pick up a nose job as much as the next person, but short of blowing up Tom Ugly’s Bridge and launching proceedings to officially secede from the nation (in which case, I’d like to formally nominate Shire resident Glen McGrath as our new President), there’s nothing to be done.
And while I applaud her perfectly-coiffed efforts this morning on the Today Show to defend her people, I’m not sure the Mayor’s assertion that Vernesa and Sophie “looked more like they came from Burwood than The Shire” would really have won her many fans. Certainly not in Burwood.
The only solace we can take as Shire people is that this so-called “dramality” is heavily-scripted rubbish.
The producers will tell you that the show is only “soft scripted” — meaning they simply record what happens in the lives of these dreadful people and only occasionally nudge things in a direction that suits the cameras.
But if that were really the case, how do they explain why the characters and plotlines (and I use that last word very loosely) are carbon copies of the UK series, The Only Way Is Essex?
Memo to Channel Ten: If you’re going to create a new show, at least try to make it marginally different from one that already exists. I mean, there’s “taking inspiration” and then there’s “blatant ripping off’ — and as viewers, we can pick the difference.
Reactions to the show in the media this morning and in the social media sphere have been almost universally damning.
However, if I was a Channel Ten executive, I’d be sitting in my office thinking: “mission accomplished”.
The ratings were okay, if not spectacular, but more importantly, it’s the most talked-about TV show since, well, since Being Lara Bingle.
Related: Why we should leave the body image debate to teens
Whether all this chatter will translate into a ratings lift for next week’s instalment or a precipitous slide (which, if God really was born in The Shire as per local legend, is surely bound to happen) only time will tell.
Meanwhile, and as I wrote in a Sunday newspaper column at the weekend: whether this program goes on to unprecedented international success or disappears without a trace, you can rest assured that the people of The Shire will have the last laugh. Because we learned to laugh at ourselves long before this TV show came along.
Video: Mayor tears into The Shire
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