Who could resist watching Amazing Race Australia, to see how the two blokes from the bush get on, Matt Nunn and Tom Warriner?<\/p>\n
Anyone who denies the media predilection for stereotyping people in rural areas as straw-chewing Hicksvilleans need only to pay close attention to the specific music used for different people.\u00a0 The young surfers get upbeat drum music, the middle-aged (my age) genial Woollies ladies get genteel music…and the bushies didn’t quite get twang-twang slow banjo music or Kasey Chambers, but it was close.\u00a0 Naturally it’d be dull viewing if there were few differences between the contestants so the film editors\u00a0work hard to accentuate any differences between them.\u00a0 Ultra-competitive self-pronounced ‘entreprenuer’ couple (surely from Sydney) have any snippets of dog-eat-dog behaviour summarised and broadcast for posterity:\u00a0 “I put more net over the remaining tickets so it’s harder for the others to find them, isn’t that clever?”\u00a0 Viewers are immediately hurling insults at the telly, just as\u00a0we collectively\u00a0coo over examples of exemplary generosity, such as handing up a vital dollar note on the ground or passing on tips to fellow competitors following closely behind.<\/p>\n
You can’t beat ‘reality’ television programmes for a concentrated lesson on the art of filming and huge power\u00a0of selective\u00a0editing.\u00a0 Say 5,000 nice things and one nasty thing during a day’s filming – and if you’re being typecast as the baddie to hate, it’ll be the one nasty comment or single ugly piece of behaviour that will be edited into isolation and receive an accentuated airing (being reality TV, it’s likely to be\u00a0run on screen at least three times – \u00a0in the promo, actual screening, then in the reminder intro for the following programme in case you’ve forgotten who to detest or why.\u00a0 And it’ll be shown many times in ads for the series, for weeks beforehand).\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you’re from the bush, then anything you say or do that fits into the straw-chewing stereotype will be chosen for inclusion.\u00a0\u00a0 Wearing a felt hat?\u00a0 That’ll be a feature at every opportunity.\u00a0 Shoes\u00a0dangling from backpacks like corks around a swaggies hat?\u00a0\u00a0Ideal visual footage. \u00a0 Abseiling down an MCG light tower?\u00a0 No worries mate, just like climbing a windmill.\u00a0 I guess what most people don’t realise is that\u00a0rural residents who’ve been about a bit are well aware of the\u00a0country\u00a0stereotypes proliferating in Australian urban areas.\u00a0 They then play up to the stereotypes when it suits them, having a laugh back at the expensive of the gullible.<\/p>\n
I was once asked by a young Melbourne-residing professional visiting the station we were on,\u00a0 ‘what on earth do you do all day?’\u00a0 With a small business and young (rarely asleep) baby I actually could have done with a lot more hours spare each day, but as this was already obvious to anyone remotely observant, the opportunity for embellished\u00a0story-telling was absolutely\u00a0irresistible.\u00a0 ‘Oh I knit a lot, and make scones, that sort of thing…’ I replied.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even I was surprised when my reply was taken at face value and I’ve got a laugh out of it ever since.\u00a0\u00a0 Who’d have thought someone with a flash education and fancy job would have swallowed such an obviously dumb answer, whole?\u00a0 What do you say to someone who is overlooking the blindingly obvious because they’ve already made their minds up?\u00a0 How do you change their minds?\u00a0 Most people don’t want their minds changed and will view everything they see in a way that ensures it fits their preconceived notions.<\/p>\n
Quite a few times\u00a0I have been told by rural and remote residents things like ‘the other day we had visitors from xx\u00a0[insert Australian capital city name here], and they were surprised that we used computers’.<\/p>\n
Time working in the bush will give the outback blokes the edge when it comes to creative problem solving on the run, under pressure.\u00a0 It’ll also mean they don’t mind getting their hands dirty and\u00a0they’re fit and hardy.\u00a0 Because Matt has spent years competing in bronco branding competitions he clearly loves competing – and Tom has a stack of older brothers, so that means permanent competition on the family front, from day one.<\/p>\n
Tom Warriner and Matt Nunn didn’t get a lot of visual time on last night’s episode of Amazing Race Australia\u00a0and I presume it’s because they’re just poking along doing what’s required without dramatics, tears, tantrums, issues\u00a0or any fuss at all.\u00a0 The proof of the pudding is in the eating so here’s hoping they do well – you can’t get a better way of overcoming stereotypes than simply\u00a0coming first – or at least at the top of the field.\u00a0 At present the teams viewed as the nicest people are those leading Yahoo’s online polling – the two Woollies workmates are leading the field by a full length, with Tom and Matt tying for second place with the two Muslim blokes Mo and Mos, who also come across as really nice blokes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Who could resist watching Amazing Race Australia, to see how the two blokes from the bush get on, Matt Nunn and Tom Warriner? Anyone who denies the media predilection for stereotyping people in rural areas as straw-chewing Hicksvilleans need only to pay close attention to the specific music used for different people.\u00a0 The young surfers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,217],"tags":[218],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1302"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1312,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions\/1312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}