A SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION

I grew up through a change of Empires-
Britain sent Irish to Australia-Fenians,Chartists,Socialists,pickpockets
but the guards had English art and food habits
which evolved our Cockney to Standard Dialect Speech
ABC radio copied British soap operas and sentimentalities
enlivened by occasional quiz shows which translated to black and white TV
Our TV changed to America in the 1960s-Lone Ranger,Rin Tin Tin,Paladin
We embraced Westerns,crime,B grade plots and scripts-went to American movies
as ours were low budget weepies.Visual colonialism.Walt Disney(pre-Corporation)
It was puzzling when "The Negro Problem"became a fixation when we had none
and guns for us meant hunting shotguns,not rifles or pistols.Mexico was exotic then!
NEWSFRONT documented how Oz newsreels were displaced by American ones-
soon our film industry needed government oxygen,swamped and drowned via imports
Color changed everything!Widescreen /driveins/Cinerama-we were hooked!
Disposable plots and characters attracted us to Hollywood-
we bought in to Americana.Your nostalgia became our nostalgia/your crazes adopted
hula hoops,yo-yos,bubble gum-soon even our street art skateboarded and graffitiied
World cinema via SBS-but even Oz films slanted American style.Our underground yours.
Now our market is small.We still speak English/buy BBC.But more corporations
seek an Australian niche.Vietnam,Iraq,Afghanistan.That is what we are -sentimentalists...