An argument for local content

Press, 7 December 1988, Page 21

An argument for local content

Ruth Zanker

on television

I couldn’t resist a Captain Cook at “The Muvver Tongue,” last Sunday’s instalment of “The Story of English.” Here was the 8.8.C.’s received English view of us!

But OH! Dear! They couldn’t tell the difference between Barry Crump and Bazza. They declared that Oz and Noz are almost interchangeably one accent! What a right mucking fuddle, as the cockney costermonger would say. Surely every New Zealander will take that as a totally persuasive argument for local content.

I could rabbit on (especially since I now know that “rabbit and pork” is cockney for “talk”).

What stood out were two female viewpoints on antipodean language. Dame Edna and writer Cathy Lette gave us some pretty rich insights into the marcasite matriarchy of Moonee Ponds and Sydney inner-city “trendoids” and Bondi “surfettes” of the under-30s. Lette is in fact one of the first female observers of English to have had a serious say on the programme. It took an Aussie battler to penetrate the male world of the experts. Even so Sir Les Paterson’s scatological paternalism was given the last word.

But last week-end we were given a New Zealand view of ourselves.

Communicado’s new documentary series “New Zeland 2000” on Sunday evenings didn’t begin with much promise. It’s certainly no laughing matter. After all it concentrates on our economy.

The first episode was checkers with talking heads spouting the old Round Table “sorry to dash your optimism” realism. They told us all sorts of gloomy things which we had to sit through because with telly you can’t skip the dry parts as you can with reading tedious written reports. I suspect lots of us didn’t stick around.

There were, for example, the National Film Unit items reminding us

how cheerful and plump and optimistic we all once were.

That was when we could condescend with food-parcels to Mother England. I could have looked at many more of these superb archival treasures. But they were there merely to remind us of how far we have fallen.

So I tuned in with some trepidation this week. This time we were handed some good news. We saw some of the most cheerful local news stories I’ve heard all year. It appears that some New Zealand businesses are doing very well for themselves and New Zealand in America. There are Steinlager, a roofing tile company, and the manufacturers of high-cut bathers (appropriately named Expozay) battling it out for the Californian mind against the average of 1500 advertising messages a day.

But my favourite story was that of the croissant which, through “nichemarketing” to restaurants in San Francisco, is managing to export more butter into the States than the Dairy Board. Butter is using the Trojan Horse of the croissant to get past trade barriers, and when it gets into Troy it’s what they call “value-added” in marketing circles. This is turning into a gripping series. Good on

yer. I’ll tune in next week for Asia.

Back to Britain and later on Sunday. Some British drama just takes your breath away. There isn’t the slightest cringe in the direction of popular ratings or Government censorship. The 8.8.C.’s “The Russian Soldier” was stern enough stuff, but the late night film “Acceptable Levels,” made in 1985, explored material which television all too rarely explores — how television itself, with a bit of help from the Establishment, cuts up and distorts real events in the name of news. The setting is Northern Ireland, the victim is a child, the betrayed are all those who still believe in the possibility of truth prevailing. It was chilling television and made a credible point. But how on earth do productions like this continue to get funding? Easy.

You clobber the Government hard on issues like clandestine nuclear negotiation, the Troubles, education, or the Secret Information Act. They simply can’t suppress your material without either admitting its truth or proving its allegations. And at the end of the day everyone can rabbit on about how open society is. So everyone’s happy. Right?