Tuesday 26 June 2012

Enforced Televisual Domesticity

Was it just me, or was there a rather large dose of the Indian sub-continent on Australian television in the last month or so? Admittedly, I was much more of a couch surfer than usual due to a petulant viral infection that took its own sweet time to leave my body. In any case, I counted 'Bollywood Star' on SBS, a Hindu wedding-themed team challenge on Channel Ten's 'MasterChef', a long leg in Rajasthan on Channel Seven's 'Amazing Race Australia', and a still-going documentary titled 'Dumb, Drunk and Racist' on ABC2 that is centred around the experiences of four middle class Indians visiting Down Under. Perhaps this recent India overload is just fortuitous and I shouldn't over-think it. Still, if it is documenting Aussies visiting and sampling the new India, and Indians seeing Australia through their own eyes (not those of the increasingly tabloid news channels), then it is a welcome development.