MAJOR TV networks stand accused of creating too few roles for people
from Australia's ethnic mix. Firass Dirani, who portrayed John Ibrahim
in Channel Nine's
Underbelly: The Golden Mile and New Zealand actor Jay Laga'aia, recently cut from
Home and Away, have slammed racial tokenism on television.
But viewers of the democratised online platform YouTube see a different representation of Australia.
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| Online star … video blogger Natalie Tran says that while ethnicity is
irrelevant to YouTube success it would be preferable to see a greater
spread of racial backgrounds on television. |
More of them log on to Natalie Tran's channel on YouTube
than any other. Ms Tran, 25, who lives in Sydney and has a Vietnamese
background, is at the top of the list of the most subscribed to channels
in Australia. Her witty and instructive video blogs have earned her
hundreds of millions of viewers globally - and a large salary.
Her 212 videos have been viewed 411 million times, while her most popular video, How to Fake a Six Pack,
has gained 34.5 million views since it was uploaded in 2008. The basic,
sarcastic video shows Ms Tran drawing fake abdominal muscles on her
bare stomach, accompanied by classical music. It has become the
second-most viewed YouTube video in Australia behind Gotye and Kimbra's
2011 smash song Somebody That I Used to Know, which attracted 94.8 million views.
To Ms Tran, however, ethnicity is irrelevant to her online popularity.
''I don't think that people watch others on YouTube
because of how they look,'' she said. ''They [don't] watch someone
because of their ethnic background.
''I am Australian, I was born here and raised here and it would be
nice to see a cross-section [of ethnicity] portrayed on television.''
Ms Tran said that YouTube offered a more accurate
portrayal of Australia's diversity. ''The internet is testimony to the
fact that people are interested in different things, as long as it's
interesting content,'' she said.
For 25-year-old identical twins Janice and Sonia Lee,
also from Sydney, their childhood hobby of singing with a guitar has led
to them being the fourth most-subscribed YouTube channel in Australia.
The product of Korean parents, they have had 55 million views on their
channel Jayesslee and now tour the world full-time and often get
recognised on the streets of Malaysia and Singapore.
''YouTube has become a platform where anyone can share
without barriers as there is in television,'' Janice said. ''If people
like your videos then they will share with a friend.''
With a lack of Asian actors in mainstream media, Janice
said their online success had made them role models in their ethnic
community, despite being ''more comfortable'' speaking English than
Korean.
''It's great to know that our success and what we are doing is inspiring other people to do the same,'' she said.
YouTube has created a democratic forum for cultural
groups across Australia, unlike mainstream media, said professor of
sociology Andrew Jakubowicz, of the University of Technology.
''In commercial media there has been this long sense that
advertisers are extremely conservative and don't wish in any way to
offend or alienate audience members and so in the process of creating
content, the safest way to go is to stick to the mainstream model,'' he
said.
''It's not that audiences are uncomfortable with the
reality of Australia being shown to them [in reality television shows],
it's that the people making the programs are not courageous, adventurous
or knowledgeable enough to make programs that work in real terms.''
