Tourism ad for Australia:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQGMuxJ0vCc[/youtube]
Found here.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 10
Bri — October 11, 2008
As an Australian and the wife of an Indigenous man and mother of an Indigenous daughter I have this to say in regards to this ad - RACIST DRIVEL.
anneliese — October 11, 2008
I live in Australia and I find these ads ridiculous. The wide, brown frontier wilderness shown in the clip is totally foreign to 95% Australians, we have one of the most urban populations in the world. God knows why it's the image sold to foreigners over our cities and coastline.
And I agree with Bri - locally produced commercial TV has practically no indigenous representation. Are aboriginal people only allowed on television if they're selling some mythic version of the outback to americans?
Gwen Sharp, PhD — October 11, 2008
I also like the gender message there: she's "no longer the woman [he] fell in love with" because she's involved in her career, but a child can help her turn back into the type of woman who is loved and doesn't put her career first. Uh huh.
Cassie — October 13, 2008
According to wikipedia, Indigenous Australians only make up 2.6% of Australia's current population - hardly representative!
eallen — October 13, 2008
Fascinating fetishization of not only the indigenous child, but also the pure, refreshing, eye-opening Australian dirt. Given the focus on the muddy footprints that the indigenous child leaves behind, the commercial seems to construct the child as being made of "magic Australian dirt" herself. An unintentional message here is that indigenous Australians = dirt!