How did the nature of the music, film and television industries in Australia change during the postwar period?

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1 154 2 Use Bernard Flether s artile in The Australian Women s Weekly (Soure 4.26). a b Read the soure and make a list of words and phrases that indiate that the writer is opposed to rok n roll. Make a list of words and phrases that indiate that the writer is not opposed to rok n roll. What is the writer s overall view of rok n roll? The oming of rok- n-roll has shown us how slow older people are to aept new ideas. My mother, who took a dislike to rok- n-roll immediately, has heard so muh of it now that she is beginning to like it. Rok- n-roll, like abstrat art and television, is here to stay so people might as well learn to enjoy it now as later. Ron Rowe, St. Kilda, Vi. ACTIVITY 5 Evidene 1 What is Soure 4.27 and who wrote it? 2 What is Ron Rowe s view of television? 3 How would Bernard Flether (Soure 4.26) have responded to this letter? Empathy The Australian Women s Weekly, 8 June 1960, p. 42 SOURCE 4.27 Older people and rok n roll 1 Imagine you are a onservative journalist. Write a 200-word review of one of the songs listed in the Historial questions and researh ativity. Choose a newspaper, magazine or newsletter of the times where you will publish the review. 2 Imagine you are Ron Rowe (Soure 4.27). Write a 200-word review of the song you hose in the previous ativity. Choose a newspaper, magazine or newsletter where you will publish the review. Cause and effet 1 Australian popular ulture developed independently. Disuss. Perspetives and interpretations 1 Either draw or desribe a artoon about one of these topis: a the impat of television in 1956 b the impat of rok n roll in the 1950s or early 1960s. You need to deide whether your artoon will portray a onservative or a liberal view. Historial questions and researh 1 Researh one of the following songs (inluding listening to it): Bill Haley and the Comets, Rok Around the Clok (1955) Elvis Presley, Hound Dog (1956) Johnny O Keefe, Wild One (1958) any other hit single from the 1950s. Design an ep (17.5 m x 17.5 m: 45 revolutions per minute) reord over for the song you have hosen. How did the nature of the musi, film and television industries in Australia hange during the postwar period? The United States has had numerous influenes on Australian soiety sine the 19th entury. Words suh as homestead ame from the United States. Barbed wire, used extensively by Australian pastoralists from the last quarter of the 19th entury, was an Amerian invention. Throughout the 20th entury, the Hollywood film industry has had a major impat on Australian soiety. After World War II, Asian ountries, suh as Japan and India, were to have a growing influene on entertainment and the arts, among other things. Some people fear suh influene as ultural imperialism. Tehnologial developments in manufaturing, transport, ommuniations and media brought about modernisation and globalisation. Modernisation involves the appliation of the latest tehnologies to everyday life. Western apitalist ountries suh as Australia and the United States modernised at different speeds and times. The United States was generally more advaned and it influened Australia. Modernisation is not neessarily Amerianisation. Some aspets of Australia s modernisation were homegrown. The United States, too, was influened by other ountries, suh as Britain. But generally, the period after World War II was one of inreasing globalisation.

2 CHAPTER 4 POPULAR CULTURE, 1954 PRESENT 155 Globalisation, at one level, is a proess of eonomi and ultural integration. In this proess, ultures aross the world beome inreasingly similar. The ultures of the most powerful ountries beome transplanted or mixed into other ultures. Traditional ultures and praties an be hanged or lost. Not all aspets of the weaker ulture are affeted. Different groups in the weaker ulture an be affeted in various ways, sometimes not at all. These proesses were refleted in hanges to the Australian film, musi and television industries. Go to OneStopDigital to wath vox pops for the very first ABC Four Corners program. SOURCE 4.28 Television and radio program, 1960

3 156 ACTIVITY 6 Chronology, terms and onepts 1 Define modernisation. 2 What is globalisation? 3 What is Amerianisation? Historial questions and researh 1 You need to investigate Soure Use the title of this setion How did the nature of the musi, film and television industries in Australia hange during the postwar period? to think up an inquiry question about the television industry. 2 How would you use Soure 4.28 to answer your question? 3 a Choose 10 television programs on Channel 7. Find online historial resoures to identify their ountry of origin. b Use your findings from part (a). What do they tell us about ontent on Australian television in the early 1960s? Find a urrent television guide for a ommerial television hannel. Disuss the similarities or differenes about the amount of overseas ontent in Australian television in 1960 and now. Asian influenes in a globalising world In the 1940s, after bombing attaks and midget submarines, many Australians feared a Japanese invasion. A little more than 20 years later, Japan threw its energy into ivilian industries. And Australians welomed into their homes Japan s distintive artoons, omi books and television shows from the peae-loving Kimba the White Lion to the fearsome Samurai. Japan is not the only Asian ountry to have a global influene in this way. India has one of the largest film industries in the world; the industry is so large that it has been niknamed Bollywood. While the industry onentrates mainly on musials that are sreened mostly within India, there has been some influene on the rest of the world. Some Bollywood films have been shot in Australia and the Australian riket player Brett Lee has ated in one. Bollywood-style dane lasses have also beome popular. SOURCE 4.29 A Sanlen s Shintaro Samurai ard, whih ame with hewing gum, 1965 The Samurai, the first Japanese show teleast on Australian TV to have suh a phenomenal suess, is doing better than ever in its first repeat on Sydney s TCN9. Every Sunday at p.m. Shintaro one more lays about him with his Samurai sword, upholding the honor of the Shogun of Japan. (The Shogun was the hereditary ommander-in-hief and virtual ruler in the days before the Emperors.) If inquiries, letters, and demands for photographs are a guide, Shintaro has a bigger TV audiene than ever. The age group of fans has ertainly risen, for as well as the young TV set, many frustrated dads and grandads who ouldn t see the premiere run at 5.30 p.m. are athing up with the exploits of the Samurai and the Ninjas. The Samurai took over TCN9, Sundays at 12.30, from Shirley Temple, whih seems to signify something, and it looks as if it will take over smartly from Santa Claus, for Shintaro arrives in Sydney in person to star at Sydney s Stadium from Boxing Day on. The Australian Women s Weekly, 8 Deember 1965, p. 15 SOURCE 4.30 The Samurai, 1965 Senkosha Produtions

4 CHAPTER 4 POPULAR CULTURE, 1954 PRESENT 157 ACTIVITY 7 Analysis and use of soures 1 What is Soure 4.29? 2 Use Soure a b d e f What was The Samurai? Aording to this soure, how was the show reeived in Australia? What happened when The Samurai took over the pm time slot on Sundays? What was the signifiane of this? (You may need to find out who Shirley Temple was.) What was happening from Boxing Day? How do you think some Australian World War II veterans might have reated to this artile? (See pages ) Could you please publish an artile on The Samurai or at least a piture of its hero, Shintaro, a warrior whose fae and bravery I have fallen in love with. I am ertainly not alone in onsidering The Samurai the finest example of this type of programme so far seen on Sydney television. I hope the series will ontinue for a long while. - Elizabeth P., Marrikville. SOURCE 4.32 One view of The Samurai TV Week, 13 February 1965 The headmaster of Sydney s newest private boys preparatory shool [Pittwater House] has banned Shintaro ards and any assoiation with that ult. Shintaro, played by Koihi Ose, is the hero of The Samurai, a Japanese-produed TV series urrently popular with boys throughout Sydney. The headmaster, Mr Rex Morgan, told parents at the Pittwater House preparatory shool speeh night last night. I question the mental health of a nation whih permits its shoolhildren to be exposed to the urrent ult of Japanese sadism and ruelty in the guise of a TV hero. I should have thought we had enough of this sort of thing during the war without glorifying suh attitudes by the present TV representation and its perpetuation by the sale of sweetmeats ontaining swap ards. Mr Morgan said that to him this was further indiation of the lak of priniples of some retailers and advertisers. It was essential that hildren be fortified with minds able to resist suh undermining and able to disriminate between right and wrong, between good and bad, between the worthwhile and the fruitless. Mr Morgan said he had been ritiised for being a right-wing reationary. He said, If right-wing reationary means putting bak into life some of the old-fashioned virtues suh as good manners, respet for parents, reognition for elders and betters, aepting that Jak is not as good as his master, then I ask you parents to subsribe to the same philosophy. I shall reat more and more sharply against the sik and soft and unmanly attitudes whih so many people are affeting these days. Daily Mirror, 14 Deember 1965 Senkosha Produtions SOURCE 4.33 A seond view of The Samurai SOURCE 4.31 Photograph of Shintaro in The Australian Women s Weekly, 1965

5 158 I strongly protest the statement attributing sadism to the TV series The Samurai by Mr R.H. Morgan, headmaster, Pittwater Preparatory Shool. That one of this ity s supposedly foremost eduators should be so bigoted and twisted about the triumph of rights over wrongs, good manners and kindliness as portrayed in the series, bespeaks of a ompletely losed mind. His statement, This type of programme is produing sik, soft and unmanly attitudes in Australian soiety obviously applies not to Australians but to himself. I am father of three boys from 4 to 7 1 /2 years. The three of them wath the show as well as myself. All of us are attrated by the beauty of the art diretion, amera work and general presentation of the series whih is a fairly honest portrayal of life in early Japan. To see my boys running, jumping and only very oasionally standing still in emulation of the physial feats of the good or bad, seems quite the reverse of soft and unmanly. This seems to be the season when headmasters blame the hildren whom they are supposed to be leading for the faults into whih their own generation has led the young. If Mr Morgan ould open his mind suffiiently to study a little of the history of another ountry like Japan, he would find portrayed in The Samurai a spirit of fine disipline, physial and mental, and honour far above anything he ould teah. I had onsidered sending my hildren to Pittwater House whih I believed was staffed by forward thinking people. But after reading Mr Morgan s attak, I most ertainly will not. - John Z. Huie, Seaforth Letter from a Daily Mirror reader, 23 Deember 1965 SOURCE 4.34 A third view of The Samurai ACTIVITY 8 Analysis and use of soures 1 How would you desribe the person who wrote Soure 4.32? 2 In Soure 4.33, whih group does the Daily Mirror identify as the audiene for The Samurai? 3 What group does Soure 4.30 identify as The Samurai s audiene? 4 Based on these three soures, who do you think wathed The Samurai? Explanation and ommuniation 1 Write a paragraph (150 words) arguing that generational differenes were the main ause of the different reations to The Samurai. Perspetives and interpretations 1 What view of The Samurai is given in Soure 4.32? 2 a Whose perspetive is given on The Samurai in Soure 4.33? b What is Headmaster Morgan s view of The Samurai? Why do you think he held this view? 3 a Desribe the person who wrote Soure b How does the view of The Samurai in this soure differ from that in Soure 4.34? Why do you think the views are different? 4 a In Soure 4.33, what was Headmaster Morgan s view of some retailers and advertisers? b What soures in this setion ould be used to support this view? Historial questions and researh 1 What influene has Bollywood had on: a the Australian film industry and b Australian popular ulture? ICT 1 Go to OneStopDigital to view a doumentary about Shintaro to find out more about: a how hildren responded to the television show The Samurai. and b how adults responded to the show.