Something very exciting is happening in 2016.
No, we’re not all losing 5 kgs. No, this isn’t the year we’re all getting a promotion.
But this year finally, for the first time (at least in my memory) mainstream Australian TV is portraying Asian-Australian family life.
Here’s the catch: it’s not all about the Asian experience. It’s about the Australian experience.
To you, it might seem like quite a menial thing to be so excited about. So let me tell you why it’s so significant to me.
I was born in Australia, so I’ve always thought of myself as an ordinary Australian. Yet everything on TV, in magazines and on the movie screens have always told me otherwise. According to the media, my family can only be illegal immigrants, a family of immigrant doctors or (and obviously the most plausible) North Korean spies.
The key to all of these portrayals is not the profession or the status of the families, but the fact that families like mine are always considered the outsiders and too different. How many immigrant-Australian families have been the main characters in a show? How many have been portrayed as your ordinary Australian family?
Today, Australian families with immigrant heritage are the vast majority of our society so it’s about time a show like The Family Law (based on Benjamin Law’s fabulous book of the same title) came onto our screens.