TV

Should We Start Caring About The Logies?

Moments like this could be more valuable than they seem.

by Meg Watson  9 May 2016

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It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when and why the Logies became a punchline.

Cultural cringe has probably been a factor from the start. When compared to overseas equivalents like the Emmys, the lesser-known members of our smaller industry look a little like a bunch of primary schoolers fist-pumping after receiving a merit certificate at the end-of-year assembly.

It could also have something to do with the internet. When TV guides and celebrity gossip became available online, the show’s founding body TV Week became largely redundant. The public votes which once came from dedicated superfans and teenage girls crushing on the cast of Home and Away slipped away and the only ones left casting their ballots were grandparents who signed up to lifetime subscriptions sometime in the 1970s. There’s a reason Bert Newton has hosted the ceremony for 20 of its 57 years.

Ultimately, it’s this same-ness which has failed to bring any real interest to the ceremony. Home and Away has won 45 awards over the past couple of decades and last night took out Best Drama Program once again; in Irene’s (Lynne McGranger) speech she congratulated the team for their excellent on-set cheese toasties. During the 2000s, Rove won Best Presenter seven years in a row. The main things which have truly captured the public’s attention over the past decade or so have been Karl Stefanovic’s various post-party fuckups on Today and that time Joan Rivers got confused about “why the fuck [she] was here”.

So why exactly is no one laughing today?

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The Increasing Political Worth Of The Logies

This year’s ceremony was hyped by either excitement or controversy depending on your opinion of Gold Logie nominees Waleed Aly and Lee Lin Chin. And their inclusion (as both entertainers who rely on the internet for a great deal of their popularity and people of colour) is at least partially responsible for last night’s exceptional ratings.

The four-and-a-half-hour show (help, I’m so tired) scored more than a million viewers for the first time in five years and infinitely more headlines. Though it’s not rare for political or cultural issues to come up at the Logies — last year Miranda Tapsell urged the Australian entertainment industry to “put more beautiful people of colour on TV” and Gold Logie winner Carrie Bickmore used her speech as an appeal for funding into brain cancer research — last night’s show was full of them and, when combined, they felt like a directed movement for change.

When accepting her lifetime achievement award, Noni Hazlehurst had a go at Malcolm Turnbull’s comment about being “misty-eyed” over asylum seekers. She talked about “the prevailing guard” which has resulted in her being only the second woman to ever receive the award and made a pitch for a more kind-hearted and inclusive society which rejoices in happiness and empathy.

“Things are clearly changing — here we are — but they’re changing glacially slowly,” she said. “The great things about glaciers though is if you’re not on them, you go under. I’ve been riding that glacier for 40 years and I’m staying on top of it.”

From here, both Deborah Mailman and the cast of ABC’s Ready For This spoke of the importance of diversity (specifically of Indigenous stories) on screen in their respective acceptance speeches, and this was then brought home in Aly’s eventual win.

“There have been a lot of people in the past week or two who have let me know that this really matters to them,” he said. “And it matters to them for a particular reason. That reason was brought home shudderingly not so long ago actually. Someone, who is in this room, came up to me and said ‘I really hope you win. My name’s Mustafa, but I can’t use that name because I won’t get a job’. It matters to people like that that I’m here. It’s not because of me, I know that. [This award is for] Mustafa and everyone else with an unpronounceable name like, I don’t know, Waleed.”

Just like that, we had our big Emmys moments. Waleed Aly pulled a Viola Davis. Noni is a more inclusive Patricia Arquette. And their speeches mean even more because they’re speaking exclusively to us.

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What’s In An Award?

With its winners being decided by both public vote and a jury of industry professionals, there are really two aims of the Logies awards system. It wants to recognise technically exceptional work in the field of television and also elevate talented voices which resonate with the Australian people. In theory, it sounds great!

As domestic SVOD services enter the original content market, free-to-air spirals out of control in the reality TV stakes, viral video becomes a pivotal part of the distribution process and Foxtel continues to fail the nation’s younger generation, it’s clear this is a pivotal moment for the local entertainment industry. We’re debating what TV should look like, how we should interact with it, and perhaps most importantly, who should be given visibility on the platform in the first place. Last night, the Logies proved its potential as a meeting point for all of the above.

Of course, this isn’t to say there aren’t still problems. There are.

But with world-class Australian television in the works and progressive initiatives in place to address industry issues like diversity, there’s never been a better time to embrace our local industry and get on board with the system which celebrates it. The more interest we take, the more our viewing habits will be represented. Maybe if we voted next year, Best New Talent could go to some incredibly deserving young actor rather than the dude from Better Homes and Gardens! Maybe it would kickstart their whole career!

As Aly noted last night, the 2016 Gold Logie nominations (the most diverse ever) show the potential for a truly inclusive ceremony. “Each nominee brilliantly distills some separate piece of Australia,” he said. “It’s an amazing thing, it’s a fantastic thing that that can be assembled on this night in this way. I’d encourage you to think about that. If you step back and look at all those pieces assembled it is a truly spectacular mosaic.”

Moments like this could be more valuable than they seem:

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