The Australian Bite

Things that make us go cringe

15 October 2009

Listen and download: MP3

Australians can get pretty feisty when it comes to playing around with our national icons, as Kraft found out when it tried to use crowdsourcing to name a new Vegemite/cream cheese blend.  The public were invited to send in suggestions, but when the name selected from their entries was announced, it was widely condemned as rubbish, leading to a major backdown and a (this time) public-approved rebranding.  More on that story on this week’s Australian Bite, as well as another cringe-worthy incident, which brought Australia into the international spotlight for all the wrong reasons . . . that’s the blackface Jackson Five skit perfomed  on the TV variety show Hey Hey It’s Saturday.   Oh dear . . .

Hey Hey it’s a racism row

The Australian television show Hey Hey its Saturday recently made international headlines, but for all the wrong reasons. The caused a furore when its Red Faces talent segment featured an outfit called “The Jackson Jive” . . . a group of six men wearing black make-up and afro wigs, doing a take-off of the Jackson Five. The segment was condemned by guest judge, Harry Connick Jr, and the international fallout, which basically described Australia as a racist backwater, was huge. So what does the incident say about Australia, racism, and our claim to be an enlightened, tolerant, multicultural society?  I discussed the issue with University of Technology Sydney sociology professor, and administrator of the website culturaldiversity.net.au, Andrew Jakubowicz.

You can read Andrew Jakubowicz’s blog post on this issue at the Institute for Cultural Diversity website here

“Crowdsourcing” a growing trend but lessons still to be learned

The Australian public was recently invited by Kraft, the manufacturers of Vegemite, to come up with a name for a new Vegemite spin-off product combining the viscous black yeast spread with cream cheese in a jar. This particular example of what’s called crowdsourcing did not go according to plan, as the public rejected the name eventually selected by Kraft for the new bottled spread. But despite this hiccup, crowdsourcing, or inviting consumers to interact with manufacturers and designers and help design the products they buy, is starting to take off in Australia. Alan Saunders speaks about the trend with Angelina Russo, Associate Professor of Design at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.

You can read an interesting news report on the iSnack debacle here

Indigenous cookbook hits the spot

The Fred Hollows Foundation has been working with indigenous women in the Northern Territory developing a very practical way to help solve diet-related health problems. It’s a cookbook – developed by and for indigenous women – with recipes appropriate for use in remote communities. The cookbook is called Kukumbat gudwan daga or “Really cooking good food”, and it was developed in collaboration with the Women’s Centres of Manyallaluk, Gulin Gulin and Wugularr.  Joy McLaughlin is the Fred Hollows Foundation’s Indigenous Programs Manager, and she spoke about the cookbook with Fran Kelly.

More information on Kukumbat gudwan daga is available at Batchelor Press, which is the publishing arm of the Specialised Publications and Academic Resource Centre (SPARC) at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, Northern Territory, Australia

Fred Hollows Foundation website

Music (not in podcast)

Melbourne based singer songwriter Lisa Mitchell first came into the spotlight when at the age of 16, she was a finalist on 2006 season of Australian Idol.  Just a few years down the track she’s has been nominated for three Australian Record Industry Association Awards, she’ currently touring the UK, and her single Coin Laundry is sitting at number 28 on the Australian Charts.

Artist: Lisa Miller

Track: Coin Laundry

Album: Wonder (2009)

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