If you’ve turned on the telly in recent days or hopped onto the Internet for a quick news fix, chances are you’ve probably noticed that the story of Azaria Chamberlain and her mother, Lindy, has resurfaced.
If, like me, you’re wondering why on Earth we’re talking about this poor family and that dingo again, the reason is that the case is approaching its 40th anniversary this weekend and journalist Denham Hitchcock is revisiting the story with Channel 7.
The return to the Chamberlain case reminds us that 40 years on this incident remains one of Australia’s most infamous stories. A young family goes camping near Uluru, their 9-month-old daughter disappears; Lindy tells Australia “A dingo’s got my baby” and she ends up in jail for murder.
Although initially, Coroner Denis Barritt agreed that Azaria had been taken by a wild dingo (this was in 1981), an onslaught of attention and a second inquest resulted in Lindy’s conviction for the murder of her daughter. She was exonerated in 1987, after serving 18 months of a life sentence.
It wasn’t until 2012 that Coroner Elizabeth Morris completed a fourth inquest and announced her findings that yes, Azaria had been taken by a dingo.
The story is horrific as it is. But what is equally mind-boggling is that it became fodder for cheap jokes many years on.
Probably one of the most notable Seinfeld quotes out there (there are many) is Elaine’s attempt to shut down an annoying guest at a party by blurting out “maybe the dingo ate your baby?” The episode aired about ten years after the notorious case after Lindy had been released from jail.
Seinfeld isn’t the only example of this, either. In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, there’s a fictional band named Dingoes Ate My Baby. In Simpsons episode ‘Bart Vs Australia’, (which has truly terrible fake Aussie accents btw) Bart tells an Aussie farmer “Hey! I think I hear a dingo eating your baby!” In Modern Family’s Australia episode, Claire’s working on a project she refers to as her “baby”. It’s saved on a computer which is later taken from a tent by a wild dog.
In 2017, Paris Jackson came under fire for sharing a post to Instagram during a visit to Australia. As her caption, she wrote: “a dingo ate my baby”. After receiving a wave of criticism, Jackson conceded that she didn’t understand the relevance of the quote and apologised.
And in 2019, Vanderpump Rules reality star Lala Kent pulled a similar move, captioning an Instagram post “Maybe the dingos ate your baby!”
The list goes on and on (largely because of Meryl Streep’s portrayal of Lindy Chamberlain in film Evil Angels).
It seems that the disbelief surrounding Azaria’s death, and the vitriol that Lindy was met with at the early stages of this case set up a kind of too-wild-to-be-true approach to the incident. But whether we believed Lindy or not, a baby still died. The fact that this turned into a four-decade joke is pretty disturbing, no?
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