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Indigenous Australia

An “I Love Don Burke” Opening, #MeToo As A Musical Number, Bert Newton Off The Leash And No Welcome To Country: Australia Deserves A Better Logies

Don't waste your anger on Bert and Dave. The producers of the Logies should have a list of key issues they address very clearly in all major meetings, and at last count they managed to mess up all of them.

Send the Logies to the Gold Coast!

It sounded like a great idea, if your plan was to take a stale ceremony format and mix it up, shake loose a few awkward traditions and dial-up the self-deprecation to 11.

And all of that would have been a good idea.

Instead the Logies, “TV’s night of nights”,  the award show still run by a magazine – we can explain what that is another time – moved 1,700km to deliver exactly the same product.

Including a wildly tone-deaf Bert Newton award introduction that drew attention for all the wrong reasons.

But it would actually be wrong to blame the 80-year-old vaudevillian without noting the amateurish production in which it took place that prioritised woefully long video segments over anything approaching ceremony production values.

Dave Hughes opened the show, as he has for years now, and gave the now traditional roasting of the TV industry, with digs at Barnaby Joyce, Andrew Winter and Kochie all hitting the mark.

Then he did his material about Don Burke – and it was pretty light, half-hearted stuff – only to follow it up with “I love Don.”

*cough*

Now to recap, Don is the subject of dozens of sexual harassment accusations and the interview with him on that very topic was in fact nominated for a Logie last night.

And to be fair, “I love X” is a standard device for Dave Hughes whenever he has taken a dig at someone. And he knew he’d gone off piste.

Unfortunately in panic he chose to repeat himself, and then noted “I don’t love everything about him.”

As he put it “I’ve taken myself to a weird place.” He really just needed to stop talking.

As Hamish and Andy explained shortly afterwards as they apologised on his behalf, he ended up saying “I love Don Burke” four times.

It was a stumble, but the blame doesn’t rest with Hughes.

It rests with those organising the Logies. And know we don’t mean Tom Gleeson, who was clearly the only one organising anything properly on Sunday.

The producers of the Logies – of any awards – should go in to key meetings with a list of topics to check for how, if at all, they are going to be addressed.

Here’s a suggested starting point for the list the Logies producers should have had:

– Indigenous Australia

– #MeToo

– Sexual Harassment

– Don Burke

At last count they managed to screw up on all of them.

Let’s have a crack at it in hindsight.

For starters, how about a Welcome to Country or acknowledgment? Is it too much to ask the industry to recognise the traditional owners of the land on which they now sit scoffing all the free food and booze?

Hint: It’s the Yugambeh people.

The awards may well have done so before broadcast, but aren’t we at a point where we could include it? Maybe make it a part of celebrating the new location?

Nope? Oh well, maybe they’re nervous after the last time they tried to embrace “Indigenous culture” by having a white man pretend to be an Asian man doing black face.

#MeToo is correctly the issue that defines awards ceremonies around the world at present.

Kate Middleton was “slammed” for not wearing black to the BAFTAs earlier this year.

But the Logies are bigger than the royal family and no one was going to muck with their Gold class, so the multi-coloured frocks remained.

But perhaps the movement could have been acknowledged officially?

Instead we got an admittedly very funny Julia Morris song that included #MeToo instructions for idiots, which was basically “Can’t touch this” sung whilst pointing to various body parts. That worked. But where was the rest?

That was unfortunately left to Bert, a genuine TV legend who was asked to introduce the Graham Kennedy award, named after his former co-star.

Good start.

He was then seemingly given licence to talk for as long as he liked in whatever manner he wanted. So he first used a homophobic slur in a self-deprecating dig at himself, which is a joke he has made for many years but definitely landed with a clunk last night.

Then he heaped praise on Susan Carland’s decision to change faith to Islam as part of her marriage to Waleed Aly… by comparing it to his wife Patti’s decision to get a TAB account and drink beer.

Then finally he told a long anecdote about the “mentoring” that used to take place in Graham and Don Lane’s dressing rooms, which was a pretty thinly-veiled allusion to sexual harassment.

https://twitter.com/biconicbarnes/status/1013416863500398592

It lead some to ask if Newton was desperately attempting to call attention to past abuses, or just a tired relic of TV past, or both.

And of course it had many criticising him online throughout the night.

Fair enough. People have a right to be angry. But Bert’s really not the right target.

Bert Newton is the man who in 1979 at the Logies called Muhammad Ali “boy” while hosting with him on stage.

And that was almost FORTY YEARS AGO. He has form people!

So if you’re the producers bringing Bert back to the stage – a great decision in itself, vindicated by the standing ovation he received – then for goodness sake brief him.

How about: “Bert, we’re very conscious of sexual harassment in the industry this year, we just wanted to check if you wanted to say anything about it? Can we get a sense of the language you wanted to use?”

Bert is a vastly talented, intelligent man. And he’s got great instincts for entertainment, whilst also historically working WITH people. But he’s not great with the sensitive language. So, don’t gag the man, or relegate him to the Logies scrap heap, but help him talk about it.

Instead the Logies producers thoroughly dropped the ball and in doing so dropped Bert in it.

They could and should have talked to him. They could and should have had an acknowledgement of country. They could and should have done more about the #MeToo movement.

On the face of it, they did none of that.

And they should have briefed Dave Hughes – if you’re going to go after Don Burke, go hard, be vicious, be funny.

Oh… and don’t say you love him.