So Tom Gleeson won the Gold Logie after a deliberately misleading and negative campaign against his fellow nominees.
And sure, it was a joke but it was also an exceptionally successful strategy, as certain elections have demonstrated over the last few years.
And Gleeson follows a rich tradition of mocking the Logies while also benefiting from it, from Garry McDonald’s Norman Gunston (who was the last ABC personality to win the Gold Logie winner back in 1976, as it happens) to Bert Newton to Hamish Blake to damn near everyone – including by Gleeson the previous year, with his (also successful) joke campaign for Grant Denyer.
In fact, it’s loads easier to mock the Logies than to take them seriously, not least because Australians aren’t great at celebrating celebrations that are not specifically sports-related, and also because we compare them with things like the Golden Globes and – surprise! – they fall a bit short.
Except that it’s also a career maker-or-breaker for people working in the Australian TV biz. It’s a bit hokey, but it’s also all we’ve got.
And yes, these are public votes and all and it’s terribly chuckleworthy to see Gleeson win and swig wine on stage while telling everyone to lighten up, but that’s time on stage not being taken by, say, Amanda Keller – a woman with an incredible career spanning multiple roles across media, from science journalism to mainstream radio to hosting TV to quiz shows to pretty much every point in between.
A bit of acknowledgement and celebration of such a singular career might have been nice, as opposed to watching Tom alternatively decry and defend his win to a largely silent room.
And also, for anyone that considers the Logies to be a back-slapping festival of circle-jerkery, check out Dylan Alcott’s magnificent speech celebrating his win for Best Newcomer: “I’ve been in a wheelchair my whole life and I hated it. And one of the reasons I did hate it was when I turned on the TV I never saw anybody like me.”
This stuff is not unimportant.
Furthermore, please accept Kerry O’Brien’s towering Hall of Fame speech about the importance of journalism and particularly the ABC, as well as expertly breaking down the need for the endorsement of the Uluru Statement From The Heart (and throwing in a cheeky Karl Stefanovic burn in the bargain).
Goddamn it, the man’s a hero.
So yes, the Logies are a kind of silly, and they’re also genuinely Australian television’s night of nights when the brightest stars come out to shine, and it provides a moment to reflect upon the role that television – and mass media generally – has in both shaping and reflecting our nation.
Maybe it’s worth extending it a tiny bit more respect?