It seems that Channel Seven has had another attempt at polluting the public sphere and subjecting us to television that is well below standard. Australia’s Strictest Parents is a wild ride through the experience of two rebellious teenagers from the city as they are plunged into the “outback” and made to shovel shit and shear sheep. The narrative structure follows rather a mundane formula; teenager is naughty, said teenager is sent to outback, farmer and wife attempt to reform teenager, teenager is once again naughty, farmer punishes teenager, teenager receives letter from parent, teenager begins to enjoy shovelling shit and shearing sheep and is reformed. On the latest episode, Nathan is described as a ‘17 year old who has lost his way’, he has dropped out of school and been picked up by the police, he also enjoys long walks on the beach and martinis. Adriana, the other juvenile delinquent, is described as “a girl who is used to getting what she wants”, look out Adriana, there aren’t any malls to hang around and shout and spit at strangers in the outback! Both examples look as though they have fallen into a bath of peroxide with some of the blonde bleach obviously leaking onto their brains. Not all is lost however, in the other corner we have the Ironside family, a proud bunch of devout Christians led by dad, Mark. The Ironside’s live on a life with a main of hard work with a side of good morals. Access to music and the internet is restricted and only Christian television is to be watched on the idiot box. If this family can’t set these kids straight, nothing will. What follows is cringe worthy, I will admit for a short period I closed my eyes, blocked my ears and shouted “there’s no place like home” while rocking in a disturbed manner.
The panacea for these children’s’ woes seems to be as follows. If you are a spoilt brat from the suburbs who has everything you could want, including hair dye, and yet still insist on behaving like a baboon with rabies who enjoys smoking and wearing an i-pod, you will be punished by being followed around by a film crew while you inflict further pain by throwing your proverbial baboon poo at an outback, farming family. At one point Nathan, perhaps the worst of the two, steals the family’s car and drives off into the sunset. Mark, a tough farmer, walks about in the dirt, spitting, muttering and finally rings the police. Nathan eventually turns the car around and comes back where the punishment begins, or does it? Nathan’s punishment consists of Mark and his wife explaining to Nathan what stealing is and that in fact, driving off in someone else’s car is just that. Nathan has the very complex argument that his act of defiance was not stealing, but was ‘just taking’. Mark explains that Nathan is lucky that the local police station is manned by a scarecrow in a police uniform and thus cannot pick up a phone. All of this leads to Nathan apologising and then shovelling dog poo from under the cages where the family’s fifteen dogs are kept (animal cruelty? The dogs that is, not Nathan). Nathan is sent back to the city with a new lease on life, he now only listens to his i-pod when he is not yelling at his mother.
In essence such a shoddy show instils the good, wholesome, family values we need in such a topsy turvy world. Here are six lessons Cocoa has learnt from Australia’s Strictest Parents;
1. If you have a naughty child, send them to the outback where someone else can deal with the problem.
2. Punishment is not the answer, simply hug your child until they can no longer breath and they slip into a coma.
3. Driving off in someone else’s car is stealing and not ‘just taking’.
4. If your parents attempt to express how they feel about you in the form of written word, you will break down crying and emerge from a cocoon of obscenity to become a beautiful butterfly of understanding and sensitivity.
5. All naughty teenagers should be kept in cages in a similar vain to those in which Mark kept his fifteen dogs.
6. Mainstream music and the internet are to blame for all our youths’ woes. I have a feeling the Frankfurt School theorists would have something to say about that, however, from now on I am only listening to birds singing and watching panda bears giving birth....just to be sure.
Ciao, Cocoa
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