When I spoke to director Peter Andrikidis he’d just landed in Cairns to start filming a new mini-series, which he described jokingly as, “The Sopranos in thongs”. Well, that does seem quirky and distinctively Australian. Just think about the ensuing slapping sounds of thongs in the chase sequences.
Right now on our TV screens the award winning East West 101, which Andrikidis directed, is having its third bout on SBS and having experienced the first two seasons, the quality of its storytelling has not diminished.
Andrikidis has a Greek father and an (Anglo) Australian mother, so when it comes to having an understanding of the multicultural perspective he would be the obvious man for the job.
East West 101 has been praised for its human realism and unbiased view of the burgeoning multicultural landscape in this country. “In my father’s day when the TV show Cop Shop was around, there was only one token Greek, played by John Orsick, who was actually Yugoslavian…these days there are shows where the ethnic characters can sometimes outnumber the Australians or even the Caucasians,” Andrikidis said.
East West 101 is set around the Major Crime Squad in metropolitan Sydney. “It is inspired by the experiences of actual detectives in a crime unit in Sydney’s West. Following on the East West 101 themes established in the previous two seasons, the new season explores the ramifications of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through crimes committed in Australia.
“What happened during the war in the opium fields of the Chora Valley in Afghanistan, and the collateral damage to civilians in Takrit in Northern Iraq, came home to the main streets of Lakemba and the malls of Cabramatta,” the director said.
So basically, we’re not dealing with the privileged lives of the typical Anglo-Australian characters in Neighbours or Home and Away. This is probably why East West 101 has been so compelling for a more discerning audience. Andrikidis said that because the characters are “exotic”, “we want to have greater understanding of where they’re coming from”.
But East West 101 isn’t about ethnic neighbours swapping bowls of sugar. No, it’s about strife largely imported from those exotic locations mentioned. In the ’40s right up to the early ’70s the common enemy were postscript portrayals of Nazis; that mantle was later picked up by the Russians, which eventually lost its dramatic relevance after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, it’s the Arab world based on our need for their oil and our fear of Islam. The enemy, regardless of the period, is invariably masked so as not to reveal their full identity, which is probably why the Burqua has become so controversial.
This is also the case why the original movie Alien is so dramatically effective, compared to the rest of its sequels, because we only see fleeting glimpses of the monster.
One of the main purposes of SBS is to break down stereotypes and promote the diversity of culture, but as Andrikidis explained “East West is about showing there is good and evil in all cultures. The character, Zane Malik, is based on a real police officer who is Egyptian and he is a Muslim and that’s a fact and that makes him as Australian as the next person and that’s what we are trying to do.”
Although there is strong emphasis in this series on revealing the humanity of its characters, it does ride on the ethos of fear that emerged from 9/11.
Now with the alleged death of boogie man Osama bin Laden, one wonders if this will change the East West 101 storytelling perspective? Interestingly enough, the show has been viewed with great enthusiasm by Israeli and Arab TV audiences.
“But we have had difficulties selling it to America, mainly because the lead character is Muslim…and if they made programs like this it would be a good thing…to see humanity from another side,” added Andrikidis. Either way, this ‘humanity’ that we all talk about is perpetually in crisis. As Andrikidis commented, “Bin Laden will of course be replaced by another and nothing will change.”
And it has been suggested, amidst the confusion and the jaded humour on Facebook, that Bin Laden’s possible replacement could very well be the evil, reptilian genius Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter.