Australian comedian Barry Humphries' humour identified and targeted a world of pleasant streets and gardens that is now under threat. We've stopped laughing, but is it too late?
I was raised on the humour of Australian comedian, Barry Humphries, when his main alter ego was the suburban sage simply known as "Mrs Edna Everage” and his eastern suburbs commentary issued forth in the monotonous narrow viewed but well-meaning drone of Mr. Sandy Stone. Barry’s characters described a world which was very familiar to me, although I lived in neither the now famous Moonee Ponds nor in the apparent epitome of Melbourne mediocrity, Glen Iris. The adults in my family all found the Humphries humour hilarious, despite, or maybe because of the fact that their lives were being held up to good humoured ridicule. I shared this delight and amusement with them.
Barry Humphries' targets were mediocre, commonplace and rather petty preoccupations such as lawn mowing, sandwich making, wall colour, general domestic decor and associated status symbols. It was all so familiar and we laughed our heads off all the more, delighted to be laughing at ourselves and our nearest and dearest. Or if it wasn’t us it was someone we knew. The humour rested on an assumption of self- satisfied comfort and safety, devoid of outside threat. Our laughter and Barry’s merciless assault is an indication of how quickly we forget and how short each stage of our lives really is. Barry was born in 1934, safely clear of any expectation of participation in WW2 or The Vietnam War. He emerged as an adult in the postwar comfort and optimism of the 1950s and played to an audience where young couples were settling into their suburban Shangri -la’s. "The Australian dream” of the house and garden was alive and well and not under any threat. This situation continued for a few more decades but on a downward trajectory in terms of general accessibility, that is to say, affordability.
Fast forward to the present day and what was once a source of relaxation, pleasure, security and comedy, the suburban family home, is now turning into a tragedy.
The undermining of the family home and garden in concept and reality has been under way for at least 30 years. It began with soft rumbles, the odd newspaper opinion piece advocating the end of the 1/4 acre block and the beginning of a rhetoric very negative and critical of the way we lived. People started to parrot these opinion pieces and preach knowingly at dinner parties, that we couldn’t go on living as we were as though cleverly seeing into the future. Then they would go home and continue living as they were, no doubt thinking that it was people in the future who would have to live differently, not they. The point was that they did not express any feeling of being under threat. Yet they were. They are!
The sacred, yet hilarious homes of our parents and of us are now being demolished, at a frightening rate. The honest workmanship of the Californian Bungalo and the 50s triple fronted cream brick veneers is being replaced with nondescript non- architectural multi dwelling, fence to fence arrangements , devoid of of any reference to the humanity of those who are expected to dwell within. The subject of Barry’s whole comedy career is being pulled down in front of us; a new cavernous car park excavation appearing near where I live each week. That is the reality on the ground. In the media , a past Victorian Planning Minister, Justin Madden who now works for developers was given space for a whole article about the need and desirability, nay imperative, of demolishing 60 year old houses in a ring of Melbourne suburbs about 15 kms from the CBD. There’s always a new angle in the scramble to fit ever more residents into Melbourne (which grows by about 80,000 people p.a.) Developers who can get their hands on these unsuspecting little houses on their “1/4 acre" blocks (I understand they never were as large as 1/4 acre, really) can make a killing by demolishing and redeveloping to fit in more residences.
It seems to me that people are now really getting upset by all this. They see their local neighbourhoods in a constant state of transformation. They are living perpetually in a construction zone. Trees, houses and gardens go, roadworks and construction abound and there is the constant shock of empty blocks of land either totally cleared and levelled or exposing raw bedrock 3 metres deep, previously covered with a few tonnes of earth and rocks and iced with pleasant house and garden.
But what has this to do with Barry Humphries? Well for a start, the much derided but rather enviable and almost egalitarian Melbourne suburban way of life is swirling down the plug hole and will be gone before you know it. The people of Melbourne did very little to protect it when it was first under fire and now it is probably too late. Were we asleep at the wheel? Did Barry Humphries unwittingly lull us into a child-like sense of security about our home city?
What does Barry say now when, in actual fact what is happening is that our precious gardens are being used to accommodate an ever higher population? Had we been asked 15 or 20 years ago if we minded someone building in our backyard, we would have said, “go and find you own land!” but that is what we are being forced to do now. People move out of garden-surrounded houses into units with token amounts of land and end up with only a little bit of change from the exchange. Collectively, what is happening is that others are building in our gardens!
Barry Humphries’ jokes about the scourge of thrip on the roses (or was it the tomatoes?) will be incomprehensible to future Melbournians. How can this joke be funny when the “problem” is foreign to you?
Comments
Stop the housin... (not verified)
Mon, 2015-11-30 12:28
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What was laughed at, is now nostalgia
Dennis K
Mon, 2015-11-30 20:48
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Boring replaces boring
John Bentley (not verified)
Tue, 2015-12-01 12:02
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I can hear Balwyn Calling......
Mark Allen (not verified)
Tue, 2015-12-01 13:16
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Response to "I Can Hear Balwyn Calling"
John Bentley (not verified)
Thu, 2015-12-03 16:19
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I can still hear Balwyn calling ...
Mark while I don't disagree with you that the Greens (and even if the independents are in accord) need to challenge both the Coalition and Labor over their growth fetish, do you not think that they will be derided by the major parties and the mainstream media Australia wide. It would be an honourable and it would a courageous exercise on their part, but, unfortunately, they would be outvoted and therefore it will not be enough.
We, the electorate, had our chance 12 months ago and we weren't up to the task. We caved in to the false prophets who espoused more of the same bullshit we've been dieting on since we got Jeffed!! Why?? Because we're shit scared of having to forgo a couple of creature comforts, of having to get our hands dirty, terrified of having to put our values on the line, petrified of the unknown.
WE ... got ourselves into this mess and WE have to get ourselves out of it.
I earlier suggested that the ballot box would be the way forward which it will be, however, if more prompt action is required, WE must extract the digit and become more verbose about our thoughts and actions. WE must show both Labour and the Coalition that we don't want more of the same. WE must demonstrate that Melbourne's/Victoria's burgeoning population is a noose around our necks. We want to be able to live in peace and harmony into our old age with our kids and grandkids. But first we must demonstrate and demonstrate hard and long until they give in. There is no other way!!
With the preferential voting system, it is possible a voter to give her/his first second and voting preferences to small party or independent candidates who stand for policies that the major parties won't. Before you vote at any election, find out which of the candidates in your electorate commits himself/herself to opposing 'growth' and allocate your voting preferences accordingly.
Other policies of candidates I would vote for are listed in the article Issues that should be decided at the 29 November Victorian State elections of 14 Oct 2014. - Ed
Mark Allen (not verified)
Fri, 2015-12-04 23:13
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Perhaps I am being a tad optimistic but.....
Sheila Newman
Sat, 2015-12-05 22:32
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Optimism, population 'debate' and Matthew Guy
Hi Mark Allen,
Your article is generating some interesting debate. Well done. On the subject of Matthew Guy 'calling for a population policy', my opinion is, unfortunately, it's the same old. Read the detail:
"I think there has got to be a genuine community, business and governance discussion about how we really focus on building the population of our regions, because I am very, very sure that the four-and-a-half million people of Melbourne think ... our city is bursting," Mr Guy said. "Can you imagine it with another million people on top of this, as it will be within 15 years time?" Source: http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/guy-calls-for-population-debate-and-places-east-west-link-back-on-the-agenda-20151130-glbnac
No way this little politician is going to have a real 'debate'. He is looking for big business support by signalling (a) reverse EW Link decision (b) signal to big construction (c) signal he will push population growth via the usual pretend 'debate' mechanisms. What he has said is utterly unnewsworthy, but it is what the growthist newspapers like to pretend is news.
It's about as newsworthy as saying that a well-known prostitute has just got out of the drug rehab and is announcing she will be pounding the streets again.
With apologies to the sex industry.
Mark Allen (not verified)
Tue, 2015-12-01 12:08
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Boring Is Indeed Replacing Boring
Mary (not verified)
Tue, 2015-12-01 17:40
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Retirees' money going to big business with gov's assent
John Bentley (not verified)
Wed, 2015-12-02 09:17
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Financial Sector
Chris (not verified)
Wed, 2015-12-02 14:22
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Think who the sacrifice would be for
Dennis K
Fri, 2015-12-04 22:37
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However the older people are voting for this problem
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