35).
However, it appears as if things are finally looking up, according to the ABC website: "In Sydney teams of youth workers are about to begin scouring the streets for Aboriginal talent - in order to address the under-representation of indigenous people in film and television."" (http://www.abc.net.au/message/blackarts/film/s644749.htm).
The first thing that came to my mind is "good on them if they can pull it off-.
I put myself in the position of a music producer or record label representative (one of many of my current ambitions), wondering if I would automatically reject a recording if it was by an Indigenous artist. I'd like to say that I wouldn't, however I would expect it to meet the same high standards of any music I would review. It made me wonder if my common racism overlooked the fact that many Aborigines, if not all, would not have the resources, or the opportunities to create music, to be an active part of the arts.
Until now, of course.
It's easy to leave this up to other people to sort out and just be content to go with the flow saying "I don't know how they're going to get Indigenous people into the arts- and then sit down for the night watching The Great Outdoors, or perhaps The Secret Life of Us, and completely forgetting whom we are staring at, mesmerised for an entire timeslot.
When Deborah Mailman - the Aboriginal actor who stars in Channel 10's hit show "The Secret Life of Us-, was in school, she was cast as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. The first thing she said to her teacher was "Miss, I don't think Dorothy is black?" . Her teacher then replied: "Deborah, Dorothy can be any colour she wants to be."".
Maybe Deborah's Mt. Isa teacher was a little more tolerant towards the politically correct, socially acceptable ideas of Indigenous Australians and the trials they would perhaps always face in a judgemental society such as this. Or maybe she had a vision that Deborah would go on to greater things.
