Abstract
This article argues that 2008–2009 Australian Broadcasting Corporation comedy The Hollowmen reveals an ‘empty centre’ within Australian public life; a vortex formed from a circling of techno-political elites within the centre of government. The show’s humour comes from the juxtaposition of the established forms and aesthetics associated with Westminster-style responsible government and the discourses of spin and image management of the party apparatchiks. There is a lack of substance in The Hollowmen. Power is conservative, reacting rather than instigating change, a circling game for techno-political elites. In laughing at this, The Hollowmen seems to have pre-empted some of the Trump-era malaise of public institutions in Global North nations.
Highlights
One of the many myths and misnomers of the white occupation of Australia was the idea of the ‘empty centre’; a physical, emotional and spiritual nothingness that generated rational desires for it to be filled and was an alien experiential void terrorising the self-assurance of the white settler (Wills 1984)
This article argues that 2008–2009 Australian Broadcasting Corporation comedy The Hollowmen reveals an ‘empty centre’ within Australian public life; a vortex formed from a circling of techno-political elites within the centre of government
It is argued that the 2008–2009 Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) comedy The Hollowmen reveals an empty centre within Australian public life
Summary
One of the many myths and misnomers of the white occupation of Australia was the idea of the ‘empty centre’; a physical, emotional and spiritual nothingness that generated rational desires for it to be filled and was an alien experiential void terrorising the self-assurance of the white settler (Wills 1984). The Empty Centre: The Hollowmen and Representations of Techno-Political Elites in Australian Public Life This article argues that 2008–2009 Australian Broadcasting Corporation comedy The Hollowmen reveals an ‘empty centre’ within Australian public life; a vortex formed from a circling of techno-political elites within the centre of government.
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