Storylines that didn't age well

[cymbaline]

Adam was the one who ran up the big phone bill at the time. Maybe there were some reverse charge calls from his mates up the coast  but mostly he was trying to drum up business for his latest business scam venture. Matt's parents were travelling overseas at the time and Adam tried to pin the bill on him. It's hard to remember that not too long ago, there was no way to easily contact people who were travelling overseas. They'd write letters or send telegrams. 

[adam436]

Alf's disapproval of Roo's Asian boyfriend. 

The story involving Matt, Adam and their housemate played by Suzi Dougherty.

[CaptainHulk]

4 hours ago, adam436 said:

Alf's disapproval of Roo's Asian boyfriend. 

A decade later things were no better with the whole anti-immigration storyline.

[cymbaline]

On the race theme, remember the time the Rosses briefly took in Kevin, played by Wes Patten. He must've been one of the first indigenous actors on H&A. It smacked of tokenism and was pretty badly written. 

[Trudy Heine]

When Hazam was attacked by racists, who then burned down the Diner.

[project90]

9 minutes ago, Trudy Heine said:

When Hazam was attacked by racists, who then burned down the Diner.

Yeah but that was always painted as something bad wasn't something that came off acceptable at the time and looks terrible re watching it decades later

[CaptainHulk]

On 05/06/2023 at 12:49, cymbaline said:

On the race theme, remember the time the Rosses briefly took in Kevin, played by Wes Patten. He must've been one of the first indigenous actors on H&A. It smacked of tokenism and was pretty badly written. 

At least he put that waiter in his place.

[nenehcherry2]

As a person of colour myself (albeit not Aboriginal nor Australian), watching some 80s/90s episodes make me absolutely cringe.

Agree with all above so far. A real missed opportunity with Kevin imo. 

Things that bug me: 

- Celia moving to "Africa". Burkina Faso? Somalia? Chad? Egypt? No, plain old simple "Africa". The writers didn't even bother to reflect how geographically complex and culturally diverse Africa (a CONTINENT) truly is. Screams of an "it's all the same" post-decolonisation mentality. VERY indicative of unconscious biases and sheer ingorance that folk had at the time. Clearly 1990 scriptwriters weren't immune. And hadn't learned by the time of any of her 2000s returns (nope, she's still in plain old "Africa"). Yet, when Celia came back from "Europe", they made the effort to list some of the countries and cities she had visited. 

- Stephanie being Somali. On the same theme as the above. Fleur was a great actress and I loved Steph's characterisation / backstory. As well as just having a regular character of colour. I'm not personally of African heritage (mixed Indian/White here) but just seeing someone on my TV screen 2-3 times a week who looked different to the "default" Anglo Celtic was very welcomed. But... she didn't look Somali in any form (neither true ethnic Somali nor "Somali Bantu"). Not convincing. The surname Mbuti is a WEST AFRICAN surname (ie not Somali) and Somalia is virtually 100% Muslim in demographics. "Stephanie" probably doesn't even exist as a name in Somalia. Literally. My Somali friend at the time, growing up in the 90s, found it all embarrassing to watch. So the written backstory and the casting, again, screams of a "every sub-saharan African person looks the same and their surnames / cultures etc are all the same" mindset. I guarantee that they'd have gone to more effort to get these things right with a European character. What would have been less offensive, since I loved Fleur, was to just bring her in to represent an ethnic identity which Fleur could pull off with her own appearance (she is mixed Indian/Angolan/White). And give the character a surname / forename and nationality that reflected this (as well as Fleur's, ahem, Australian accent). 

On 05/06/2023 at 03:49, adam436 said:

Alf's disapproval of Roo's Asian boyfriend.

Correct. Unconscious bias before there was a word for the concept.

No doubt, the far right pond life on social media would be calling that storyline "too woke" if it aired in 2023. 

Edited June 10, 2023 by nenehcherry2

[nenehcherry2]

On 05/06/2023 at 12:49, cymbaline said:

On the race theme, remember the time the Rosses briefly took in Kevin, played by Wes Patten. He must've been one of the first indigenous actors on H&A. It smacked of tokenism and was pretty badly written. 

Sadly, the only reason the writers didn't make Kevin permanent was because he didn't receive enough fan letters. Wes confirmed this in an interview with Inside Soap that I kept for years. Similarly to Irene #2, Selina, Travis, Chloe and a few others, they'd bought him in as a guestie with the intention of bringing him back as a perm should the viewers have gelled with him. Number of received fan letters was the main measurement back then. Hence why he was written, for the most part, like a regular everyday character with little specific propose (and not defined by a specific storyline with an end point, unlike say Ryan Lee or Dodge). 

He cited being Aboriginal as the main reason why Oz fans didn't gel with him and hoped that when the episodes aired in UK (6 months later), UK fan letters would pour in. The latter happened (unlike in Aus) but Seven never picked up the phone. 

Edited June 10, 2023 by nenehcherry2

[Bobby Forever Missed]

The lack of people with mental or physical handicaps, though this could be applied to the 2023 show as well