Don't be un-Australian

January 17, 2005 5:52 PM

The message is clear - don't get busted eating anything but Lamb this Australia Day. (Possibly NSF vegans/vegetarians/etc. links are .wmv)
posted by fullysic (25 comments total)

Link to current TV ads from the Australian Meat & Livestock Assoc'n - an interesting approach.
posted by fullysic at 5:53 PM on January 17, 2005

Must...eat...lamb.

But really, this ad is interesting; I wonder if it was actively inspired by the "I Am Canadian" beer commercial which has taken over Canada (yet not really helped Canadian beer sales - did wonders for t-shirts and hats, though). It's certainly different in that it's much more aggressive.
posted by mek at 5:58 PM on January 17, 2005

I was just thinking... sounds an awful lot like Don Cherry.
posted by Evstar at 6:06 PM on January 17, 2005

Sam Kekovich is a retired Australian Rules player. He used to feature on a sports/comedy panel show called "The Fat".

Their description of Sam;

"Who is Sam? Slamming Sam Kekovich was the hard man of the VFL back when men were men and so were some of the women tennis players. Nothing moved on the North Melbourne half-back flank without his written permission.
Sam has kicked on strongly and now shares his weekly wisdom with all those who needs help, and that's all of you."

This over the top right wing persona is a piss take and a very funny one at that. Sam's wisdom is collected in a great book called You know it makes sense

An example of Sam's brilliance is his opinion of backpackers:

"As a rule I hate no one, but I make an exception for backpackers.
There is nothing worse than goateed windscreen-cleaning idiots who think tofu is a food and sleeping eight to a room is the key to freedom.
I sat next to a couple of ferals on the tram the other day and it was all globalisation is evil, patriotism is racism and meat is murder.
Visit reality you anaemic fools."

Sadly The Fat is no longer on our screens and we are left without a weekly wake up call from the man they call Slammin' Sam.
posted by bangalla at 6:52 PM on January 17, 2005

I thought that the ad was off the hook, funny and tongue in cheek.
posted by wonway at 6:56 PM on January 17, 2005

Mmmmmmh ... bbq'ed lamb ....
posted by sour cream at 7:11 PM on January 17, 2005

I had no idea Ed Anger was Australian. (I also had no idea what Sam Anger said thru 90% of that ad but I was saluting my Barbie dolls by the end of it.)
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 7:45 PM on January 17, 2005

It's especially interesting in the light of how in recent years the term 'UnAustralian' has been thrown around, by most as a catch-all for anything you don't agree with - racism, immigration, sports advertising, paid beach parking.
posted by cosmonik at 8:13 PM on January 17, 2005

Isn't lamb better associated with New Zealand than Australia? Australia is the world's largest supplier of wool, even though China actually has the most sheep. However, it is the sheep to people numbers that make NZ famous for its sheep, "In recent years New Zealand has been known for having 20 times more sheep than people, but that ratio is now down to 10-to-one." In Australia it's only 5 sheep for every 1 person, and in China it's 1 sheep for every 6 people (the same ratio as the population of sheep to people on the planet).
posted by scazza at 8:35 PM on January 17, 2005

BILLY UP YOUR TUCKERED JUMBUCKS. AND BE PROUD.
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:41 PM on January 17, 2005

NSF vegans/vegetarians/etc.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Are vegetarians too precious to confront meat consumption? Do we cover our ears and wail when the word 'hamburger' is intoned? Do we sob and faint when we pass by a McDonald's? Are videos of Rodney King getting beat up NSF people who believe we should be equal before the law? Is coverage of Bush's inauguration NSF democrats?

Last I checked, the website that has confronted meat consumption in the most graphic, explicit way possible was made by a vegetarian organization (PETA). When meat-eaters ask me why I'm a vegetarian, I usually invite them to sit down and view some documents regarding slaughterhouse abuse (such as this one from the Washington Post) or Gail Eisnitz's book, Slaughterhouse, in which she interviews USDA slaughterhouse veterinarians and slaughterworkers.) Or I try and have them boggle at the fact that pig slaughter lines in the U.S. move at 1100 animals per hour, more than three times the maximum allowed under European regulations. But--lo and behold!--it is the meat eaters that get squirmish and uncomfortable!

I don't know exactly how meat consumption and machismo got linked, or how the unfortunate corollary, that vegetarians are somehow fragile-hearted, arose--though it might make for an interesting genealogy. The meat industry certainly exploited this in their advertising campaigns.
posted by ori at 9:07 PM on January 17, 2005

WTF ori? You're being way over-sensitive, and playing into a stereotype that nobody but you raised. Calm. You have already done far more damage to vegetarianism than anything else this thread.

I read fullysic's 'NSF vegans' as "it's got to do with eating meat, so you're probably not going to like it". Simple. Don't read things into it that aren't there.

To hazard a guess with my gonzo anthropology, meat consumption and machismo is linked through the process of the hunter in nature, strength being a benefit in the killing of prey. Mammalian hunters in nature that consume their prey rely on strength of force to subdue their target, as opposed to searching/foraging for flora.
posted by cosmonik at 9:24 PM on January 17, 2005 [1 favorite]

Speaking of PETA, they have a current campaign, Save the Sheep, targetting the Australian lamb, sheep and wool industry. The video (available in various formats) is best seen with an empty stomach.
posted by kika at 9:28 PM on January 17, 2005

Sam sez:

"I’m sickened by the creeping tide of unAustralianism eroding our great traditions. A balanced Australia Day diet should consist of a few nice, juicy lamb chops and beer,

Your long-haired, dole bludging types are indulging their pierced tastebuds in all manner of exotic, foreign and often vegetarian cuisine,

It’s an absolute disgrace. Do you think the Diggers in the trenches were fighting for tofu sausages?

Look at our national song, Waltzing Matilda. It’s about a bloke trying to get a nice bit of lamb into his tuckerbag, not spicy chicken wings."
posted by uncanny hengeman at 9:33 PM on January 17, 2005

Oh, and I got a slight chuckle out of the first poster here...

http://www.mla.com.au/uploads/templates/otherpdf/posters.pdf

...where two lads get busted in a non-lamb-serving-McDonald's-esque drive thru.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 9:35 PM on January 17, 2005

I can't believe that I'm reading about Sam Kekovich on MeFi. He used to work in the same building as me, I used to be spoken to by him all the time. He speaks to you, you don't converse. Seemed like a nice enough guy, definitely a shit-stirrer when in TV personality mode, but pretty funny.
posted by bdave at 10:07 PM on January 17, 2005

Keka was also one of the first Australian sports stars to controversially "down-trou" and pose nude for a newspaper. Albeit with a strategically placed football.

Caused quite a fuss at the time (late 70s).
posted by uncanny hengeman at 10:32 PM on January 17, 2005

"Friends don't let friends become vegetarians."

No, we don't know how to spell subtle here :)
posted by polyglot at 11:36 PM on January 17, 2005

Who counts all these sheep?
posted by spazzm at 1:40 AM on January 18, 2005

WTF ori? You're being way over-sensitive, and playing into a stereotype that nobody but you raised.

Yes, ori was over-the-top on that objection, but your second assertion is way bogus. The stereotype of vegetarians/vegans as the ones who can't bear to face the horrific violence involved in meat production is well-entrenched and I've encountered it more times that I could possibly recount: "Cover your ears" is commonly said "jokingly" when a group discussion comes around to something meat-related.

As ori pointed out, vegetarians/vegans are the ones who willingly immerse ourselves in the detailed horrors of meat production, because we want to be as well-informed as possible about an issue that's important to us. It's hard not to see this "sorry, this will be uncomfortable for you" as a projection of meat-eaters' own discomfort in partaking in needless cruelty. Carol Adams has discussed that phenomenon extensively in Living Among Meat-Eaters, and covered the macho/meat-eating paradigm in The Sexual Politics of Meat, which exposes a much richer association than that "gonzo" equation of mammals with "predators."

So say what you want about ori's strident tone - but the point itself stands.
posted by soyjoy at 8:18 AM on January 18, 2005 [1 favorite]

Not to further a clearly sensitive issue, but this is MetaFilter: soyjoy, does this mean that pro-meat propaganda does not offend vegetarians in the same way ori alledges anti-meat propaganda offends those with meat on their breath? This is beyond an issue of furthering one's own beliefs -- this production takes several dings towards vegetarians, both explicitly and implicitly. Can you say you enjoy it with the same passion as one who would not feel as strongly about meat production issues?

I thought fullysic's trailer was a comic aside - perhaps it is entrenched in a mistaken belief that vegetarians would not want to hear a diatribe about the virtues of meat consumption. Demonstratably, vegetarians do not want to have that image put upon them.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 2:37 PM on January 18, 2005

soyjoy - I definitely read it differently, and I think the over-sensitivity on ori's part was the only reason he/she read that stereotype into it. I understand it's a well-entrenched stereotype, but neither the post nor the thread were going anywhere near that element of this humourous piece of advertising.

To say vegans are the only ones who willingly immerse themselves in the horrors of meat production is out-and-out false. I know many carnivores who like to stay informed about what they eat, cancerous tumours, pustules and all.
posted by cosmonik at 5:43 PM on January 18, 2005

Meat and Livestock Australia marketing manager David Thomason was pleased about the compliments the advertisement had attracted.
(The Age - Melbourne broadsheet -may ask for registration-hopefully not)
posted by fullysic at 1:44 AM on January 19, 2005

ogre and cosmonik, you're both taking my point further than I said it. If you'll reread, I think you'll see that I was referring specifically to the charge that the well-entrenched stereotype was not raised by the disclaimer itself. It was. But to answer your questions, rhetorical or otherwise...

does this mean that pro-meat propaganda does not offend vegetarians in the same way ori alledges anti-meat propaganda offends those with meat on their breath?

I wouldn't think two opposite things would offend opposite constituencies in the same way, no. But I never said anything like that.

Can you say you enjoy it with the same passion as one who would not feel as strongly about meat production issues?

Why would I need to say that in order to have said what I said?

I thought fullysic's trailer was a comic aside

I thought so too. And I wasn't offended in the least by it. But that doesn't alter the fact that its very phrasing, and its intended comic effect, depends on the stereotyped equation between people being afraid or unwilling to view sexual material and people being afraid or unwilling to view meat-related material.

perhaps it is entrenched in a mistaken belief that vegetarians would not want to hear a diatribe about the virtues of meat consumption.

Maybe, but that's not what I said. The "mistaken belief" is that this material is to vegetarians what graphic sex is to prudes - something we try mightily to avoid seeing or hearing about.

To say vegans are the only ones who willingly immerse themselves in the horrors of meat production is out-and-out false.

Again, you've changed what I said by adding the word "only." I said "vegetarians/vegans are the ones who willingly immerse ourselves in the detailed horrors of meat production." This means that comparing the two populations, v/v and meat-eaters, it's the latter population who are generally more queasy about these specifics and the former who examine it forthrightly. Of course there will be individual exceptions. But I think that point was pretty clear until my sentence was altered.
posted by soyjoy at 8:04 AM on January 19, 2005

I just wanted to reccommend to all, if you can find it, Adbusters' superb Eat issue. It completely changed how I eat, and I am still a meat-eater. You don't have to abstain from meat in order to actively, thoroughly care for the treatment of animals, the environment, the future of the world.

As for what that ad was espousing/satirizing was the stereotypical Australian view, depicted through meat, not that of meat-eaters in general. It was such a stereotype of Australians: the cowboy, outback, masculine perspective.
posted by scazza at 12:33 PM on January 20, 2005