The Slap S01E03

In times of social turmoil, people seek out television which is comforting, and avoid television which is challenging, writes David Dale. So it would be reasonable to assume that right now Junior Masterchef is attracting a much bigger audience than The Slap in Australia. It isn’t, and we have to put that down to two new influences on the national mood: the DGHF and the LATS (Davis-George Hotness Factor and Lingering Aftertaste of the Turd Sandwich).

In 2003, soon after the towers fell in Manhattan and the bombs went off in Bali, our viewing behaviour turned inwards. Australians escaped to sweet lifestylers such as Backyard Blitz, The Block and Location Location, and linear dramas such as CSI, wherein villains were reliably brought to justice within an hour. It was not until 2005 that we could embrace complex cliffhangers such as Lost and Desperate Housewives. The newfound sense of adventure continued till 2007, when we dumped Mr Relaxed and Comfortable and took a risk with Mr Driven and Geeky.


Now the world is in economic meltdown and Australian politics are a bloodbath. We should be seeking escape in the cosy cooking of cute kiddies, but last Monday Junior MasterChef drew only 714,000 viewers in the mainland capitals, compared with 1.3 million last year. Meanwhile The Slap, full of unlikeable characters and moral dilemmas (just like federal parliament), is drawing 917,000 viewers on a Thursday night when Australians traditionally go shopping (plus 79,000 who record it on ABC1, 326,000 who watch or record the repeat on ABC2, and 95,000 who catch up online).

The explanation for the discrepancy may lie simply in the fact that The Slap, a work of fiction, looks much more plausible than Junior MasterChef, which purports to be “reality”. But I think there are other forces in play...

The LATS: Nine weeks ago Channel Ten served up a turd sandwich when it sliced the finale of MasterChef in two halves and inserted a chunk of The Renovators between them. The audience has taken revenge on every Ten program since then.

The DGHF: The Slap is based on a book which sold 200,000 copies in Australian bookshops, but that would only be a significant audience for Pay TV or SBS. The ABC needs bigger numbers to justify such a slice from its drama budget, so it put Melissa George on the side of buses and Essie Davis in cinema commercials. The ABC knows that Davis and George are the hottest actresses currently working in Australia, and it is exploiting their charisma to the max.

George’s hotness is somewhat diminished by her character’s habit of breastfeeding a four year old (indeed, THE four year old who received The Slap in episode 1 for kicking a man in the shins, swinging a cricket bat at other children and being a selfish brat, which just shows what happens if you keep breastfeeding a kid after the first 12 months of its life). But Davis is hot enough to compensate for this without even taking her clothes off. Davis, George and Ten’s sandwich-maker have transformed the viewing pattern of a nation under stress.

Television Series: The Slap (S01E03)
Release Date: October 2011
Actress: Melissa George & Katherine Halliday
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea

Melissa George










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Katherine Halliday










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