Pasta and Pasodoble is changing the look of Australian television. It is the reality and talent shows that are introducing a multicultural look to our screens. As over three and a half million viewers sat down to watch the final of Masterchef between Adelaide artist Poh Ling Yeow and mum Julie Goodwin we were presented with a picture of an Asian family on screen more elaborate than most Australian dramas have been able to produce in years, and a mother so devoted to her family that cooking for other people was inconceivable.

As even Matt Preston was quoted as saying “It is much easier to connect with people that think like you, cook like you, then people who come from a strange TV universe where everyone looks like Chesty Bond or Pamela Anderson”. He is also quoted as saying that the casting agent for the program had told the judges that she had never cast three uglier people for a TV show. Considering the ratings juggernaut that the show has proven to be it seems a triumph of character over looks. If Preston, Mehigan and Colombaris can be described as “ugly” one shudders at the criteria for the average casting session in this country.

Here is where producers need to sit up and take note, at a time when the television industry is under siege from new technologies, the public identifies with people that behave and look like them. Is it any wonder that a whole generation of teenagers prefer to watch themselves on Youtube than what the commercial networks are offering?

After twenty-five years in acting I’ve come to the conclusion that when it comes to casting the majority of the Australian film and television industry can’t tell the difference between a Greek and an Italian. Our soap operas are often used as an example of our Anglo and homogenised film and television industry, the sad truth is that shows such as Neighbours and Home and Away are, more often than not, the scape goat for what is an endemic issue in our viewing culture, that fact that our television content falls short of representing the diversity of our population.

This makes it harder for a country still trying to define its national identity.
We are all encouraged to be “Australian” but the portrayal of our nation doesn’t reflect us all. An issue not purely confined to race but also gender, age, and sexual orientation. Like parents who tell their children that they are all loved equally yet the family album is full of photos of the first born. Adding to this politicians' use of the phrase “unaustralian” to describe anybody in disagreement with them and you have an even murkier picture of who we are. It still baffles me that few of the faces hosting travel shows look like they can speak another language yet we send them all over the globe.

We might think that turning our shows into a bag of liquorice all sorts of nationalities might be going too far and the idea would bring screams of “The politically correct have gone crazy!” but when we look at shows cast purely on talent, ability and charisma such as Idol, Masterchef and So You Think You Can Dance a full fan of backgrounds appears on our screens without too much fuss.

Casting decisions in Australia drama remain corporate choices, instead of artistic, and corporate decisions are, by their very nature, safe. It is when the net has to be cast wider to non-professional performers/contestants that real diversity occurs, not from a talent pool narrowed down by rejection of the odd, the ugly and the ethnic.
Reality television, albeit unwittingly, is placing diversity on centre stage and we, as the audience, are lapping it up without realising, the days of sidelining ethnic characters to peripheral, supporting roles are over.
Masterchef served up very little beefcake, instead we will remember characters like Poh, Geni, Tom, Andre and Colombaris not so much for their ethnic backgrounds but for their personalities, passions, struggles, tears, journeys and courage.
If anything Masterchef has proven that Australia would rather watch a rice and seafood paella than a table full of party pies. Executive producers start cooking your time starts now.