ABSTRACT
Heartland is a 13-episode, 15-hour television mini-series starring Aboriginal actor Ernie Dingo, produced in 1994 by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Ross Warneke, in Melbourne's Age newspaper, headlined his review of the series ‘Worthy Heartland Must Also Be Good Television’ and worried that the programme was likely to be too ‘worthy’ and too informed by ‘political correctness’ to attract popular audiences, but stressed that Heartland was ‘an important and worthy series’. Not before time, it puts Aborigines and some elements of their culture at centre stage. Similar doubts about the ‘reach’ of the show were articulated by Sue Turnbull and Rick Thompson, in a review which revealed that although they had tried to force themselves to watch the programme, they had eventually given up and (guiltily) watched an American show on another channel. 1 Both articles place Heartland within a strong tradition of television programmes and films representing indigeneity in Australia, but a tradition rarely commanding high ratings. Such texts are often seen to be worthy, serious, important; they demand spectatorship which is committed, socially aware and dutiful. They are not (apparently) however about entertainment or pleasure.
