The pictures of the US President and the Danish Prime Minister taking selfies together at the funeral of Nelson Mandela last year were notable not just for the immediate cultural moment they captured, but also for the culmination of aspirational cultural premediation and the triumph of soft power.
A year before Denmark’s first female Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt was voted into office, Birgitte Nyborg was setting an example as the first female leader of Danish government in the television programme Borgen.
It echoes an earlier episode of life imitating art, when two years before Barack Obama became the first African American US president, The West Wing character Matt Santos achieved the triumph of becoming the first US President from a racial minority.
Birgitte Nyborg and Matt Santos may be fictional characters, but their presence in the collective imagination appears to have reinvigorated the political scenes in their respective countries. Regardless of how you view the success Obama’s presidency, or Thorning-Schmidt’s social democratic policies (growing productivity by adding twelve minutes of work to each day, for one), it is doubtless that television writers like Borgen creator Adam Price are subtly influencing public opinion by seducing us in our leisure time.
“I thought it was very interesting that in our self-sufficient western democracies, we don't want to bother with defending democracy. Perhaps we don't even vote. And yet when we [don’t] have democracy, we're willing to die for it. And that is an interesting dilemma; how can we stand up for democracy when so many are so cynical about it? That was perhaps the very beginning of Borgen for me,” said Price.
So where is our aspirational political television, Australia?
Channel Ten does have a political miniseries due to screen in 2014 starring Asher Keddie as a state politician on track to become premier. It has been described by the producers as “smart, funny, romantic drama”. It might be a result of our larrikin culture, or our hesitance to lionise our politicians, but Australian television has always backed away from serious political drama. Instead we produce lightweight fluff like Ten’s Party Tricks, or clownish satire like The Hollowmen.
There is nothing wrong with political satire when done well, as The Hollowmen is generally accepted to have been. British television series like The Thick of It and Absolute Power, as well as venerable vintage political comedy Yes Minister have their place in speaking truth to power with gentle ribbing, but there is no agenda-setting here.
Not all of the characters in Borgen are admirable, and most struggle with moral imperatives and judgements required in the business of government and media. There are no ‘good guys’ like there are on the more glossy and blithely idealistic West Wing. Yet occasionally the characters in Borgen actually believe in something, and represent possibility in politics and media. Watching politician protagonist Birgitte Nyborg negotiate career and family while also retaining her humanity and values is an important representation of womanhood in the modern age.
Australians have always had a tendency to make idols of outlaws rather than our leaders, and to belittle those who achieve success. Does that mean that we have the political leaders that we deserve? The creators of Borgen have talked about how they had to consider what Danish originality they could bring to television drama. We don’t need an Australian Borgen, or an Australian West Wing, or even an Australian House of Cards. We need an aspirational and authentically Australian political drama that can show us what our democracy could truly be.
Anne Treasure works in communications, is a recent survivor of the book industry, and exists mainly on the Internet.
