Underbelly, true crime and the cultural economy of infamy

Abstract

By putting the vocabulary of aspiration in the mouths of criminals, and by situating them in the suburbs, Underbelly suggests that ruthless, murderous competition may not be incompatible with the Australian Dream. Exposing a generation's denial of the criminal elements behind ecstasy's fetishized status, it problematizes celebratory accounts of club culture, and suggests dark externalities for the ‘night-time economy’ of our inner cities. As well as connecting country, suburb and city in repressed criminality, by virtue of its casting choices at the very least, the series blurs the lines between ordinariness, celebrity and infamy. It is in these unresolved tensions that Underbelly constitutes a televisual history of Australia's present that countervails the official pieties of the ordinary that characterized the Howard years.

Acknowledgements

This article has benefited significantly from the research assistance of Ian Rogers and Tim Laurie, and the generous comments of several readers and reviewers.

Notes

 1. For a critical account of recent manifestations of the genre see Seltzer (2006).

 2. The specifics of this history can be heard in the public conversation between Melissa Gregg and Andrew Rule, ‘Exposing the Underbelly’, hosted by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, October 2009. See http://www.acmi.net.au

 3. Thanks to David Gregg for forwarding Kohler's correspondence.

 4. For discussion of the rhetorical appeal of the ‘ordinary’ and the ‘battler’ during the Howard Prime Ministership see Brett (2005), Brett and Moran (2006), and Sharpe and Boucher (2008).

 5. Blue Heelers alumni alone included Carolyn Craig, Martin Sacks and Damian Walshe-Howling in Season One, with John Wood joining the cast in Season Two.

 6. It also highlighted the strategic use of ethnicity in marketing the sexier image of the first season. Billing's Trimbole, short and overweight, is the avuncular rogue to Gangitano's (Vince Colosimo's) smouldering intensity.

 7. In its notorious use of both male and female nudity, Underbelly 1 and 2 each challenged politically correct programming of recent decades, if not feminism per se. Graeme Blundell (2008), one-time star of Alvin Purple (1973), welcomed the return to this 1970s full-frontal style in his review for The Australian, perhaps conscious of the benefits it afforded his own career. A feminist reading of Season One certainly seemed possible, as the competing egos of the male protagonists led to similarly pointless ends for the bulk of the script. One episode – ‘Wise Monkeys’ – was dedicated entirely to the perspective of female characters, which could be read as tokenistic if it did not translate so literally to multiple awards for lead actress Kat Stewart (Roberta Williams) and supporting actress Madeleine West (Danielle McGuire). In the final episodes of Season One, it is the female detective Jacqui James who finally elicits the pivotal confession. Season Two was far less optimistic, with the initial attention given to Asher Keddie's glamorous detective Liz Cruickshank eventually abandoned in the anti-climactic final episodes. It might be possible, then, to read Tale of Two Cities as a prequel in the strictest sense to the feminist twist that closes the first season.

 8. Not to mention a new line in low-brow porn: actresses hired for pole-dancing roles in Season One followed Roberta Williams' lead by appearing in men's magazines in 2008–2009.

 9. In titles such as Gerald Stone's Who Killed Channel Nine (2007; updated 2008), plus Paul Barry's update of The Rise and Rise of Kerry Packer (2007). Boned, by Anon., offered a more humorous take on the inside workings of the station's current affairs.

10. Calculated on the initial rate of $40,000 per 30-second advertisement for Underbelly 1, and Victoria's 25% market share of the national total (Casey 2008). By Season Two, advertising rates were attracting up to $60,000 for 30 seconds, causing concern for businesses seeking to profit from the show's success without bombarding viewers; see McIntyre (2008).

11. Underbelly was screened in the years following a notorious incident involving one-time Nine Network Head Eddie McGuire, best known to audiences as host of the Melbourne-based The Footy Show light entertainment programme and the Australian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? McGuire was widely reported as having implied that a leading female news anchor would be ‘boned’ – an alleged colloquialism for ‘fired’ – for her lack of conventional beauty. The close association between ‘boned’ (fired) and the more familiar synonym for ‘boned’ (fucked) is typical of Nine's reputation for deliberately intimidating female employees – although it should be acknowledged that such conditions are hardly restricted to the one network or industry. The long-standing ‘underworld’ culture at Nine was already recognized in the 2006 headline for the Media Watch episode that covered the McGuire story for the ABC: ‘Nine's Gangsters’.

12. This continues in the second season's narrative, where heroin dealer Terry Clark kills off associates who have themselves become addicts.

13. Flew (2008) defines this as ‘a term that is used to describe the diverse range of service-related and creative industries associated with leisure, entertainment, hospitality and tourism, which cater to the “liminal zone” between work and home for the local population, and activities related to travel and tourism for those visiting a city’ (p. 8).