Righting a pop culture wrong

Growing up in Brisbane in the seventies and early eighties (pre-VCR era), our television viewing was decidedly White. Weekend matinee movies and week day viewing was dominated by White people – White Australians, Britains and Americans. The personalities I remember most are people like Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Doris Day, Cliff Richard (Summer Holiday), Elvis (who probably isn’t white but he was certainly identified as such), Debbie Reynolds, and later Burt Reynolds, Lee Majors, Clint Eastwood etc.

It’s only in my adulthood (post twenties) that I really learned how White our childhood viewing opportunities were, and how there is so much more out there that I have yet to experience.

I found this tonight –

I’m mesmerized by it. I feel like I’m righting a pop culture wrong.

That somehow I’m involved in some kind of decolonising project – where the absolute Whiteness of our childhood viewing gets to be undone.

This video is of the Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers who were a professional dance group in the nine-teen thirties. You can read more about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey’s_Lindy_Hoppers

Talk about wipe the floor with Kelly and Astaire.

Incredible.

Ps. I love the internet.