Julia Gillard, a former Australian prime minister, has slammed Neighbours, stating that it has made British viewers uninformed about her country’s culture.
For decades, the long-running soap has been a staple of UK television, helping to launch the careers of Kylie Minogue, Margot Robbie, and a slew of other celebrities.
However, Gillard, Australia’s first female prime minister who served from 2010 to 2013, claimed that the soap had harmed residents’ opinions of the country.
“I believe it’s quite frustrating for Australians when they’re presented in the UK with an image of their country based on watching Neighbours,” she told the BBC’s Inside Culture program (via iNews).
“As proud as we are of Kylie and the crew, it’s sort of frozen in time and you just want to, say yes, but can we talk about the rest of it? Because you feel held back.”
Cate Blanchett also spoke out during the show, criticizing UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson for using stereotypical Australian cuisine allusions when negotiating a trade pact with the country, calling it “nostalgic.”
“I first came to the UK in the 90s and I was expecting an advanced, perhaps more sophisticated understanding of one another’s cultures,” she said.
“And I was quite shocked that those very clichés we see in those baskets were alive and well, when in fact they weren’t really representative of either of our cultures.”
However, comedian Tim Minchin countered the arguments, saying: “I don’t look right for Neighbours, and [in Australia] people would come and see my shows and go, ‘We should talk,’ and that would sort of, be it. Whereas when I got here, everyone just went, ‘You’re a thing, you’re a real thing.’
“I feel more an intellectual being over [in the UK], as in I have met some of my great intellectual heroes and been treated as an equal and been taken seriously. And it’s given me self-esteem about my work.”
In 2022, Neighbours will air a unique UK-set plotline with British stars Amanda Holden and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, when Harlow Robinson visits London.