Earlier this week we reported on a new campaign by Clubs Australia opposing proposed reforms to pokies venues. As part of the campaign, an ad depicted two Aussie blokes having a quiet beer and a quick flutter, agog at the idea of having a daily spend limit on the pokies habit. “It’s un-Australian,” gasps one in horror. Stoic, sports-loving, beer-drinking, emotion-hiding, hard-working, authority-bucking, laconic - this is the stereotype of Australian masculinity.
But does reality conform to the fantasy? All week we’ve been taking a good, hard look in the mirror of Australia’s national identity. In The Sentimental Bloke - the first in our So Who the Bloody Hell Are We? series of videos to be published over the next few days - Michael Cathcart, Craig Sherborne, Anne Summers and Craig Reucassel debate the finer points of the what it means to be a bloke in today’s Australia. Where are our templates of masculinity formed, and how true to life are they? How has the face of Australian fatherhood changed since decades past, and why? Do our nation’s traditionally ‘male’ pastimes and occupations still ring true? And will you be drinking beer or wine?