Monday, December 03, 2012

Australia's National Myth Is Still Forming

Australia is such a young country that its identity isn't firmly fixed. With his movie 'Australia', Baz Luhrmann aspired to provide a national myth equivalent to France's 'Song of Roland' or England's Arthurian tales. I find it amazing that Peter Allen's 'Tenterfield Saddler', a 1972 song which has a line referring to Liza Minnelli, is now almost Australia's unofficial national anthem. Broadway-type songs seem to function in a different way there than here. You can't disguise the communal enthusiasm for 'I Go To Rio'!

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