Melbourne taking a slice of the American pie with allegiance to US culture
FROM Halloween to hot dogs and sports bars and buffalo wings, Melbourne’s appetite for a slice of American pie has seen us embracing US culture with open arms.
Best of Melbourne
Don't miss out on the headlines from Best of Melbourne. Followed categories will be added to My News.
CHEERLEADERS, sports bars, Halloween and hot rods; buffalo wings, burgers and Budweisers … no it’s not downtown Manhattan, it’s downtown Melbourne.
There was a time when US culture Down Under was limited to McDonald’s and Mickey Mouse, but globalisation has only increased Australia’s appetite for a slice of the American pie.
While British influence following colonial settlement is still evident, from our national flag to our political system, since the end of World War II, Australia has slowly shifted its allegiance, with British cultural legacies giving way to American ideals.
Particularly during the 1960s, the US way of life was projected further into Australia via pop culture, while in the past 25 years the rise of the internet has rapidly filtered even more of America into Australia. However it’s much more evident than just annoying autocorrect trying to replace an “s” with a “z”.
![Model Anna McEvoy [from Chadwicks] dressed as the Statue of Liberty outside Flinders st Station. Picture: Alex Coppel.](https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/a97e7b8a2e8fa4d82b8adb6a537c9629?width=650)
Adjunct Professor Stephen Alomes, contemporary cultural historian at RMIT, says as access to global media has grown, so has America’s influence.
“America’s influence definitely grew with film, as picture theatres had to take on a package which was controlled by Hollywood,” Alomes says. “Then when television was introduced, apart from reality programs, locally produced shows were expensive to make.”
In a bid to ensure broadcasting reflected a sense of Australian identity, the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, required all commercial, free-to-air television licensees to broadcast an annual minimum transmission quota of 55 per cent of Australian programming between 6am and midnight on their primary channel, and at least 1460 hours of Australian programming on their non-primary channels in the same timeslot.
But Foxtel and pay TV at the turn of the century made channels such as Nickelodeon and programs like Keeping up with the Kardashians much more accessible, while the rise of on-demand television including Netflix, has seen viewers given more choice around entertainment, and ultimately altered the ways we feed, entertain, dress and even socialise.
Alomes says it’s not uncommon for Australian children, and even teenagers, to speak with a US accent, while some adults refer to Donald Trump as “our president”.
“Awesome and OMG have become common phrases in Australia … But Australia does need to ensure that its own voice is being heard in the media, too; otherwise it’s kind of like a dairy farmer living on tinned milk,” he says.
“There have even been reports of people calling 911 instead of triple-0.”
Alomes says Australia’s love of the States is influenced by America’s reputation as a “cultural empire”.
“In the 1960s, London was the global metropolis, now it is New York,” he says.
“As the world becomes more globalised, people look to great cultural capitals of wealth, success and excitement and the US offers a mix of both New York and Hollywood.”
As well as US-produced film and television, Australians also embrace American sport, with the National Basketball Association and National Football League leading the cross- pollination of sporting culture.
Sportsbet’s Will Byrne says the NBA bet count has increased at a rate faster than AFL. “While local sports, such as AFL are still more popular with punters, NBA is one of our fastest-growing sports to bet on,” Byrne says.
James Sinclair, who founded sports bar chain The Sporting Globe in Melbourne almost
a decade ago and has since bought the TGI Friday licence in Australia, agrees there’s been a generational shift towards consumption of US sporting codes.
“When I was living in America, I fell in love with how female-friendly the sports bars were,” Sinclair says.
“At the time in Australia, a sports bar was the corner of a dingy pub with a couple of TAB machines in the corner and some old blokes in overalls punting on the ponies.
“So I wanted to bring the concept to Australia. For the first Super Bowl we hosted at The Sporting Globe in Geelong in 2010, I had to bribe the local rugby club to come in and watch. Now, I have AFL clubs calling me to reserve areas for the team.”
Sinclair says part of the reason Australians have embraced US sporting codes is accessibility.
“They have such amazing content,” he says. “They are incredible marketing machines and entertainers — particularly on social media — where they give fans really engaging access
to the players.”
Sinclair says more sports will try to tap into the trend, with ice hockey among the codes experiencing growth locally.
“Championships are particularly big for ice hockey. We sponsor a local team and have also noticed growth from a grassroots level in the game,” he says.
He admits the rise of basketball particularly has been assisted by the profile of Australian players including Ben Simmons, Andrew Bogut, Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova, who are “legitimate stars of the game”.
Of course, you wouldn’t be living the American life in Melbourne if you watched an NFL game without sides of buttery hot buffalo wings and chilled Budweiser.
“Budweiser is easy drinking, particularly for the early 20s market who are not accustomed to the bitter taste of iconic Australian beers such as Carlton Draught and Victorian Bitter,” Sinclair says of the beer brand whose parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) interestingly bought CUB in 2016.
“Budweiser are also attracting the youth market through sport, with three of the five most popular Super Bowl ads coming from the beer brand, while they also sponsor World Cup soccer.”
On the back of our obsession with US sport comes the cheerleading craze. But forget the pompoms and the sideline routines at the footy, cheerleading in Australia is reaching new heights in its quest to become a legitimate sport.
Australia’s high-flying cheerleading teams returned last month from the World Cheer
& Dance Championships at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, where they claimed second, third and fourth places at the highest level.
Australian All Star Cheerleading Federation owner and program director Rosemary Sims-James says there is plenty to cheer about when it comes to the growth of the sport locally.
Sims-James, who has been involved with cheerleading since the 1980s, says the success
of the sport, which has grown approximately 27 per cent on average every year for the past
10 years, is due to its positive values.
“It’s one of the only sports where males and females participate on the floor together as a team and where whether you’re short or tall, petite or broad, it’s so inclusive of who you are and there is a role for everyone,” she says.
“When we first brought the concept to Australia 13 years ago, 400 athletes competed in the first nationals. Nearly 12,500 competed in the last nationals. We are now in the beginning stages of it becoming an Olympic sport.”
And while sparkles are big on cheerleading mats, they are far from the American-influence style seen on Melbourne footpaths, with hoodies, jerseys, caps and varsity jackets seemingly immune to seasonal trends.
Among homegrown stores leading the way in US street-style is Culture Kings. Representing the relationship between music and sport, the cult retailer offers a curated range of more than 100 street, sport and fashion brands from across the globe, further appealing to American-loving customers with regular appearances from top athletes and DJs.
Of course, there’s another type of dressing that also takes its cue from the US. If you have stepped out on October 31 in the past few years, you will have noticed the sudden ubiquity of children disguised as ghosts and ghouls, or Spider-Man and Frozen’s Princess Elsa.
Alomes says the celebration with the adorably occult roots, much like Hallmark holiday Valentine’s Day, has seen significant growth in Australia in recent years, filling a lull in the marketing year post football finals and pre-Christmas, while appealing to trick-or-treating kids and their parents, along with youth who “love any excuse to party”.
Costume Box owner and founder Nikki Yeaman says Halloween “has gone up tenfold” in the decade since she launched her costume company.
“It’s definitely struck a chord with Australians in recent years; it has a lighthearted nature, it’s non-religious, and Australians love to dress up,” she says. “Because it stays light in Australia at that time of year, it also lends itself to street parties and is neighbourhood friendly.”
Yeaman says while her store has seen a bump in July 4 sales and New Orleans mardi gras events, Halloween remains its biggest trading season. She also notes a growth in Halloween home decor, while pop-culture costumes are overtaking traditional horror.
“Last year, our most-popular selling costume was Eleven from Netflix series Stranger Things, while Australians are also starting to dress up their houses with skeletons and other themed decor,” she says. “We barely sold pumpkin-carving kits a decade ago, now we sell hundreds”.
So could turkey-carving thanksgiving parties be on the horizon?
Mornington couple Natasha Wood, 46, and Peter Wright, 55, think so. Despite neither
of them being born in the US, they have hosted a thanksgiving party for the past three years.
“I think I started the process just because I like the idea of giving thanks,” Wright says. “It’s also a great get-together because it falls on the last week of November and so often you struggle to catch up with everyone leading up to the busy Christmas period.”
The couple, who also celebrate Halloween, Super Bowl, the Tony Awards and Academy Awards, serve US-inspired thanksgiving dishes, including turkey and pecan and pumpkin pie for dessert.
“Thanksgiving and Halloween really cut across all groups in America and we have been drawn to those egalitarian celebrations in a way,” Wright says.
Australians are also embracing more intimate celebrations, with Las Vegas-style wedding venues appealing to couples who want to tie the knot in a unique setting.
Celebrant Sarah Dobson, co-founder of The Altar Electric, which opened in 2017, describes the quirky alternative as “the hippest little wedding chapel this side of Vegas”.
“We wanted to offer people a really fun alternative, so now they can get married under a neon sign in the back section of a bar,” she says of the space in Ferdydurke in Tattersalls Lane.
She says it’s inspired by Vegas for those who fantasise about running away to get married and snubbing tradition.
The venue holds up to 20 guests, and Dobson says bar staff are also willing to be witnesses.
“I find performing these weddings much more emotional than large weddings because the couple aren’t getting lost in the details; it’s just about them … but it’s still a bit cheeky and a bit rock and roll,” she laughs.
THE WHEEL DEAL
IT is the simplicity of early American cars that has Ross Attwell hooked.
When a friend visiting California in 2012 sent him a photo of a 1930 Model A Ford that was for sale, Attwell did a deal over the phone to snap it up and ship it to Melbourne, sight unseen.
But it wasn’t the first American car he fell in love with — 25 years ago he bought a 1958 Ford F100 (above), known colloquially as the fridge truck.
“It was the ugly duckling of the F100s,” Attwell says. “It was what drew me to it.”
Attwell, who still owns the truck, completely rebuilt it with his father, his dad believing it was just a phase he was going through. It had a freshen up for its 50th birthday in 2008.
He believes his love of American cars came from his dad, a long-time Buick fan, and his paternal grandfather, both mechanics and interstate truck drivers.
His maternal grandfather passed on a passion for woodworking and furniture-making, Attwell developing a love of mid-century Americana.
Attwell and wife Sarah share an interest in American pop culture and have visited the US at least once a year for the past 20 years, timing their trips around big swap meets and car shows.
Attwell drives his cars regularly — “they are there to be enjoyed and used, not to be trailer queens” — and is in a local early American car club.
And he still enjoys seeing the pleasure the cars give other people when he takes them for a spin.
How to plan a post-lockdown Great Ocean Road getaway
The regional border has lifted, which means we can plan a trip to the Great Ocean Road. Here’s where to eat, stay and play.
‘I wouldn’t even s*** that’: What you missed on Wentworth
Wentworth does WikiLeaks in the third episode of the new season, as the Foxtel drama welcomes a new face. And there’s drama for Reb and Lou. Warning: Spoilers.