WHO WE ARE: A column about Australia, by David Dale

Coucou!
Voici juste un article assez rigolo et surtout très intéressant sur les Aussies et la culture:-) Ze savais pas trop où l’ajouter sur les forums…
Bises,
Caro

WHO WE ARE: A column about Australia, by David Dale
(Sydney Morning Herald 04/02/07)
http://blogs.smh.com.au/sit/archives/2007/02/whwearedraft_for_next_week.html

Anybody who goes to an art gallery is a wanker, right? There are 3.6 million wankers in Australia. Only geeks go to libraries, so this country has 5.4 million geeks. Dance performances are for poofs and fag-hags, and now we know Australia has 1.6 million people like that.

Outside of school projects, you wouldn’t go sniffing dust in a museum unless you were a complete dag. Ring up 3.6 million as the national dag total. And anybody who has time to go wafting round a botanic garden needs to get a life – advice you must now offer to 5.4 million of your compatriots.

A survey released last week by the Bureau of Statistics under the catchy title Attendance at Selected Cultural Venues and Events challenges the conventional wisdom that Australia is a land of jocks and slobs. It turns out Australians are wankier, poofier, geekier and daggier than most of us imagined.

When I wrote about similar research back in 2002 (using the same introductory paragraph as I used here) the librarians got excited and reprinted my report in their journals. They’ll be less inclined to celebrate this time. At the beginning of this decade, 38 per cent of Australians said they visited a library at least once a year. Now only 34 per cent say that.

That’s not to say we’re replacing scholarly pursuits with vulgar amusements: attendance at sporting events dropped from 46 per cent in 1999 to 44 per cent last year, with the main losers being tennis, motor sports, and cricket. Art gallery attendances have risen from 21 per cent to 23, museums from 20 to 23 and dance from 9 to 10. And the librarians may be consoled to learn that their remaining fans are loyal bordering on obsessive — two thirds of whose who visit libraries do so more than six times a year, and a quarter of them go more than 20 times a year.

The Bureau drew these conclusions from interviewing people aged over 15 in 14,200 households. That’s an enormous sample compared with the 3000 households from which television ratings are estimated. It enabled the bureau to dissect our leisure cholices thus:

th_danielcraig.jpg HOW AUSTRALIA GOES OUT
Percentage of people over 15 who visit at least once a year …
1. The cinema: 65 per cent (mostly Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest; The Chronicles of Narnia; Casino Royale; The Da Vinci Code; Ice Age 2). Peak attenders: women aged 15-24.
2. Sporting events: 44 per cent (of which AFL 16 per cent, horse racing 12, rugby league 9, motor sports 9, cricket 5, soccer 4). Peak: men 18-24.
3 Zoos and aquariums: 36 per cent. Families with young children.
4 Libraries: 34 per cent. Women 35-44.
5 Botanic gardens: 34 per cent. Women 55-64.
6 Pop concerts: 25 per cent. Unmarried people 18-24.
7 Museums: 23 per cent. Families with young children.
8 Art galleries: 23 per cent. Women 45-64.
9 Theatre: 17 per cent. Women 45-64.

10 « Other performing arts » (such as revues, variety shows and circuses): 17 per cent. Women 25-44.
10 Musicals and operas: 16 per cent. Women 45-64.
11 Dance performances 10 per cent. Girls 15-17.
12 Classical music concerts: 9 per cent. Women 55-64.

Some 12 per cent say they don’t go out to any of the listed activities, even once a year, which means that only 1.7 million of us are couch potatoes. All in all, we may reach this conclusion: at least 15 million Australians are a diverse, active and charming bunch of sophisticates. Well, the female Australians, anyway.

We welcome your comments.

Published in The Sun-Herald 4/2/2007

(To determine if you are suitable to be an Australian, go to the test.)

David Dale is the author of Who We Are — A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). For further discussion of Australian attitudes and behaviour, go to http://www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.