In the past in Australia at times, and even now, the association of some groups of people with nudity for some audiences confirmed the ‘savagery’ of those people.

In Australia when assessing the appropriateness of depictions of nudity for television today what is relevant is context.

For example the public broadcaster Special Broadcasting Services (SBS) state in their Code of Practice:

What is inappropriate and unacceptable in one context may be appropriate and acceptable in another. Factors to consider include: the artistic or educational merit of the production, the purpose of a sequence, the tone, the camera work, the intensity and relevance of the material, the treatment, and the intended audience.

With regards to sex and nudity specifically, the Code includes the following:

In assessing program content involving sex and nudity, consideration is given to a number of factors including:

• the responsibility with which visuals and subject matter are treated, particularly the treatment of non-consensual sexual activities and any sexual activity involving minors;

• the degree of explicitness; and

• the impact that visuals have in the context of a program as a whole.

It is the context in which the nudity is depicted that is primary, so for example a depiction that includes nudity in the guise of part of a man’s buttocks while he jumps into a waterhole for a swim may be considered here in Australia to be appropriate for a general audience. In contrast, a depiction of part of a man’s buttocks while he wears costuming associated with sadomasochism and bondage may lead to parental guidance being recommended. In some contexts such a depiction may not be recommended to viewers under the age of fifteen.

While in Australia these principles have been expressed in regulatory tools and guidelines across the television industry since the mid to late 1990s, the current Australian Classification Scheme kicked off in 1995, the emphasis on context when assessing the suitability of nudity for broadcast predates these classification tools. How to value the weight of the context shifts with changing community standards. For example while breastfeeding involving breast nudity may not have made it to air in the late 1950s, this would now be considered suitable for a general audience.

The nudity in a depiction of a group of people who are not wearing clothing, and are presented lounging on red velvet-covered furniture in a brothel’s flock- wallpapered room, can be understood to be nudity in a sexualised context. This may be treated differently, when assessing the classification of a program, than a depiction of a group of people who some may understand to be without clothing who are presented living where there are long standing traditions associated with this approach. There is also the question of course of how to define nudity. Some human groups adorn themselves for spiritual and cultural purpose with pigment and jewellery. Are these people naked? Assessing such depictions with respect would be motivated in the contemporary experience by what the SBS Code recognises as ‘the social, cultural and spiritual integrity of Indigenous societies and…the diversity across and within these societies’.

While some content is still not considered suitable for broadcast, overall with regards to free to air television Australia now adopts an approach of classification rather than censorship:

Prima facie classification implies that nothing is banned…only restricted if necessary. Classification has certainly a more neutral flavour than the more pejorative term censorship … Whereas censorship is suggestive of public order and idea of the public good, classification is associated with the facilitation of informed choice in a community of diverse standards. - Crowe v Graham (1968) 121 CLR 375, 379.

The Melbourne Summer Olympics in 1956 proved a catalyst for the take up of television in Australia. The ebullience of the time and the new medium buoyed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activists in Australia seeking to redress some of the crushing inequity that had developed, and sharing information with audiences about activism as it took place. By 1966 this included the Wave Hill Station walk-off, led by the hero Vincent Lingiari. As now, non-Indigenous peoples had a lot to learn from and about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and the openness of those in Australia to do so at this time is exemplified by nine out of every ten Australians who voted in the 1967 Referendum voting to support a change to the Constitution so that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were considered part of the Australian population. Many wish to strengthen relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous peoples today, and not only the National Indigenous Television, (NITV). is showcasing the creative cultural work of interest to and created by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Stereotypes and racism persist, but there are changes.

Reading even the opening of such a document as Joseph B. Birdsell’s 1953 peer reviewed article ‘Some Environmental and Cultural Factors Influencing the Structuring of Australian Aboriginal Populations’ is breathtaking in how little the author picked up that was accurate in regards to the culture and experience of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It may be in seventy years if my comments are read by an Australian that person would find my reasoning as uneducated and off the nail. Or even sooner! Hope this helps all the same.