Independent women:Deborah Mailman as Alex Irving and Rachel Griffiths as Rachel Anderson in Total Control.Credit:ABC/Blackfella
The team at Blackfella,which produced the show,wanted to explore through drama how that system could be challenged “when people who don’t feel represented rise up and stake their claim”.
And that is precisely what happened on the weekend. “To see it play out in such a stunning way six months later is extraordinary and testament to the power of our democracy when the status quo is challenged,” says Dale.
But Griffiths isn’t laying claim to being a latter-day Nostradamus. She feels the series “reflected rather than predicted” a mood in the community,particularly prevalent among female voters.
“I think women have just had a gutful of how politics is done,” she says. “Part of the show’s DNA is that the cost of service for women has been too much.”
She’s referring to the “dark heart and dark arts” of both the party political machine and the surrounding discourse “in the press,in the public,in social media”. She’s also referring to the fact women in politics – and even more so women of colour – are held to a vastly different standard than their male counterparts.
“If a woman looked or acted like Boris Johnson,would she get elected,let alone be prime minister?” she asks rhetorically. “Some girl with egg on her dress and wild hair,who’s on her fourth husband? The double standards are gobsmacking.”