A growing number of actors have come forward to say they faced racism while working on the iconic Australian television soapie Neighbours, alleging management turned a blind eye when they directly raised their concerns.
Key points:
- Actor Shareena Clanton said she felt isolated and bullied on the set of Neighbours after she reported racism
- Actor Menik Gooneratne said she did not feel supported when she faced racist trolling on social media
- Actor Remy Hii said he felt he could not speak up about a viewer backlash when he appeared on the show
WARNING: The following story contains content some readers may find distressing.
Two weeks after actor Shareena Clanton detailed alleged incidents behind the scenes on social media, a number of former cast members have rallied around her, with three actors telling 7.30 they want a systemic overhaul of the production.
Speaking in her first television interview since going public, Clanton provided more details to 7.30 about what she claims she witnessed, including the repeated use of the n-word and the c-word, adding that Neighbours had been "the worst environment that I've worked in".
"There's a workplace environment that seems to have made it permissible for many years that discrimination, harassment and bullying has been allowed to occur," she said.
"There is something systemic here, there is something dangerous."
ABC News: Andrew Altree-Williams
)The industry union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, has now intervened, meeting with the production company for Neighbours, Fremantle, and insisting on new anti-racism, sexual harassment and discrimination training for all staff.
"This is standard practice in the US," MEAA director Michelle Rae said.
"The allegations over the past two weeks of racist and discriminatory behaviour on the set of Neighbours must be the catalyst for industry-wide change to make screen workplaces safer and more inclusive."
Former race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane told 7.30: "If this happened in the United States you'd expect that people would be fired and that heads would roll.
"That reflects how in Australia we still struggle in dealing with allegations of racism. There are many people who think that calling someone racist is a much graver offence than the perpetration of racism itself," he said.
Clanton said speaking up would risk her career, but she felt compelled to do so for other cast members.
"I wanted to say, 'You're not alone, and guess what, it is happening and you're not crazy. You're not less than, you have strength, and don't let anyone tell you that your experiences and your truths are invalid, because you matter.'"
Clanton was hired in a guest role on Neighbours, working on the set in suburban Melbourne between October 2020 and March this year.
Clanton said racism was rife behind the scenes, and that during the production the n-word was used among some staff members liberally.
When she heard the word used the first time by other cast members, she said she reported it.
For Clanton, who has Aboriginal and African American heritage, the word was deeply hurtful.
"I went straight to the producers," Clanton told 7.30. "Spoke about the racist terminology and history behind it and hurt, and the individual was apparently put on a warning."
She asked for the use of the n-word to stop, but it happened a second time.
While the word was not directed at her on the first two occasions, Clanton revealed to 7.30 that the n-word was then repeatedly used in her later conversations with other staff members.
"That was still used, and then laughed at even further by people who thought it OK and appropriate, and then to think such a word is funny because it's used in American rap music," she said.
The backlash from some staff over her speaking up, and the lack of support by management, she said, worsened the effect of the initial incident.
"The racial subjugation continued. The isolation as a result was really bad," she said.
"Calling it out left me isolated, bullied, marginalised. I felt lonely and no-one knows the trauma that racism imprints into your soul. And we have to, every day as First Nations, as people of colour, we have to wear armour when we step outside of our doors."
Sharon Johal comes forward about 'painful' experience
AAP: Dan Peled
)A week after Clanton's public post, former regular cast member Sharon Johal detailed numerous incidents in a lengthy statement on social media.
A Punjabi Sikh Australian, Johal said a cast member "referred to me as 'the black one' and/or 'blackie' behind my back in the presence of other crew members", and that a now-former cast member "repeatedly mimicked the Indian character Apu from The Simpsons with accompanying Indian accent and movement of head in my presence, despite me requesting they desist".
Johal said she communicated these comments to management but little was done.
Clanton has corroborated Johal's experience on set and said she witnessed other staff members refer to Johal multiple times as a c*** in conversations about "why so much vitriol was directed at Sharon".
Johal was not working on the show at the time but was due to return and had previously raised her concerns about racism on set.
Clanton said she was appalled when she heard the disparaging comments about Johal.
"Within the first weeks of my commencing filming, this hatred towards Sharon was apparent and the inflammatory comments continued," Clanton said.
"I said, 'What? Really? Why would you say that?' 'Oh, because she dared call me a racist.'"
Aboriginal actor Meyne Wyatt said he too experienced racism on the Neighbours set when he was a regular cast member on the show between 2014 and 2016.
On Twitter he said: "It involved the c-word and I called it out and it didn't happen around me again. I have no doubt things were being said behind my back."
Production company Fremantle declined to be interviewed by 7.30 and did not respond when asked directly about specific allegations.
The current executive producer of Neighbours, and the show's broadcaster in Australia, Network Ten, also declined interview requests.
7.30 put a series of questions to Fremantle, including whether, if substantiated, the claims of racism could be in breach of racial discrimination and other workplace laws, and whether any staff members who had been alleged or found to have engaged in racist or inappropriate behaviour were still working for the show.
Fremantle did not answer these questions, instead referring to an earlier statement:
"We remain committed to ensuring a respectful and inclusive workplace for all employees on the set of Neighbours and take very seriously any questions about racism or any other form of discrimination.
"We are engaging an independent legal investigation to work concurrently with Campfire X's cultural review and hope to work directly with the individuals that have raised concerns, following which we will take whatever next steps are appropriate."
'I didn't feel supported at all'
Supplied
)For former Neighbours cast member Menik Gooneratne, the latest scandal comes as no surprise. She said it proved little had changed on the production in the past 10 years.
Speaking for the first time since she appeared on the show in 2011, the Sri Lankan Australian told 7.30 that management did little to help her deal with a viewer backlash to her Indian character.
She played the mother, Priya Kapoor, in the first South Asian family to move into Ramsay Street.
The role, Gooneratne said, "ticked all the soapie boxes".
"My character had an affair, got blown up, I came back as a ghost.
"It was exciting because being a working actor in Australia and trying to break through, I thought it was a great opportunity to help break stereotypes and promote diversity and be part of an iconic show in Australia."
But she was not prepared for a "ferocious" viewer backlash to having an Indian family in Neighbours.
"It is still difficult to talk about because you have to move on and bury it," she said.
"To receive that kind of reaction to our casting, it cut deep, and it cut deeper than I would have liked it to. I wish I was stronger, I wish I could have been incensed by the whole thing, but really I was just hurt."
Gooneratne said she asked management to remove repeated racist comments from the Neighbours social platforms but was rebuffed.
"Apart from the expression of, 'Oh, I'm sorry that that's happened,' and you know, 'Are you OK?', which they kind of checked in at the start, but because it was a continued thing it just wasn't spoken about. We didn't talk about it, we just moved on," she said.
"I didn't feel supported at all. I felt like we were left to deal with all of that on our own, to process that and to handle our reactions and our hurt and our trauma on our own."
That echoes the experience of Johal, who said she also faced "unbearable" trolling and asked management to intervene, but she said she was told, "We leave the comments as they are for people to discuss".
By 2013 the Kapoor family was written out of the show.
Sachin Joab, who played father Ajay Kapoor, said he believed the exit of the Indian characters had racial undertones.
ABC News: Andrew Altree-Williams
)"If myself, the actress playing my wife [Menik Gooneratne], and the daughter, if we had the caucasian blonde hair and blue eyes, I don't think they would have written us out," he told 7.30.
Joab said he was told the Australian-born characters would "go back to India".
"It didn't make sense," Joab said. "[Our characters] were born and raised Australians in Erinsborough."
Joab said he "loved the job" and had no issue with the cast and crew, but was dismayed by the decision to axe the characters.
He said the Kapoors were promoted as a regular fixture but that, in effect, he and his co-stars were "guesties, guest actors".
"I loved playing the character," he said. "All the actors I had a good relationship [with]. The crew were all joking around."
He has since gone on to star in other Australian and international productions. But he said his decision to speak now would come at the risk of his future acting career.
"They've got us by the balls. If we speak up, how do we know that we will ever be employed again?" he said.
Remy Hii: Racist viewer backlash 'weighed on me'
ABC News: Andrew Altree-Williams
)Like Gooneratne and Johal, Crazy Rich Asians and Spider-Man star Remy Hii faced a racist backlash from viewers during his brief stint on Neighbours in 2013.
"Of course it weighed on me at the time and it felt pretty bad," Hii told 7.30.
"But it's sad to note that this is the lived experience of pretty much any person of colour, any immigrant, Indigenous or First Nation, or anyone with a different background, is that at some point in your life you're made to feel like you don't belong."
Hii's appearance on Neighbours was early in his career and he said he felt he couldn't speak up about the viewer backlash then.
"At the time I didn't, and I've questioned myself about that, and I've often asked myself why. And the really simple answer was at the time I didn't want to be seen as rocking the boat."
He said it was now up to Fremantle to take action on the fresh claims, and he backed demands for a "systemic overhaul" of the production.
"I think that it's really important that we listen to the findings of the independent review. It's a positive move, but I'm very curious to see what comes out of it," he said.
"Something isn't working behind the scenes. It's not an isolated incident. It's not just Shareena. There have been many other actors who are coming out of that set saying that, 'On this occasion I didn't feel safe, on this occasion I felt marginalised,' and the resounding theme is that people are not being listened to.
"It's not just a TV show, it's a workplace where you have the right to feel safe."
Gooneratne agreed.
"Neighbours has tried and strived for diversity in front of the camera, but that's only the first step. You have to look at your writer's room, directors, heads of department, executive producers, HR, PR. The more diversity you have behind the camera, the less of these incidents you have," she said.
The Lim family and the 'barbecued dog'
Supplied: Alvin Chong
)In more recent times, Neighbours has markedly increased the number of culturally diverse actors on screen, a far cry from 1993 when the first Asian family, the Lims, was introduced.
Their short-lived appearance involved a storyline in which the Lims were accused of barbecuing a pet dog after it disappeared.
7.30 tracked down the actor, Alvin Chong, who played the son, Jonathan Lim.
Mr Chong was 23 years old when he appeared on Neighbours in a side hustle while studying medicine. He is now a dermatologist in Melbourne.
"I was young," he told 7.30, "and at that time, we were just so thrilled to be on the show that we didn't really care.
"But then people would say, 'God that storyline was ridiculous and it was so racist portraying you as potentially having eaten the dog.'
"It was extremely clumsy and it was just tokenistic, just having the family on for a short period of time and then we just got written out and that was it.
"I didn't feel any racism, direct racism from cast and crew, but just that whole concept of coming in and that weird storyline. Now I look back and I thought, that was probably a little bit racist."
Watch this story on 7.30 tonight on ABC TV and iview.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiaWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIxLTA0LTE5L21vcmUtYWxsZWdhdGlvbnMtb2YtcmFjaXNtLWZyb20tZm9ybWVyLW5laWdoYm91cnMtYWN0b3JzLzEwMDA3ODE4NtIBKGh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMDAwNzgxODY?oc=5
2021-04-19 08:40:53Z
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