Babakiueria essay

The ruling Babakiuerians demonstrate a paternalistic, patronising attitude towards the 'natives’, even the well-meaning but comically condescending presenter Manika.

Babakiueria was made in 1986, two years before Australia marked its bicentenary of white settlement with extensive public celebrations. In reference to this, Babakiueria’s dominant culture prepare to celebrate their own anniversary of colonisation.

This is a drama pretending to be an ethnographic documentary examining the customs of the white natives of ‘Babakiueria’, from the perspective of the country’s black colonisers. Babakiueria is named as a result of first contact between the colonisers and the natives.

The mockumentary Babakiueria (1986) tells an alternative story of Australia’s history and present day through role-reversal, in which Aboriginal Australians are the colonizers and white Australians are the ones being colonized.