A Dingo Stole Our National Identity

Sun Herald

Sunday January 18, 2009

David Dale

IN the imagination of the world, what is the most powerful idea about Australia? I'm not talking about scenery or fauna or personalities. We can assume the world knows about kangaroos and Uluru and Nicole Kidman and the shrimps on Paul Hogan's barbie. But the world's response to that sort of stuff is never more than slight amusement.

I'm talking about one notion that intrigues them, excites them, stimulates their sense of wonder, makes Australia seem like a place of thrilling menace. On the principle that two sightings could be a coincidence, three sightings signifies a trend and four sightings is a phenomenon, what do we make of these five observations:1. In the recent film Tropic Thunder, Robert Downey jnr plays Kirk Lazarus, an Australian actor who has been cast as a black American in a war movie. The only genuinely black actor in the cast, Alpa Chino, refers to him contemptuously as Crocodile Dundee ...

Lazarus: "Pump your brakes, kid. That man is a national treasure."

Chino: "I just wanted to throw another shrimp on your barbie."

Lazarus: "That s--- ain't funny."

Chino: "I'm just f---ing with you, Kangaroo Jack! I'm sorry a dingo ate your baby."

Lazarus: "You know that's a true story? Lady lost her kid."2. In an episode of the cult TV cartoon series Family Guy, the talking dog Brian and the preternaturally articulate infant Stewie host a radio show called Dingo and the Baby.3. In the cult vampire series Buffy, a character called Daniel Osbourne, nicknamed Oz, leads a band called Dingoes Ate My Baby.4. In the cult sitcom Seinfeld, the character Elaine suggests to a woman who can't find her fiancee at a party: "Maybe the dingo ate your baby."5. In When You Are Engulfed In Flames, the American columnist David Sedaris describes a 2007 visit to Australia to attend a conference (probably the Sydney Writers' Festival). He says he had four hours of spare time on a Saturday morning and decided to visit Taronga Zoo to see a dingo.

"I never saw that Meryl Streep movie and as a result the creature was a complete mystery to me. Were someone to say 'I left my window open and a dingo flew in,' I would have believed it and if he said, 'Dingoes! Our pond is completely overrun with them,' I would have believed that as well. Two-legged, four-legged, finned or feathered: I simply had no idea, which was exciting, actually, a rarity in the age of 24-hour nature channels."

Finally Sedaris and his friend reach the dingo pen, where Sedaris covers his face to prolong the suspense. "I saw some trees - and a tail - and then I couldn't stand it any more and dropped my hands. 'Why, they look just like dogs,' I said. 'Are you sure we're in the right place?"'

All this suggests Australia is not making enough of a national asset.

To discuss if we should start a campaign to have the dingo put on the coat of arms, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare