This guide and all of my reviews contain occasional bits of rude language,
and opinions some people might find offensive but for which I won’t apologise.
Don’t read any further unless you are open-minded.
As hard as I try not to give away too much, I can't guarantee there are no spoilers.
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Love Child – TV Series 2014 -2017: The Nine Network Australia / DVD
Great drama set in Kings Cross, Sydney, 1969
Looks at an Australia on the verge of social change, from the point of view of inmates of a Sydney maternity home for unwed mothers.
The forced adoption industry was not really shut down until the 1980s in Australia, and the detail in this script provides a shuddering reminder of what a hideously sexist world 1969 Australia was. Ecchh.
Yes, the pill was available by prescription but that was in theory only; the health system was still very much in the grip of the AMA, and we'd had decades of unchallenged conservative government. Doctors did not like to prescribe the pill to single females nor would they prescribe it for married women without their husband's approval. Catholic doctors would not even contemplate it at all. Socially, Australia had not caught up with technology and girls were still left in ignorance to deal with the inevitable exploitation, shame and humiliation of living in a sexist culture. Fucking Lucky Country my arse.
Once we escape the establishing episode things get brighter, with a chance to focus on the more upbeat personalities of inmates of the maternity hospital and see where the writers might plan to take us.
Although the key setting is a maternity home, the commentary on social and moral issues over four seasons ranges far and wide, always delivered through drama so the tone never becomes preachy.
Having Miranda Tapsell as a regular cast member is more than a token decision – through sub-plots, or even throw away lines like “I thought you people had your own place to live”, Love Child makes a multitude of comments on Assimilationist Era Australia – and fair enough, because there is a great deal to be said on that topic alone.
As a refugee from an RC upbringing I found it was worth every cent I paid for the DVDs, just to hear an Indigenous Australian deliver this one line about limbo where the African babies go.
It belongs at the top of a countdown of top ten moments, ever, on Australian film.
Add the dying stages of the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the new wave of Feminism to the mix for some interesting and very entertaining viewing.
Bingeability: Extremely high. Loved every moment of this – there was nowhere for the story to go after the 1972 election brought the Dark Ages to an end, though if the end of the show was a tragedy I can’t say the election result was.
Definitely a desert island set, if only because it shows I wasn't making up half the stuff I have told people about "then", and proves Twain's maxim that truth isn't obliged to stick to possibilities. Actually, it doesn't even scratch the surface...
