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Underbelly: The Golden Mile |
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Despite controversy, producer Des Monaghan remains calm. |
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The NSW State Government might’ve been criticised for their sponsorship of Underbelly: The Golden Mile’s DVD launch, at former gangster John Ibrahim’s Kings Cross nightclub last month. The show might even have been criticised by print journalists and celebrity authors like Tara Moss for glorifying violence and ‘factual’ inconsistencies – but it hasn’t affected the true-crime series’ producers.
They’ve faced far more worrying feedback than media scandal and celebrity outrage since Underbelly’s debut in 2008. “The most extreme (negative feedback) wouldn’t even be printable”, says Des Monaghan, executive producer on all three Underbelly series. “You’ll get yours mate, that kind of thing.”
This is because in Monaghan’s own words, there are a lot of people who don’t want history re-opened. This was a problem for him, especially given Underbelly was so meticulous in its efforts to re-create the ignominy of Australia’s criminal past.
“Invariably these are people who have something to hide or are embarrassed by the events you’re going to cover”, Monaghan says. “You get a lot of huffing and puffing, but nothing serious – touch wood”.
Fortunately for Underbelly and Monaghan, the smart ones got on board once they realised he was going to do the shows regardless. A lot has happened since those threats began to roll in prior to production for the first series (they would continue right up to series three).
In fact, as Monaghan says, in 2008 it would be fair to say the Underbelly team weren’t even thinking beyond getting series one to air – let alone to its third installment, The Golden Mile.
“The moment we started getting the scripts we knew that we were onto something really special. But we weren’t really conscious of how big a show it might be until we had delivered the second or third episode”, Monaghan says.
To give you an idea of how special it’s become, a Google search for Underbelly will return around 8 pages of news every four days. While some of this is praise, much of it’s criticism for glorifying violence.
Addressing that charge, Monaghan is quick to point out two things – the first being that a society is better off knowing what’s going on around it, than being left in the dark.
Secondly, he states that this alleged glorification, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. “Let me take a dead person because it’s easier”, Monaghan says: “Terry Clarke. If you thought that (what we did on him) was a glorification of a criminal well fine, there’s nothing I can do about it. But my view is that we told people what a homicidal maniac Terry Clarke was.”
Monaghan also bristles at suggestions that Underbelly invented the publicising of real-life criminal brutality. He sees the appearance of the show on Australian TV as the natural progression of a phenomena that’s been going on locally since at least the 1920s.
“The only thing new about this is that it’s on TV. I have in front of me – no, that’s a fib I don’t have it in front of me – I know where it is, it’s on my bedside table – a book called Razor, which is about razor gangs in Sydney back in the ‘20s and ‘30s. That was front page news, it filled newspaper after newspaper back then.”
Monaghan does concede, however, that what’s new is presenting true crime on TV and naming names – something that TV movie Blue Murder did some 15 years prior to Underbelly.
“They (Blue Murder) did it extremely well, with a more documentary style while we did commercial drama – but the public interest in this subject matter has never varied”, he claims.
But what is it about the true crime genre that’s had so many of us reaching for the remote control anyway? You need look no further than writerdirector David Michôd’s Australian true-crime film Animal Kingdom – which launched at the Sundance Film Festival, and opened locally on 48 screens to a weekend take of $603,000 and a chorus of approval from film critics – to see evidence of this.
All three series of Underbelly have been ratings winners, with 2.2 million viewers tuning into the first episode of The Golden Mile.
“Most of us obey the rules”, suggests Monaghan. “I think we’re fascinated by people who break them. It’s watching human behavior at the extreme – we all have extreme thoughts from time to time, only most of us don’t act upon them.”
While controversy has surrounded much of Underbelly, the show’s casting has drawn little criticism – “We had a lot of complaints about Anna Hutchinson’s terrible NZ accent in series two, which was a surprise to her because she is NZ born and bred”, laughs Monaghan.
But for the most part, the cast has been lauded even by the underworld figures being portrayed. This is something that Monaghan, who’s just wrapped a casting meeting for the first of three planned Underbelly TV movies, believes reflects a key casting strategy.
“We try to find people who are right for the role, not star names. I couldn’t pick a favourite. Emma Booth’s (The Golden Mile) in an extraordinarily good performance, Cheree Cassidy who’s just done Debbie Locke this time was amazing. Kat Stewart who played Roberta, Gyton who was Carl…”
Surprisingly though, it’s troubled actor Matt Newton along with Roy Billing that Monaghan seems to hold closest to his heart. “I thought that Matt and Roy were outstanding in their roles in the second series.” (Overseas, the reaction to date is that people prefer series two to series one, without exception Monaghan claims).
Locally, Newton may have been tainted by negative press, but there’s been an exceptional reaction to him around the world according to Monaghan. With an American series of Underbelly in the pipeline, and three more TV movies to come in Australia, it’s a viewpoint that’s difficult to counter.
Discover the Underbelly series at JB Hi-Fi » |
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