In the middle of a now-forgotten epidemic that killed millions of people, a now-forgotten Australian TV series presented its plea for rejecting stigma and discrimination, respecting diversity, and encouraging the dissemination of information and public education.
As the 1980s drew to a close, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation commenced a long-running soap opera which, like many other TV series before it, focused upon the professional and private lives of doctors and medical practitioners – but with a twist. Australian television historian Moran observes:
“In developing “G.P.”, the ABC took a leaf out of both Seven’s “A Country Practice” and Nine’s “The Flying Doctors” in focusing on the business of doctoring but smartly decided to orient the program towards an urban milieu.” (Moran, 1993, p. 204.)
Given this change of setting, G.P. promised to be less reliant upon utopian rural stereotypes, and more willing to examine modern reality in urban/suburban Australia. In this contemporary setting, G.P. offered more gritty realism and less faux nostalgia as could be found in some overseas medically-oriented fictional programs, such as, Doctor Finlay’s Casebook or All Creatures Great and Small.
7 March 1989 saw transmission of the first episode of G.P. (Shore, 1992, p. 48.) The series introduced a number of characters and storylines which covered a broad range of medical and social issues – and demonstrated a mature and inclusive attitude to diversity. This also meant that episodes portrayed a wide spectrum of people, including those affected by HIV/AIDS. Lasting eight years and running for 318 episodes (imdb.com, n.d.), this series tackled AIDS in a way that no other Australian TV drama series ever did before – or has done since.
Whereas A Country Practice and The Flying Doctors had contained tokenistic, usually single-episode stories on the epidemic that was killing thousands of Australians, G.P. took a more comprehensive approach. The series was willing to tackle stereotypes and invisibility, attempting new additions to Australia’s folklore and culture in the midst of a terrifying plague.
Paediatric AIDS
Like the producers of The Flying Doctors before them, the creators of G.P. fashioned a story about AIDS early in their series – the 22nd episode during their first year of production. Telecast on 8 August 1989 (imdb n.d. #2) and titled, “Toss A Coin”, the episode told the story of five year-old Zoe, who had contracted paediatric AIDS from her now-deceased mother. Complications were added when the little girl was victim of prejudice and discrimination at her school. The director, Geoff Nottage, reportedly cast his own daughter as the only school friend to stick by Zoe (Shore, 1992, p. 58). This episode won the 1989 Human Rights Award for TV Drama (ibid, p. 110).
Unlike the stories in The Flying Doctors and A Country Practice, this story in G.P. may have actually been inspired by real-life Australian events such as the case of Troy Lovegrove or – more pointedly, the experiences faced by Eve Van Grafhorst, a young girl with HIV whose family were ultimately hounded out of Australia. The producers of G.P. were clearly not afraid to reflect gritty realism, confronting viewers with nuanced stories that were more challenging and confronting to their own perspectives and prejudices – and more likely to inspire sympathy or empathy. Like the aforementioned TV shows, this episode avoided linking HIV and AIDS to gay men as the primarily affected cohort – but this invisibility would quickly change in the series.
Gay Men
It was not long before G.P. produced another story about AIDS – telecast on 3 April 1990, “Mates” was the eighth episode of their second season (imdb, n.d. #3) and this time, the series challenged Australian audiences to view gay men in a compassionate and respectful light.
One of the doctors, Steve Harrison, discovers that his friend, Mark, has been refused an operation to correct an injury which he sustained during a game of squash. It turns out that Mark had been tested for AIDS without his knowledge and that he had subsequently been diagnosed as HIV positive. Dr. Harrison must come to terms with this news and his own homophobia – but must also break the news to Mark and to Mark’s gay partner, Alex, who is not HIV positive (Shore, 1992, p. 70).
“Mates” was a breakthrough on Australian television because it presented gay men as otherwise fairly ordinary people who lived within society and who enjoyed the respect of their heterosexual friends and colleagues – it was just that some of them happened to have AIDS.
Four weeks later, this story concluded in the episode “Lovers” which was telecast on 1 May 1990 (Zuk, 1998 – 2004). “Lovers” presented the reality of people dying with AIDS, and the discrimination faced by many gay couples at the hands of their own family members. At the time, Australian law did not recognize gay partners, and heterosexual family members had exclusive legal rights as next of kin. In a global context, the World Health Organisation did not remove homosexuality from its “Classification of Diseases” until 17th May that same year (IDAHOBIT, 2023), although tragically, AIDS would entrench an association between homosexuality and medicalisation for many years.
In “Lovers”, Mark is now dying of AIDS and his loving mother arrives – to be confronted by his homosexuality, his medical condition, and by his gay partner. Her furious homophobia puts a great strain upon the relationship between Mark and Alex, and it greatly adds to Mark’s distress as he loses the battle against his terminal medical condition. After his death, his mother freezes Alex out and even refuses to allow him to attend the funeral, despite Dr. Harrison’s pleas for compassion (Shore, 1992, pp. 71 & 72).
Such treatment of gay partners by hostile heterosexual family members was not uncommon in Australia at the time. It is to be hoped that this episode challenged such families to become more accepting of their children’s partners. Perhaps G.P. contributed to a growing groundswell of support that led to marriage equality, inheritance rights, and related family legal rights in the following decades.
“Lovers” reportedly won a number of awards (ibid, p. 71) including the 1990 “Penguin” Award for Best Direction (ibid, p. 110).
Heterosexual AIDS
On 16 November 1993, the episode, “Loose Ends” featured a minor character who was an HIV positive male patient. He chatted with the doctors about his forthcoming marriage. No further details were specified about his background, and he appears to have been included mainly to as a stock character to help “normalise” the existence of HIV positive people in society.
The series’ sixth and seventh years in 1994 and 1995 – the era when one of the doctors was a gay character – seemed to feature references to AIDS or related topics on a frequent basis.
“A Temporary Mess” (10 May 1994) focussed on a young female school teacher whose HIV status was publicly disclosed and she faced fear and prejudice from many of her colleagues, her students and their parents. The issues of privacy and prejudice were examined – and compassion was extended mainly by the gay doctor, Martin Dempsey; and one of the students, young Peter Browning, who had an adolescent crush on her. In a final, touching scene, Peter dismisses the HIV bigotry of his friends and their parents by calling them “dickheads” and shyly befriending his teacher.
Condoms
Two episodes with references to condoms were run concurrently in 1995, and they both seemed to imply that condoms were not necessary for heterosexuals.
Dr. Sonia Kapeck lectures her younger sister about using condoms in the episode, “In Control” (4 April 1995) but the teenager returns the condoms to Sonia in a subsequent scene because she evidently doesn’t believe that she needs them. What may have been a covert reference to celibacy may have also been a warning about complacency against safe sex during an epidemic.
The following week (11 April 1995), the episode, “After Hours” featured an adult heterosexual couple having a casual sexual liaison without condoms and then asking each other if they should be concerned about “diseases”. The question is left open – maybe placing the onus for a decision upon the viewers themselves.
Australia was at that time emerging from an era when condoms had not been widely available like today: often only on sale over the counter, upon request from chemist shops (provided the chemist had no religious objection to selling them) – which made their availability especially limited within certain geographic or demographic cohorts; and which were still barely mentioned in polite society (often referred to by vague terms like “protection”). Following the “liberation” of the condom into widespread useage in 1986 following the arrival of AIDS (Blazey Peter Blazey, 1986, In coming years, scandals would break out in at least one state of Australia (Queensland) regarding the existence of condom vending machines. Such changes were happening across Australia – the colloquial “franger” was being lifted out of impolite backyard conversation and into polite society.
Just as the gay community had been forced to learn to love the prophylactic, mainstream Australian society was now also being challenged to embrace the rubber contraceptive. Forget embarrassment or old fashioned notions of morality – lives were potentially at stake! For any television program to mention condoms explicitly during this era was still an achievement of progressive courage, and maybe optimally possible on the ABC-TV network, whose non-commercial TV stations would not be subjected to the concerns of advertisers.
AFRAIDS – Associated Fears Relating to AIDS
Although many TV news programs and other fictional stories featured fear of AIDS (usually subconsciously incorporating it into their storyline without much self-examination), G.P. was the first Australian program to explore many facets of AIDS phobia and to infer its irrational nature.
On 18 April 1995, the episode “What About Your Heart?” included a scene of a doctor who was bitten by a mentally ill patient – then casually dismissing the incident because he claimed to have regular tests for HIV and hepatitis. As HIV is not transmissible by saliva, the scene was evidently an acknowledgement of the potential for people to have irrational fears concerning the virus.
Later that same year, the episode entitled, “Like Father, Like Son”, which was telecast on 15 August 1995, featured a father who needed heart surgery and who strongly encouraged his adult son to donate blood in order to protect him from contracting AIDS from a blood transfusion during surgery.
Another episode, “Hush Little Baby”, telecast on 7 November 1995, included a comment from a parent about her young son getting into a fight at school, in which a punch drew blood from his opponent and elicited a verbal scolding from the parent of the other child – what if he had AIDS?
On 17 August 1993, the creators of G.P. followed up with an episode called “Infected”, which starred gay actor John Hargreaves – who was later to tragically die of AIDS himself – playing a dentist with an irrational fear of infection and disease, including AIDS.
AIDS and Euthanasia
On 4 July 1995, the episode “Not Fade Away” introduced a two-part story which was possibly the nastiest story of the series. Young gay doctor, Martin Dempsey, is treating a gay patient with AIDS who is battling a declining quality of life and eventually indicates that he wishes to die with dignity. Dr. Dempsey assists in his euthanasia – and the patient’s sister reports him to the police. Significantly, the episode features a real-life AIDS Vigil in Sydney – the only known Australian TV program (outside news clips) to spotlight this authentic moment of pain and trauma in the Australian AIDS community.
The following week, on 11 July 1995. The episode title, “A Parting of Friends” is indicative of what ultimately happens between the professional partnership of Dr. Dempsey and his colleagues at the Ross Street clinic as a result of his actions to assist in a suicide of a terminally ill AIDS patient. Although the police enquiry is eventually dropped due to lack of evidence, the other medical staff react angrily to the disclosure of Dempsey’s actions – and the senior doctor sacks him. The departing doctor seems to maintain a friendly relationship with the others, but there seems to be a definite undercurrent of acrimony towards him, and this arguably portrays Dempsey’s colleagues – the main characters of the series – in a rather uncomplimentary light.
This story parallels a Hollywood movie (“It’s My Party”) which was released in April the following year – demonstrating that the writers of G.P. were at the forefront of social comment regarding AIDS.
This story also tapped into a powerful social controversy at the time, highlighted by AIDS – the rights of patients who were terminally ill with AIDS and who asked to be allowed to die with dignity. Their plight helped to bring the topic of voluntary euthanasia to the forefront of Australian politics and society, particularly in the Northern Territory, where the Territory government passed a law allowing terminally ill people to receive assisted voluntary euthanasia (Maddox, 2005, p.50) – the very same month that the GP aired this episode. Under conservative Prime Minister Howard, however, the Federal government responded during 1996 and 1997 with its own legislation which overruled this Territory law (ibid, p. 52). Victorian doctors were later to lead a public call for AIDS-related euthanasia (The Age, 25 March 1995, p. 1) and a veritable army of medical staff comprising a virtual underground army of assistants for those with AIDS who wanted to die with dignity (Magnusson, 2002, p. 23), it would take some decades for Voluntary Assisted Dying to be legally implemented across Australia.
Indigenous AIDS
During its fifth season, an episode of G.P. entitled, “Dancing with Death” tackled the topic of AIDS and the indigenous community. Telecast on 23 March 1993 (Wikipedia), the episode was notable because one character bore some resemblance to real-life Australian Dr. Fred Hollows – a man who had caused controversy because of his outspoken public comments on AIDS and indigenous people.
Women with AIDS
In season six, G.P. tackled the problem of women with HIV/AIDS in an episode entitled, “A Temporary Mess”. Airing on 10 May 1994 (Wikipedia), it featured a female character who faced prejudice and stigma once her HIV status was publicly revealed.
This was an era that was potentially more difficult for women with HIV than it was for gay men. The LGBT+ communities had support services available for their members, while women – a smaller cohort but impacted by their own specialist medical needs – were often invisible and overlooked. One female activist recalls the programs that were run by women for women:
“We had annual retreats and at each one, we didn’t know who would be alive the following year. It was scary times. Funerals were commonplace. Who would be next?”
While women had initially been at the forefront of leading the fight against AIDS and related stigma in Australia, it was still remarkable for an Australian TV program to sensitively feature a female character battling such difficulties.
Activists Fighting Amnesia
G.P. demonstrated that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, as a government-funded broadcaster, was willing and able to go where commercial television did not dare. More than that, it seems possible that the ABC was keen to promote AIDS awareness in line with the policy of the same Hawke-Keating Federal Governments that had given Australians the frightening Grim Reaper as a way of imprinting AIDS within our collective community consciousness.
A generation later, G.P. has been largely forgotten – partly because it was telecast on a non-commercial network, and partly because it dealt with complex social issues (such as AIDS, itself now largely forgotten) in nuanced ways that defied the typical soap opera formula of stereotypical characters and simplistic binary solutions.
Its legacy may very well be that it helped to save lives by promoting safe sex, anti discrimination and acknowledging the existence of diversity. The program may have contributed to changes in societal attitudes – marriage equality, anti discrimination, condom usage, voluntary assisted dying, anti racism, equality for women – in ways that have now become so much a part of our collective consciousness that we forget where those modern perspectives originated. Most significantly, it served to educate and inform during a terrible epidemic, and its creators should be proud that, like so many other activists of that era, they role-modelled and served when lives were at stake.
Where some people might now see forgotten actors and artists, we should see and recognise them as heroes of their time and culture.
Bibliography:
IDAHOBIT, 2023. The History of IDAHOBIT – May 17, 9 March.
imdb.com, n.d. G.P. TV Series 1989–1996.
imdb.com, n.d. #2 G.P. TV Series Episode List Season 1.
imdb.com, n.d. #3 G.P. TV Series Episode List Season 2.
Marion Maddox, 2005. God under Howard: the rise of the religious right in Australian politics, Allen & Unwin.
Roger S. Magnusson, 2002. Angels of Death: Exploring the Euthanasia Underground, Melbourne University Press.
Albert Moran, 1993. “GP”, in Moran’s Guide to Australian TV Series, Australian Film and Television School/Allen & Unwin.
Harvey Shore, 1992. “GP: The Book of the ABC TV Series”, ABC Enterprises.
T. Zuk, 1998 – 2004. “http://www.australiantelevision.net/gp/episodes1.html”, Australian Television Information Archive.
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©2024 Geoff Allshorn