My Thoughts on International Stardom

I'm sick with the psychotic-killer-queen of throat infections so I've been watching a crapload of tv this week.  I've watched Tin Man, another one of the "let's consider The Wizard of Oz from another angle" stories that the world seems to be obsessed with, Glee, Parks and Recreation (which apparently has a Houstonian and classmate of my friend Leslie on the writing staff), and The Slap, on which I was an extra for its first day of filming before we moved to Houston two years ago and which I haven't gotten around to watching til this week.

Look, guys, there I am!...can you spot me?

The Slap didn't air on Aussie TV until after I left, so I wasn't really around for the buzz of whether it was well received or not.  I think it was a mixed reception.  Anyway, I really like it and I'd love to read the book it's based on now.  
It got me thinking about two things.  One, Melissa George.  Oh, btw, it's her international stardom I was talking about, not my own, although given my huge exposure in this mini-series (see picture) your confusion could be forgiven.  She stars as the attachment-parenting-style mother whose kid gets slapped by another adult at a barbeque.  I was looking up interviews with her because I was curious about the four-year-old kid she is openly breastfeeding in a couple of scenes (yes, he was a child actor and no, he was not her kid in real life and unsurprisingly, she said it was pretty challenging), and I came across this article called Melissa George is Kind of a Dick.  It slams her for some comments she made last year on a return visit to Aus about how she hates the big hoo-ha about her being this huge international hit that got her start on Home and Away.  And yeah, saying "I just need them all to be quiet" about our home country is kind of a wankerish thing to do, but I suspect that there are some mitigating factors rolling around in her brain, and not just how strange your life must be if you're famous.  Australia's very complicated relationship with success, for one, and the fact that she had to leave the country to pursue her work to its highest level, and that weird feeling about home that you get when you've lived away from it for a while and kind of like it better somewhere else.
On that note, the other thing it got me thinking about was just how Melbourne it was.  The shops, the cafes, the houses, the people, are all so Melbourne, and it made me smile and inwardly celebrate one of the best cities in the world, but it also reminded me of a reason to celebrate not living there.  Because in episode 2, when Rhys is in Anouk's gorgeous classic inner-suburbs of Melbourne house, old and spacious with polished wooden floorboards to die for and trams running right outside to take you to a lovely coffee shop, he sits on a radiator.  And I bet that radiator is the only thing that heats that draughty house in the cold grey Melbourne winter (that doesn't even include Christmas).

picture nabbed from sweetcarrielove.blogspot.com