One effect of the recent feverish hype around Australia Day is that the Australian flag has come to seem like a seasonal decoration. The Christmas tinsel gets taken down and replaced with flag adorned gizmos, and a few weeks later, the bargain bins are full of cut-price Santas and flags. It can be a good time to pick up a cheap – well, anything, really, so long as it has a flag attached to it.
And by now, the sight of a flag seems out-of-season – an oversight, really. The shops are full of Easter eggs, and anyone holding a flag seems a festival behind.
I’m not keen on ostentatious flag-waving – but I’m not keen on the sight of bins full of cut-rate end-of-season patriotism, either.
3 Comments
You’re right — something was shitting me about seeing bins of 50c Australia flag thongs in Woolies, and it’s this. It’s like a tacit admission of just how cheap, confected and commercialised this fad of disposable Australia Day flag-waving patriotism really is.
too right, just another holiday plugged in between the fat man and the rabbit,
Spot on; to add yet more disgrace to the John Howard faux patriotism bequeathed to OZ, the flags were doubtless manufactured in China.