WAT C H YOUR BACK, BLUEY
Eddie Betts has high hopes for his new cartoon series Lil’ Homies, appearingng on Netflix, NITV and SBS, but most of all, he wants to use it to spread knowledgeedge about Aboriginal culture, and to help Indigenous kids find their voice
Eddie Betts laughs and thinks about what his younger self would have made of it all. Not just the footy career, where he was a star for Carlton and Adelaide, which was remarkable in itself, but his evolution into a cultural figurehead, author and now producer of a cartoon series which will see his children’s books on the TV screen.
“It’s pretty surreal to sit back and think to myself what would that young kid, young Eddie, think right now about yourself,’’ he says.
“Thirty-seven years of age, played 350 AFL games. You’ve done all that. Two children’s books. An autobiography and now you’re producing a cartoon series on Netflix, NITV and SBS. Young Eddie growing up in a community in Kalgoorlie wouldn’t know what to say right now.’’
The latest chapter in the continuing Betts’
story is the release this month of his Lil’ Homies children’s books as a cartoon series in collaboration with NITV, SBS, the Australian Children’s Television Foundation and the global streaming giant Netflix.
Betts has high hopes for Lil’ Homies. He dreams it will one day be as big as the Australian global phenomenon Bluey, but he also sees the series as a way to help spread knowledge about Aboriginal culture, especially to younger people.
It’s a role Betts sees as ever more vital after the rejection last year of the Yes vote in the referendum to acknowledge Indigenous people in the Constitution and establish a Voice to parliament. The rejection was a painful moment for Betts.
“That was pretty hard to watch for me, to be honest,’’ acknowledges Betts, who was a prominent supporter of the Yes case. But he says there is no point living in the past. “I’m moving on,” he says. “I can’t change what happened.’’
The Lil’ Homies series is part of that moving on. The idea for the series started while Betts was still playing for Adelaide. He had published two children’s books My Kind and My People but when he was approached about the potential for a cartoon series he was initially sceptical. “I was like ‘nah, never’. I never thought in my wildest dreams it would be something like that,’’ he says.
But after a coffee at Swedish Tarts in Henley Square with Luke Jurevicius of Adelaide’s Vishus Productions, a seed was planted and momentum started to grow.
Part of the attraction is to give young Aboriginal kids something Betts didn’t have as a youngster: local black faces on children’s TV.
Betts doesn’t remember many black faces on TV when he was young. There was US cartoon Hey Arnold, which had black American characters, and he recalls watching Rugrats.
“The more black cartoon characters on mainstream television that Aboriginal kids can relate to, I’m all for it,’’ he says.
Betts says there will be more books to come, incorporating the new characters and based on the TV series. First, he has big ambitions.
“My kids grew up watching Bluey,’’ he says. “With Bluey being one of the biggest cartoon series around the world now, we want to aim higher and Bluey is the one to chase. You can dream big and aim high – we’ll see how we go.’’
Literacy and education are passions for Betts.
As a child growing up in Port Lincoln, South Australia, and Kalgoorlie, West Australia, he struggled with school. When he was drafted by Carlton as a 17 year old he could barely read or write. It’s something Betts looks back on with regret. “Growing up, to be honest, I didn’t read any books. I couldn’t really hardly read,’’ he says. “If I had my time again I would go back to school and learn to read and write properly.’’
The passion Betts holds for passing on the necessity of education is undoubted. Several times in the interview, Betts uses the word “preach’’ when talking about his visits to schools and Aboriginal communities around Australia.
He knows he has a rare pulpit from which to spread his message. Black or white, Betts was one of the most popular footballers ever to play in the AFL. Even beyond the parochial fan bases at Carlton and Adelaide, Betts was loved for the way he played the game.
There was a sense of joy in watching Betts on the oval. Certainly, he was an optimist. There were few players who would even have the imagination to try to kick some of the goals Betts routinely managed to pull off. He kicked the AFL Goal of the Year a record four times.
“My message to kids is to stick at school. To go to school, always ask for help from someone in the room,” he says. “The key for young Aboriginal kids is to get an education. The world is your oyster, you can do what you want. If you don’t play footy, you could become a lawyer, become a doctor. So education is the key and that’s what I’m preaching, especially for these young Aboriginal kids.’’
The books follow the adventures of a group of kids, Eddie, Lottie, Tal and Junior as they navigate the challenges of growing up.
The first book – My Kind – Betts says, was about spreading the message of kindness and to make it enjoyable for children to learn to read.
“It was about spreading kindness, treating people equally and helping young kids read and learn to read at a young age as well and making it easier and fun for them to read,’’ he says.
The second is My People, which Betts says is mainly aimed at a non-indigenous audience.
“We (Indigenous people) grow up and we learn, we know our history, we know our culture. The audience target is non-aboriginal kids, to start those conversations within their households,’’ he says.
“I got a lot of feedback on that (book) going into schools and starting conversations about Aboriginal history, what the flag represents, how we lived off the land for 50,000 years. They’ve been pretty popular and I truly believe they are creating change.’’
The cartoon series will introduce new characters and storylines over its 10-episode run.
It features Cleverman and The Newsreader star Hunter Page-lochard as Eddie, Miah Madden (Bali 2002, The Clearing) as Lottie, Andrew Dang as Tal and Eddie’s eight-year-old son Billy as Junior – which gives the older Betts a great deal of pleasure. “Just to hear his little voice. I’m not biased, but I reckon he makes the cartoon character,’’ dad says.
The show is a family affair. Eddie and his wife Anna Scullie are producers of Lil’ Homies – alongside Academy Award-winning Sophie Byrne – and the duo’s five children have given the show their seal of approval.
Betts says they have also been involved in every stage of putting the series together, from the writing, to the storyboarding, to deciding who is going to voice the characters.
Each episode is 12 minutes long, although Betts says the attention span for young kids is about five minutes. In order to maintain interest, the show is divided into small portions, interspersed with some raps to reinforce the message of the show.
“We work out the strategy, what’s happening,
then we rap about it and it’s fun, it’s catchy, and it’s enjoyable, just like the books,’’ he says.
Betts is proud that he has managed to include so much Aboriginal and South Australian talent in Lil’ Homies. He reels off names such as former AFL footballer, and now musician, Marlon Motlop, J-milla and Dem Mob.
“We wanted to showcase Aboriginal talent, let Australia see their work, it has been really cool,’’ he says.
It’s not just on TV that Betts has big plans.
He also wants to start an educational and support hub in Melbourne that will help young Indigenous players from regional and remote communities make the transition to the rigorous world of AFL football and living in the big city.
Betts remembers how he felt when drafted from Port Lincoln to Carlton at 17. “It was pretty tough, isolating, scary, daunting,’’ he says.
When he was playing for Adelaide, Betts held “mob nights”. He and Anna would open their homes to the club’s other Indigenous players, to show support and care especially for the newly drafted. Players such as Crow Wayne Milera and now Brisbane Lions’ Charlie Cameron were regulars. Betts says AFL clubs are improving when it comes to helping young Indigenous players adapt but acknowledges “these young Aboriginal kids are coming into an environment that’s really not built for them’’.
“Kids do get homesick,’’ he says. “Just coming and visiting is pretty big for these kids.’’
Late last year, The Eddie Betts Foundation held its first footy academy in Melbourne. It brought 24 young Indigenous boys aged between 14 and 16 to Melbourne from all over the country, just to give them an introduction to what it means to be an AFL player.
They played a match against an under-16 development side and were exposed to the professional environments at Carlton and current AFL premier Collingwood. They visited Coles, a sponsor of the foundation, and took cooking courses. “The key word for me is opportunity for these young kids. They come from remote communities all over Australia,’’ Betts says. “We have all this talent that’s unseen, so I want to give them a platform.’’
He says it’s not just about football. The foundation will support them through school and provide accommodation and support.
“The dream is to build a hub here in Melbourne,’’ he says. The children would live in the hub and go to school. “It’s like a boarding house, a home away from home, we will have Aboriginal people running it, looking after it and making them feel safe.’’
Betts has plenty of memories of how tough it can be for young Indigenous kids from his own early days. He also knows the value of taking an opportunity.
In an interview in 2016, Betts admitted playing AFL footy “saved my career, my life. I wouldn’t have the family I have now. I wouldn’t be where I am.”
Betts had moved from Kalgoorlie to Port Lincoln when he was 13 and found himself in regular trouble with the police, describing himself as a follower and a yes man. “Thinking back I don’t know how I could have made those decisions like ‘how could I break into that car?’ I would never do that in a million years now. And break into houses. I thought it was normal.”
During that interview, Betts also spoke of his admiration for fellow Indigenous champion and two-time Brownlow Medallist Adam Goodes, who had been hounded out of the game by racist abuse from fans.
At the time, Betts said despite the vitriol heaped on Goodes, he would continue to stand up for his culture, which he traces through the Wirangu, Kokatha and Guburn people.
And he has. Betts has highlighted the racism he has endured, including bananas being thrown on to the football field, receiving racist letters and even once being asked to leave a local swimming pool. He has talked about the pain and the scars it leaves but, as with all things, Betts believes the answer lies in education.
“I speak to a lot of schools and I preach that no one is born racist, they have learnt it along the way, somewhere they’ve heard it, but it’s about how we educate, how we move forward, how we keep calling it out,’’ he says.
While Betts admits the rejection of
constitutional recognition and an Indigenous Voice to parliament last year was painful, he will not give up, he will keep trying to spread the message. He says, after all, that is what he has always done. “I keep dealing with my issues or issues that I face in everyday life as Aboriginal people do all over Australia, but we keep moving forward,’’ he says.
Betts sees storytelling as part of the way forward. Stories such as his. Stories he tells kids through his books and now a TV series. Stories young Eddie would have loved growing up. “I am in a position now where I have a voice,’’ he says.