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Displacing difference: the secret of The Secret Life of Us

Abstract This article analyses the television drama, The Secret Life of Us. It asserts that, although the show was celebrated for its liberal discussion and representation of difference, it simultaneously elides contemporary issues of Indigeneity and identity in Australian cultural politics. First, the article examines the reception of the series in order to establish it as a significant contemporary social document and situate it within discourses of national identity, sexuality and race. It then goes on to consider the ways in which difference is represented in the series, focusing in particular on the contrast between the openness with which it deals with sexual difference (in terms of both gender and sexuality) and the obliqueness with which racial difference is portrayed. Finally, it draws some conclusions about what these contrasting depictions might tell us about anxieties surrounding racial difference, and the ways in which they are displaced, in the contemporary Australian context.