TikTok users admitted the scene made them want to start watching Home and Away again.
While Home and Away has become quite well known for its dramatic storylines and torrid love affairs, viewers were pleasantly surprised this week when the series aired a much more wholesome scene. Thursday night’s episode showed Tane Parata (Ethan Browne) and his friends singing a traditional Māori song during a hāngī feast to celebrate Perri’s birthday.
Perri, played by Surviving Summer actor Cantona Stewart, is the latest addition to Summer Bay after joining the Channel Seven soap last month. He is a “vulnerable but confident street-wise kid” who participates in Tane’s youth program aimed at helping teens who have been in trouble with the law.
After the singing scene received such a positive response on social media, the show’s official social media account shared a video on Friday showing what it was like behind the scenes.
The clip features Ethan playing the guitar as he and his co-stars sing in unison, with several camera operators and various crew members watching on.
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‘Gave me goosebumps’
Fans from all over the world took to the comments to describe the scene as “fantastic”, “absolutely beautiful” and “very touching”, with many admitting that they had “goosebumps”.
“Gave me goosebumps last night but more now seeing this! Love it!” one person wrote, while another added, “Every time Tane does something from his background it always gives me goosebumps just so beautiful to see!”.
“I love H&A even more each time we get a spesh ep like this,” a third remarked, followed by someone else who said, “I love it when the Mãori culture is part of the show, it lifts my heart”.
“I’m so glad you did our culture proud,” a different user responded.
“This looks amazing. Not got this far in Ireland. Just saw the stabbing thing last night. Awful silly script. Nice to see the above. Love it when the stories are actually believable,” another international fan shared.
TikTok users also admitted the scene made them want to start watching Home and Away again, while New Zealand viewers joked that Māori culture is shown more on the Australian series than their country’s longest-running soap opera Shortland Street.
Fans reveal hopes for powerful new storyline
Meanwhile, plenty of people shared that they would love for First Nations culture to be portrayed similarly. One fan took to a popular Facebook group following the episode to say that it would be “deadly” if Aboriginal actor Kyle Shilling, who plays Mali Hudson, could bring some of his culture’s traditions or rituals to Summer Bay.
“I think the show needs a new storyline and we haven’t seen any Indigenous or what our beautiful culture could bring to the show,” they wrote. “Mali could bring his didgeridoo. There is a lot who could learn from his mob.
“We need this to get out there and hope for the best that the producers and writers take notice of this and just hope for the best they listen to the fans. It will even help with the ratings as lately the storylines have been boring, besides the River Boys storyline but that is over now and they did take notice of the fans asking to bring the River Boys so let’s hope they take notice that we want Mali’s culture on the show.”
Fans said that they “couldn’t agree more” and it would be great to see more storylines centred around Mali’s culture on one of the biggest shows in Australia because “native representation matters”.
“We must see and learn more about Mali and his/our Aboriginal Culture. If the writers are worth their salt, they should be able to work in a storyline that could show our culture in an appropriate, natural way,” one viewer responded.
“Yep it would be deadly to see as a lot of people think it’s just about a smoking ceremony or a welcome to country but there is so much more to their beautiful rich culture,” someone else shared, followed by a different user who said, “It would be great for Mali to talk about Dreamtime and show their language and song”.
