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Indigenous residents of Wilcannia in far-west New South Wales say they are shocked and insulted at their portrayal in a BBC documentary about alcohol abuse in the town.
Several participants, most of whom are Barkindji men and women, said they were unhappy about some of the techniques used to gather footage for the documentary Hidden Australia: Black in the Outback.
They also said producers took advantage of their trust.
The production featured scenes of parties and heavy drinking, but residents said that while they recognised alcohol abuse as a problem in the community, there was an unfair lack of emphasis on positive aspects of life in Wilcannia and efforts to address the town's problems.
Barkindji man Owen Whyman said he was disgusted when he watched the production, presented by British actor and television personality Reggie Yates.
"He said he was going to do a good story but it turned out negative," Mr Whyman said.
Wake portrayed as 'drunken party'
Participants have made several allegations of misleading or unethical behaviour by Mr Yates and the production crew.
The documentary featured scenes filmed at a gathering following the funeral of a prominent community member and close friend of Mr Whyman, but did not explain it was a wake.
"It was just like, 'oh, we're going into this drunken party again, it's always here, let's just go in and video them again'," Mr Whyman said.
"We had all the [relatives] from different states come in. The only time we ever get together and see each other is on sad occasions, which is sad for us.
"We like to have a beer because we don't know when we're going to see each other again, and we were all in mourning, and he never said anything about that in the documentary."
The ABC has been told that despite the focus on alcohol abuse, the producers supplied a case of beer for adults to drink when they arrived at the wake.
"Reggie goes on national TV and says he doesn't drink, he doesn't like alcohol, yet his crew can bring ... alcohol to our parties," Mr Whyman said.
Many not asked about participation
The documentary was shot in a fly-on-the-wall style and Mr Whyman said many subjects were not asked whether they wanted to be filmed.
"They sort of stormed in on people. We had nothing in writing, nothing on paper for us to sign, they just walked in and said … we're going to do a positive thing about Wilcannia," he said.
"They always had the cameras rolling."
Mr Whyman, who leads the Barkindji dance group, said he was also insulted when Mr Yates expressed that he felt a traditional dance was "partly performed for my benefit".
"He made us feel like fools. He had to beg us for days and days to do this dance," Mr Whyman said.
Lendal King, one of the main subjects of the documentary, said he had reservations about being a part of the film after he saw it.
"I regret being a part of it, because it was just all about alcohol," Mr King said.
"It upset me … I didn't know it was going to be like that. [The documentary] mainly just talked about drinking, all of us drinking, and made the community look bad."
'It's a good little town' says local man
Brendon Adams appeared in the video briefly and helped put producers in touch with subjects.
Mr Adams said he was glad the documentary showed the effect of alcohol, but said producers used little of the footage they had shot showing the ways Wilcannia was trying to curb that and other issues.
He said the producers filmed hours' worth of positive content about the town's cultural dance group, the children's drop-in centre, the community radio station, football clubs and the Men's Shed.
"Trying to put in a lot of stuff within 20 to 40 minutes is very hard, but that doesn't mean it can't be put in there," Mr Adams said.
"What we saw being videoed and what we saw being played are two different stories.
"There are people out there that are trying to make the community better [and] creating positive opportunities for the town."
Mr King said the producers should have included elders and more positive initiatives the community is working on to get a better understanding of what Wilcannia is like.
"I wanted to get the word out and let other people know that we're caring about our town, we're caring about our next generation," he said.
"It's a good little town, it's a good community, it's better than a few other towns away from here."
Production a blow to reputation
Mr Adams said the production was a blow to years of effort to recover from repeated negative media attention.
"It takes so many years and years and years to build a good reputation up … but it only has to take one media to centralise all the negative perceptions," he said.
"It's like we just lost everything that we fought and worked so hard for, and that's what media can do in an instant, especially on a negative impact.
"If visitors are too scared to even come up and say hello that's also an impact on us psychologically, mentally and everything."
BBC to investigate allegations
A spokesman for the BBC said residents' concerns would be investigated.
"We take any suggestion that the BBC's high standards of accuracy and fairness have not been met very seriously," the spokesman said.
"We will be looking into these claims with the independent production company who made the program for us."
Neither the production company, Sundog Pictures, nor the firm that manages Mr Yates responded to the ABC.
Topics: documentary, indigenous-culture, indigenous-protocols, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, community-and-society, television-broadcasting, television, wilcannia-2836, broken-hill-2880, united-kingdom
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