A wave of Australian pop culture is tackling the housing crisis, exploring themes of intergenerational inequality and rental stress. New works include the film Birthright and the novel Kill Your Boomers, which depict millennials struggling with housing insecurity and family tensions.
Birthright, directed by Zoe Pepper, follows a millennial couple facing parenthood and homelessness. The pregnant Jasmine and her husband Cory move in with his baby boomer parents after losing their lease. Pepper says the idea came during the pandemic when many young Australians moved back home, and the power dynamics under that roof intrigued her.
Playwright James Watson's The Housewarming, staged in Adelaide, features a showdown between gen Z haves and have-nots. Meanwhile, Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre staged a version of Pride & Prejudice billed as a love story in a housing crisis.
Author Fiona Wright began writing Kill Your Boomers around 2018, before the term 'housing crisis' became common. Her protagonist Keira, a freelance writer turned au pair, faces lectures from her parents about living within her means while they buy a Tesla and pay for private school. Wright notes that housing stress is no longer just a young people's problem.
In both works, characters see inheritance as the only path to financial stability. Other novels like Madeleine Gray's Chosen Family and Ellena Savage's The Ruiners also hinge on inheritances, though Savage's protagonist uses her $50,000 bequest to buy a dilapidated house in Greece, not Australia.
Several Australian publishers have not yet observed a broader trend of housing crisis fiction, but the topic is increasingly prominent in creative works.
