Issue Details: First known date: 2023... 2023 Class Acts : TV Larrikins and the Advent of the Ocker, 1957–1984
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Stephen Fry has described the typical American comic hero as a freewheeling “wisecracker” compared to the English type, who is apt to be an aspirational lower-middle-class failure. With Fry as a prompt, we consider humour and class in the evolution—or devolution—of that representative local hero, the larrikin, during Australian television’s first three decades. This was a period that saw a realignment of the nation’s political, economic and cultural affiliations away from Britain towards the US, and in which the ocker came into sudden prominence as a less benign version of rowdy male identity. If media larrikins such as Graham Kennedy and Paul Hogan excelled at the kind of sketch-based humour that had its origins in vaudeville and were unsuited to sitcoms, ocker characters such as Wally Stiller from My Name’s McGooley and Ted Bullpitt from Kingswood Country found a home there. Our analysis of larrikin and ocker humour is triangulated with that of Norman Gunston, as played by Garry McDonald: a desperately aspirational failure with his own mock variety show who emerged from the dialogue between these two comic types. We conclude with some thoughts on post-ockerism and the emergence of the bogan.' (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Journal of Australian Studies vol. 47 2 2023 26347208 2023 periodical issue

    'In another bumper issue of the Journal of Australian Studies, the expanse of Australian studies takes us from frontier history, crime narrative and visual culture through to questions of free speech, minority cultural identity, “larrikins” in Australian televisual culture, and feral horses. We are also pleased to offer an insight into current polling in the lead-up to the late 2023 referendum on the question of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament inscribed in the Constitution. The picture that emerges reflects the uncertain terrain of the referendum’s outcome, an extremely timely piece given the rancorous debate that surrounds it.' (Brigid Magner and Emily Potter, Editorial introduction)

    2023
    pg. 344-359
Last amended 7 Jun 2023 08:21:23
344-359 Class Acts : TV Larrikins and the Advent of the Ocker, 1957–1984small AustLit logo Journal of Australian Studies
Subjects:
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X