The Adventures of Barry McKenzie
( dir. Bruce Beresford
)
Sydney
:
Longford Productions
,
1972
Z400738
1972
single work
film/TV
humour
satire
(taught in 2 units)
After he comes into a small inheritance, Barry McKenzie (aka Bazza) decides to visit England with his aunt, which leads to many humerus and some not-so-humorous incidents with Poms from all persuasions and classes. As Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper note: 'The narrative offers a 'vigorous parody of the Australian "ocker," anti-intellectual, xenophobic, obsessed with beer and sex but never capable of relating positively with women, using a vernacular of prodigious vulgarity and inventiveness, and totally oblivious of anything beyond his own narrow conception of the order of things' (1980, p. 340).
Barry 'Bazza' McKenzie (aka Barrington Bradman Bing McKenzie) is a fictional character created by Australian comedian and satarist, Barry Humphries. The idea for the character came through a suggestion by British comedian, Peter Cook. Humphries subsequently collaborated with New Zealand artist Nicholas Garland to create a comic strip which was subsequently published in the British satirical magazine Private Eye. These were later compiled into The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie and published out of London by McDonald and Co. The publication and importation into Australia was banned, however, when the Minister for Customs and Excise declared that the book 'relied on indecency for its humour.' Interestingly, as Anne Pender notes in 'The Mythical Australian: Barry Humphries, Gough Whitlam and "New Nationalism"' (2005): 'Two years later the Australian Government, under Prime Minister John Gorton, fully funded a film version of the book, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) through the newly created Australian Film Development Corporation. In 1974, another Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, appeared in the sequel entitled Barry McKenzie Holds His Own. He played himself' (p. 67)
