Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee runs an outback adventure business with his trusted friend and self-proclaimed mentor Walter Reilly. When he survives a crocodile attack, the news travels well beyond the Northern Territory, and a glamorous New York journalist, Sue Charlton, arrives to interview him. He invites her to come with him to the place where he was attacked. When Sue herself is attacked by a croc, Mick saves her. This leads to an invitation for Mick to visit his first ever city: New York City. Mick finds the culture and life in New York City a lot different than his home.
'Mark Baker recalls an encounter with David Gulpilil in 1998'
'The function of movies lies in its reflection of society. Crocodile Dundee (1986) as a famous Australia movie adapted from a real story, wonderfully demonstrated the difficulties that Aboriginal Australians, or Aborigines, confronted in trying to have their cultural traditions and independent identity respected in [the] modern world, which can be extended to a spirit of all Australians and regarded as part of their 'Australian Dream', under the powerful impact of US-oriented cultural imperialism. By analyzing the movie as well as its reflection on this subject, the thesis suggests what solution progressive Australian forces should take if she hopes to fulfill Australian Dream successfully.' (110)
'The cultural knowledges which a given film-viewing community brings to a given text will clearly affect both the readings made of it as well as its popularity,' writes Stephen Crofts in the introduction to this paper. using Crocodile Dundee as a case study, primarily because of its extraordinary international success, Crofts works hypothesises that 'a properly constructed comparison of two countries' reviews of the same film may yield significant conclusions about national cultural differences, and in particular about foreign constructions of the film's country of origin.'