TIMEOUT AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW 35

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A National Character: Crocodile Dundee

was in a provincial working-class “That’s not a knife, this is a knife. "The in the mouth carrying with it the pub in England over Christmas, blacks run away. It’s a magical mystical power and strength of the I one which used to be my “local”. resolution to a moral panic and has man from the wilderness. The same Spurred by my presence into talk audiences laughing and cheering. power that had earlier calmed a water about Australia, the conversation Hogan, as Mick Dundee, solves buffalo with two fingers and a steady moved, not to the America’s Cup, nor lots of problems like this in the film. gaze. It is a quick, quiet and unnoticed to the Test series, nor even to the First of all, he solves the problem of punch which lays the yuppie flat. weather, but to Crocodile Dundee, the giant crocodile who lunges out of Having dealt with the irritations just released on the provincial circuits. the water, about to make a meal out of of social class, Hogan moves on to the woman reporter who has tracked race: “What tribe are you from mate?“,- Actually, I should say that the Mick Dundee down and whom he has he innocently asks of his black New conversation moved on to Paul Hogan been ogling by the edge of the water. York chauffeur. (In the outback, as Mick “Crocodile" Dundee, the He rushes out of the scrub and plunges Hogan had been a bona fide film’s hero and main character. Most the knife — that knife — into the participant at a corroboree.) In a later of the drinkers hadn’t seen the film yet beast’s head. Well, if he hadn’t been scene, this same black chauffeur but they had, through television ogling her, he wouldn’t have saved her, wrenches the boomerang-like bonnet trailers, seen that excerpt. That would he? Later, transported as the motif from the limousine and downs excerpt is the one where, in New York, ingenu to New York, the subject of a one of Hogan’s assailants with it. The Hogan and his girlfriend are 7Tme-style feature, he solves other “tribal” connection of New York confronted by three young blacks, one problems too, or at least provides blacks and Aborigines is comically of them menacingly holding a flick quick-fire solutions to a range of social confirmed for Hogan. knife. The exchange goes something complexities. Confronted by the social And from race to sexuality: in a like this: “What’s that?" asks Hogan, and class distinctions of New York Manhattan bar Hogan is chatted up by looking at the knife; “That’s a knife, yuppie lifestyle, Hogan’s response is a transvestite. Alerted by a taxi driver man”, says one of the blacks. Hogan’s either a quick debunking word or, with friend to some ambiguity, Hogan laconic response is to pull out his two- more effect in one scene with the fiance solves the problem by grabbing the foot machete-cum-croc-killer and say, of the woman reporter, a smart smack elegantly dressed character in the 36 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW TIME OUT

crotch. The (male) transvestite films like Mr. Deeds Goes to Town antagonism to Anglo- pomposity, doubles up, the occupants of the bar — (1936), Mr, Smith Goes to yuppie pretensions, the “Rodneys” of and of the cinema I was in when I saw Washington (1939) and Meet John the smart set and the quaint pastimes it — double up, too, but for different Doe (1941), In this genre, the power of of what, in an oversimplified version, reasons. simple honesty and individualism represents the British ruling class. It is, Class, race, sexuality, law and overcomes, variously, urban of course, nothing like this, but order: these are precisely the problems pretension, political corruption and Hogan’s treatment of these which "Crocodile Dundee” confronts totalitarian political philosophies. antagonisms is popular and effective, and solves, usually with a single and Such a popular hero can no longer Why. or, more importantly, how is very “masculine” gesture. And, let’s be come from rural American settings of this?|t js n0( often that I agree with fair, it's funny and successful too. The course; these have been tainted by Bernard Levin, British high Tory of film, as we know, has been immensely mass murders, chainsaws and Orange the paternalistic variety and cultural successful in Australia, in the United People. Australia, and the myths of commentator. But he, in a review of States — coming second only to the the bush and the outback now provide Crocodile Dundee in The Australian more Reaganesque Top Gun — and, both the ideal of the wilderness and an (13 February 1987), suggests that there as far as current figures show, in the increasingly popular tourist is nothing “mere” about the UK as well. It is easy to dismiss this destination. From here comes the entertainment which a film like this popularity as the effect of some bush-wise Dundee. Not a naive produces. Reviewers have tended to go overarching "capitalist ideology” — a innocent in the mode of Gary Cooper, on a bit about the film’s “mythic” deeply pessimistic theory of “mass Hogan draws on other resources and qualities, the theme of the innocent in culture"— but this really won’t do. As forms of imagery as well. the big city and so on, and, more 1 argued a couple of issues back, it is precisely in the case of Frank not enough to sit back and dismiss Campbell, about Hogan’s skill in cultural forms like this as if they were tapping an American public beset by only to the side of the “main issues” of moral panics over mugging , drug use serious politics. and sexuality. Certainly, part of the As 1 suggest above. Crocodile film’s success does indeed lie in this use Dundee is, in its own way, about class, of received genres and models for sex, race, law and order, albeit in storytelling and in the familiar comic abbreviated form. But then one of the strategies of abbreviating, puncturing keys to comedy is precisely this and resolving complex social “economy” in the presentation of problems, But I am a little worried complex situations and their about such “universal” assessments of resolution. And Hogan is certainly a this movie and would want to suggest skilful and economic comedian, that, in addition to this skilful use of deploying a wide range of comic and The “character” of Hogan is genres and themes, there is also an dramatic techniques, often only by continuous across the genres in which important and strategic area which means of a facial expression or a single he works: from film to comedy series, Hogan handles with supreme and, as word. It would be worth our while to to beer and tourism ads. This was part yet unchallenged, skill: the area of consider the question of what of the point about that conversation in “national character”. techniques we have to meet these an English pub: the “That’s not a Back to that English pub again: forms of effective comic populism. knife” scene worked especially well "He’s so Australian” was a familiar It is, of course, Hogan, as star, with Hogan in it because that is and repeated comment about Hogan, personality and quintessential precisely the “quintessentially What this means in effect is that Australian, who carries Crocodile Australian” character which he is Hogan has effectively come to Dundee which, as Frank Campbell in known for. There is a beer ad shown represent the “quintessential The Sydney Morning Herald (7 on British TV, for example, where Australian” for UK and US audiences. January 1987) rightly said, is an Hogan witnesses an angler come And this has not been by virtue of any “unpretentious Australian film”. Why, ashore and hold up with pride what, by intrinsic or natural qualities but rather then, is the film so popular? Part of the British standards, is a prize catch. through a skilful, comic and strategic answer to this is in the methods by Hogan, talking congenially to the elaboration of a preferred version of which Hogan draws on a wide range of camera, walks past the proud character — laconic, laid back, popular motifs ands genres. The fisherman, snatches the fish out of debunking, quasi-innocent and, of United States now has its various his hand and, innocently, says course, endowed with certain Rambos but it is a long while since it “Thanks for the bait mate” It is a important “masculine” qualities. has had a simple, unpretentious humour based firstly on a form of These are, of course, all familiar traits populist hero. Crocodile Dundee identification predominantly with but the questions we need to be asking carries some of the cultural heritage of the white male working class (now the about this is how do they become films made by Frank Capra in the ’30s main lager drinkers and the targetted familiar, acceptable and thereby and '40s, mostly starring Gary Cooper: market) — and a corresponding dominant? How, in the field of TIME OUT AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW 37

entertainment especially, do the television and the Hollywood star popular style manages to secure, at “cultural meanings” with which the system, has never been “merely” various levels, contact and consent character of Hogan is saturated come concerned with a straight depiction of with his various audiences? If this to be made operative, circulated and interesting “types”; rather, there has latter is the case, as I suspect it is, then sustained? been an insistent concern with making it would seem that we need to take Bernard Levin is right on the Concrete, popular and acceptable an Mick Dundee. Paul Hogan and public point that entertainment is never array of character traits and. at the response more seriously than we are “mere”: from the beginning of the same time, making unacceptable other accustomed to do in our critical left nineteenth century when entertain­ qualities and inclinations. perspectives. ment first began to be consolidated as The questions we need insistently both a mass and politically strategic to ask of this process is what precisely Colin Mercer phenomenon, the notion of is it that makes up this preferred image “character” in both popular and of the national character, and what COLIN MERC ER teaches in Humanities “high” forms of culture has been qualities have been excluded? How at Griffith University in Queensland, and is enormously important as a location of far, for example, does the character of a member of the Communist Party. forms of moral and political training Hogan cue in the features of the "New and persuasion. In popular fiction, Nationalism” and to what effect? Is forms of melodrama and music hall, this character merely a manipulative the representation of character, and, construct as some seem to suggest, or more recently, of “personalities” in is it the case that Hogan’s populist and

Style Revisited

t’s not hard to understand the Party's Marxism Today to follow suit But then we should try to draw sense of bewilderment that has with its own redesign. New Socialist some distinctions. One fairly obvious I settled on a good number of has also included in its substantial list one is between “appearance", people who thought their many years of articles on fashion at least one by “pleasure”, or “style” and “fashion". in politics might have given them some the Face’s associate editor, Robert Ill say how 1 think these should be idea what the left’s political agenda Elms. The article “Ditching the distinguished in a moment. really was. Now it seems they’re Drabhies” was one of the most I’d like to think this was a wrong. Not about substantive issues facile contributions to the debate so confusion. But really I don’t think it is. (or not on the face of it); but more far. but it shows just how strong the The champions of fashion are clearer about a tone, a preoccupation. nexus between the young left (a term than I’ve given them credit for about I’m talking hereabout the curious I'd generously interpret to include my their attack. You see. if the charge was preoccupation with fashion. ALR own peers) and the arbiters of radical that the left has ignored style, the took it on board last issue, and fashion has become. response would be obvious. The Tribune has given it a run a couple of 'sixties, which is a particular target, times in the last few years. But its real Now to come clean, 1 should say was obsessed about style and clothing. home is in Britain, particularly in the that if ihe question is simply, “should But the real charge is not that the Labour Party’s A/w Socialist. There, we care about clothes, design and so ’sixties was not style conscious, but among other things, a bond seems to on; should we debate it and champion that it was drab. Worse, that it was have been forged with the pinnacle of it?", then my answer is a definite "yes". earnest — that its choice of styles was young radical sophistication the Bewildering or not, there’s something hedged around with external values magazine the Face. Those in Australia vital at stake here, as William Morris which determined what was rejected or without subscriptions or cosmopol­ could have told us. But that's not the accepted, and which implicitly set itan newsagents will have seen it only question. First, we should try to them as a new orthodoxy. briefly in (one of my favourite) ads for say why. in terms which do a good deal This, in fact, is the complaint a product which escapes me, but which more than accuse previous generations against the unconverted left that lists the world's “coolcst” items. of the left of being drab or boring — they refuse to change; that they don’t N ew Socialist has been personally and. by implication, dress because it's fun. but because the redesigned by the designer of the Face. politically. It’s no*a very good tactic. clothing represents some virtue. In In fact, it has forced the Communist But it’s also wrong. another sense, the complaint is that