Australian Comedy
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As fi lmgoers, do you When, I wondered, was the last Australian fi lm enough premise and a suffi ciently confi dent sometimes wonder if comedy that seemed genuinely funny, as if sense of the comic spirit to sustain audience inspired by a viable narrative agenda and with involvement in a feature-length comedy? the phrase ‘Australian a screenplay that could articulate this—and comedy’ is an oxymoron? keep up the work until the very end? It’s near- Writing about ‘Comedy’ in The Oxford Certainly, as I watched ly twenty years since Crocodile Dundee (Peter Companion to Australian Film (1999), Felicity Faiman,1986) became the highest-grossing Collins claimed that, after the international in a concentrated burst Australian fi lm ever, milking every stereotype successes of the early 1990s (Ballroom, Mu- over a couple of weeks a of the superiority of bush innocence over riel, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the half-dozen fi lms from the urban sophistication for all it was worth. Then Desert [Stephan Elliot, 1994]) ‘Australian cine- there were admittedly very funny sequences ma has become synonymous with comedy’.1 last fi ve years, it did quite in, and aspects of, Strictly Ballroom (Baz She was able then to argue a case for such often seem to me that Luhrmann,1992) and Muriel’s Wedding (P.J. a view that would be hard to mount now. the phrase was yoking Hogan, 1994), but their real distinction lay Some of the same thematic preoccupations together two concepts elsewhere. Was The Castle (Rob Sicth, 1997) underlie the fi lms I am concerned with here: the last Australian fi lm that had a strong there are still ‘little guys’ taking on corpora- with little common ground. tions or other corrupt power bases; country Then, very recently towns and suburban life are still being of- I caught up with the fered as ideological alternatives to a range of ‘others’; Australian pragmatism is still seen telemovie, Stiff (John as preferable to—oh, almost anything. The Clarke, 2004), and my unequivocal espousing of the bush ethos of spirits rose again. But we’ll an earlier period may no longer be a serious come back to that. proposition, but in the fi lms I am concerned with there doesn’t seem a very sure grasp of either generic conventions or of the social mores that underpin them. BRIAN MCFARLANE Mention of Crocodile Dundee above reminds 34 • Metro Magazine No. 142 me that it was seeing Paul Hogan’s new- It may be argued that the fi lm is too good- est comedy, Strange Bedfellows (Dean natured to deserve a mauling. My worry is Murphy, 2004), that set this piece in train. not whether it’s good-natured but that it is Seeing it in a large cinema in which the thick-headed. Its denouement is basically only other occupants was a group of three stupid: just ponder for a moment what is was possibly not ideal, but I felt no regret likely to be the post-credits development not to be part of a large audience enjoy- of its narrative. (And don’t tell me that ing itself. Almost nothing about it seemed this is just a fi ction and that what might funny enough to make one want to be in have happened after ‘THE END’ is no a large company. By now everyone must concern of mine.) Further, its picture of a be familiar with the plot concerning two Victorian country town is patronizing and guys in a country town, Yackandandah, mothballed: if a fi lmmaker wants to play who pretend to be gay to take advantage with a contemporary issue like the formal of new tax breaks for same-sex couples. status of same-sex couples, it doesn’t Vince (Hogan) is divorced and his ex- seem consistent to set the tale in a com- wife is taking him to the cleaners; Ralph munity that looks and acts and sounds as (Michael Caton) agrees to help out on the if it exists in a 1950s time-warp. To have understanding that no one will ever fi nd noticed that sexual mores have made out. Well, of course, everyone does. There signifi cant progress but not to have a clue have been much fl imsier narrative hooks about whether the same might be said for for successful comedies than this, but di- country towns looks like carelessness—or rector/co-screenwriter Dean Murphy never condescension. In the context of the fi lm, begins to make anything of it. the (beautiful-looking) town of Yackan- dandah never rings true for an instant as The fi lm probably thinks it is being ever so a player in the fi lm’s plot. There is often a liberal with its approach to the ‘gay’ couple patronizing sense of superiority in Austral- and the whole town is misty-eyed when ian fi lmmakers’ representation of country Ralph at the local fi remen’s ball makes towns, as though their occupants can a ‘moving’ speech about how he ‘loves’ have learnt nothing in the last fi fty years. his mate Vince, thus providing cultural theoreticians with more material for their As for Hogan, whose celebrity might have theses about the homoerotic elements of been supposed to save the day, even to mateship. Before this deeply embarrass- provide the fi lm’s raison d’être, he looks ing fi nal scene is reached (motivated by a aged and tired, to have lost the charm and need to persuade the visiting tax asses- larrikin humour that once enabled fi lm- sor, inexplicably played by British Pete makers to build a comedy around him. Postlethwaite2), the fi lm has fl irted with all Caton out-acts him at every turn, but then manner of gay clichés and had all the polit- he is essentially a character actor: we ex- ically incorrect fun it could wish for, hoping pect him to act, not just to trade on a per- to restore the moral balance with this cli- sona. And here is one of the great truths mactic (absurd and sentimental) scene at I’ve arrived at while watching these fi lms: the ball. We have, for instance, watched as the strength of Australian comedy fi lms is they are instructed by the local hairdresser, to be found in the range and depth of their a closet straight who pretends to be a character playing. If these fi lms are better swishy gay because it’s what’s expected of acted than they deserve, it is probably be- him. Oh yes? In 2004? In Yackandandah? cause their thin narratives are bolstered by And there’s a funny Australian place-name the presence of people like Alan Cassell, for you, isn’t it. Appalled—I hope—one Stewart Faichney, Roy Billing and Monica watches as Vince and Ralph practice limp Maugham (all in Strange Bedfellows), who gestures and hip-swivelling walks in the anchor them in a sort of reality that would direst, unfunniest of outdated sexual stere- otherwise elude them completely. otypes. And the fact that the hairdresser is really a rampant lothario doesn’t take the If country towns often stand in for simple- pressure off this caricature humour we’re minded stasis in the wake of modern life, expected to fi nd hilarious. the same is also often true of suburbia. This is not a key matter in Darren Ash- LEFT FROM TOP: THE HONOURABLE ton’s Thunderstruck (2004) but the point WALLY NORMAN; THE NIGHT WE CALLED is made. The fi lm begins at the AC/DC IT A DAY ABOVE FROM TOP: THE CASTLE; CRACKERJACK; STRANGE BEDFELLOWS; STRICTLY BALLROOM; THUNDERSTRUCK Metro Magazine No. 142 • 35 concert in Sydney in 1991, after which five ing.’3 Epstein also draws attention to the ticipating their nicely abrasive partnership young guys talk about dying young, have caricaturing of some of the characters in in Bad Eggs (Tony Martin, 2003), discussed a near-death experience, and make a pact the interests of a critique of their conserv- in these pages recently.4 to ensure that, when the first dies, the ative values, while underlying the club’s other four will ensure his burial next to AC/ ‘essential benignity’. In Paul Moloney’s The structural motif of the little guys up DC’s former lead singer, Bon Scott. One of 2002 comedy Crackerjack, the bowling against the corporate and/or political bul- them, Ronnie (Sam Worthington), is killed club is again depicted conservatively but lies and shysters evokes not merely the by a flash of lightning (how else?) and essentially to secure our sympathetic in- Ealing template of, say, Passport to Pimlico the rest of this often entertaining movie is volvement with it in the face of attempts at (Henry Cornelius, 1949) or The Maggie taken up with the survivors’ efforts to carry being taken over by Bernie Fowler (John (Alexander Mackendrick, 1953) but also the out the terms of the pact. Before this, Clarke), who is urging the club to accept Frank Capra-style fable of Mr Smith Goes though, they are found practicing inside a business offer to install pokies that will to Washington (1939). Australia’s most suc- the very suburban home of one of them, bring it ‘a fortune’. cessful foray into this sort of morally purpo- Sonny (Damon Gameau). The film flashes sive comedy is Rob Sitch’s The Castle, the forward to twelve years later, and Sonny While the club is, in old-time Ealing style, most recent being The Honourable Wally is still loafing about the house where his resisting these overtures, it is also coming Norman (Ted Emery, 2003).