Australian Comedy Analysis

Australian comedy is a naturally witty and entertaining, self-deprecating style of humor. How can we take anything to seriously whilst we go around saying the words “bloody struth mate”? We are smothered with Australian made TV shows, which shock and stir outrage. With many of us finding ourselves laughing at lewd comments. The outrageous jokes they project onto the small screens resulting in laughs. It is this humor that results in one of two reactions. Hysterical laughter and or anger at the racist undertones that can be found. Two things nearly as different as a true blue Aussie meat pie, and a mere imposter. But really this humor is over the top and quite questionable. But yet It still accurately displays the type of comedy that is associated

The characters all have one trait in common, an outlandish personality that doesn’t quite fit the mold of the general population. This satirized, version of stereotypical characters that you can see in the general communities of Australia, is what makes this so hilarious. Australians as a whole are used to being stereotyped as, kangaroo riding, shrimp eating people. Known for our use of “struth” and “mate” as every second word. Not as these wild, smoking and swearing families that reside in our outer “burbs”. This might be why we laugh at this humor. It almost goes over our heads. Straight over our sun kissed Aussie heads might I say. Meaning that we laugh at these characters because we don’t see it as laughing at

Jumping, almost like a kangaroo, at the chance to joke about ourselves. A big name that is always thrown around when discussing such is Chris Lilley. Lilley is responsible for the creation of Summer Heights High (2007), an 8 part show that features a variety of memorable characters. From the bitchy private school girl Ja’mie King. To even the outlandish drama teacher that prefers to be called Mr. G or even the Tongan student with a bigger than life personality called Jonah. Our mate Chris Lilley not only wrote the scripts for the entire season, but also plays all three main characters. The costuming and makeup is very minimal in the task to transform Lilly into these characters. This might be why that whilst it is obvious that it is a grown man playing all three characters, us as the audience seem to pay little attention to such.

Jonah from Tonga, as he is commonly known. Struts around the school saying “Puck you sir/miss” to anyone he feels like. He is arguably one of the most memorable characters on the show. Although this could be put down to the controversy he causes. Shocking the viewers sitting at home drinking out of their