Interpretation Of Australian Humor

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Comedy strives to make us laugh and sometimes make our ordinary lives better. However, to outsiders, they believe that comedy should be censored and interpreted in an inoffensive manner, especially the embellished stereotype that is the Australian humour. This form of comedy for Australian television is viewing particular stereotypes in an exaggerated way and is believed to be Australian’s most prized entertainment feature. Yet, this is now being shunned, because of racial and gender interpretations. Representation is used extensively in comedy and is the interpretation of a something that is then stereotyped to form a general meaning. An example of this would be aboriginals are all poor and stupid drunks or druggies. Some representations …show more content…

Let’s begin by analysing the TV shows Angry Boys, Summer Heights High and Jam’aes Private School Life by Chris Lilley (picture seen above). For all three shows he has won numerous Logie awards for either “Best Actor” or “Most Outstanding Comedy Program”. During the process of these shows he began to frequently watch the behaviours of the average Australian student in high school especially for the production of Summer Heights High. This was to gain knowledge of some comedic material that could relate to the community. After his research in the field of his inspiration he then began to represent the average rich private school girl Ja’mie King as the average Australian teenager in high school. In the show she is represented with a snobby attitude towards public schoolers and revealing that they are only poor losers that are more likely to go to jail than get a high income paying job. In addition, another character in Summer Heights High known as Jonah Takalua who is a native Tongan represents racial stereotype in the show. He displays a stereotypical trouble making attitude towards the teachers, students and other schools. When another classmate who has red hair is discriminated against Jonah calls them “Rangas”.He also reveals as racism, the teacher’s way of instruction and her attitude towards him . At the point of the teacher telling Jonah to be quiet or he’ll go to detention he replies “your just dissing me cause I’m black”. The viewers are only seeing this as a disrespectful and troubling boy characterizing his Tongan culture in that