I L-O-V-E "Kath and Kim." Makes me cry laughing so hard.
But being American I have no idea if the accents, fashions, locales, etc are parodying a certain type of Australian...? Anyone know?
Totally agree, kath and kim is the best! It's parodying the typical Aussie family living in the suburbs, the 'bogans'. Essentially aussies having a go at themselves. :D
"Bogans" are like really Australian people, lol. Thats what its make fun of.
shareKath and Kim really isnt a typical Aussie family. Its not really parodying any part of Australia. It takes small parts of certain hypes or fads or whatever and exaggerates them massively. Anyway, a bogan is more of a redneck if that makes more sense. The ones that drive pick up trucks and wear trucker hats. The ones that think Asians should keep out and the homosexuals should be bashed. That's more of an accurate portrayal of the Aussie bogan. And I live in a country area just outside of Sydney, so I am VERY familiar with the bogan. :P
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I would not say Kath & Kim is a typical take on middle class suburbia.
Melbourne has very little or close to no actual residential population in the city itself, virtually all the "inner city" population lives in a belt spanning the 2-10km radius of the city center. Anyway, Kath and Kim is supposedly a take on a specific region of outer Melbourne, at a guess id say 10km+ in the south/south-east direction.
I remember driving around with my friend in his area (he lives in Brighton) and he was telling me "right here.. this is kath and kim country". I think there was even a specific few suburbs that Kath and Kim was directly supposed to be based on, a few months ago some media crews went around to these suburbs and interview people, basically with the intention to drum up animosity against kath and kim for being elitist and trashing "middle Australia" etc. Anyway what they found was that even though Kath and Kim was a gross exaggeration and generalisation of the 'classless outer suburban Australian' they also found out that nobody really had a problem with it, even the people being caricaturised generally liked the show and took it all in good humor. And thus the media attack on kath and kim came to a hasty end.
Just to digress, Kath and Kim has been long resented by the commercial media in Australia. They continuously rated highly, despite being with ABC (state run TV station) who all the commercial stations love to hate. Nothing the commercial stations even introduced could compete with Kath and Kim so they eventually gave up. That said too, all the principal cast and writing talent of Kath and Kim were all ex- full frontal people, in fact I think the original Kath and Kim idea came from either full frontal or big girls blouse (kinda spin off of full frontal after ff tanked). But yeah full frontal was always hated by the other commercial networks with a passion, you kinda had to see it to understand why.
Just to digress a little more, full frontal was probably the greatest concentration of Australian comedic and writing talent in the history TV. Kinda like kath and kim but as a sketch show and with 4 times as many contributors each doing their own things. Also where Eric Banna came from, which few people outside Australia (I dare say few inside too) know.
But yeah thats about all I know on the subject, I never watched Kath and Kim that much even though I still think its pretty good. Try wikipedia if you want to know more, I think thats got a good K&K article.
"I L-O-V-E "Kath and Kim." Makes me cry laughing so hard.
But being American I have no idea "
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You just have to love the Yanks.........
The guts of the show - the great characters, the constant string of malapropisms, the superb and surreal sight gags - are universal and have nothing to do with being Australian.
The pacific jokes? Many are much more site specific - a fair example would be the final joke of Sharon's at the end of Series 4 - Shane Warne is pretty much a non-entity over here... so, before consulting wikipedia we just looked at each other and said, "Okay, that must be a very pacifically Australian reference that we are just not getting..."
Repeated viewings help with jokes that flew by the first time and didn't rest easily in our Yank ears. And it should be noted that some Yank's ears are better tuned - I'd say a good number would miss the "our souls" joke from Series 3 - thanks to travel and being a border child (US/Canada) I did not.
Hey curlydo20
As an Australian, I have always felt that the characters on this show are funny. Although I cant imagine anyone quite like this, thats not because they are horrible or anything like this, it just seems like an exageratied cliche.
If you want to see a guy doing some characters where their type do exist here (I know because I have met people just like them), get a dvd called we can be heroes and a more recent one called summer heights high. You might need to get it on ebay.
Hope that helps.
I don't really see "redneck" when I watch Kath and Kim, more like nouveau riche or chav. Although in America you'd have to be a lot richer to be considered nouveau riche, if anything they're more like lower middle class or white trash. No repectable middle income woman would ever wear the clothes Kath wears, really those kind of clothes look like what women who live in trailer parks wear. You'd have to shop at Goodwill to find those kinds of clothes.
As for phil the hydra's comment if you live in America or Britian both countires bought the rights to Summer Heights High so if you live in America you can catch it on HBO (I think the series just ended but you can stll find it on HBO on Demand, they'll probably keep it up for a few months). I think the Brits were saying BBC3 bought it (?) but you might want to check the SHH board to verify. I got recommendations for "You Can Be Heros" and another of Lilley's show (can't remember the name) but haven't been able to download them, they seem to be very hard to track down.
"Look lady I don't come down to where you work and slap the d!ck out of your mouth".
I was talking to an Australian friend about this series and she reckons that they're based on a kind of lower-educated person who has a bit of cash, fairly comfortable lifestyle......but not rich.
Actually I was in a shop one day and there were a couple of Australian women in there wearing very "Kath and Kim" clothes and I heard one say to the other, "oooh look......that's noyce" and I nearly collapsed laughing - they sounded just like them.
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