This must be an aussie movie intended for local distribution only as there is no way it will travel using the name 'wog' in the subtitle. It's considered a racial slur elsewhere in the english-speaking world - amazed that hasn't registered in Australia. Last bastion of the politically incorrect? Does their PM use the term?
shareIt was a racial term in Australia but was embraced and claimed back by the european community here. The original movie was about taking ownership of the label and being proud of being Greek-Australian.
shareThat's all correct. But I'm Italian and I don't like to use it or hear it simply because it's hardly used affectionately anymore. I noticed that the subtitle is restricted to a tiny gold banner at the bottom of the trailer that I saw.
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
In Greece the title of the film is being shortened to simply "The Kings of Mykonos".
shareIn Greece, what is the title of the first film?
Detective Vic Mackey "Ai, Dios mio. I'm burning.".
I saw it in Australia and the words "Wog Boy 2" never came up on the screen it was simply called "the kings of Mykonos" I think they only used the phrase Wog Boy 2 on the commercials and posters but the actual movie is just called "Kings of Mykonos" even here in Australia.
shareCalling someone a "wog" (western oriental gentleman) in Australia is not really so common anymore. To explain there was a huge immigration push in Australia after WW2. A lot of Italians and Greeks migrated to get away from a war torn Europe. So Melbourne still has more Greeks here than just about any city bar Athens.
Like all immigrants the early Italian and Greek migrants settled in certain areas. In Melbourne it was inner suburbs like Carlton and Brunswick both mainly with old Victorian era single and double storey terrace houses. Not a lot different to what you'd find in Greece or Rome. As these people worked hard and prospered many moved out into the suburbs. The Italians bought a rich culture of food with them as did the Greeks.
So fast forward 20 years and you have Vietnamese coming out here after the Vietnam War. They tended to congregate in Richmond where some streets are lined with shops with Vietnam writing all over the awning. More lately there's been a wave of migrants from the Sudan and other African nations.
We're pretty multicultural and very tolerant here. Perhaps in the 1970s you might have said a car was woggy if it was painted purple or orange. We live in a house built by an Italian in the late 1960s. It's built of solid concrete suspended slab.. a Casa Grande. I think the original builder must have worked for Grollos who build skyscrapers and the like to get all the concrete in this place.
So with so many 2nd and possibly 3rd generation Italians and Greeks here, Vietnamese 2nd generational young people with Asian features and a broad Aussie accent, you'd be dating yourself to call someone a wog.
I thought wogs meant "work on government service"....
What is with wogs and cash?
No the PM would never use it. I was always told when growing up that a Wog was a greek and a Ding is an italian but we have blended both. Heaps of my friends are italian and they call themselves wogs. We dont say Ding though thats a derogative comment.
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i'm serb, and we also come under the category of wogs. i didn't really give much attention to the term, but after watching Fat Pizza i embraced it and love being called a wog. almost all the serbs, greeks, italians etc over here that i know love being called wogs. my aussie friends refer to me as a wog, and i encourage it. so as far as i know, there isn't a problem.
sharei guess its different if you approve ur close friends/family calling each other wogs. but if it was someone u didnt know so well like an aquatance or work/student colleage. you'd be pissed off.. Im Yugoslav and if anyone called me a wog, even my friends or my own parents id be really offended. dont take me wrong, i am very proud of my ancestory and i embrace it. but i would never embrace a derogitry word to go with it. nor would i associate any other culture or nationality with any derogitory terms. Its great how movies like this one have used in jest, but in reality it wouldnt be nice being label firstly as a wog, then secondly as either a greek, italian etc... :(
shareBeing a 'wog' and being a 'Greek Australian', or Italian Australian, are not one and the same. The word wog has a far more negative connotation. It traditionally implied being a peasant of sorts. When i was growing up in the 80's and 90's, it was quite commonly used by members of either ethnic group, but it was mostly, though not necessarily, from the mouth of less educated, working class ethnics. And the kids that glorified it the most tended to be second generation. I rarely ever met a third generation Greek Australian that would be proud to be a 'wog' as such. They were mostly embarassed of so called 'wog culture'. At least back then they were.
Personaly i never related to the whole 'wog pride' movement. I thought it was stupid. It was just an excuse for people to act like stereotypes, and those that didn't conform were generally seen as 'weird'.
I don't know about the rest of the English speaking world but in the UK it is a derogatory term used when referring to black people and no other. It is interchangeable with *beep* just as offensive and I'd doubt you'd ever be allowed to release a movie with that in the title here.
shareWell there you go. The name it equates to is censored here but it begins with N and ends with R so I think you should be able to guess it.
shareI'm a white australian and I use the word, I'm just used to it from having Greek friends. I think most of the public have become desensitised to it thanks to movies like this and other comedy outfits which is a good thing. It can still be used offensively but that's more context than anything else.
shareJust a polite warning to all the Aussies out there that if you are considering visiting the UK you should know that it's not ok to use this word in ANY context whatsoever.
It is considered to be a serious racial slur on Black people in the UK, and you would likely find yourself quickly arrested and charged with racism if you used this word in public, (it's considered as bad if not worse than the N word.) Thats if someone doesn't beat you up before hand.
Strange how different countries have such varied uses for the same word.
I'm an Australian but have been living in the UK for the past 12 years, so I can see both sides of this. I lived through the TV/media time where "wog" was reclaimed for first, Greek-Australiana, and then to other Mediterranean-Australians, as some of the other posters have noted.
In the UK, the term means people of black African or black Caribbean origin and I believe comes from (what is now considered) the highly offensive "golliwog" iconography, and is wrapped up witb negative stereotypes, slavery etc. It is a really offensive term in the UK, and after a decade of living in the UK my ear has re-tuned itself to not be able to tolerate it, to the point when discussing it with a Brit friend I would probably say "the-W word". It's as about as offensive as you can get.
In Australia, we had a period of TV shows and musicals like Wogs Out Of Work and Wogarama in the late 80s/early 90s, and certainly at the time it was successful in reclaiming the word, in a similar way that the gay community has turned "queer" around to be positive in some circunstances, and to an extent, black communities use the n-word in some popular culture contexts. For all these words, they can be used negatively or positively. For example, I am a gay man and if someone yelled queer or f*g at me from a car as they drove past, it would be offensive, but if a gay friend said he was going to a queer event or that a club was "full of f*gs", then that would be ok. The same if in Austrlia a Greek Australian said he was going to a big wog wedding, that would be ok, but if someone used it as part of an insult it would still be highly offensive. The same way Kanye West can use the n-word in a song but it's not good from a right wing white extremist group... you get my drift.
Out of interest, I'm on holidays on Mykonos at the moment (we randomly went to the bay where it was filmed, Fokos bay) and there are HEAPS of Greek Australians here...