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This Day Tonight: Understanding satire: the 'ocker' Australian

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Man stands beside car for sale in yard
This Day Tonight: Understanding satire: the 'ocker' Australian

SUBJECTS:  English, History

YEARS:  9–10


What do 'Borat', 'The Simpsons', 'Gulliver's Travels' and political cartoons have in common?

They are all forms of satire: a particularly tricky genre of text.

In this clip, explore the concept of satire and how it is constructed.


Things to think about

  1. 1.Find a definition of satire. What is satire's purpose? Find an example of a satirical text and explain what it attempts to satirise. Which of the following are techniques of satire: hyperbole or exaggeration, irony, parody, vividness, antithesis, humour, stereotyping? What is meant by the term 'ocker'? Brainstorm ways you think this clip might satirise ocker identity.
  2. 2.The narrator refers to a 'diatribe against the ocker image'. What features of ocker identity are criticised? Identify an example of juxtaposition, exaggeration and vivid language. Describe the character of the used car salesman. Identify ten colloquialisms such as 'youse' and 'come the raw prawn' that he uses. What other elements of Australian culture do you see stereotyped in the character's monologue?
  3. 3.If you earlier predicted ways this clip might satirise the ocker identity, how accurate were your predictions? The construction of the salesman and his monologue are obviously satirical. What techniques of satire have been used? What comment do you think this clip is making about Australians and the ocker identity? How do you respond to this representation? Who might be offended by it?
  4. 4.Imagine you are creating a satirical skit for a sketch comedy show. Create a storyboard for a skit like the one in this clip that critiques some element of Australian society. Collect several cartoons from the newspaper; these are another form of satirical text. Annotate each cartoon to identify which elements of culture or politics the cartoonist is critiquing.



Date of broadcast: 23 May 1975


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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