Jeff Blamey, Melbourne, 2012
If you thought the most important events in
the non-Aboriginal history of the Northern Territory were the expeditions of
discovery of Stuart, or the surveying parties of Goyder, think again. The
arrival of the Bogans from the late 20th century is having far greater effect in
shaping the Northern Territory than trifling events such as the Bombing of
Darwin, Cyclone Tracy or self-government.
We tend to judge Bogans in material terms,
but these are misconceived; it is Bogan culture that has been wholly
successful. It is not a culture embedded in bourgeois cultural items, such as
original books, paintings or music, but in the act of adoption and consumption
of a narrow and conformist range of artefacts. Their creativity lies not in the
vapid pursuit of “the new”, but in a cultural hegemony through conformity: in
remixed songs rather than new ones, prêt-à-porter
foods rather than cordon bleu, the derivative rather than the daring.
Bogans have a vital knowledge about the
pursuit of happiness which few other Australians have tried to acquire. Other
Australians crossing lonely suburbs have died of thirst within a mile of hidden
Bundy or VB which, with the aid of Bogans, they could have tapped. Lost, they
wander aimlessly through environments which display the hidden signs of plasma televisions.
They often conclude that the world is mean and hungry, not realising that some
regions in the course of four seasons provide a wider variety of KFC and
McDonald’s than a gourmet in Paris would eat in an extravagant year.
Indeed, if a Bogan from Karama in the early
21st century had been captured as a curiosity by a Stokes Hill Wharf cruise
ship, and if he had travelled all the way to Double Bay and on to Toorak, and
seen how the average Australian lived, he might have said to himself that he
had now seen the Third World and all its material poverty, hardship and
cultural sterility.
In the Northern Territory, the Bogans have
thrived in their newly discovered Eden, nowhere less than in the northern
suburbs of Darwin and the pioneering outposts of Palmerston and beyond: this
paradise is indeed witnessing the triumph of the Bogans.
As scholars, we must learn to understand
the Bogan and celebrate—perhaps even embrace—this way of life: the wearing of
high vis chic clothing, their ritual displays of Southern Cross tattoos, their
harmony with the environment, and the fact that their apparent wanderings
actually form a regular pattern of movements between work and play, between
drinks and fishing.
As other researchers have pointed out[1]:
The
bogan today defies income, class, race, creed, gender and logic. The bogan is
defined by what it does, what it says and, most importantly, what it buys.
Those who choose to deny the bogan on the basis of their ... home, their
stockbroking career or their massive trust fund choose not to see the bogan.
They merely see old class battles revisited. Likewise, the bogan is no
mere “tradie”. Even if tradies remained low-income workers, many bogans are
affluent. And they set themselves apart by their efforts to stand out by conforming
as furiously, and conspicuously, as possible.
… (i)t
is time to bring to the world’s attention the means by which we can keep the
world’s bogans happy. The word bogan has had a bad rap of late—still associated
with wife beaters, flannelette, VB, utes and mullets. But this conceals the
new, modern bogan. The bogan with money. The bogan with aspirations. The bogan
with Ed Hardy t-shirts.
I can only concur, and the
Northern Territory provides the perfect environment for that happiness to be
achieved.
List of works
Franck Gohier,
Keep Left, acrylics plus mixed media on hand riveted aluminum
Franck Gohier, The
bucket, 2007, acrylic on
board
Colin Holt, Boganopoly, 2012, acrylic paint on wood, glass top
Colin Holt, Bogan
World, 2012, acrylic on
board
Chips Mackinolty, Bogan
Baby names, 2012, inkjet
print on paper
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