Send-up Effect in Australian Films - Essay Example

Send Up Effect in Australian Films Name: Institution: Date: Send Up Effect in Australian films Introduction Send up has been used in many Australian films. Send up is a movie that imitates the style of something else or another person in a way that is amusing. One of the best ways of making an Australian audience to accept itself is the send up. It is common for send up to be used in the film industry within Australia. A send up can be likened to an amusing imitation or simply a parody. Australian audience likes to identify with a film that represents serious issues in a comic way (Simpson, 2003). Film producers and script writers who apply send up when capture the attention on the Australian audience perfectly. Discussion Muriel’s Wedding (1995) is a good example of an Australian film that captures the imagination of the Australian audience in a comical way by applying send up. Muriel Wedding (1995) has a witty script coupled with deadpan humor. It was satirical with regard to Aussie pomposity, about shady dealing and about cons. It was punctuated with a series of Abba songs that depicted a gentle mockery. There was more laughter throughout the film. The movies showed Muriel’s struggles, her mother’s despair and humiliation as well as the callous attitude of her father. Despite the humor, Muriel’s Wedding (1995) presents serious themes are alive in the Australian society today. Muriel’s Wedding (1995) was received well in Australian theatres. The response to Muriel’s Wedding (1995) depicts a great deal facts about Australian cinema and Australian attitudes. Australians enjoy the funny side of life (Ebert, 1995). Comedy is very welcome. Commentators abroad observe that the sense of humor of Australians in their films is “quirky”. The Australian audience enjoys the send up. This is particularly when it is done to the Australians themselves. The audience can also stomach the serious issue too but it should not be deadly serious. The sensibility of Australia is a complex consisting of many components. Some of these elements include a young outlook, as easy hedonism, extreme competiveness, brash responses, having one’s heart at the right place and a ‘fair go’. The send up makes the Australia audience to identify with the film and enjoy it to the end. Serious issues can also be represented with a sense of humor but depicting the Australian identity or the things that they can easily identify themselves with (Swift, 2013). Muriel’s Wedding (1995) regaled many Australians among other movies that were ranked among the best ten Australian films. There is the common culture that Australians easily identify with and can relate to. When the issues are presented with a touch of humor, it adds to the thrills that captures the imagination and interest of the audience. Muriel’s Wedding (1995) is a romantic comedy-drama film directed and written by P.J. Hogan. Star actors in the film include Rachel Griffiths, Toni Collette, Sophie Lee, Jeanie Drynan, and Bill Hunter. The film revolves on Muriel who is obsessed with the ambition of having a big wedding and enhancing her individual life by from the fictional dead-end town Porpoise Spit to Sydney. Many in the events in the film can be identified by Australian audience and they are represented with a sense of humor that makes it more captivating to watch it over and over again. When Muriel get holds of a bouquet at one of her friend’s wedding, her friends are not happy. They insist that she should through the banquet again since she does not look like she will ever get married. She does not look like a bride-to-be in future, in a leopard skin dress that is too conspicuous that she is spotted by another guest in the wedding who is by bad luck a floorwalker at the store where Muriel stole the dress (Maslin, 1995). She is escorted home from the wedding by the police but she escapes arrest when her dad, who happens to be a local politician, treats the cops to a case of beer. Porpoise Spit means Jewel of North Coast. This film depicts a careful blend between misery and satire. This film is merciless in its depiction of the provincial society whereas there is huge affection for the misfit survivors. Muriel retreats to her bedroom after being wounded and drowns her sorrows in Abba songs (Webster, 2000). She is an enormous, big-boned woman with hair that is unruly and spots a clueless look. Her high school friends with promiscuous and grim sex lives do not want her around them anymore. They are in top gear for a tropical island holiday and her presence will not add to their appeal. Life at home for Muriel is cheerless. Better, her mother (Jeanie Drynan) is an undertone of tragedy; she is a cowed woman who is simply treated by her children like a slave and her husband Bill (Bill Hunter) like a household appliance that cleans and cooks. Bill is a failed politician who enjoys taking bizarre Japanese investors to dinner in Chinese restaurants where free meals are owed to him following shady deals. His children are couch potatoes who sit, absentminded, staring at television. It is only Muriel who has had enough ambition to flunk out of secretarial school (Stack, 1995).  Life suddenly changes when Muriel comes across a blank check from her mother and high-spirited new friend called Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths) who possess an infectious grin and deep faith in Muriel’s potential. The girls go away on vacation to the same island where the snobs have gone, and are the spectacle of the party with their own version of ‘Dancing Queen’. With Rhonda backing her, life seems to be promising; the two girls find their way to Sydney where Muriel encounters her first sexual experience that is not successful (instead of the boy unzipping Muriel’s pants, he unzips a chair instead in a misunderstanding that has to be understood. Muriel’s tells Rhonda about her love for Abba songs while in Porpoise Spit (Maslin, 1995). Rhonda confesses that since she moved to Sydney her life Muriel and moved to Sydney her life is good as Abba songs. Muriel is still unhappy since she equates true happiness to getting married. She haunts wedding shops and in the end gets into a marriage of convenience with an African swimming star who wants a wife in order to obtain an Australian passport. Muriel lets out simpering squeaks during their wedding while the bridegroom looks at her with slack-jawed incredulity. Muriel’s Wedding (1995) has a lot of laugh but also a melancholy undercurrent that comes about towards the end of the film in a series of unexpected developments and surprises. The film revolves around Muriel’s discovery of herself, and a growing faith that she can have a good life, be valued and make friends. The film avoids making fun of Muriel’s situation although there are moments where there was insurmountable temptation. Serious issues have been represented in Muriel’s Wedding (1995) but with a comic relief that combines the use of satire and caricature. There are families that are disfranchised to the point that they are out of touch with reality. Bill children are like zombies who stare endlessly at the television stunned. No wonder Muriel’s sole ambitions turns out to getting married but unfortunately she ends up in a marriage of convenience to an African swimming star whose main intention is to get an Australian passport (Ebert, 1995). Inasmuch as it is satirical, that part presents the truth that go on in the immigration department and the extremes that immigrants go to get valid traveling documents that allows them to stay legally in the country. The film represents the challenges that common people go through as they struggle to remain if value to the current society. Bill, Muriel’s father, has to engage in shady deals in order to continue enjoying free dinners at the Chinese restaurants with Japanese investors (Stack, 1995).  He is a failed politician who refuses to budge and continue to explore any remaining tricks up his sleeves. The comic that is represented by this sending is great but the serious matters that is conveyed is not lost to the audience that so much enjoys the laughter and the misery and challenges to the cast. The entire set presents a typical life that an Australian audience can identify with and laugh about. This is indeed what is meant by use send up to gain acceptance by the Australian audience. The audience appreciates a high sense of humor that represents what really goes on in the society in Australia despite the setting. The film went on to win many awards after the year of its release due to the powerful message it communicated and the warm acceptance by the Australian audience. Muriel’s Wedding (1995) portrays serious issues. The audience never fails to identify with Muriel’s misery but laughs at the absurd things that she engages in. The indigenous communities have also been received well by the Australian viewers. Many Aboriginal themes have been explored in documentaries and films (Moran & Vieth, 2006). Since 1788 when the first white settlers arrived in the land that was hitherto occupied for more than fifty thousand years by Aboriginal people, there was a predominant presence of the Irish and British. A variety of gold seekers among them Chinese came in the 19th-Century. Nevertheless, it was in the 1940s that post-war European migrants transformed the Australian mix. Melbourne is the third Greek city of the world. There are less Maltese in Malta as compared to Melbourne. The constitution of 1901 established the federation of states that abolished indigenous aborigines voting. A referendum overturned this rule in 1967. Students from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore began to enter Australian universities for studies in the 1960s. The links with Asia having been growing overtime and Australia is more welcoming and open. This rich Australian heritage that begins with indigenous communities and the coming of white settlers has been presented in many Australian films (Moran & Vieth, 2009). The rich culture has never failed to come up in Australian films. Australian audience easily identify with their own setting that they love it when it is presented in a form of a satire like what the producer of Muriel’s Wedding (1995) did. Inclusion, it is important to observe that the Australian audience needs to be tickled. It wants to appreciate the line of thought of the producer and acknowledge his sense of humor while appreciating the seriousness of the themes being represented in the movie. It is not a walk in the park to come up with such a perfect film that has comic relief and discusses serious issues. The producer and script writer have to be creative to present issues that Australian audience can identify with easily and laugh as the sense of humor without underrating the discussed themes. Muriel’s Wedding is a perfect example. References Ebert, R. (17 March 1995). Muriel's Wedding, Chicago Sun-Times Maslin, J. (1995). Muriel’s Wedding (1994), Film review: A Cinderella makes over her life, The New York Times, retrieved on 3rd November from: http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=990CE3DA133CF933A25750C0A963958260 Moran, A. & Vieth, E. (2009). The A to Z of Australian and New Zealand Cinema, Sydney: Scarecrow Press. Moran, A. & Vieth, E. (2006). Film in Australia: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press. Simpson, P. (2003). On the Discourse of Satire: Towards a Stylistic Model of Satirical Humor, Melbourne: John Benjamins Publishing. Stack, P.  (17 March 1995). "Seeking Bliss, Muriel Finds Herself Instead / Sweet 'Wedding' comedy has substance", San Francisco Chronicle. Webster, R. (2000). Expanding Suburbia: Reviewing Suburban Narratives, Berghahn Books. Swift, B. (July 2013). Why don’t we watch more Australian films? Australia Culture Blog retrieved on 3rd November from: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/australia-culture-blog/2013/jul/18/australian-film-bigger-audiences Read More