Crocodile Dundee: A Comical Portrayal of Australian Culture

Running head: FILM HISTORY
FILM HISTORY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Notes

1FILM HISTORY
All my life I have been living in South Korea. It is a wonderful city and I gave always felt
like I was a part of it. After completing my graduation I decided to move to Australia for
continue my further studies. Before I visited Australia, I did a brief research on the country for
my time ahead. My educational course was for about 4 years so I had to prepare myself. I heard
about a lot of stereotypical information related to “kangaroos”, “poisonous snakes” and people
addressing each other as “mates”. However, my conception towards the country and its people
changed when I finally came to Australia. It was a wonderful place, way warmer than South
Korea, but still beautiful. To understand their accents was another issue in the beginning. The
Australian’s rate of speech was so fast that it is hard to follow (Stoneham, Goodman, & Daube,
2014). During classes, I had difficulties understanding the lectures and I used to miss out taking
notes. After I while I decided to get better at learning the accent and myself familiar with it. I
tried watching the Australian news and got myself familiar with the accent however I could not
feel the proper connection with it. I started reading books which some of my mates from the
university suggested me. I learnt a lot about the true history of Australia and I was fascinated by
it. After returning from the university, I used to spend my time by reading books. I read about the
Indigenous culture of Australia, the Aborigines. I learnt about them and how they were the actual
natives of Australia and how they were treated horribly by the non-Indigenous or the white
people and they were driven off from the society.
After reading few books, I approached one of my professors from the university and I
told her what I was doing. He smiled and said, “Good onya! Why donncha watch some flicks?”
Then I understood that she was right, watching a film would give me a much better
understanding. I was a film-buff. Back in South Korea I used to spend my time mostly watching
movies of Bong Joon-ho, Park Chan-wook, Kim Ki-duk and many more directors so I knew that

2FILM HISTORY
watching popular Australian films would give me a lot of information about the Australian
culture and how the people think. So the next day I went to the professor and asked for some
suggestions. She told me hat as this my first Aussie film, I should watch a comedy film. The film
she gave me was “Crocodile Dundee” directed by an Australian director named Peter Faiman. I
was hesitant because I was never a fan of comedy films yet I wanted to watch the film because I
was venturing into an unknown territory of films. What mainly differentiates from Korean and
Australian films are that most popular Korean films are drama based, whereas Australian films
are more action or comedy based (Coate et al., 2017). Aussie directors mainly use the comical
advantage of stereotyping the fictional characters of a comedy film. As men referring themselves
as “Bloke” or women as “Sheila” and the use of stereotypical subjects like crocodile, kangaroo,
dry deserts and many more. The film also gives a comical landscape to Australia as well New
York City. This is more familiar in the case of Crocodile Dundee.
Paul Hogan who rose to fame in a very short time from Australian television to the film
industry. Hogan stars as Michael Dundee or Crocodile Dundee is a crocodile hunter from a small
hamlet located in the Northern Territory of Australia. She film is portrayed from the viewpoints
of Sue Charlton, a newspaper writer who receives the information of Crocodile Dundee who has
apparently lost half of his leg to a crocodile attack. When Sue arrives at the bar, she meets Walter
Reilly the business partner of Dundee who entertains her until Dundee arrives. The scene at the
pub gives an excellent overview about the indigenous culture of Aussie land. There has been
many directors over the years those who have given an excellent portrayal of the indigenous
culture however what Peter Faiman does is that he highlights the same elements which is faced
the indigenous community however in a satirical sense. The pub scene depicts an imagery of
multiculturalism as the there are shady blokes located in the pub. The place seems to highlight