Character
The character was a parody of the boorish Australian overseas, particularly those in the United Kingdom – unsophisticated, loud, crude, drunk and aggressive – although McKenzie also proved popular with Australians because he embodied some of their positive characteristics: he was genuine, forthright, straightforward, candid to his English hosts, who themselves were often portrayed as stereotypes of pompous, arrogant colonial deviousness.
McKenzie frequently employs euphemisms for bodily functions or sexual allusions, one of the most well-known being "technicolour yawn" (vomiting). The film popularised several Australian euphemisms and slang terms which are still used today in the Australian vernacular (such as "point Percy at the porcelain", "sink the sausage", "flash the nasty"). Some of the slang was invented by Humphries, with other terms borrowed from existing Australian slang such as "chunder", and "up shit creek" (adopted by the Australian poetry magazine Shit Creek Review).
Men at Work lead singer Colin Hay said that the lyrics for "Down Under" were inspired by the Barry McKenzie character.
Read more about this topic: Barry McKenzie
Famous quotes containing the word character:
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Divine persons are character born, or, to borrow a phrase from Napoleon, they are victory organized.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Play builds the kind of free-and-easy, try-it-out, do-it-yourself character that our future needs. We must become more self-conscious and more explicit in our praise and reinforcement as children use unstructured play materials: “That’s good. You use your own ideas....” “That’s good. You did it your way....” “That’s good. You thought it all out yourself.””
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)