That, that, dude looks like a lady.
A rose by any other name; although the word bogan is uniquely Antipodean, the lifestyle it describes is a universal phenomenon. Formerly, and perhaps more affectionately, referred to as ‘salt of the earth’ or ‘the working classes’, every country has bogans, they just have different names for them. Terms of endearment, including ‘White Trash’, ‘Chavs’, ‘Rednecks’, ‘Pikeys’ and my personal favorite, ‘The Great Unwashed’.
In New Zealand, the word bogan is, like Russell Crowe, a regional peculiarity which, although of nonspecific trans-tasman origins, we are happy to let Australia claim the dubious honor of inventing. But that doesn’t make them any less of a Kiwi cultural icon.
Indeed, New Zealand bogans share much in common with their Australian brothers: permy mullets, Winfield cigarettes, a love of V8 engines that borders on erotic, and jumbo-sized chilli bins full of pub rock. And while appearances can be intimidating, the New Zealand bogan is generally a friendly & hard working member of society. If a little smelly. But definitely much less likely to stab you for an iPod, or ‘just being Abbo’.
A bogan’s sound moral compass is guided by their strong, if sprawling, matriarchal family structure, as can be witnessed on New Zealand’s longest running television documentary, Outrageous Fortune. They have a civic sense of duty and work ethic, underpinned, out of neccessity, by a high rate of breeding, and an aspiration to someday own a wire-fenced, quarter-acre bungalow in Henderson of their very own.
- Not many people know that the mother in the documentary Outrageous Fortune, Robyn Malcolm, actually began life as Robert Malcolm. After a short stint in the army, Robert underwent gender reassignment surgery, at a rural hostpital in Thailand in 1983, although the effects of the poor surgical techniques, and lack of female hormones available at the time, can be seen today.
- Although skinny black jeans, pish-wash, and check shirts are, unusually, back in style, somehow bogans still manage to make them look unfashionable.
- Contrary to popular belief, JD’s nightclub, downtown Auckland, the holy grail of bogan drinking in the 1980s and 90s, did not close after one of it’s patrons died from excessive head-banging. When the price of a can of Lion Red hit $5, bogans just went back to the suburbs in disgust.
- For a while during 1992, after the success of the movie Wayne’s World, it appeared the whole world might go bogan. A few months later, Last of the Mohicans was released, and everyone went back to pretending to be American Indians.
- Radio Hauraki, Fox News for bogans, actually began life on a boat. An overloaded $300 runabout with no life jackets or flares, a chillibin full of DB, some fishing tackle, and a prayer.
Bogans are good with their hands, and like to spend quality family time on said front lawn, dismantling automobiles, or building half of a boat. The young members of a bogan clan are thus raised with a keen mechanical ability, which makes them highly employable (when they leave school at 15) at panel workshops, petrol stations, or any franchise of the Mag & Turbo Warehouse.
But if bogans work hard, they like to play even harder. Well paid trade jobs, and low rent in the western suburbs, leaves bogans plenty of disposable income to fund loud, boozy weekends at Piha, nights at the Speedway, and a wardrobe of finest suede and leopard print.
Recent years have in fact seen a trend that can best be described as bogan pride. The lifestyle has been glorified, nostalgified even, and the word bogan reclaimed as a badge of honor – a way of deflating it’s originally intended power to insult. It is also a cynical way for ad-men to sell beer to rich university students with a fondness for ‘slumming it’.
But even middle aged corporate types are not immune to the appeal of going bogan. With the introduction of elasticated waistbands to Armani black skinny jeans, and the Karen Walker organic-cotton Jacques Daniéls collection; bankers, teachers, even politicians can make the 10 yearly pilgrimage to an AC/DC in concert, without sacrificing their commitment to sustainability, comfort, or style.
A point worth noting, because, as a political force, Bogans should not be underestimated. Some even suggest that the anointed bogan Queen, Paula Bennet - currently a high ranking Cabinet member – may one day go all the way to becoming New Zealand’s first bogan Prime Minister*.
Should that day come, resistance will be futile. Better to spit out that posh Riesling all over your copy of Mindfood, put on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, and embrace your inner bogan.
His name is Shane. And he wants to party.
* – although John Key sounds bogan, often acts bogan, and may even have bogan blood, his $10 million mansion in Parnell disqualifies him from actually being bogan.
The really funny thing is that the “pisstake” part is really taking the piss out of the pisstaking. It’s a triple cross. Saying that something isn’t true by making fun of it.
The really funny thing is that this place IS full of the sorts that you’re describing.
Don’t get into too much pisstaking, or you’ll get used to boots full of it because you are up to you ankles in it already.
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A nice supplement to this story: http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/bogans-2004
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Actually having just read my reply it’s obvious i don’t belong out west, so i am getting my self evicted as we speak and will move back to the safe eastern suburbs where the boy racers roam free and the private school kids smoke in bus stops in their school uniforms.
Thank you for saving me.
having just become a member of the ‘out west’ fraternity, yes we a living there now. i would like to say i have found the above offensive and culturally insensitive. I would like a full retraction of the above nonesensical, unfounded and completely biased scrall you dare call a blog. It is obviously just a opinion that you have formed with no true investigation nor time spent in the hallowed west.
omg your a fucking tool…its a pisstake blog man…see the funny side, like the rest of us do. And if you dont agree with it, fuck off and whinge somewhere else.
I think you might find that this comment is also a piss take. The clue is in the name.
something about a pot, a kettle and some black…..
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