Sex not only sells but also motivates

Week 5 – Masculinities, Blokes, Ockers & Sheilas

The emergence of the Ocker films during the 1970s, despite the critiques on its depictions of the worst cultural representations possible, had a significant impact on the national as well as international economy and the film industry, the national image of Australia, and most of all the consciousness of the audiences of Australia. It fuelled and praised the bourgeois culture of Australia at the time – ‘working class, hedonist, beer-swilling, and the masculine’ (O’Regan, 1989).

The potential brainwash of the middle-class with these Ocker films, which are highly entertaining for its familiarity and ignorance of the ‘other’ (because the films revolved around and were predominately about the Anglo-Australian masculine figures). These represented characters were to be perceived as ‘vulgar but lovable in our vulgarity’. These highly entertaining yet anti-intelligence films were deemed potential of decentralising the hierarchical social structure, which most often the case for any given country based on the works of the intellectual. Consequently the funding for these Ocker films were cut short, which resulted in other film makers to subtly remain influenced by this phenomenon.

What became apparent in this instance, this outstanding break out of the genre, is the crucial aspect of target marketing of films. The primal reason why this genre had its glorious fame is that these films were set around the people who did not possess a degree of intelligence, with which to understand and consume the previous forms of films. As stated above, this phenomenon was also a motivational boost for the national film industry – with proven fact that it was possible to create potentially popular films within the country.

The Hollywood produces, especially those that involve super-hero, action, sex, drugs, could be perceived as a compensation for the loss of sheer entertainment for the mass audiences. Mainly comprising of the middle-class, the public is in need for a simple, enjoyable and unintelligent films! (perhaps not to the culturally degrading extent like the Ocker films.)

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