After looking through the list of topics for our first blog I have decided on question eight; choose and describe a stereotype that is commonly held about a minority group in Australian society. Discuss why this stereotype exists, how that stereotype was formed, and how it is maintained. Also consider how this stereotype could be changed.
At this point in time I am still undecided about which minority group in Australia to research, but please feel free to vote on this blog if you would like to see more information about a stereotype commonly held about a particular minority group.
So while I am still undecided about some things, I did start some research on stereotypes in Australia in general, only to discover that nearly every site I looked at was filled with stereotypes about Australians, not really stereotypes Australians have about fellow Australians. I came across the whole, beer drinking, flannelette shirt wearing, laid back, and swearing, typical Aussie bloke. Also, the boomerang wilding, cork-screw-hat wearing, kangaroo riding, crocodile wrestling, beer drinking (yes, the beer drinking stereotype is EVERYWHERE), dingo befriending, Aussie bush male. There were also many other stereotypes and stereotypical sayings such as; “G’Day Mate, how ya goin?”, “Me an the missus goin down the pub”, “Bloody hell!”, “strewth”, “you ripper!”, “I’ll be buggered”, “gorblimey” and the list goes on and on and on.
There were also all the activities and ‘things’ that ‘all Australians’ (apparently) engage in on a daily basis, such as,
· Backyard cricket,
· Surfing,
· Fishing,
· Football,
· Eating meat pies,
· Having BBQ’s,
· Owning a blue healer,
· Driving utes,
· Drinking beer (Yes, again with the beer)
· Wearing thongs and stubbies,
· Going to the pub
· Etc, etc, etc
So, while my original aim was to discover what stereotypes exist among Australians I just couldn’t get past the fact that there were so many Aussie stereotypes out there. I have only listed a very small few of the commonly found stereotypes here, but all you have to do is type typical Aussie into any search engine and you will find numerous results similar to mine.
I hope to get back on my blog next week with a better idea of what Australian minority group I want to research for my first blog and also some info about stereotypes that exist within our Australian culture. In the meantime I would appreciate any input you may have about this subject.
Thank you and good luck!
P.S. I have added two TV ads (hopefully they work!) to my blog that demonstrate some more commonly found Australian stereotypes... Let me know what you think or if you can relate to any of the stereotypes shown.
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4 comments:
This may be a tricky topic to find information on, but thanks for tackling it. A search of journal databases may turn up more info, e.g., here's a Google Scholar search for australia stereotype>. Let me know if you find useful articles which aren't readily available and I can try to order them.
Here's an interesting social project to potentially change homeless stereotypes: an international soccer competition for homeless people.
Another interesting project for the homeless is 'The choir of hard knocks' www.choirofhardknocks.com.au.
It involved turning a bunch of homeless people into a choir and producing an album, there was a t.v series about it recently on abc. Many of the people had psych disorders and drug addictions and it was amazing to see how much they benefited from having a goal to focus on.
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