Don't be mocking the moccasins. That's the moral Katherine Kizilos discovered on the set of a new SBS series shot in the western suburbs.
WHAT do bogans have to be proud of? That's more than a rhetorical question on the set of Bogan Pride, a new six-part musical comedy series made for SBS and recently shot in the western suburbs of Melbourne.
The series stars and was written by Rebel Wilson, whom some television viewers will know as the schoolgirl on The Wedge and as Toula in Pizza.
In Bogan Pride, Wilson plays Jenny Cragg, an overweight Christian teenager from the mythical suburb of Boonelg. Her mission is to raise $10,000 so that her mother, Berenice, can be cured of morbid obesity by having her stomach stapled. Until such time, Berenice spends her life glued to the family's Jason recliner.
It's the last day of shooting when Metropolis pays a visit. The set is a house with artificial brick cladding, near the beach in Altona. On this day, the quiet of the street is barely disrupted by the activities of crew, actors and film trucks; they've made a mess of the backyard but are otherwise an unobtrusive presence.
Nearby, at the Louis Joel Arts Centre in Sargood Street, chairs and tables are set up, canteen style, to feed the crew, lending a temporary party atmosphere to proceedings.
In the scene being shot as we arrive, fears are held for the welfare of the Craggs' cat, which is possibly trapped beneath Berenice. Jenny and her friends from the God's Love Society attempt to move the matriarch, an endeavour fraught with peril.
Twenty-four-year-old Wilson says all the characters she has created in her short career contain autobiographical elements, but Jenny's travails on Bogan Pride are "probably the closest to my life and upbringing".
Still, she adds, the show is a work of fiction. "I have exaggerated elements of it in order to make it a comic show."
Wilson grew up in Kenthurst, Parramatta and Castle Hill in Sydney's west and north-west, but Bogan Pride — which producer Tony Ayres describes as a "live-action South Park" — has been shot exclusively in Melbourne: in Altona, Sunshine and Laverton.
"Bogan is a very loose term," says Ayres when asked if there are differences between the Sydney and Melbourne varieties. "Everyone has a different version … we are touching on the whole glorious range of bogan-ness."
But Wilson says Laverton and parts of Altona remind her of western Sydney suburbs such as Mount Druitt. The look of the streets and of the people "are pretty much exactly the same".
The title of the show is not meant to be ironic. It refers, Wilson says, mostly to the main character, Jenny, "because she has real heart. People who come from a disadvantaged background can have real heart. You feel for these people. And if they have the desire to improve on their situation and stuff, you root for them."
The title could just as easily refer to the audacious nature of the project. Each episode ends with a musical number.
"We had a tight budget but I wanted to do something that was really, really great," explains Wilson. "I had to think creatively to make sure I could do the project because doing a musical is pretty ambitious. I really wanted to do it, and I knew I could do it, but it's hard when it's your first series. You learn along the way about structure and stuff and whatever. But I think the finished product I will be very happy with."
Ayres describes the show as "a celebration of the down and out, the outsider, the nerds, the fugly girl … (it says) it's OK to be fat and plain and not have Chanel taste". He says the show "has some dark edges" and predicts it "is probably going to offend lots of people".
"The humour is absolutely on the edge," he adds. "It pokes fun at a lot of people. In talking about the show we have been really careful about differentiating between what our characters think in this bogan world and what the show is trying to say."
Ayres, who directed the feature film The Home Song Stories and spent some of his childhood in the late '60s living in Housing Commission flats in Carlton and Northcote, reflects that "we don't see poor people on the screens very often. Most of what we see these days is the aspirational middle-class. My feeling is that in representing this underclass world, it humanises people who would normally not even register".
He was the script editor on Bogan Pride and recognises that parody is a danger, but says he believes it is only an issue "if it's not funny, or if it's cruel or comes from somewhere judgemental".
Comedy is able to "transcend so many audience barriers (because) it's a tremendous leveller," he says. "It's able to say things that part of us all think. If its intent is to energise and entertain, anything is possible."
Bogan Pride is scheduled to appear on SBS from October.