australian television information archive

$300K Kath & Kim study no joke

IT'S enough to make you choke on your dippity-bix.

A trio of researchers are giving new meaning to the now-popular catchphrase "look at moy", studying what impact popular comedy characters such as Kath and Kim have on the national identity.

And taxpayers are pitching in $300,000 for the privilege ­ courtesy of the Australian Research Council.

Kath & Kim executive producer Rick McKenna said: "I nearly fell off my chair. It is ironic ­ it is dramatically more than the cast would earn for an entire series.

"Good luck to them ­ I think we are in the wrong game. But I would have preferred to see the $300,000 spent on either producing more comedy or on medical research for children or something," he said.

Many Australians may not even want to know the results of the three-year study.

Finding out that the Australian national identity is heavily influenced by the Kerrigans ­ the lovable bogans from The Castle ­ may be enough to make you go and hide in the pool room.

But La Trobe University cinema studies senior lecturer Dr Felicity Collins said she hoped to prove comedy characters represented the face of Australia more closely than traditional icons, such as the Anzacs or the bushman.

"Kath & Kim offers us something that we haven't necessarily seen before ­ but we recognise it," she said.

"Then it quickly becomes incorporated in popular culture and the way we talk about ourselves."

The study will cover Australian comedy from the 1950s to today, including films and television sitcoms.

March 05, 2006
The Sunday Telegraph