Created by Tony Rogers and Rob Hibbert, How to Talk Australians is a brilliant new web series that challenges and dissects Australian culture from an outsider perspective.
The series is set around the premise of a group in an Indian call-centre training college learning what makes (and how to be) an Australian.
While each bite-sized episode is full of laughs, there is an edgy baiting towards thoughts of racism and racial stereotyping. This has resulted in an array of reactions over social media and YouTube:
The series is similar in part to Sacha Baron Cohen's universally popular / heavily critiqued Borat.
Both deal with a separate culture's approach to understanding a Western power: America in Borat and Australia in How to Talk Australians.
How to Talk Australians, however, is complete narrative, allowing the premise of Australian stereotyping to be fully grappled.
Like the arrival of "Dr Cook" on a dingy loaded up with Eskys.
The Aussie meat raffle.
And the "Australian" method of putting your beer in an Esky.
For every negative comment, the series achieves a fair amount of praise:
The adaptation of Indigenous culture as a sort of Australian cultural riff may be at the base of a lot of the backlash.
But this is no doubt intentional.
How to Talk Australians is a series that is sure to divide opinion, but also offers laugh-out-loud moments and reflections on Australian life, as its "about me" states:
Whether or not the series truly does fulfill its promise of "mining the depths of every aspect of the Australian stereotype", only time will tell.
You can watch episodes of How to Talk Australians here:
