A page from the New Zealand parody magazine "Bogue", showing actors dressed in a stereotypical Bogan style.

The term bogan (pronounced /ˈboʊɡən/, rhyming with slogan) is Australian and New Zealand English slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for a person who is, or is perceived to be, of a lower-class background. According to the stereotype, the speech and mannerisms of "bogans" indicate poor education, cheap clothing and uncultured upbringing. 'Bogans' usually reside in economically disadvantaged suburbs or rural areas.^[1]

The term is a regional equivalent^{[citation needed]} to the English slang terms chav, scally or pikey, Scottish ned, Irish scanger or spide, Dutch tokkie, German Proll, and the North American white trash, redneck, hick, or hillbilly.

[edit] History

The origin of the term 'bogan' as a pejorative is unclear; both the Macquarie Dictionary and the Australian Oxford Dictionary cite its origin as unknown. Comparison might be made with the Scots Gaelic bòcan or the Manx buggane, mythological creatures with elements of mischief, nuisance and/or malice.

The Australian National Dictionary Centre (ANDC) included the word in its Australian dictionary project^[2] in 1991, attributing the earliest known reference to a 1985 surfing magazine. The 1902 poem "City of Dreadful Thirst" by Australian poet Banjo Paterson makes reference to a "Bogan shower" as a term meaning "three raindrops and some dust". However this is clearly a reference to the dry region around the Bogan River in Central Western NSW.^[3] There are places in western New South Wales that contain 'bogan' in their name — including Bogan Shire, the Bogan River and the rural village of Bogan Gate — but they are not regarded as the source of the term.^[2]

The term's popular usage emerged in Melbourne's suburbs in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a non-pejorative term, used by fans of Heavy Metal and Hard Rock music to describe themselves, and was used almost interchangeably with "head-banger". Bogans typically wore "acid wash" jeans, moccasins, and band T-shirts; had "mullet" style haircuts; and lived in the suburbs. The usage of the term has since changed to indicate someone generally suburban and poorly educated, and has little relation to the original usage which was specific to Heavy Metal and Hard Rock fans. Also, the usage has changed to include females. Female bogans were known as "mocca chicks" for the moccasins which were customarily worn as footwear.

The term became widely known in the late 1980s, when the character Kylie Mole (played by Mary-Anne Fahey), from the popular Australian sketch comedy television program The Comedy Company, popularised the term, using it frequently to disparage those she disliked: "[a bogan is] a person that you just don’t bother with. Someone who wears their socks the wrong way or has the same number of holes in both legs of their stockings. A complete loser." Kylie's use of 'bogan' is closer to the common use of "dag" ("dork" or "nerd") than "westie," which apparently predated 'bogan' by some years.^[4]

The term has been used in reference to people living in the Logan region in Queensland. This is mainly because Logan happens to rhyme with bogan. Following the outcomes of Queensland Local Government reform, areas that moved from Beaudesert Shire to Logan City Council gained the label bogan from combining the words Beaudesert and Logan. Irrespective of the precise origins of the term, people of this region have been perceived as being typical of the stereotype. ^[5]

Bogan was deemed one of twenty Australian colloquialisms by a selection panel and in an online poll to be most relevant to Australian users.^[6]

[edit] Elements of the stereotype

Certain types of clothing are stereotypically associated with bogans, including flannelette shirts, singlets, Stubbies shorts, track pants (tracky dacks),^[7] ugg boots,^[8] thongs, jeans, black leggings ^[9] and trucker caps.^[10]

[edit] Non-pejorative usage

The term 'bogan' has been employed favourably to indicate being proudly un-fashionable or 'rough around the edges.' Radio station Triple J held a "National Bogan Day" on June 28, 2002, which they commemorated by playing music by bands such as Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, Rose Tattoo and AC/DC.^[11]

Residents of streets such as Bogan Place and Bogan Road have been moved to action by the negative connotations of their street names and lobbied to rename them. ^[12]

In certain areas of New Zealand, the term 'bogan' has been reclaimed to remove some of the negative connotations of the Australian use of the term and is sometimes synonymous with 'metalhead'. ^[13]

[edit] References in Popular Culture

• Australian band Area-7 released a single called "Nobody Likes a Bogan" in 2002, which listed several aspects of a stereotype bogan named "Bazza." The song reached #46 on the ARIA Charts in February of that year.^[14]
• Australian comedian Chris Franklin's public persona is a self-proclaimed "King of the Bogans," in which he frequently eats meat pies, wears a flannelette shirt with its sleeves ripped off, and occasionally wears a football beanie over his permed mullet. In 1999, Franklin released a comedy single called "Bloke" (a parody of "Bitch" (1997) by Meredith Brooks), which expressed a bogan perspective on male/female relationships.
• In 2005 residents of the Victorian town of Colac objected to the backstory of the fictional Timmins family (described by ABC Local Radio as a "bogan family") on the soap opera Neighbours, which portrayed them as being from the town. Scriptwriter Ben Michaels denied regional stereotyping, stating "I think most people know there is a bogan contingent in every town, and we happened to take the piss out of the bogan contingent of Colac."^[15]
• Bogan Pride was a 2008 comedy television series on SBS TV, starring Rebel Wilson about suburban characters proud to be bogans.
• In the lead-up to the 2008 AFL Finals series, Hawthorn president and former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett proclaimed that he was "as excited as any football-loving bogong". His mispronunciation of the term attracted media attention, with suggestions that it highlighted that he was out of touch - the opposite of his intention.^[16]
• In November 2008, newly elected Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Robert Doyle vowed to rid the Melbourne city centre of "bogans".^[17]
• In May 2009, Clare Werbeloff became an internet sensation after her alleged eyewitness account of violence in Sydney's Kings Cross on the Nine Network news.^[18] A few days later she confessed that she had not witnessed the Kings Cross incident and that she had been playing a prank. The media dubbed her the "Kings Cross Bogan"^[19] and in an interview with A Current Affair she was described as "Australia's biggest bogan".^[20]
• In 2004 director Grant Lahood made a short film entitled Bogans, featuring a cameo appearance by Peter Jackson. A light hearted road movie following three bogans on a mission to get parts in the movie Lord of the Rings.
• The popular Australian TV show Kath & Kim can be seen as a parody of the 'cashed-up bogan' lifestyle. ^[21][22][23]
• A website named Things bogans like, modelled on Stuff White People Like, is the result of a debate over whether the bogan of the 21st century has changed since the 1980s, and is broadly condescending towards mainstream Australian culture. ^[24][25]

[edit] Use in Marketing

The term "Cashed Up Bogan," or "Cub," was used by one marketing researcher in 2006 to describe people of a blue-collar background now earning a high salary and spending those earnings on conspicuously expensive consumer items. The media cited tennis player Lleyton Hewitt and his actress wife, Bec Cartwright, as examples.^[26] The Kaesler Winery in the Barossa Valley wine district make and produce a Shiraz wine called the 'Bogan.'

Mel Campbell argued in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald that bogan (including cashed-up bogan) is a nebulous, personal term that is frequently used in a process by which "we use the idea of the bogan to quarantine ideas of Australianness that alarm or discomfort us. It's a way of erecting imaginary cultural barriers between "us" and "them"." Campbell argues that while many people believe they know exactly what a bogan is and what their characteriestics might be, in reality there is no defined set of characteristics of a bogan: people using the term merely use it to describe those imagined to be different from, and less cultured than, the speaker. Campbell judged "cashed-up bogan" to be a "stupid term". ^[27]

[edit] Regional equivalent terms

Although the term bogan is understood across Australia and New Zealand, certain regions have their own slang terms for the same group of people. These terms include:

• In Hobart, Tasmania, the term chigger (also chigga or chig) is used. This appears to be a reference to the Hobart suburb of Chigwell.^[4]
• Booner or boon in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.^[4]
• Scozza in Geelong, Victoria, Australia.^[4]
• Bevan is also regarded as a local term in some parts of Queensland, Australia
• Bronxy is a local term in some parts of South Australia, Australia to denote someone from the cities of Elizabeth or Salisbury

The term westie (or westy) is not synonymous with bogan; however, westies are often stereotyped as being bogans. This term seems to predate bogan by some years,^[4] originating in Sydney, New South Wales in the 1970s to refer to people from that city's western suburbs. The term is now in wide use in many cities and towns across both Australia and New Zealand, where it especially refers to the denizens of West Auckland.

[edit] See also

• Bodgies and Widgies
• Chozzie, Also Australia & New Zealand
• Pikey, (UK)
• White Trash (United States and Canada)
• Redneck (USA and Canada)
• Hoser (Canada)
• Skid (United States and Canada)
• Westie (Australia & NZ)
• Feral (Australia)
• Chav (UK)
• Scanger (Ireland)
• Ah Beng (Singapore)
• Classism
• Class conflict
• Raggare (Sweden)
• Dres (Poland)
• Yobbo
• Gopniki (Russia)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Bogan.com.au: Australian Bogan website
• Bogan.co.nz: New Zealand Bogan website
• Save the Bogan (humorous website classifying bogans as an endangered species)
• Bogancentral.com A discussion of Bogan culture
• Bogans - The Movie (New Zealand short film, featuring Peter Jackson)
• Warner Music Australia: Bogan! Simply the Best Pub Rock Album (compilation album: "...jam packed full of the best pub anthems that would get any mullet banging".)
• Hippie/Bogan music (New Zealand bogan music from the Hippie/Bogan himself: Jade)