To paraphrase Nino Culotta, "Anyone who thinks he recognises himself in this movie, probably does."
Based on the bestselling novel by a former pharmacist called John O'Grady (writing under the pseudonym Nino Culotta), "They're a Weird Mob" tells the story of an Italian journalist's encounter with the strange manners, language and rituals of postwar Australia.
It's a benign portrait of the migrant experience in Australia, and gently mocks the nation's dominant Anglo-Saxon suburbanite culture. It's a great snapshot of life in 1960s Australia, the one I fell in love with when I arrived here in 1965. In the book, Nino never encounters prejudice; he is accepted easily into Australian society because he in turn accepts so easily its habits of speech and thought. In real life, I, a Hun, also never encountered prejudice and was easily accepted into Australian society - with just the odd encounter in some of the cheaper fa(s)t food outlets:
The book - and the movie - arrived in Australia before the advent of Al Grassby's multiculturalism in the 70s, which acknowledged the right for citizens to maintain their own culture. I think Al Grassby got it wrong, and Nino Culotta got it exactly right when he writes in the book:
"There are far too many New Australians in this country who are still mentally living in their homelands, who mix with people of their own nationality, and try to retain their own language and customs. Who even try to persuade Australians to adopt their customs and manners. Cut it out. There is no better way of life in the world than that of the Australian. I firmly belive this. The grumbling, growling, cursing, profane, laughing, beer drinking, abusive, loyal-to-his-mates Australian is one of the few free men left on this earth. He fears no one, crawls to no one, bludges on no one, and acknowledges no master. Learn his way. Learn his language. Get yourself accepted as one of him; and you will enter a world that you never dreamed existed. And once you have entered it, you will lever leave it."
Perhaps we should all watch the movie and read the book again to realise how much we have lost and how little we have gained from all this "multiculturalism". It's a sunny Sunday afternoon at "Riverbend" which fits in well with the last paragraph in Nino Culotta's book:
"There are hundreds of ways we could spend this sunny Sunday afternoon. Or we could just stay at home and do nothing, and perhaps that would be the best of all. To rest on the seventh day. To thank God for letting us be here. To thank Him for letting me be an Australian. Sometimes I think that if I am ever fortunate enough to reach Heaven, I will know I am there when I hear Him say, 'Howyergoin'mate orright?'"
