Australian Exploitation Films (Ozploitation)
The decline in the Australian film industry became almost terminal after world war II with the industry coming to an almost virtual stop. The injection of public funding by the Gorton and Whitlam governments in the late 1960s and early 1970s rescued the industry from its probable oblivion. The public funding came hard on the heels of a relaxation of rather prudish former censorship laws with the introduction of the new R rating. Films containing explicit nudity, sexuality and violence were placed into a viewing category made off-limits to those under 18 years of age. The result was a golden age of blended 'ockerism' and sex comedies geared towards a mature Australian audience.
All these trends created a rush to produce films often referred to as 'Ozploitation', an Australian take on the Exploitation Film genre, a sub-genre of the Australian new wave dating from 1968 to late 1988.
In Sam Rohdie's words (1982:39), "these films set about projecting not a nostalgic rural Australian beauty, but the vulgarity, philistinism and energy of an urban contemporary Australia. These were not the distanced and distancing vignettes of the past, a parade of Australians buttoned up in costume, but vicious, zany comedies of the present".
The period also saw the consolidation of a more diverse film culture in Australia with the highly successful Mad Max (Road Warrior) and Crocodile Dundee.
All these trends created a rush to produce films often referred to as 'Ozploitation', an Australian take on the Exploitation Film genre, a sub-genre of the Australian new wave dating from 1968 to late 1988.
In Sam Rohdie's words (1982:39), "these films set about projecting not a nostalgic rural Australian beauty, but the vulgarity, philistinism and energy of an urban contemporary Australia. These were not the distanced and distancing vignettes of the past, a parade of Australians buttoned up in costume, but vicious, zany comedies of the present".
The period also saw the consolidation of a more diverse film culture in Australia with the highly successful Mad Max (Road Warrior) and Crocodile Dundee.
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