Take ownership and defuse, thats what grown ups do-
In popular culture[edit]
A personalised licence plate making light of the term, referencing the film The Wog Boy
More recently, Southern European-Australian performing artists have taken ownership of the term "wog", defusing its original pejorative nature. The popular 1980s stage show Wogs Out of Work, created by Nick Giannopoulos and Simon Palomares, and its sequel Who Let the Wogs Out?[16] are early examples. The original production was followed on television with Acropolis Now, starring Giannopoulos, Palomares, George Kapiniaris and Mary Coustas, and films such as The Wog Boy and Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos, and parodies such as those of Santo Cilauro (Italian), Eric Bana (Croatian-German), Vince Colosimo (Italian), Nick Giannopoulos (Greek), Frank Lotito (Italian), Mary Coustas (Greek), comedy duo Superwog (Egyptian and Greek), comedy troupe Sooshi Mango (Italian) and SBS Television's offbeat Pizza by Paul Fenech (Maltese) and later Here Come the Habibs. TV series have continued this change in Australian cultural history—with some even classifying a genre of "wogsploitation" of pop culture products being created by and for a proudly "wog" market. More recently, a popular production, 'Superwog' - created by Theodore and Nathan Saidden - has begun streaming on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The series began as a YouTube sketch series and has since become very popular among Australian teens.[17] Recent works of the genre have been used by Australians of non-English speaking backgrounds to assert ethnic identity rather than succumb to ethnic stereotypes.[18] Upon the release of Wog Boy 2, Giannopoulos discussed the contemporary use of the term "wog" in the Australian context:
I think by defusing the word 'wog' we've shown our maturity and our great ability to adapt and just laugh things off, you know... When I first came [to Greece] and I started trying to explain to them why we got called 'wog' they'd get really angry about it, you know. They were, "Why? Why they say this about the Greek people?" You know? But then when they see what we've done with it—and this is the twist—that we've turned it into a term of endearment, they actually really get into that...
Thus, in contemporary Australia, the term "wog" may, in certain contexts, be viewed as a "nickname" rather than a pejorative term[1]—akin to the nicknames ascribed within Australian English to other historically significant cultural groupings such as Australians ("Aussies"), the English ("Poms"), the Americans ("Yanks") and New Zealanders ("Kiwis").
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