Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Worst Film Comedy

Snowtown is what Australian film does best: a grim tale of bogans murdering each other. Well, okay, it’s not what Australian film does best – it’s more that it’s what the people who make Australian film like to think they do best. Go on, go enrol at a film school and tell everyone you want to make light-hearted romantic comedies. We’ll wait here.

Big Mamma’s Boy was a return to the classic wog comedy that… wait, wasn’t there a wog comedy just last year? And wasn’t that the only real candidate for this award then? Surely it’s the Vietnamese’s turn by now?

Here’s a test: have you ever heard anyone tell a “little Johnny” joke? Do you even know what a “little Johnny” joke is? Because we don’t and we’re supposed to be experts in this kind of Ocker down home Aussie comedy thing. And by “experts”, we mean we’ve listened to our fair share of King Billy Cokebottle.

In yet another dire year for Australian big screen comedy, Big Mamma’s Boy basically wins here by default. That’s not to say it didn’t have problems: in 2011 a romantic comedy where the lead rushes to get married largely to prove he isn’t gay isn’t so much hilarious as offensive. But it least it tried. Mostly it tried to see how many times it could get away with the old “It looks like he’s getting a blow job – BUT HE’S NOT!!” joke, but when it comes to getting laughs from Australian film that’s still a big step up from the usual pile of dismembered bogans.

THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, WORST OVERALL COMEDY, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 2:00PM EDT.