The Islamic faith has Mecca, the Catholics have the Vatican City, and the fashion world has Milan. Bogan culture, too, has its own site of pilgrimage – a fountain of Boganic purity, gushing forth in plenty all that is Boganesque – that place is Queensland’s Gold Coast. On the Gold Coast, not so much a city as a holiday resort-cum-shopping-mall-cum-vertical retirement village, no sites are more sacred than that juggernaut of Bogan fun-in-the-sun, Movie World, Sea World and Wet’n’Wild, all covered under the extravagantly priced Three Park Superpass*. According to the operator, these theme parks are “a thrill-seekers (sic) paradise”, leading us to conclude that thrill seeker (Bogan) heaven involves some combination of getting sunburnt, being ripped off, thrashing your children in public, waiting in queues and having a chuck from a moving vehicle. Let’s break this down.
Warner Bros. Movie World:
Movie World touts itself as “Hollywood on the Gold Coast”, but it differs from the real Hollywood in that no movies have actually ever been made there. It is a reproduction of the soulless artifice Hollywood is famous for, sans any actual motion picture production; a testament to the cynical genius of marketers as much as it is to the Bogan’s slack-jawed susceptibility to their ruses, Movie World’s success lies in combining everything about mass culture which provides such enduring comfort to the Bogan, stripping it of any remaining content, and turning it into an extreme, bowel-loosening thrill ride experience. The Bogan loves Movie World because the rides vaguely remind it of a film it once saw cross-marketed on a Happy Meal, but at that point the Bogan stops thinking about it, because everything’s going really really fast.
Sea World:
Sea World, much like that other Queensland nature abomination, Australia Zoo, seems on the surface to be highly educational, but do not be fooled. You will not learn anything about marine life on Bert and Ernie’s Island Holiday, or the amazing Jet Rescue Ride, where somehow you can save a sea lion by riding a jet ski, instead of destroying its habitat and disfiguring its progeny, which is what you’d expect to happen. Sea World is truly a magical place where our natural environment meets high-octane fun, and is summarily ground into extinction.
Wet ‘n’ Wild:
Seeing as there is no discernable difference between this place and Sea World (apart from the dolphins in the pool having been replaced by yet more dickheads,) there is nothing further to add.
* As much out of malice as commercial imperative, the equally dumb and crass Dreamworld has been excluded from the Superpass, although the Bogan may not know this at the time of impulse purchase, allowing the Bogan to wait in yet another endless queue to lodge an irrational complaint.