Bogans will tell you that they love to read. This is convenient, as reading is, by its very nature, a solitary exercise. As books are generally read away from the presence of other people, it is quite simple to assume a mien of intellectuality, and opine solemnly on the quality of either the latest bestseller, or a well-known classic without ever actually having moved beyond the blurb. However, in conducting this kind of surreptitious deception, the bogan leaves itself open to exposure – if a comrade has read the book in question and calls the bluff.
As such, the bogan is far more inclined to wholeheartedly embrace the release of books which have subsequently been turned into major motion pictures. The Power of One, Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code/Angels and Demons, the Twilight series(oh, God, the Twilight series), The Bourne Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum, Memoirs of a Geisha, Silence of the Lambs, Confessions of a Shopaholic, The Devil Wears Prada, and of course everything by Tom Clancy, John Grisham and Michael Crichton.
An interesting offshoot of this phenomenon is that many bogans actually wind up reading the books in question, as they discover – to their own surprise and amazement – that reading can be an edifying experience. This, of course, leads to the natural point whereby the bogans resume their pompous proclamations about the book, but now it is only to boldly, lamely state that it is ‘way better than the movie.’
This is a ruse, as no bogan worth their salt would willingly sit through all 13,000 pages of the sixth Harry Potter installment without the film to act as their equivalent of a study guide. That imagination shit’s overrated anyway. More sophisticated bogans have, by the way, graduated beyond such primitive options, having discovered Sparknotes, creating an entirely new bogan literary subculture.
However, no one – not even the most late-adopting, slogan wearing bogan, would ever touch the novelization of a film. That would be going too far.
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oh no, that means i am a bogan.
watching a movie is so easy. reading takes so much brain power.
what is bogan… two and a half men. OMG how can people with a brain like that show.
I am really pissed off! My daughters keep telling me I’m such a bogan and I was very proud of this, HOWEVER, after looking at this site I find that after reaching #7 I fall well short of being a bogan. I think I might have qualified 20 or 25 years ago but as far as making it to Vogan I have failed miserably, no hang on, if I failed miserably I probably AM are bogan/vogan.
Is anyone over 12 still reading Harry Potter? The first one was an interesting book, in an angsty Enid Blighton way, but the later ones just got so bogged down in their own turgid cleverness that reading the inside flap was a chore.
Some of your other observations are spot on, but this one’s off the mark. The Nouvelle Bogan “loves to read”, but their idea of quality reading is Jodi Picoult novels and those books about battered kiddies that have sad faced little moppets on the front of a stark white cover.
Do bogans (male ones at least) read anything without the word “bloke” in the title? They don’t usually venture past the Herald Sun or Daily Telegraph, do they?
and yet I tend to read the book before the movie hell I have even read sun tzu’s art of war quite an interesting read.
“art of war” they made that into a movie Westley Snipes and Sean Conery are in it
@the trav It’s Wesley not Westley, Connery not Conery, and they were both in Rising Sun – only Snipes was in Art of War.
Apart from that, well done bogan.
There’s something to be said for reading the book after the movie. I’ve yet to meet a person coming out of the theater who had read the book and was satisfied with its treatment in the film. I’m the same way, the book is always more detailed and my imagination is a lot more vivid that the film can be. However, reading the book after the movie always leaves me feeling satisfied, and I’m more likely to forgive the film’s flaws when they’re not so fresh in my mind.
YMMV of course.
You forgot Matthew Reilly and his explosion-filled extravaganzas of cliched characters and contrived plots.
[…] reading, and look forward to surprising bogans with a maxtreme X-mas gift (try to get the bogan to read it before the film comes […]
Always amusing when people see “Breakfast at tiffany’s” and then assume the book is much the same …. You mean, the two leads don’t end up together and what happens to Cat ??????
I actually have a copy of the novelisation of Spaceballs, the Movie!
In the movie there’s an ominous fly over of the baddies ship that looms into shot. The joke? It keeps going and going and going.
Hang on I’ll look for the book – no, wasn’t there. It should have been on the humour / TV bottom bookshelf where I also keep my Dr Who and Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manuals.
Anyway, the book attempts to encapsulate that scene in prose.
This is how they did it (from memory).
‘Then a ship appeared – and it was very, very, very long!’
Somehow they don’t quite encapsulate the mise-en-scene.
I also have novelisations for the proper Star Wars books and yes, I have read them.
I didn’t get a VCR until year 10. I needed something! I had all the figures for ___ sake.
By the way, getting Luke and Leila to have sex was quite difficult. Also, what’s more disturbing, is that in my fevered game play – oddly like that of Dark Helmet in Spaceballs – they still got it on well after I found out by reading a kids novelisation of Return of the Jedi in a bookshop down at the coast on that summer holidays the special needs kid in the caravan park chased my older brother up a tree after chasing him down on his BMX and demanding kisses – that they were bro and sister.
You know … come to think of it … if DV was so forcey inclined, how come he didn’t ping Leia as his when he was with her?
Maybe the hairy ear muffs were also force mufflers.
Which reminds me … do a post on oversized muffler chambers so gapingly open you could ask a vet who specialises in cows to go in and get your tennis ball back.
Can anyone corroborate the Bogan Sparknote literary subculture? I’ve never encountered that one and it seems very niche.
I do, on the other hand, know quite a few bogans who “couldn’t put down The DaVinci Code”, and did indeed lament that the book was better than the movie.
I did have to laugh when I went to see “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. The couple sitting behind us got as far as the opening credits (I think I heard a whispered, “I don’t see Daniel Craig listed!”. But things quickly went downhill from there. When the subtitle appeared as the Swedish actors first spoke, there was an outraged cry from the male half of the couple – “But this is in fu*ken German! You told me it was the American version!”.
They left, having given those of us who heard them a very good laugh indeed.