The bogan knows what’s going on. It thinks. Well, it knows what’s real. Maybe. Let’s face it, it all gets a bit confusing sometimes. But there’s certainly one thing that the bogan definitely, absolutely, loves, along with the rest of the bloody country: Masterchef.
So, as of a few weeks ago, the bogan likes to cook eat unprocessed food. But with its experience of such things being as limited as it is, coupled with its inability to nominate weekly winners via premium SMS services as well as its deeply ingrained sense of confusion, the bogan simply can’t decide how to process the events taking place six nights a week.
Luckily, Channel Ten is here to help, with its patented EmotionDrums™. When the bogan is lost, confused or nonplussed, it can quickly figure out how it should feel, thanks the constant, thunderous clamour of the digitized percussive soundtrack that pollutes 5.05 of the 5.1 channels on its home theatre system. Nervous? Skittering beats. Building nervous tension? Grandiose thuds. Criticism from judges? Staccato snares. Successfully cracked a snow egg? Cymbals! Joyous? Just add violins! The entire spectrum of bogan emotion can be, and has been distilled into one instrument on one show, and the bogan is thankful.
There’s another way to know what to think, also. In case actually watching people cook stuff is insufficient for figuring out that they’re cooking stuff. “So I had to put the meringues in the oven for 40 minutes at 200 degrees,” says Callum, as we watch him put meringues into an oven for 40 minutes at 200 degrees. Subsequent to these pearls of insight, Mr. “I’m boss at the Press Club” will furiously gesticulate the seriousness of the situation to his slightly better spoken counterpart, building the suspense like a German pornographic film. But only to be thwarted by the show’s gently-fade-out-to-ad-break graphic of a fireball collapsing and exploding like a dying star. The bogan is angry and storms into its kitchen to microwave yesterday’s Meatlovers pizza. It has feta cheese on top, because it’s gormette.
But that isn’t all Masterchef has offered the bogan. Beyond not knowing precisely what to think, the bogan was always torn as to what to buy. After all, there’s just so many things out there. But thanks to Masterchef, the McMansion is now choc-full of Handee Ultra, Scanpan cookware, the entirety of Coles’ fresh produce department and tickets to Phuket with Qantas, instead of Jetstar.
Meanwhile, McDonald’s has been losing customers. But now that the EmotionDrums™ have fallen silent until the next season of Masterchef, the golden arches know that the bogan, confused once more, will very soon come scuttling back through its automatic doors for deep fried emotional instruction.