Australian attitudes to strong leaders, big bosses and tall poppies are said to be simply disrespectful, but are in fact ambiguous. Our high culture constructs a version of low culture which is defined as wittily cock-snooking, and rejoices in, its ironic one-liners. G.A. Wilkes quotes as slightly canonical an account of a Gallipoli digger giving a vulgar, impromptu brush-off to General Birdwood. Again, we could reflect on how literary culture in Australia despises the monarchy, whereas the popular imagination still rejoices in Royal visits.
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