Mr & Mrs Middle Melbourne - the White Hat guide

Mr & Mrs Middle Melbourne
Archetypes

In the 1950s. Barry Humphries invented the character of Edna Everidge (average) who lived in the suburbs. He has later transformed this character into something considerably removed from (but still strangely reminiscent of) its source.

Today this comfortable archetype has become more educated, more urbane and even more smug. It is now simply referred to locally as Mr & Mrs Middle Melbourne.

It is fairly easy to recognise Mr & Mrs Middle Melbourne:

• They usually live (or aspire to live) in the 'leafy' suburbs (South-Eastern suburbs) or in areas that were once reserved for public parkland such as Parkville in a Federation house with plastic mock Edwardian fittings (which they refer to as "heritage"). They practice recycling as a religion while living in an energy inefficient house on a water hungry quarter acre block with no major vegetable garden, no chooks and no attempt at the self-sustainability that the quarter acre block was created for.
• At public occasions the male of the species usually wears (carefully laundered and ironed) jeans and a jacket. If a tie is worn, it is usually badly or loosely tied "in protest". The female wears a number of layers of artfully draped and clashing unrelated items.
• They publicly opposed Federation Square every inch of the way but are slowly admitting that "the inside isn't as bad as we thought it would be".
• They are the champions of the 'middle brow' (commercial musicals, concerts by aging rock stars, and anything that reminds them of when time stopped somewhere in the 60s or 70s)
• They love media programs which reinforce their own views and prejudices which they regard as self-evident.
• They love the arts ('yartz') as long as they don't stray too far from the old masters and don't get too 'heavy' and they have a collection of the sort of kitsch classic excerpts CDs that are heavily advertised on the ABC.

Our newsletters sometimes document encounters with Middle Melbourne.