Kitsch is the magic ingredient in Australian comedy

LONDON, England (CNN) -- "Hey, Hey It's Esther Blueburger" is the latest comic creation to emerge from the Australian film market.

An unabashed celebration of girlishness, the coming-of-age movie tells the story of Esther, a bespectacled and awkward teen. Looked down on as nerd at her posh private school, Esther (played by newcomer Danielle Catanzariti) reinvents herself after befriending Sunni, an older girl who goes to the local public school.

Bearing a passing resemblance to the runaway U.S. indie hit "Juno", "Esther Blueburger" could well go on to imitate some of the worldwide success of its hipper American cousin.

If the film is to do well, its kitschness can surely only work to its advantage.

After all, many of the Australian comedies that have found success with an international audience have relied on more than just a smattering of camp.

Oddly, from a country that brought the world "Mad Max" and Russell Crowe, many of the biggest comic hits fly in the face of the conventional stereotypes of Australian culture as straight-talking and macho.

For every "Crocodile Dundee", in other words, there is a "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", riding triumphantly over the horizon ready to unsettle the manhood and steal the laughs into the bargain.

It was Paul Hogan's comic creation Mick "Crocodile" Dundee, the laidback survivalist from the outback that first put Australian comic films on the map over 20 years ago.

The first "Crocodile Dundee" film was released in 1986 to huge commercial success worldwide -- it was the highest grossing film internationally that year -- spawned two sequels and was credited with boosting the Australian tourist industry.

A lot of the laughs in the film come from the depiction of Mick Dundee (played by Hogan) as an unreconstructed, Aussie bloke struggling to come to terms with modern metropolitan life when he leaves small town Australia to visit New York.

In one scene, for example, Dundee's reaction to meeting a cross-dresser on the streets of the Big Apple is to grab the man's crotch to verify his gender.

Crocodile Dundee's comic book version of Australian identity may have worked well in the movie theaters, but it was viewed by many critics as hackneyed and out of touch with the reality of modern Australia.

The arrival of the writer and director Baz Luhrmann in the early '90s seemed to breath fresh life into Australian film.

The stunning critical and financial success of his debut feature, "Strictly Ballroom" in 1992 heralded a string of breakout hits that weren't afraid to show their feminine side.

The story of a young ballroom dancer who flouts convention and risks the ire of the judges by dancing his own moves, "Strictly Ballroom" provoked a bidding war at the Cannes Film Festival after it won the Prix de Jeunesse award.

Alongside a realistic portrayal of Australian small town life, there is a warm-hearted send up of the peculiar world of ballroom dancing. From the sequined costumes to the Cyndi Lauper soundtrack, the movie is also saturated in campness and kitsch.

The benchmark set by Luhrmann, whose 2001 stellar musical feature "Moulin Rouge!" was also defiantly camp, was matched by "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" in 1994 and by "Muriel's Wedding" to a lesser extent the same year.

"Priscilla" in particular created a huge stir when it was first released. Starring the venerable British actor Terence Stamp, Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving, it is the story of three drag queens driving across the outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a large bus they have named Priscilla.

It has gone on to be regarded as a camp classic -- though perhaps not in South Korea, where it was reportedly banned for fear it might encourage homosexuality.

Less overtly camp than "Priscilla", "Muriel's Wedding" celebrates the lighter side of femininity.

The story of a socially awkward 'ugly duckling' whose daydreams of a glamorous white wedding are soundtracked by Abba music, the film was a surprise hit globally and launched the Hollywood career of Toni Collette -- who has a role in "Esther Blueburger".

Muriel (played by Collette) tramps around in leopard skin inviting bitchy comments from her crass friends until she eventually plucks up the courage to head to the city.

Like "Strictly Ballroom", it exposes the mean-spiritedness that can blight small town life -- in this case the small town in question is the kitschy fictional coastal setting of Porpoise Spit.

As well as their camp credentials, one thing these films share in common is a reluctance to slip into stereotyped depictions of Australians. Questions of national identity are explored with more subtlety through a range of characters, and the image of the Aussie bloke immortalised in the character of Mick Dundee is made to look a dated simplification.

Still, this onslaught of camp sometimes proves too much, even for some of the films' characters. As Bernadette (played by Stamp) tells her fellow drag queens at one point in "Priscilla": "I'll join this conversation on the proviso that we stop bitching about people, talking about wigs, dresses, bust sizes, penises, drugs, night clubs, and bloody Abba!"

To which Weaving's character Tick snaps back: "Doesn't give us much to talk about then, does it?"