Fifty Shades Of Ethnic comedy rooted in love and respect for family traditions

Whenever he utters "you a staya home, til you a married" or "why you not eat" during Sooshi Mango's hit comedy show Fifty Shades Of Ethnic it's as if his auntie is speaking herself.

But despite his proud aunt being one of Sooshi's Mango's biggest fans, she hasn't wised up to the inspiration behind the character.

"I've literally taken word-for-word things she's said and I'll use it," Salanitri said. "She comes to every show and absolutely loves it, but she still can't figure out that I'm basing it on her.

"What we do is embellish it with love and respect. Imitation is the highest form of flattery."

Sooshi Mango - which also includes Salanitri's older brother Joe and friend Andrew Manfre - have been rapidly rising in popularity since 2015 when the three middle-aged wannabe comedians uploaded a video, Greeks vs Italians, filmed in a car.

The three-minute skit filled with rapid edits featured a series of put downs between Italians and Greeks over who had the better food, fashion, culture and football.

The video went viral and racked up a million views in the first four days. It's since been watched more than 80 million times.

From there they launched more videos and their Ethnic Dads and Mums characters, which often played to Australian-Italian and Greek immigrant stereotypes.

As many of the first-wave immigrants from Italy and Greece pass away and their customs with it, Salanitri said Fifty Shades Of Ethnic was about celebrating the traditions of the older generations.

"We have the highest respect for that generation and it's a way of continuing it on and showing the younger generations about who they were, what they did and how much we respect them," he said.

Before Sooshi Mango Salanitri was a business owner, while his brother was a wedding singer and MC.

It was one thing to make a series of funny skit videos for an online audience, but designing and performing their own stage show was a far more challenging exercise.

Luckily for Sooshi Mango they learnt from Australia's most popular purveyor of ethnic comedy, Nick Giannopoulos, of Acropolis Now and Wog Boy fame.

The trio spent two years working on Giannopoulos' Wogs At Work and Star Wogs productions learning the ropes before branching out with their own Fifty Shades Of Ethnic in 2019.

"He [Giannopoulos] showed us how to put on a stage show, the craft, how to work a crowd and when to stop for laughs and how to deliver and project your voice," Salanitri said.

"So we had a very good teacher, so we were lucky like that. We listened to everything that was going on around us and in the second year we got better and in the third year, our solo year, we took on and wrote, directed and produced our whole entire show and it's been received really well."

In recent years political correctness and cancel culture has become a hot topic in comedy.

The likes of Ricky Gervais, Tim Allen, Bill Maher, Jim Jeffries and Tina Fey have all been critical of its stifling influence on comedy.

Ethnic comedy can be particularly controversial. The popular Greek character Con the Fruiterer played by Mark Mitchell in the '80s and '90s is viewed as culturally insensitive by many people in 2020.

Despite Sooshi Mango being Italian-Australian they have also faced allegations of racism for their skit on Optus Sports' World Cup soccer coverage in 2018 where they dressed up as their Ethnic Dads characters. Following complaints on social media, Optus removed the skit.

"Comedy in general, not just ethnic comedy, has always come under scrutiny if you dabble with the wrong topics," Salanitri said.

"We try to steer clear of particular topics which might be heavily offensive to people.

"In saying that, we dance on the line on particular topics, but we'll never cross over. In my opinion we have an obligation to make people laugh, bring happiness, and not so much have an obligation to be politically correct.

"You'll have your lovers and your haters, everyone does. It's just up to us to do what we think is right."

Catch Fifty Shades Of Ethnic at Canberra Theatre Centre (February 21), Griffith Yoogali Club (February 28), Newcastle Civic Theatre (March 21) and Shepparton's Riverlinks Eastbank (March 28).