Hard News: Irony Deficient
123 Responses
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Boring news parody and funniest moment in comedy,
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Sexism, racism, homophobia or ableism are rarely funny – and attempts at humour on such topics are usually offensive and cringemaking. Unless it is done very cleverly from an insider perspective. There was a (surprisingly) good example of musical comedy on NZ’s Got Talent with the Korean student who played the piano and sang her Ching Chong song. (And she will be a comedian to watch).
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Jackson James Wood, in reply to
As I said: we just need to sit down with some TV people... *cough*
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Although TV3 in particular has been able to build a successful development strategy around comedy in recent years, the hard stuff – satire, and particularly political satire – is basically absent from our screens these days.
And I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing – because the “hard stuff” is really tricky to pull off. I’m a terribly bad hipster, but I’ve seen a couple of episodes of the latest series of The Thick of It and… meh. Peter Capaldi is still auditioning for the Lee Emery part in the Full Metal Jacket re-boot. It just seems to be making the same banal points with ever-decreasing effect: Politicians are fucking stupid. Spin doctors are barely functional, grossly over-paid sociopaths. A change of government hasn’t changed any of that one whit. Tories suck.
To paraphrase a line from Gore Vidal’s The Best Man: I don’t mind political satirists being bastards. It’s being stupid (as well as dull, glib and predictable) bastards I object to. 7 Days, love ya heaps. But you really need a douchebag jar (h/t New Girl) on set for the Gerry Brownlee fat jokes. Seriously. Just stop it.
Compare and contrast Yes, [Prime} Minister, which (IMHO & YMMV, of course) stands up remarkably well not just as pure comedy, but as political satire long after the more topical allusions have become nigh on incomprehensible to anyone but hardcore British politics nerds. I think it had a lot to do with creators Antony Jay & Jonathan Lynn having a gimlet-eyed view of British politics, but it never tipping over into outright contempt for their subjects or the audience. They also made the central trio of Jim Hacker, Humphrey Appleby and Bernard Wooley (by nature as well as name) amusingly complicated – and beautifully written – comic characters, not one note types.
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I suppose the NZ comedy scene is in good health when Cal Wilson is turning up on QI
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Come to that, a lot of people don't find funny funny. They see a programme like 'The Office' with those nasty, nasty characters and assume it's advocacy for that worldview.
No that wasn't my problem with The Office. It was that it was so close to my every day reality that it was genuinely depressing. It was too real to be funny any more. I love some of Ricky Gervais's other material but his portrayal of life in an office managed by a certifiably insane bully was too much for me.
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WH, in reply to
I think you have to distinguish observations about society as it is from cruelty that intentionally reinforces social hierarchy. Your definition would rule out everyone from Eddie Murphy to Frankie Boyle.
De gustibus.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
I suppose the NZ comedy scene is in good health when Cal Wilson is turning up on QI
I’m afraid to watch. One of Fry’s *cough* less endearing traits is the way he patronizes women panelists. OTOH, it was grimly amusing watching one episode where Jo Brand visibly choked back the urge to tell Fry to go fuck his condescending self on more than one occasion.
I love some of Ricky Gervais’s other material but his portrayal of life in an office managed by a certifiably insane bully was too much for me.
Nah, I have a more basic problem with Gervais. Just the relentless, remarkably nasty contempt he shows for his audience. Karl Pilkington is perfectly happy to be perpetually shat on by Gervais & Stephen Merchant. But schoolyard bullies on steroids is one-note shtick, and it doesn't reflect on the audience any better than the performers. IMO & YMMV, of course.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
And I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing – because the “hard stuff” is really tricky to pull off.
Even veteran satirists can miss the mark. The late 1990s edition of McPhail & Gadsby seemed to be propped up by the dynamic duo of Pinky Agnew and Lorae Parry as Jenny and Helen respectively.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
But you really need a douchebag jar (h/t New Girl) on set for the Gerry Brownlee fat jokes. Seriously. Just stop it.
If you're doing Gerry Brownlee fat jokes on a regular basis, you should contemplate what that says about about your own talent.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
And even then, it was kind of depressing how heavily even Agnew and Parry leaned on "Jenny's fat and Helen's butch" gags -- which is not only intrinsically offensive and unfunny on multiple levels, but it's kind of sad coming from two really smart performers whose own work shows women don't have to buy into sexist (or homophobic) tropes to be screamingly funny.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
If you’re doing Gerry Brownlee fat jokes on a regular basis, you should contemplate what that says about about your own talent.
Quite. And people who think it’s hilarious to make cracks about Brownlee being a “former woodwork teacher”? Really think about where that’s coming from for a second; especially if you’re the kind of person whose hackles go up at sneers about the Labour Party being run by a cabal of academics and former student politicians who couldn’t get a real job with their sociology degrees. Personally, I don't think it's a bad or intrinsically ridiculous thing that a woodwork teacher can rise in the National Party, anymore than a former school dental nurse becoming a fairly well-regarded Health Minister.
But I digress. The really depressing thing about folks who trot out Brownlee fat jokes? It's lazy when he's a minister of the Crown who provides near daily opportunities for vigorous urine extraction.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Referring to Brownlee's past isn't to disparage real woodwork (technology, nowadays, I guess) teachers who teach in an inspired and understanding fashion.
It's a reference to a caricature of the teaching role, based on a reality that I remember from my childhood, but has (one hopes) become much rarer in the modern era of well trained and committed teachers. It would be the same if a former traffic warden became a politician. or a former banker, such as the PM.
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Sacha, in reply to
I recently finished Arrested Development. It's beautiful, original and completely brilliant, and because it is such a big part of the best-comedy-ever? conversation they are releasing new episodes in 2013. You should watch it.
+1.
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I think satire died after Chris Morris' Brass Eye. That was it. Finished. It had reached perfection. After that, the world became too absurd to properly satirise.
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Possibly both irony and satire are dependent on a trust in the audience to either know or be able to figure out that the writer/ performer relationship to the material different than being portrayed. As the Internet is based around communities of interest, satire may have a more natural home there. Or it could be television programmers think the audience are 10,000 spoons who are unable to recognize a knife.
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We might see more local comedy poking fun at the behaviour of politicians rather than characteristics of whole groups of fellow citizens if our laws protected satire and parody better. The prospect of being easily sued must affect what producers and broadcasters support.
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Damian Christie, in reply to
As I said: we just need to sit down with some TV people… *cough*
Yeah, it's actually quite easy to get an intelligent satirical TV show off the ground, especially if you're not already a household name in the provinces. The TV networks are quite actively looking for new talent to champion and falling over themselves to give priority to you ahead of overseas format shows that have already been proven to work for the largest possible demographic. All you need is that sit down, and you can pretty much buckle yourself in and prepare for the ride of your life.
</sarcasm>
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Satire's a tricky form. Danyl puts a quote from Juvenal as his inspiration, but the satires of Juvenal are the sexist, racist, homophobic diatribes of an angry old man. We didn't even study the one where he hacks into women at school, it's that bad, and would have kids wondering why this is considered great literature.
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Damian Christie, in reply to
The prospect of being easily sued must affect what producers and broadcasters support.
Nup. Not even close to becoming a factor in their thinking. See above.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
if our laws protected satire and parody better
Please enlighten. After all, a brief sift through the archives of NZ on Screen (love that site, by the way) reveals plenty of satire and parody from times past, even of politicians whose reputation suggests they would not have taken kindly to being satirised or parodied.
But reading through this thread I'm starting to think the best way to satirise the current state of NZ politics would be to produce a drama series about a competent government that engaged respectfully with its citizens.
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That's right Damian. Like good Current Affairs.
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Damian Christie, in reply to
As the Internet is based around communities of interest, satire may have a more natural home there.
I think this is the answer David. Having personally done a lot of talking to (a number of) networks in recent months about what they might looking for and what their priorities are, I don't expect to see much of the above wish-lists on screen anytime soon. I could be wrong.
I think given the relative availability of the technology (I'm sitting here at my computer at home taking a wee break from editing a TV show on said computer), I really think DIY online is a good, sensible option for something satirical that wants to be brave, bold and not committeed-beyond-recognition by a network. But it has to be done by people who know what they're doing technically of course, and even DIY isn't free, so funding is still an issue. But I look to the likes of big media sites like stuff.co.nz and nzherald.co.nz actually as possible platforms for such content ahead of the TV networks, which are still very much broadcast focussed.
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Morgan Nichol, in reply to
That's incredible. So good. Ganesha seems a good sort to have at an orgy with all those extra arms (and such).
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...which is to say, Jackson, maybe you should be getting some people who know what they're doing, shooting something, then trying to get that sit-down with the likes of nzherald or stuff online...
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