Chris Lilley’s Lunatics has deadpan cringe, great dialogue, but is more mawkish than outrageous

Chris Lilley was in strife almost from the moment he started filming his new mockumentary series Lunatics, which has begun streaming on Netflix. Last year, leaked photos of the comedic actor in African dress and an afro-wig set off a social media firestorm that could essentially be boiled down to two words. Blackface? Again?

During his 2011 series Angry Boys, Lilley donned blackface to play the character of S.mouse, an African-American rapper with inane songs like “Slap My Elbow” and “Squashed N*gga”. While actual US hip-hop artists and critics were predictably unimpressed, S.mouse wasn’t as unanimously criticised as one might have expected. Nor was Lilley’s use of “yellowface” and a terrible Japanese accent in the same series.

Lilley in blackface for 2011’s Angry Boys.Princess Pictures, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)

However, the hammer really came down on 2014’s Jonah from Tonga, in which Lilley played a troubled Tongan boy whilst wearing dark make-up and a curly wig, a performance that the Guardian described as “a modern ministrel show”. Jonah was cut from Maori Television in New Zealand due to its stereotyping of Polynesians, and largely abandoned by viewers back in Australia. In the show’s wake, some critics questioned whether Lilley’s brand of comedy via cultural appropriation had a place in today’s climate.

Jana: Yes, she’s white. Princess Pictures