Why the Chasergate furore is about the future of the ABC
So let’s recap.
Youve got presenters celebrated for pushing boundaries.
They do precisely that with something in incredible bad taste. But the show’s prerecorded, so it gets referred upwards to the woman in charge.
For some inexplicable reason she allows it to go to air.
I’m all for small remotely detonated explosives, placed at the base of the neck.
Seriously though, ‘cheeky boundary-pushing smartarses’ are hardly a scarce, non-renewable source. I have a lot of love for the BBC model of short, finite runs for shows.
Give some other group of fellas (or ladies, that’d be a huge step) a go.
I have to comment on this.
Comedy, like that of Brand, Ross and the Chaser team is one that is edgier than most and it pushes boundaries of taste. Its not for everyone. But, allowing more and more managment-editorial control means that producers have less and less say and we have lawyers and accountants deciding on whats funny.
That will never end well, the BBC paid Ross a large salary to stop him jumping ship because they know of his worth. He knows his days are numbered and is testing the water in other media, he is currently running a twitter bookgroup.
I am disappointed that its always part-time viewers or even in fact non-viewers who complain the most about shows like this.
I really do hope that this isnt the beginning of the end of a new age in australian comedy, and we will be dragged back into the “Hey Dad” dark days.
Oh, I think edgy, boundary pushing stuff still burbles away within the cauldron of Aussie comedy – Good News Week, for all its flaws, strays into hilariously bad taste on a regular basis. Still, there’s a few areas they don’t go, and fair enough.
Okay so someone made a decision which in hindsight should have been the reverse due to popular outcry. Shouldn’t we as a Nation take this in our stride acknowledging that that kind of humour / satire whatever is not what we want and move on? You can’t crucify the person who made a judgement call in this situation. Maybe it is time for us all to return to a more softer duller ABC that won’t offend anyone or make us ask the hard questions. At the very least this episode put a spotlight on an issue which most Australian’s found distasteful – well at least we know. Thanks Chaster and the ABC for keeping us on our toes is all I can say.
What happened in the UK was indeed similar. An interesting – and perhaps these days all too predictable cause of sachsgate was arguably not the content itself. It was The Daily Mail paper (note I did not say ‘news’paper). Always hungry for scandal, they pushed this piece into an audience who would not naturally have come into contact with it – not choosing to listen to the program.
I, and the 400,000+ other weekly listeners to Russell Brand’s podcast, had come to depend on his great mix of hilarity, intelligence – and yet stupidity, for an hour of awesome comedy – laugh out loud, spit your drink, get ssssshhhed on public transport screamingly great laughs. He went too far with this sketch – agreed. But for me (smack bang in the middle of his demographic) it was more of a “oh – that was a bit out of order” moment, than a huge, international, career costing, taxpayer costing fiasco. As ever with a comedy issue, its about who finds what funny. The show and podcast listeners found it funny. Not a single complaint was made. The Daily Mail needed to increase its circulation figures, so jumped on the back of Ross and Brand – both big names, both guaranteed crowd gatherers. And that’s what the Mail needed. And of course the amusing part of all of this is that the people who chose not to listen because they presumably weren’t interested in Brand’s comedy, suddenly thought they should air their opinions on it. I for one was very excited to see Brand here on tour, and he was, as predicted, hilarious.
In both the ABC and BBC cases – that’s what the ‘off’ button is for. Move on – listen to something else, watch something else, learn something else.
That’s a good point, Jen
It became a scandal driven by other media, no doubt at least partly self-interested by the damage being done to their rival the BBC. I believe there were only two complaints to the BBC before the Mail on Sunday ran with the story a week later – and nearly 40,000 afterwards.
We may be seeing a similar case here – I’m sure many of those who were most angry did not see the sketch when it aired. But it doesn’t make the ABC’s situation any less perilous.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
One other point of similarity – In Russell Brand and The Chaser you had each organisation’s golden child. Both were used to getting their way, and their management were scared not to let them have it.
One of the “outraged” was, of course, our own Kevin, who then admitted that he hadn’t even seen the sketch.
Oh dear ….
For my own part, I don’t (and have never) watch the show. Not my demographic, but I accept that the ABC can and will and SHOULD push the boundaries from time to time. Their problem is that they become captive to the success of their little offspring (as they did with Andrew Denton and so let him put some awful drivel to air).
This sketch was not “edgy”, “black” “ironic”, “satirical”, it was juvenile, unoriginal and in less than poor taste.
If the executive responsible cannot follow her employer’s policies and report to her direct lines when appropriate she is obviously not ready for this role.
The Chaser cast further added fuel to the fire with their insincere apologies with usual smug smirks added. Perhaps if they were to face the people they hurt face to face instead of on their own terms from behind the safety of the media they might reconsider their responses to the parents and children, and other that they insulted.
Just wondering if any of the Chaser team are parents? That might give them a different perspective. (A perspective perhaps less appealing to most of their audience).
I was with them most of the way through the sketch in question, and was assuming they were trying to say something about the over-the-top kind of charity which fuels some commercial TV shows. I think they could have made their point more effectively without the punchline. What’s more important – being funny or being ‘edgy’?
Speaking of edgy – a message to the ‘executive responsible’ – via the ABC PR team – do you still wander around the workplace wearing rubber gloves?
The Chaser boys should spend the two weeks watching Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and see how black satire should be done.
What is laughable is the implication that
1. this went to air because it did not go high enough in the bureaucratic chain of command and
2. The boss it did not go to would have canned it.
As a working journalist, I have to deal with bureaucracies of spin all the time and now the ABC looks set to make its “public service” more torturous.
Here is the ABC of bureaucratic decision making.
A. Don’t make a decision.
B. If forced into a decision make it negative.
C. If it goes pear shaped, blame someone else.
I never saw the skit, so, unlike other commentators in low and high places, I haven’t the audacity to make a comment on it.