Chasers War On Everything

[emmasi]

I think it's an overreaction. It wasn't a nice sketch, but when has The Chaser ever done anything nice? I took it as a commentary on the fact that kids are dying every day and, realistically, not many of them will have their wishes granted. Maybe if they'd left off the "Why bother? They're just going to die anyway," it wouldn't have caused such a fuss. But then, that is the reality. South Park did a similar thing when one of the kids was dying. The Make a Wish people asked him what his one wish would be, and his answer was "I guess I wish not to die." Once again, the reality. A wish that is unrealistic and can't be granted, except by some near-impossible miracle. Most kids in that situation, I assume, want to live a normal life with their families, but that's not going to happen. They're going to die in hospital, in pain, and it's going to be tragic. You can dress it up anyway you like, with as much positive "wishes" and whatever these organisations want to do to make themselves and the families and the kids feel better about the stark fact that kids are going to die. They're still going to die. That's what the sketch was about to me, and I don't think it was any better or worse than anything else they've done. Maybe it just struck too close a nerve to people who are in denial about the cold and horrible facts of life. Kids will die, and Zac Effron's not going to be holding their hand when it happens.

[January]

The "Make a Realistic Wish Foundation" sketch - the response reminds me of the Eulogy Song two years ago, but then it could be argued that people had misinterpreted it. The song was about people who were disproportionately being hailed as saints after death no matter what the media had said about them when they were alive - therefore, it was targeting the media for ignoring their prior comments.

Chasers knew where to stop with the Eulogy Song...at Belinda Emmett and they didn’t mention Chris Mainwaring whose death was in the news at the time.

I thought the sick kids skit was in very poor taste and I can understand people being upset at it being funded by the public purse. But thats Chasers, some things they do will be well and truly OTT. I’m sure they are delighted at all the fuss they have caused.

[emmasi]

Well this is great. A woman has lost her job, and I have nothing to watch. Save for an American sketch show (I don't like American sketch shows) which, even if I do like it, I'll never see again when The Chaser eventually does return, and the country stops having a bizarre hissy-fit over one minute of mildly offensive comedy. The self-indulgent idiocy of the human race never ceases to amaze me.

[Mistified]

^ I'm not familiar with this show or with this news story, but it sounds to me as if the Australian public are made up of too many vocal non-liberals which isn't the general perception that us Europeans would have of Australians at all. This is the second story recently where TV shows have made the headlines (that I know of) if you count in the Joey/Charlie one aswell.

[January]

A woman has lost her job, and I have nothing to watch.

She still has a leadership role at the ABC as head of Arts and Entertainment. The boys are still out filming and will be back soon. While it might seem a bit extreme, the ABC is a lot more avant garde than the commercial networks. I doubt Chasers in its current form would even get off the ground on a commercial network. The sponsors would go into meltdown after the first skit.

I’m interested to see how it pans out when they return.

[emmasi]

Did anyone just see "Oscar Gold" on American Dad? It could be a coincidence, because the things they used were pretty obvious, but the Chaser did a sketch the other week about a movie that was guarenteed to win an Oscar, about a disabled Jewish person during the holocaust, and American Dad has done the same thing, only their person was an alcoholic and his puppy died of cancer too.

[Formerly Known as FKAJ]

I didn't see that, but I remember in an episode of Extras Kate Winslet talks about how you are guaranteed an Oscar if you make a film about the Holocaust. She says later that mental and physical disability is another one. Tropic Thunder covers this too - Ben Stiller's character played a disabled character in an effort to look like a serious actor and win an oscar but everyone hated his performance. Robert Downey Jr's character explains how it's done:

Kirk Lazarus: Everybody knows you never go full retard.

Tugg Speedman: What do you mean?

Kirk Lazarus: Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, 'Rain Man,' look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sho'. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks, 'Forrest Gump.' Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. Peter Sellers, "Being There." Infantile, yes. Retarded, no. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001, "I Am Sam." Remember? Went full retard, went home empty handed...

I read a couple of complaints about this sketch during the outrage over the "Make a Realistic Wish Foundation" bit, specifically Andrew's portrayal of muscular dystrophy or whatever it was he was supposed to have, but they were kind of missing the point, much like the complaints over the above scene in Tropic Thunder.

[Formerly Known as FKAJ]

After thinking about this over the last week, I've come to the conclusion that the problem with the Make a Realistic Wish sketch wasn't the premise or the content - I mean, there are laughs to be had when a callous person puts on an unconvincing show of being charitable. The problem was that the Chaser let this go to air without having a specific satirical target in mind, and of course viewers who clearly don't get the Chaser came to the conclusion that the kids themselves were the ones being ridiculed. It's totally missing the point, but unlike the Eulogy song, it's a lot harder to defend the Chaser for it, especially considering how many of the complaints have been from the families of terminally ill children.

I still cannot believe that their sketch on Josef Fritzl hasn't received the same level of complaints. I guess anyone who would have complained turned it off right after the MaRW sketch. But seriously, there is no angle from which you can make a comedic point about that horror, and certainly not in a frakkin Brady Bunch parody. If the Chaser jumped the shark this year, it was about a minute after everyone thought it did.

But, in any case, tonight's was good, about as edgy as their better sketches from 2006. The Noddy bit was the highlight for me.