Statistics before culture….
The Chaser’s War on Everything has been cutting edge TV in Australia since the mid 2000s. It’s stopped for now though they tried to bring it back during the Royal Wedding (got squashed by the BBC).
It’s irreverant, it pisses off politicians, celebrities, people in high places. But it’s comedy, it’s clever, it’s out there and it’s taking the piss.
We used to be funnier here. We used to do this sort of stuff. But we seem to have lost our ability to do it. Or pretty much.
Why? We’ve got to sort this…
Totally agree. I’m hoping Facelift could be around this year – or even better, I don’t see why we couldn’t get John Clarke to do a weekly interview on the New Zealand situation. The sort of thing Cambell Live might do, perhaps?
Too much focus on success(money) and business(money).
Given the current state of NZ politics, a celebrity PM and a joke of an opposition, there isn’t really anything extra works of comedy or satire would add.
The wonderful thing about satire is that when it is followed by a real politician solemnly intoning for real it becomes that much funnier. Pity some of the current one-liner “comdedians” could turn their attention to real satire.
(Incidentally, this Census raised some interesting “on the night” anomalies. You could have internetted your responses on the day that you received your papers – two weeks out from the date.I issued one paper at about 2pm on the first day, and it was processed online by nightfall)
Shows like the Daily Show in the USA make a lot of use of those types of clips of politicians in the House. As I understand it, the Standing Orders prevent people from using images from Parliament for satire. See 44 on page 32, and then p148- Coverage of proceedings must not be used in any medium for— …(b) satire, ridicule, or denigration.
Incidentally, The Daily Show covered this rule coming into force in NZ because they saw it as restricting freedom of expression.
So the Standing Orders are one aspect that may need to be revisited in order to encorage more satire. More modern times these days, and the internet has evolved so much: I reckon it should be fair enough now to use the clips for satire.
I believe satire makes for a smarter and more analytical population. NZ feels a bit stiffled for free speach and alternative voices these days. Always the same faces, the same voices. Satire will help us to break out of the old habits in our communication and show up phoniness and inconsistencies.
Satire and humour are a fringe part of a media, and good for pointing out bias. We also need to ensure the objectvity and independence of the media in general so that mainstream news serves the interests of the people and presents enough information for people to know what is going on and be well informed. TV7 has been making strides in that direction with Bankbenchers and Media 7, The Court Report etc. Mighty mighty shame that a country is losing that.
Could it be the way things are going, satire is currently redundant?
We still have the writers and actors for good local satire. I think we also have advertisers who would support it.
What we don’t have is a TV company willing to invest in this form of local output. Ask why THAT has changed.