While I’m aware this website pools a similar demographic to The Chaser (so I’m not expecting this to go down too well), I’ve never really been a fan. Yes, the team come up with the odd mildly amusing piece; but they sit amongst a lot of crass skit-comedy that, to my mind, is no better than any of the other compilation shows aired on commercial networks. In fact, some of their rivals are much better; but they fail to create the cultural context that deems their work so supposedly intelligent and socially cutting, as The Chaser has so successfully cultivated. And I’ve always had a problem with the legitimacy of their staple “pranks”, because so many of them are fake. I personally know one of the "actors" hired for one of the stunts that was, like all of them, aired as a supposedly riotous scene that not only were we expected to believe was "real", but one that's entire comedy revolved around that realness (the Borat style of watching real people respond to absurd situations). In this particular skit, an unsuspecting Japanese businessman shares a cab with two of the boys; but, truth be told, there was nothing unsuspecting about him – he had a friend who was part of the production team, who called on him after the casting department had difficulty finding the right unsuspecting Japanese businessman for the role. He knew nothing of the television show, and – unbelievably – did it for free, as a “favour”. Needless to say, he never heard from them, again; but the sketch became one of their most notorious – a sketch that was (particularly considering that it was completely scripted) unnecessarily racist. But that’s The Chaser for you – peel away the feeling we have that, as lefties, we’re supposed to see it all as some searing social portrait or, worse, an important warrior in an ideological crusade (I mean, really), 80 percent of their work is filled with nothing more than dressed up toilet humour. They forever crucify the Bogans, but they have more in common with them than they presume. They just wear nicer clothes, and hang out in cultured areas of the inner city. Oh, and they've made a lot more money. But this week, a week into their latest series, the similarities have been highlighted.

 

AUSSIE LADETTE TO LADY (Nine Network)

 

 

I think there's a certain personality type that tends to be susceptible to a bias born of a general oppositional mindset, where we fall in love with something, only to then have that love tested by the object of our affection suddenly becoming loved by everyone else, too. Maybe you know the feeling. I'm familiar with it; but I'm pleased to say that, as I have grown, the connections I make with culture are no longer affected by the resentment of popularity that can often manifest in people who have empowered their displacement by embodying it as part of their identity, or... well... advertising copywriters who spend so much of their time concerned with fashioning words and ideas that the majority will love, they counteract it in their spare time by relishing the obscure. I'm a bit of both, admittedly. But I refuse to tune out of Ladette To Lady, for no other reason than it now being a drawcard on a commercial channel (it was once an ABC show) and having a cross-promotional deal with the likes of Kyle and Jackie O (ugh). My favourite little reality show that hardly anyone watched is now looking down at me from billboards. But I don't care. In the midst of the recent history of reality television - an atrocious blemish on popular culture - Ladette to Lady remains a true gem. It offers a product that, on the one hand, has so many elements that would seem to go hand in hand with all we know and loathe about reality television; but, on the other, is also an intelligently designed format, produced by a team of professional creatives who know how to edit their material to show so much, without spoonfeeding it to us (I can't think of a single other reality show we can say that of). I've a sneaking suspicion that the growing popularity of this English production, now having intertwined with an Australian co-production deal, may deteriorate, like so much else that has been revised (to ill effect) as a mainstream money-spinner. I was nervous, for this very reason, when sitting down for the first episode of Aussie Ladette to Lady. But, thankfully - for now - what's great about this show remains.