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.

 

I only drop in on The Chaser, sporadically; but the decline in their quality has been notable over recent series'. That’s not particularly uncommon when a group of young, arrogant men become Stars™ - their heads finally reaching such depths of their asses, they can hardly see what’s in front of them, let alone write a decent show. Living in the same area, and socialising with many of the same scene, I’m constantly cringing at the way they are forever treated as royalty – the boys at the bar everyone wants to end up talking to. Of course, it’s mostly because we’re trying to forge a career, and who you know, in the television industry, is everything; but I’ve endlessly watched them milk it - especially with the ladeez – and I can’t say it has endeared me to them any further.

This week, the boys may have finally hit a pothole that, unlike previous scandals (which only upped their cool factor), may do more harm to their careers than good. Certainly, the Make A Realistic Wish sketch will be championed on the playgrounds of teenage boys – but that’s hardly the fandom of searing social portraits and left-winged ideological crusades. And the most telling thing of all about this pothole is how very empty it is. I mean, really, what can you say about it? If anything shows up the vacuous truth about The Chaser, it is surely this. Their emerging statements are predictably placing it in the arena of valid social discussions as freedom of expression, political censorship, the place of satire to make intelligent statements, yada, yada, yaaaaawn. But it’s all rot. The boys say the piece was “misinterpreted” - but what, exactly, is there to interpret? I’m with the Twitterer who sharply responded to this defense; “Don’t insult the viewing public’s intelligence”. Perhaps the Bogans aren’t that dumb, after all. Nor, I would hope, are many of their more cultured fans.

So, if you’ve missed the hoo haa, let's acquaint ourselves with the skit in question…

 

It satirises nothing; says nothing. It’s a cruel joke – nothing more, nothing less - and the irony of this article following the attrocious popularity of The Chk Chk Boom Girl is that there's really little difference in the level of comedy here. It's just tasteless, arrogant, superiorist sadism. And you can defend tasteless comedy, if you so desire – but don’t suggest there’s anything more to defend in this scandal. If the boys had any guts, they’d make a real statement, defending the rights of upper class law students turned comedy act to make fun of whomever and whatever they like for the empty amusement of others. It makes fun of charity organisations for terminally ill children and, yes, terminally ill children themselves. But it doesn’t satirise them. To satirise them, it would be making a statement that reveals a dark truth about both these things – the comedy would have some actual insight - but it doesn’t. The only thing this shows up is The Chaser. For that, I am glad. It’s long overdue.

The twist that too many people have yet to catch onto, is that it also shows up another not so endearing trait of their work that has been known for quite some time amongst inner circles: it’s not exactly original. For me, the most infuriating aspect of all this is that these boys have such ludicrous amounts of funding dollars thrown at them – because they’re supposed to be the innovative creative geniuses of Australian television, bla, bla, blaaaaaa – money that could go elsewhere, to people who are truly doing something cutting edge – and what do they do with it? They recycle the work of others.

This is a sketch from Comedy Network’s The Mansion (aired last year)…

Um…. yep. And the irony is that this is actually a much better piece that, yes, does actually make a case as satire. It doesn’t stoop so low to target the actual kids; keeping the focus firmly on the organisation, as a send up of the funding problems of the lower spectrum of the charity circuit, and the often bizzare charcaters it takes to steer them. It’s hardly earth-shattering, either; but it’s much better than the recycled version that would create waves, all these months later. It’s better scripting, it’s better acting, it’s even better production. Where are all those ABC funding dollars going, exactly?

And it’s not getting any better for the boys, as this thing rolls on. Yesterday, a friend of The Chaser team came forward to express her disillusionment with those she now called “former friends”. Her daughter, who also knew the boys, has been battling cancer for two years. Needless to say, she didn’t find the skit very funny. She revealed that the actors in the sketch are the twins of the shows’ producer, and that to see them dress their kids to mimic an ordeal they have, through her daughter, personally known, was beyond belief.

“They tied a scarf around one of the heads pretending she’s lost her hair, which of course my daughter did,” she told radio. “They put dark circles under her eyes, which my daughter has had for two years now, and they knowingly put them on after everything we have been through…. I think probably that mother who I know well will probably be dying at the moment at what’s happening, well she should be… There are some things that there is just no coming back from and that they are not being pulled off the air is a disgrace because they no longer deserve a platform in which they can inflict so much pain, especially on a community of people who are potentially dealing with one of the hardest things a parent will ever deal with… That they bring pain to that group, that I am unfortunately a part of, is extraordinary to me.”

Today, it was announced that the show would be suspended for two weeks, while an inquiry and decision was made.

They’ll probably be back, mind you. They’re worth far too much money. But one has to wonder where that money will come from in future, and how much, in comparison to the astronomical sales they have generated (from DVDs, books, shirts, etc, etc) that will be. It may not end here, this week, for The Chaser. But it may be the beginning of their fade to black. My, how fast the Stars™ burn in la la land.