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US questions Jonah from Tonga “brownface”

Media and petitions call for HBO to pull Chris Lilley's comedy.

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Screen Shot 2014-05-08 at 10.24.21 am.jpgAs Jonah From Tonga nears its HBO August debut, Chris Lilley has come under fire from US media for donning Tongan characters.

The Washington Post asks, “Is brownface acceptable in new HBO show ‘Jonah From Tonga’?”

It’s not just that Lilley is in brownface, topped with a curly wig, but that his portrayal of the 13-year-old Jonas, who Bustle described “astonishingly lewd every chance he gets,” is akin to minstrelsy. The 39-year-old Lilley chooses to portray Jonah and his Tongan cohorts as dumb (Jonah is failing school), savage gang members and misogynistic bullies in contrast to their civilized white classmates. The show titles are rendered in a stereotypical, generic Tiki typeface carved from wood.

The Huffington Post hits it much harder:

What are you thinking, HBO? This is not cutting edge. This is not a modern All In The Family. This is not, as the original broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) described it: “comedy and satire… with a sharp edge — notions that extend back to Chaucer and Shakespeare.”

The reference to Chaucer and Shakespeare is apt only in that this sort of ‘comedy’ is so old-fashioned as to be medieval. This is barely post-colonial racism. This is a middle-aged white guy putting on brown face paint and a curly wig and pretending to be a sexually aggressive, moronic, criminal, brown guy whose only saving grace is singing and dancing (or in this case, rapping and break dancing — I kid you not). I thought the days of minstrel shows were over.

Salt Lake Magazine agrees:

There’s only two reasons a show like Jonah from Tonga could show up on HBO. 1. We have entered a very unfunny post-Borat entertainment landscape, and 2. HBO execs have never met a Tongan and possibly think they are a fictional people, like Swift’s Yahoos.

How else could they air a program that promises to be the most ethnically offensive show on television? The title character is played by a white guy in brown face. Seriously. Try that on the new Bill Cosby show.

The plot doesn’t bridge any chasms of understanding either: Jonah Takalua, a rebellious Tongan teen, “just can’t help himself when it comes to stirring up trouble.” But through it all, “Jonah tries to leave his naughty ways behind and be a ‘good boy,’ but with Jonah, things never quite go as planned.”

It even quotes “appalled” Salt Lake Tongans:

Richard Kaufusi, of the Utah’s Tongan community, told KSL: “It’s damaging, especially with an impressionable demographic they’re trying to target.”

So far, more than 3,700 people have signed a Change.org petition asking HBO to yank the show. A Facebook page created with the same purpose in mind has more than 1,100 “likes.”

15 Responses

  1. In isolation, I can understand how people could see the show in this way. When the character was on “Angry Boys” you could see that Lilley was portraying individuals of a variety of races in a negative light.

    Watching this show as an extension of Lilley’s earlier work, the show looks much less racist. But on it’s own, it’s different.

    I think the show’s biggest problem is well covered by Bazza.

  2. I support ABC cuts especially if it means no more Chris Lilley or The Chasers crew.

    Both are trash and past their prime. The fact that both have been given tax payer money in recent times shows that the ABC is running a job for the mates program. The CEO of the ABC really needs to be fired for incompetence.

  5. There is a huge Tongan community in Salt Lake City of over 3000 people & is the home of the National Tongan American Society. They are there because they are also Mormon.
    With only 57000 Tongans in the uS they are a small minority but have a lot allies with the other Pacific Island/ Hawaiian communities.
    Good for them I hope this homophobic racist show disappears forever.

  6. White people slapping black or brown face paint on in America has a significant emotional history and sometimes we in Australia and the UK fail to appreciate/understand it.

  7. So what did they think of S.mouse? And of Jonah in Summer Heights High previously? Also any issues with him playing Ricky Wong in We Can Be Heroes?

    @jason – Jonah isn’t the only representation of Tonga. There are many actual Tongans in this show, and they didn’t seem to have a problem in taking part.

  9. Whats the big deal, all HBO has to do is to photo shop Jonah showing him wearing a shoulder holster holding a 45 magnum, and most the yanks will love him.

  10. I thought it strange that America was so accepting of Fred Armisen portraying Barack Obama on Saturday Night Live. I feel this falls into a similar grey area.

    However I do agree with this quote: “We have entered a very unfunny post-Borat entertainment landscape.”

  11. Don’t know about “racist” but it is highly offensive to the people of Tonga, who, in 99 percent of the cases (allowing perhaps for one or two NRL footballers who have been exposed to Westerners), are the complete opposite of what’s portrayed in this “comedy”. Did HBO win this series in a packet of Corn Flakes? Surely they didn’t pay for it.

  13. spot on Bazza….

    but – maybe it has also to do with American’s being raciest, but trying to assume everyone else is

    “…This is barely post-colonial racism”

    huh?

    I don’t consider it racist at all?

    never even through of it like that…. I thought of it as Chris Lilley impersonating someone one….

    Americans must be the racist one, if they immediately just on the “colour” thing.

    Anyone who watches direct from US like stuff like the Daily Show (not that I’m saying Jon Stewart is racist at all), every time they mention a person of a different colour, they constantly bring up their colour….

    if that’s not racist, I don’t know what is…. but it’s the US so it must be OK

    for two US comedians to make a show called white chicks, and have 2 darker coloured people have their faces panted white, be OK –

    but a white comedian, have his face coloured black…

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