0/5

Netflix removes Chris Lilley comedies

Angry Boys, Summer Heights High, We Can Be Heroes, & Jonah From Tonga gone.

Netflix is removing four Chris Lilley comedies from its platform in Australia and New Zealand.

Angry Boys, Summer Heights High, We Can Be Heroes, and Jonah From Tonga, have been removed according to Deadline. They include characters Jonah Takalua and rapper S.mouse, for which Lilley wore brown makeup, or Chinese physics student Ricky Wong.

But Ja’mie Private School Girl and Netflix original Lunatics, will remain.

Producer Laura Waters of Princess Pictures has previously described Lunatics‘ South African character Jana as “not portraying a woman of colour.”

We Can Be Heroes and Summer Heights High are arguably Lilley’s most lauded work, including the former winning him the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding New Talent at the Logie Awards and a prestigious Rose D’Or as Best Male Comedy Performance.

But in 2011 rapper S.mouse was criticised for being offensive with its blackface. By 2014 there were petitions to drop Jonah from Tonga from HBO.

The move follows the removal of Little Britain and Come Fly With Me from Netflix and Stan. The League Of Gentlemen was also removed from Stan.

While Netflix has kept its home pages for the removed Lilley comedies, Variety reports they will not return with disclaimers.

In the US HBO Max removed Gone with the Wind but will return it with a disclaimer.

Yesterday many subscribers took to social media to criticise moves as being too politically correct.

Netflix declined to comment.

Should old comedy titles be removed if they offend?

Loading ... Loading ...

52 Responses

  1. “You can’t change history”

    Sure, but you also don’t need to continue watching offensive TV shows and movies as entertainment in the years/decades to follow.

  2. Chris Lilley came for all archetypes of people. He didn’t just take the p*** out of POC. He mate satire out of typical white high school girls, bogan male Aussies, drama teachers, gay characters, asian, white ect. He didn’t discriminate against one specific group, he went out on everyone. Removing the shows is just political correctness being amplified in today’s society.

    1. On this point… I don’t have an issue with Paul Fenech who targets all in equal measure for example, but black face is hard to defend in 2020. It’s unfortunate I think Chris Lilley is very talented, but I preferred his earlier content. I’m not a fan of removing content.

      1. while I personally have found most black face scenes fairly crappy and unfunny, especially smouse, this is an imported level of cultural offence from america where white folk impersonated black folk and there’s a whole history behind it dating back to slavery

  3. I just want to say …that I have never been a fan of Chris Lilley ….but I know many are…so why should someone like me ..speak for everyone else…
    Seriously, this is political correctness gone mad.

  4. … oh so funny … that the ghost of ultra conservative Mary Whitehouse should now be directing the actions of self-styled “progressives” … next thing they’ll be trying to ban Enid Blyton’s Noddy books because of the golliwogs … what’s that … they already have? …

  5. As others have said, you can’t change history, the idea is to learn from it. We can’t pretend these shows were never made. Leave them as they are, add a warning/disclaimer and be done with it. If anything, removing these shows probably draws more attention to them than if nothing changed!

  6. Sorry the only reason why I agree is that since Jaimie …. none of Chris Lilley stuff has actually been funny …. Also with the League Of Gentleman there was a character that appeared in only four episodes that is the issue. Oh I cant wait until they rewatch old Benny Hill episodes …

  7. and just to provide a bit of balance in this whole thing, something that should be added to streaming services etc.. In 1971 yep ,49 years ago Parkinson interviewed Muhammad Ali and part of it included Ali reminiscing of asking his mother ‘why is everything white’……eloquent, pointed, makes you smile and also think how far (or lack of) the world has progressed since then, just search it out

    1. Yes I find the ‘white face’ deeply offensive and overtly racist and sexist, people who make and show this stuff should be held to account

  8. There was a survey recently that found that only 20% of University students on campus in the US supported these sort of actions, and university students are more radical than most of the US. It is part of a decades long campaign by the far left to argue that their beliefs are absolute, must always have been right and will always be right and not one person should be able to get away with thinking otherwise. To do so they must rewrite history and culture in order that they can force them on everyone.

    Yes blackface was used to ridicule slave culture during the pro-slavery period of the US South in the middle of the 19th Century. That doesn’t mean people wearing stage makeup at other times were or are, especially in other cultures and countries. Going after people dressing up as rap stars who are heros of popular culture, or satirising gangsta rap is ridiculous. Even the Minstrel…

  9. Chirs Lilley stopped being funny after SHH, IMHO. I actually agree with Brooke Bonny when she said we should leave these shows alone and focus, instead, on what we produce moving forward. We should be able to view this content in the context of when it was produced.

  10. There is a difference between a company removing content and banning content.Just because you can’t download it on your iplayer doesnt mean we are living in an Orwellian distopia. Its still available on dvd if you want to have it,it’s not being banned.If you want to watch Squished ******.it just may be a little bit more difficult to access it which is a good thing.

    1. Then educate yourself Stevie – there are hundreds of articles on Google and also YouTube videos about why many find it deeply offensive, cheers

  11. I can’t believe we are removing shows/movies because 5% of the world is offended.
    Here’s a thought, if you get offended, don’t watch it.
    Gone with the wind is one of my fav films.

  12. I can’t speak from the perspective of a POC, however I have a comparative experience from recently rewatching Eddie Murphy’s Delirious stand up movie on a streaming service. As a teenager, I remember laughing hysterically at it. Now as an older openly gay man, I was stunned at the opening 10 minutes of it, which are basically a diatribe against gay people. Hugely offensive and homophobic, whilst the audience roars with laughter and applause. In saying that, I would not want it removed from streaming services. Watching it today, with present day values, provides an opportunity for critical thinking, and allows the viewer to see where we’ve come from, what was acceptable in the past, and how far society has progressed. A warning shown before a show starts would be a much better option. Simply erasing things from existence, teaches us nothing, and also devalues the struggles people from…

  13. theses so called companies don’t care about offending peoples races, they don’t want to offend these people cause they have something to sell to them. Making comedic show that make light of peoples idiocyncracies is not racist.

  14. “Get over it.” How amusingly apt that a phrase often levelled at people of colour decrying the sins of the past can also be applied to those howling down the removal of tv shows that many find painful.

  15. It used to be that people could tell the difference between the exaggerated features depicted in offensive black face comedy and people playing the role of a black person. People can’t seem to tell the difference and have a sense of context or nuance in expression now. If we’re no longer permitted to laugh at the absurdity of racial stereotypes the likes of Nazeem Hussein, Eddie Murphy and Snoop Dog should be drummed out of the industry for whiteface characterisations.

  16. Chris Lilley is clever. Not funny. Ive always seen him as commentary, as in reflection of the mood of the time, not so much as comedic. Maybe im out of step.

  17. To quote Rhett Butler “Frankly I don’t give a damn”. People can just buy DVDs of Chris Lilley and Matt Lucas from JB Hi Fi, Sanity and Cash Converters. South Park should be deleted too as Cartman is raciest.

  18. Considering the vast majority who voted No in that poll, I just want to say I support these removals as an act of solidarity for the BLM movement. Surely losing a TV show is less important than discouraging the appropriation of oppressed cultures

    1. You can’t change history, The idea is to learn from it. Gone With The Wind is a prime example of overreacting, trying to remove that also removes the first black Oscar winner. Hattie McDaniel.

    2. As I said in an earlier post, I think there is a happy medium in keeping such shows available but with a notice acknowledging that they are a product of their time with aspects not being appropriate today.

      Deleting everything is like saying “this didn’t exist”. And I think there’s value in these now-controversial works (in this case, because of the racial portrayals by a caucasian man), both in showing our past and what was considered appropriate back in our past well as having stories to tell (Jonah from SHH had an interesting story – yeah he’s the Tonagan kid who says “Puck you”, but there is that story of a misunderstood kid)

      But at the same time, ignoring the elephant in the room is equally as silly as deleting it.

    3. I disagree. This isn’t an act of solidarity, this is an attempt to re-write history and sets a terrible precedent. This isn’t about someone playing a character that could be deemed offensive, this is about wiping history — Imagine if a country like South Africa attempted to ban any mention of the apartheid because it “offended” a few people, how would we learn from those mistakes?

      1. Come on, don’t bring apartheid into a discussion about blackface – they are not the same thing. If you want to watch Chris Lilley blackface, buy the DVD or go to YouTube. History is not being rewritten … it’s just saying enough with blackface – do better next time

  19. People should reconsider their subscription if Netflix is going to try and sanitize the past. It’s a scary new world these corporations are adhering to a bullys demands.

    1. i agree i think its time i cancelled my subscription if this is they way they are going to do things which is a shame i quite enjoyed it up until now – what a load of political correct BS

Leave a Reply