CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The public broadcaster has today stood behind iconic comedian, Chris Lilley’s new character: the flamboyant transgender WWI zombie infantryman, Frank Sweetman.
This comes as four Chris Lilley programs were pulled from Netflix in New Zealand and Australia over the use of blackface and makeup – which appears to be a specific type of comedy that not one gen-x comedian has been able to avoid in their entire lives.
While Chris Lilley was an ABC darling at the height of his career, this recent look back at his opus work is being viewed through a very different lens by people who are now insisting they never laughed back then.
However, Lilley fears this new culture of erasing problematic film and TV shows from our history may set a dangerous precedent – and could very well jeapordize his upcoming ‘Tranzac’ zombie character.
Lilley’s comments have fallen on deaf ears, however, and his newest foray into niche stereotyping appears to have backfired as badly as the black rapper character he did a few years back.
Veteran organisations have today criticised the idea of satirising the death of thousands of Australians still buried on the shores of Gallipoli, but Chris Lilley says it’s art and we need to respect his creativeness as a North Shore Sydney social commentator.
The Summer Heights High star stands by his decision to stereotype every Australian to ever live, including those from communities he has very little to do with. However, LGBTI rights groups asking if it really is necessary to have the character of Frank Sweetman giving blowjobs to the corpses of deceased Turkish troops.
The ABC, however, says the planned release for April next year is still going ahead – despite people asking if we can just leave Chris Lilley to keep pretending to be a high school girl.
“We stand by our decision to allow Chris Lilley the budget to do whatever he wants to do whenever he feels like doing it” said one spokesman for the ABC.
“Some people ave said that maybe he has flown to close to the sun, but Ita said he’s good so we are gonna just ignore the whole blackface thing”
