Is is just me or has the predictable over-the-top tabloid outrage over the Chaser’s Eulogy Song (screened last Wednesday) done nothing but show how ture the joke was?

For those who didn’t see the episode, you can see a highlights package here *warning - the song has some very crude language*. Basically, Andrew Hansen (who regularly does comedic songs on the show) sang about how the lives of celebrities get glossed over and airbrushed after their deaths, their flaws are shoved into the background and everyone wants to say how great they were. The response from the mainstream media was predictable and unself-consciously ironic.

Andrew Hansen’s songs usually rely on a skilful use of irony - he is very good at this.  In this case, however, he went for the cheaper and shallower laughs of shock crudity.

the joke itself relied on an observation which was hardly new:  as the Romans said - de mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est (about the dead, one must speak only good things).

The words may have been funny and clever, but they were also cruel and inappropriate.  Not unlike when Billy Connolly said of Iraq hostage Kenneth Bigley “"Don’t you just wish they would just get on with it?”

Of course Connolly didn’t actually mean it; but he shouldn’t have said it anyway; and you could say the same thing about Hansen’s lyrics.

As for the tabloids - well they have to sell papers somehow:  this is useful moralising material for them, just as it was with the Billy Connolly joke.

It was actually written by Chris Taylor for his play about Julius Caesar, and was one of the funnier/edgier things they’ve done for a while. To slay so many sacred cows in 90 seconds was pretty funny, though yes, very crude.

That said this idea that the Chaser has been this polite, high brow comedy is ridiculous - they’ve always indulged in ‘shock crudity’ for laughs, and the hand wringing over their jokes always adds some more humour, especially the faux-outrage from the pollies (edit: and Today Tonight / Ch 7 - Media Watch pointed out the hypocrisy there) this time ‘round. In this case, like Lee said, it also demonstrates the truth of the joke.

Funny in concept , but arrogant, spiteful and vile in execution. Rather than illustrating the point, he opted for shock value with blatant insults and slander.

I stopped watching the Chaser a long time ago, concluding that they weren’t funny - they’re just arrogant, insensitive and cruel. This song has done nothing to change my mind.

Now Newstopia - THAT is funny!

I know that some people were “outraged!” by the insult to the dead, but I think the object of the joke is, really, not the dead but those who eulogise them.  Flawed people (like all of us) suddenly become perfect merely by dying.  e.g. Steve Irwin irritated a lot of people when alive (including me) but anyone who now criticises him is screamed down in a torrent of abuse for daring to criticise the perfect person he has now become.  I’ve seen it in my own family-by dying, someone becomes perfect, but on a wider stage, it is more pronounced.  Maybe the outrage now is because they are attacking the living, not the dead!

I just watched it then, and it didn’t seem too bad to me. A bit more language than their usual stuff, but nothing to get upset over.

I’ll have to suss this.
Mind you, I am approaching the Chaser with more caution nowadays. They are funny but some of their stuff just isn’t ok for my taste. They are just a tad too willing to offend and injure. I little is ok but they push my “edge” too far.

Getting a bit conservative in your old age OA? ;)

Owen Atkins - 23 October 2007 02:29 PM

I’ll have to suss this.
Mind you, I am approaching the Chaser with more caution nowadays. They are funny but some of their stuff just isn’t ok for my taste. They are just a tad too willing to offend and injure. I little is ok but they push my “edge” too far.

It depends on what they want to offend and injure for. I don’t see the point in offending a bed salesperson by having a naked orgy in a furniture store. Doesn’t really say much, and looks more like cheap laughs on a commercial television station (except more outrageous obviously) or Jackass ( except slightly less outrageous obviously).

I’m with Joseph Smith or Mark Hadley, they seemed to have lost their edge. Bring back CNNN, I used to actually learn something watching that program.

Getting a bit conservative in your old age OA? ;)

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Geoff Chambers - 23 October 2007 03:30 PM

Bring back CNNN, I used to actually learn something watching that program.

Or, even better, just start watching Newstopia instead! Finally, some intelligent and insightful satire on Australian TV.

Haha lol @ Owen ;)

I’ve been meaning to check out Newstopia.. *starts downloading*. Speaking of satire, I’d be lost without my weekly dose of Daily Show and Colbert Report eps from the US, funniest/smartest things on TV (err.. just not our free-to-air TVs heh)!

Conservative??? How come we put a label (even in jest) on a “reaction” to what to me seems to break God’s atandards of what ever is “noble, beautiful....” and spiritually helpful. O.A., do not be ashamed of responding as Christ would have us respond. I’ve seen Chaser twice (second time, to grudgibgly give then the benefit of the doubt), but I’ve stopped because I believe it’s not good for me. Why are you guy’s still watching it? Are you somehow impervious to it’s spiritual effect - or don’t you think it matters; ie desensitised? GIGO applies to more than computers.  In Him, John Cowne

John
You attribute greater rectitude to me than is appropriate.
I am turning off the Chaser’s more extreme elements cos I don’t appreciate the way they discomfort the innocent and embarress people.
I doubt that this is anything other than my natural inclination. Not as a result of any since acquired godliness just the way I am.
I like edgy humour, I just don’t like it when it is, well, nasty. (and that may well be because, like all humans I am repulsed most by the traits in myself I dislike most… eg a tendency to nasty humour!)

eg: I was originally appalled at what I heard about their antics for the G8 thing. But when I saw what they actually did and how the vaunted security had some odd holes that they exploited, well, I laughed quite a lot.
It’s arguable that they did the security people a favour by exposing a hole (ie; poor scrutiny of passes) as a benign group. A much less savoury group could well have made similar discoveries.