What the Church and the Chaser should learn from each other

By Justin Denholm

I have a confession to make. I found the Chaser’s attempt to break into APEC last year funny. I liked the way that it challenged the serious and self-important front that the conference exuded, and the pantomime of Osama Bin Laden in a Canadian staff car. I think the stunt prompted good debate in newspapers and over coffee about the public perception of government and APEC. To me, it succeeded in accomplishing the goals of public satire – to bring down the big guy, to use humour to challenge as well as amuse. Last month’s now infamous “Make a realistic wish” sketch, however, is another matter altogether. For those who missed it, the Chaser team visited a (mock) paediatric cancer centre and lampooned the children’s “extravagance and selfishness in the face of their impending death”. Ending with the tagline “why go to any trouble when they’re only going to die anyway?”, they offer children sticks and pencil cases instead of trips to Disneyland . In the aftermath, the Chaser team were temporarily taken off the air, and a host of commentators have leapt to either condemn or defend the sketch. The public response, to judge by the published letters and editorials, has been mixed. There seems to be genuine disagreement about whether this sketch is objectionable, and I don’t think I’m alone in being surprised at the controversy. The sketch seems so blatantly offensive that I’m a little uncomfortable having to argue why it should be seen as such.

The Chaser’s sketch is not offensive because it’s about cancer or children or some taboo part of life. I don’t have a problem with the Chaser poking fun at our ‘sacred cows’; in fact, I think that comedians and political satirists have an important role in challenging us to rethink things our society takes for granted. My problem with this latest offering is that I think it is offensive without being challenging in any meaningful way. Children are dying of cancer, and some outstanding people and organisations try to make their lives a little better. What needs to be challenged in that? This is just an exploitative way to get a cheap laugh – making fun of sick kids and the people helping them inorder to fill in 60 seconds of airtime. Political satire worth the name should be better than that.

Political satirists who want to really confront society could learn good lessons about their craft from the Bible. In his book Jesus the Fool Michael Frost offers some insights into the way Jesus used humour to disarm and to challenge people to hear his message in a new way. Think of the absurdity of a camel trying to fit through the eye of a needle, or the wit we see as he confounds the Pharisees: “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”. His humour subverts and exposes the powerful, and does so to send important messages in a memorable way. Jesus, though, is far from a lone humorous voice in the Bible, as the Old Testament is full of social and political satire. From Ezekiel’s public burning of the model Jerusalem to Hosea’s in-your-face marriage to a prostitute, the prophetic voices were public, controversial and challenged society about important issues.

This is the tradition into which political satire is born, and the standard to which it should aspire. This is the difficult job that the Chaser and others like them have taken upon themselves. The role they are aspiring to is, in effect, as prophetic voices for our society. The problem is, though, that being amusing or shocking doesn’t mean much if there is no message of any substance behind it.

While this is a challenge for the Chaser team, it is also one for the Church. If satirists risk confronting without a message, we risk having a message but not being prepared to confront society with it. The gospel of Jesus should be one that engages with and confronts society in every age, and our mission is to present it in ways that might sometimes be shocking or seemingly offensive to the world around us. We can learn something about confronting society from the Chaser while holding onto a message that makes being ‘offensive’ worthwhile. Unless we learn these lessons from each other, we both risk falling short of what we should be trying to achieve.

Dr Justin Denholm is the Co-ordinator of the Centre for Applied Christian Ethics, Ridley Melbourne.