Welcome to this week’s ‘I Call Bullshit’. It has been inspired by this morning’s critique of Chris Lilley’s Angry Boys penned by Tory Shepherd.
It was undoubtedly conspired up in her ivory tower where there is a complete ban on any form of immaturity and a DVD collection policy that only allows the first series of a program to be collected as latter series are automatically too mainstream and lacking in intellectual value.
Tory brushes Lilley’s new series aside with strokes of academic elitism. She turns her nose up at the quality of humour within the show labelling it ‘juvenile gutterisms’ and announces her dismay at the quantity of ‘dick and poo’ jokes in the series.
To Tory, Chris Lilley no longer provides ‘edgy satire’ and anyone that enjoys ‘Angry Boys’ must be some teenage wankjob who converses in text speak and has never seen Lilley’s earlier material. I think I speak for the majority of those who enjoyed We Can Be Heroes and Summer Heights High when I quote Jonah in saying ‘Puck you Miss’.
Call me what you will but I’m thankful I can still embrace a ‘fart’ joke here and there. My sense of humour may be perceived as immature but it in no way reflects my intellect, personality and my maturity as a whole.
In a world with little to laugh about, programs such as Angry Boys can put life’s problems to the back of your mind and make you laugh. Taking yourself so seriously to point that you are denying yourself entertainment because you are worried it reflects poorly on the serious image you have built up of yourself isn’t healthy.
My advice to Tory would be to take yourself and life less seriously and enjoy what life puts in front of you, don’t critique it if it doesn’t meet a certain intellectual quota and doesn’t give problems to ponder over while you drink your pinot noir.
Lilley’s material has always delivered light-hearted social commentary that parodies certain aspects and stereotypes prevalent in our society. It’s nothing new; it is a tried and tested concept that goes back to Seinfeld and countless stand-up comics. Angry Boys once again follows this format and its characters are once again a humorous look at a range of 21st century characters that make you laugh not only due to Lilley’s fantastic portrayal and memorable one-liners but because to a degree they actually are found in our country towns and our cities in the real world.
These characters might not be ones that exist in Tory’s pseudo-intellectual fantasy land, but to us living in the real world Angry Boys is another hit. Facebook fan groups and the like have popped up overnight and spread quicker than celebrity pornography. Through mouth-to-mouth advertisement it will only get bigger every week and will undoubtedly be an even bigger international and domestic success than Lilley’s past series.
I’m always frustrated when I see someone like Tory who jumps off the bandwagon as soon as something is perceived to become too ‘mainstream’.
It is seen in music all the time where bands such as The Strokes or Kings of Leon garner up a fan base only to lose half of them as soon as they reach a modicum of success. These people, like Tory, are too worried about looking cool and being ‘alternative’ than enjoying and supporting good entertainment.
Good music is good music and good television is good television whether its classed as mainstream or alternative and should be appreciated as such, regardless of genre, or how many and what type of people enjoy it or what some elitist alternative-wannabee up in her ivory tower thinks of it.
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