No Sacred Cows For Kiwi Bros
The Age
Thursday September 6, 2007
AT FIRST glance, "New Zealand's first prime-time cartoon" bro'Town seemed little more than an Antipodean remake of South Park. The premise is a carbon copy of the breakaway American series - four adolescent boys get themselves into all sorts of scrapes while trying to make sense of the sick and twisted adult world around them. When bro'Town made its Australian debut a year ago, the reception in the local press was either dismissive of the puerile jokes and underlying message of "tolerance" (a feature perhaps overstated to a disadvantage in publicity material) or else cautiously supportive of this new animation effort from our neighbours across the Tasman, because, well, it's a show by and about indigenous people. And let's face it, that's not something we are used to seeing on prime-time television.
Unlike New Zealand, which has a free-to-air digital Maori television station, Australia has only just acquired a 24-hour indigenous network, NITV, launched in July, which as yet is only available in remote Australia. Of the two hours a week that NITV estimates is devoted to indigenous programming on Australian free-to-air networks (excluding Channel 31) at present, much is taken up with documentary-style shows. The Circuit, the Aboriginal-driven legal drama that recently screened on SBS, garnered a passionate following, but its timeslot (9.30pm Sundays) meant that it was never destined for the top 10 national ratings. We may cheer the fact that Aboriginal actors are being cast in mainstream drama (such as Aaron Pedersen in City Homicide and Deborah Mailman The Secret Life of Us), but the success of individual actors is not the same as seeing Aboriginal programs on mainstream television. The viewing public knows as little about Aboriginal humour as it does Samoan. Thanks to shows like Acropolis Now and Fat Pizza, we are probably more in tune with Greek humour.Still, enough Australians warmed to the band of brown bros created by the Naked Samoans theatre group - brainy Vale and dim-witted brother Valea; smooth mover Sione; camp Mack and languid Jeff da Maori - for SBS to screen the third series. It may be that local viewership mainly comprises Kiwi expats and/or Islanders who can relate to the cultural cliches. But it could be that Australians with the peculiar sense of humour that laps up the layers of satire and downright silliness of South Park get a similar fix from bro'Town. Beyond the caricatures and fart gags lies a similarly astute commentary on human behaviour.Just like the adults in South Park, the adults of Morningside (the heavily Islander and Maori populated Auckland suburb where bro'Town is set) are irresponsible, debauched, self-serving and patronising, exerting control over their teenage charges but failing miserably as role models. The ironic exception is the cross-dressing principal, a big fa'afafine (transvestite), who always has a kind, if slightly skewed, word for her "boys".The other adults are truly abhorrent. Pepelo Pepelo, Vale and Valea's widower father, is a fat, lazy drunk who watches pornos and careers around in a forklift truck. He refers to his sons as "You bloody ssit (shit) kids", to which Vale's repeated retort is: "You're just a useless parent." Sione's mother, Agnes Tapili, is a pious church-goer, always banging on about her good works yet neglecting her children. (By contrast, Mack's parents are middle class, a source of shame for him.) Jeff's domestic situation is a nightmare. He sleeps in an abandoned car outside the rundown house where his mother - a lanky woman who frequently fails to recognise him - lives with his "eight dads". Just as repulsive, but in an entirely different way, is the teacher, a painfully politically correct Anglo whose awkward attempts to insert Maori words wherever possible are excruciating. (" 'Kia ora' or welcome to this 'hui' or meeting," she greets Jeff's mum on parent-teacher night.)With the wisdom inherent in children, even those on the verge of adulthood, the bros see through the hypocrisy of adults. And they accept their dreadful circumstances - there are jokes about never getting breakfast, being stereotyped as glue sniffers, picked on at school and by the police. It's their ability to laugh at themselves that gives them licence to mock others, even those that to our nervous Australian sensibilities may be out of bounds. Only Samoans could send up Maoris the way bro'Town does. ("I told you never to play with Maoris!" Agnes screams at Sione when Jeff falls foul of the law.) And somehow it's OK for the school bully to be a racist white South African called Joost Van der van Van.Then there is the way that Australians are portrayed. There is disdain ("You may as well be an Australian to me!" Pepelo curses his departing Canadian lover in series three.) There is respect, as shown for Rove McManus, who makes a cameo on the second series. And there is confusion, with the representation of Aborigines. A skinny boy in corroboree paint lurks in the background and has the least lines. He has a name that in Australia is considered a racial slur. Perhaps, as an Aborigine on prime-time TV, "Abo" is rightly portrayed as something of an enigma.bro'Town screens Mondays at 9pm on SBS.LINKwww.brotown.co.nz
© 2007 The Age
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