Jonah from Tonga was withdrawn for good reason: it’s Chris Lilley’s satire at its worst | Morgan Godfery

The series was cut from Māori Television after protests from the Tongan community. Why didn’t protests in Australia have the same effect?

New Zealand is a strange place: people treat possums as pests, prefer rugby union to league or footy, and the country’s comedians, government departments and politicians struggle to understand Jonah Takalua: the star of the Logie award-winner Chris Lilley’s mockumentary hit Summer Heights High and one of its spin-offs, Jonah From Tonga.

Maybe New Zealanders are too thick to appreciate Lilley’s satire, just like the British were too stuck up and the Americans were too PC. Perhaps that’s why one of the country’s state broadcasters, Māori Television, pulled Jonah From Tonga off the air after intense criticism from journalists (the show’s “a collection of lazy stereotypes”), the Human Rights Commission (it’s “offensive” to many) and the minister for Pacific peoples (it “perpetuates negative stereotypes”).

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