Final Hamster Wheel shows same old left-wing bias

In comedy and satire everything is exaggerated. So you can see the political subtext very clearly. Many satirists purport to dish out mockery across the board without fear or favour. But that's a crock. They're just as selective as anyone else. And it shows.

Watch anything vaguely humorous on the ABC and you'll see the same dreary left-wing bias every time. The writers and performers are clearly terrified of transgressing uber-PC rules relating to race, gender and sexual identity among other things.

Take the final episode of the Hamster Wheel, which was shown this week. Pretty much every sketch reeked of obnoxious undergraduate Bolshevism (as it always does). Kinda sad for many reasons, not least because the "boys" who write and perform the show are swiftly approaching middle age.

For example, there was a segment on some media beat-up by A Current Affair about the growth in the number of Asian shops in a shopping mall. It was an easy target that was predictably handled. But there was one little part of it that I thought was particularly interesting because it revealed a specific double standard often applied to racial politics in this country.

The boys were making fun of the fact that the tabloid show had hugely exaggerated the extent of the Chinese "takeover" of the mall in question, saying that according to the racists at ACA "just a tiny bit of Asianness makes something completely Asian".

If such a concept can be freely mocked when it comes to discussions of "Asianness" then surely it would apply to related aspects pertaining to Indigenous issues too, right?

No way. As we are all well aware, the official line is that just the slightest hint of Indigenous ancestry is enough to make someone completely and authentically Aboriginal. And woe betide anyone who dares suggest a contrary view.

Good to know that the Chaser boys observe this little legal idiosyncracy very carefully. Otherwise their show could result in even more wasted taxpayers' millions in the form of massive compensation payouts to people whose feelings they had hurt.

And it's not just the writers and performers who know what's required of them by the bullying Left. The audience are right up to speed on this as well.

The "standby eulogy" for Julia Gillard was a case in point. Apart from the fact that it failed to mention the AWU scandal specifically -- which would surely have been the biggest target by a country mile if they really were anarchic takers of the piss (I mean, if anything's gonna "kill" the PM, surely it's this!) -- the audience took offence at the lame, tame gags near the end and even started to groan. It's as if they were saying: "Boys, we chuckled at the beginning to give the impression that we can laugh at our own side. But mocking the Great Helmsperson's recent face plant was simply beyond the pale. You're seconds away from being officially deemed sexist and misogynist. You have been warned!"

Depressing stuff. And to think lefties believe they're the ones with the best sense of humour! What a joke.

The Hamster Wheel's lame Dumb, Drunk and Racist parody

There's just so much dreary ol' bolshie bias in the ABC it's hard to know where to begin. And it's obvious in ways both big and small. Last night, for example, the Chaser boys did a sketch about Joe Hildebrand and his show Dumb, Drunk and Racist.

I was only watching The Hamster Wheel intermittently so I can't remember the exact details but basically it attempted to satirize the fact that when he wasn't making docos for the public broadcaster he worked at the eeevil News Ltd. So they concocted this follow-up to the initial series, in which he confronted some Indians with the horrible reality of his co-workers' appalling attitudes. The sketch took pot shots at Miranda Devine, Andrew Bolt, Piers Akerman, etc, basically accusing them of being racist.

In the same way that misogyny has a clear and unequivocal meaning -- hatred of women -- racism means perceiving others as different and inferior on account of their race. Now all these high profile journos have said controversial things about racial politics, railing against divisive policies that identify people according to their race before their essential humanity. But none of them have ever condemned, sneered at, or looked down on any group or individual because of their race -- at least as far as I know. (And if any of them have, I'm happy to be corrected.)

So the sketch had a false subtext -- not that this would bother the kind of meatheads who think The Hamster Wheel is insightful, courageous and cutting edge, of course. They are forever conflating race with political belief, culture, even religion, after all. 

As well as completely missing its intended target, the sketch also scored a massive own goal in that its, er, "humour" depended on the seeming incongruity of the right-on Hildebrand working with these appalling reactionaries. But all this really proved to any thinking person was that News Ltd actually employs people with a range of political views. (And Hildebrand isn't the only one who tends to take a PC line. There are heaps of other journos who clearly have more left-wing sympathies in that corporation.)

Yet do the Chaser boys hold a diversity of views? Or can you find any conservatives in the entire national broadcaster, for that matter. (Maybe one or two, but they're rare as hen's teeth.)

Another case of taxpayer-funded self-satire from the sneering hipsters at their ABC.

Chaser boys sledge Alan Jones on The Hamster Wheel

I wasn't surprised that The Hamster Wheel really went to town on Alan Jones last night. Lots of gags about his off-colour comments regarding Julia Gillard's father's death, of course. But also some nasty stuff about his sexuality; stuff that would provoke howls of outrage and rampant accusations of homophobia if it were aimed at a darling of the Left (Bob Brown for example).

Of course PC lefties would counter that accusation of a double standard by saying that Bob Brown is out and proud. So he cannot be criticized. But isn't a person's sexuality his business? If he prefers to keep it private shouldn't "compassionate", "tolerant", "progressive" people respect that, regardless of his political affiliations. If they don't they're just subordinating gay rights issues to partisan politics, surely a backward step. What do they wanna do, take us back to the fifties? 

Still on double standards, and sexuality: If you're going to bring up the decades-old story of Jones being arrested in a public toilet, then why not make jokes about a much more contemporary scandal; one involving a very well known and successful broadcaster being sprung downloading thousands of images of kiddy porn, for example?

The story of former ABC celebrity Andy Muirhead's trial and incarceration has been hogging the headlines of late. If anyone's just askin' for a cruel piss-take it's that guy, surely. And the Chaser boys could really have run amok with their "collector" gags!

Gee, I wonder why they didn't go there? Aren't they fearless satirists committed to waging a "war on everything?" Was it because they're too gutless to show their employer in a negative light, therefore risking their jobs? Oh no, that couldn't possibly be ...

And the show is supposed to be political satire with a media focus, right? So why no mockery of the hilariously desperate and silly attempts by every Labor pollie and his dog (as well as some commentators) to link Jones's comments to Tony Abbott? Nope. Instead they just joined the pile-on on the conservative broadcaster. 

The Jones material took up a lot of the show. It was followed by a reality TV parody mocking Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology. Good on them for taking the piss out of that organization, but if they want to find more locally relevant and extreme examples of group-think to subvert with their courageously irreverent humour then why don't they try looking a little closer to home? The retarded, inward-looking culture of the ABC contains an abundance of juicy targets for sharp-eyed satirists.

If they were to do this The Hamster Wheel might even draw a bigger audience. And it would be one containing fewer parasitic sneering hipsters, and more of the productive, thoughtful people the organization is purported to serve. What a heartening subversion of the dominant paradigm that'd be! They are the ones who are paying for it, after all.

Monckton's Graves' disease still funny to ABC warmists

Rob Oakeshott has been diagnosed with Graves' disease. Andrew Bolt reminds us that this incurable illness also afflicts Lord Christopher Monckton and is the cause of his bulging eyes -- a physical trait that caring leftist, warmist folk find utterly hilarious.

The Age even ran a photo of the climate change skeptic with a headline likening him to a primate. As Tim Blair noted at the time, it was the kind of flouting of journalistic standards that Media Watch should have been interested in (but wasn't, of course).

That was two years ago now. But nasty, witless leftists on their ABC are still making fun of this aspect of Lord Monckton's appearance. (And they would, wouldn't they? They can't beat his arguments.)

During the last episode of the tragically lame TV game show Randling, Chaser boy Chris Taylor quipped (for want of a better word) that a shot of a Tarsier (a small nocturnal primate with very large eyes) was Lord Monckton's passport photo. 

You'll see it at the 19 minute mark.

Sure, it was just a pathetic attempt at humour, in a show full of them. But it revealed an attitude. Everything these people do is either mean-spirited, unoriginal, or both.

Hell, the show itself is clearly a vastly inferior copy of QI with a couple of structural changes thrown in. And Taylor's gag was ripped off that Fairfax cover from two years ago.

The whole situation is so sad it's almost funny. Not so much a tragicomedy, though -- more of a commie-tragedy.