By Situation Theatre 1/9/2018
For a satirical newspaper the Tele shows a woeful understanding of the genre.
Surprisingly, Sydney’s oldest, whitest, and most male comedians at the Daily Telegraph have launched a devastating pincer movement on satire, damning both the ABC’s Tonightly and George Orwell’s Animal Farm for unfairly targeting Christians and animals respectively.
Using their advanced skills of parsing meaning and disseminating nuance, the Tele’s editors have watched Tonightly’s sketch WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY AN ACCURATE CRITIQUE OF MORRISON’S HYPOCRISY, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AND LACK OF FIDELITY TO CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES, NOT HIS RELIGION.
Not to be outdone, Eternity News had a genuine article which helpfully explained why the sketch was offensive:
“The Shadow Ministers make a lot of claims about what Jesus told his followers to do and what it means to be Christian. “Jesus made the animals, like kangaroos, and he also said to lock the kids up on Nauru.” Um, no, he didn’t. “To do what pleases Jesus, deny them all visas; you can’t get more Christian than that.” Actually, you can. None of Jesus’s teachings or actions narrow down “being Christian” to such an equation.”
Oh God. Back to the main game.
The Tele has decided, for the first time, to turn their noggins off, and wilfully misread the skit as having a crack at the religious beliefs of Good-Aussie-Bloke-and-lest-we-forget-Sharkies-supporter-(go the Sharkies)-ScoMo-Daggy-Dad-Moderate-for-fuck-sake-can-we-stop-normalising-and-boganifying-this-refugee-torturer Morrison.
Sydney’s low-budget version of a Quilton 3-ply value pack spent 4 pages arguing that “Sneering ABC broadcasters led by prime-time ABC stars who rail against Islamophobia are using taxpayer-funded airtime to shamelessly ridicule, mock and openly question the faith and religious convictions of Prime Minister Scott Morrison”.
The Tele spent the rest of this edition condemning George Orwell for ripping into pigs, which is deeply unfair because pigs are actually some of the finest stock in the whole farmyard.