MELBOURNE'S comedy stars must be sighing a collective, "There but for the grace of God go I", as one of our most affable stand-up men, Peter Helliar, is pilloried for an innocent quip. Helliar wondered jokingly on what to give Pamela Anderson, the actor who has everything, for her 40th birthday. Hepatitis C, he mused.
Oh wait, she already got that last year. Pretty much instantly, Helliar found himself the target of a storm of barbs. The comic was branded irresponsible , discriminatory and ignorant by Hepatitis Australia and the joke was described as cheap and cruel .
Helliar was even accused of having added to the pain of Australia's 260,000 hepatitis sufferers. The comic, who earned his popularity playing the footy-tragic everyman, Bryan Strauchan, apologised immediately, and sincerely. He said he had not meant to cause offence and was sorry if anyone was offended.
For the record, Pamela Anderson is very open about having contracted the disease by sharing a tattoo needle. In 2003, she speculated it would kill her within a decade. Currently she is well and let's hope she stays that way.
But Helliar did not make any malicious or prejudicial comment about the disease or about people who might have it. Nor did he say anything pejorative about hepatitis C, Pamela Anderson's illness or anyone else's. The comic, who has been described by one respected TV editor as the ultimate nice guy, the boy next door, friendly, matey and accessible , must have wondered what hit him.
People in the comedy-loving Australian audience must wonder, too, just when we traded cheekiness, broadmindedness and good-natured irreverence for the wave of political correctness that broke over Helliar. It goes without saying that no one wants anyone with any disease or any other affliction to be humiliated. But sending up the serious and even the painful is the life blood of comedy.
Comedy in its many forms casts light on our lives. Culture and pop culture show our sensitivities and society's ills. Comedy's job is to challenge social norms.
That's the job description. Australian comedians excel at it, but they didn't invent it. Monty Python was the trail blazer in the art of ridiculing the complexities of life.
The Life of Brian , they demonstrated that anything should be fair game, even the death of Jesus on the cross. The morbidly obese Mr Creosote, who clearly had an eating disorder, exploded in The Meaning of Life Mike Myers followed with the Fat Bastard character in the MELBOURNE'S comedy stars must be sighing a collective, "There but for the grace of God go I", as one of our most affable stand-up men, Peter Helliar, is pilloried for an innocent quip.
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