‘Slightly melancholic’ John Oliver’s Australian visit to air on Foxtel this week
Footage from Daily Show contributor John Oliver’s trip Down Under will be aired in Australia on The Comedy Channel over the next few days.
Oliver – who will become the show’s host later this year while regular presenter Jon Stewart is directing a film – generated controversy last week when he described Australia as one of the most comfortably racist places he had ever visited.
He was in Australia to do pieces on gun control. His first report on the topic – featuring former PM John Howard – was broadcast on the show in the US on Friday, with more to come in the next couple of episodes which will be shown here on Foxtel during the coming week.
Oliver caused controversy last week when he said on his podcast The Bugle: “Australia turns out to be a sensational place, albeit one of the most comfortably racist places I’ve ever been in. They’ve really settled into their intolerance like an old resentful slipper.”
After Mumbrella reported his comments they were picked up and widely reported by most of Australia’s media outlets
Oliver returned to the topic this week, telling The Bugle listeners: “I inadvertently caused a minor shit storm to blow across Australia last week. In this opening bit to last week’s Bugle I described Australia as – and I quote myself – ‘the most comfortably racist place I’ve ever been’.”
“And someone – I don’t know who – seemed to think it would be a good idea to transcribe what I said out of the context of the podcast and unleash it upon Australian journalism where it seemed essentially to be reported as ‘Daily Show reporter calls Australia the most racist country in the world’.”
Oliver on this week’s The Bugle:
“And all manner of internet hell seemed to break loose. It was a truly, deeply demoralising experience to watch it all blow up . It made me hate the internet, modern journalism and myself, not necessarily in that order.
“Let me be clear. I was not saying that Australia was the most racist place I’ve ever been – not by a long shot. I was just pointing out that it was the most comfortable in that racism. To be fair, that’s almost a compliment. Sure, it’s still technically an insult, but it’s a complimentary insult, if that helps.
“I hope whoever passed this around got what they wanted, if what they wanted was hysteria and my slight melancholy. Because if so, they should be deeply pleased with the results.
“Some of the comments that did get through to me did not help the case that Australia was trying to make back at all. One guy said ‘We’re not racist, we’ve just got similar problems with Lebos that you have in the UK with Pakistanis and West Indians’. You’re not helping your argument.
“For what it’s worth, Australia, the pieces I was shooting for the show are nothing to do with racism anyway. They’re all about gun control. But frankly now I’m wondering whether one of them should have been about it.
“The week I had in Australia outside of that is still one of the most enjoyable weeks I’ve had in my life.”
Tim Burrowes
The piece on gun control actually screened on the Daily Show ep that was broadcast either Fri or Sat night here on Foxtel (the piece where he interviewed John Howard).
of course we’re not racist.
just take a look at our parliament, our corporate leaders, our television screens in general – dont they just reflect back a mirror on wonderful cosmopolitan lifestyle we see on our streets.
hmm..
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Oliver writes for The Daily Show and our vulgar media still managed to disappoint him. Congratulations Australia.
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Since Howard’s reforms we have started to see an erosion in Gun control in NSW. And of course it’s now legal to go shootin’ in National Parks. The reason being the increased power of the scary Shooters party. But that’s enough of the real world. Lets get back to advertising.
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Gun deaths in Sydney per year are four times more than gun deaths in London…
Go figure?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....death_rate
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I’m not sure if boasting about the amount of hits this website received after the initial article was posted is a good idea.
The first article took John Oliver out of context. His podcast is a satire and a performance rather than opinion. His response points out that the reaction caused by this article made him hate the Internet and modern journalism. Mumbrella reports this fact and then boasts about the amount of hits it received during that period.
I’m not sure what there is to be proud of here? Hardly any research was done in the first place, and all your precious clicks, were generated by users who were ill informed of the facts.
This is something I would expect from morning television Tim.
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You won’t post this but I’m going to submit it anyway. Mumbrella, seriously, could you be any more self indulgent? You are crowing at how you published a comment out of context which resulted in pumped up interest in the issue and then you publish the creator’s rebuttal to get more attention for you! You bring us some great rich content but at times you really do need to get your hand off it. By the way, John Oliver’s Gun Control piece is the funniest thing I’ve seen in at least a fortnight – it beautifully articulates the ludicrousy of the 2nd amendment argument and John Howard is pure GOLD.
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The older John Howard gets, the more he looks like a billious koala. He’d better not go to a NSW national park – some gun nut might mistake him for something feral.
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we’re back on this again? come on Mumbrella, at least put your hand up and admint you were one of the folks John is talking about who referred to the daily show as a “Current Affairs show”. This sort of idiocy puts you in the same league as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly who constantly complain about the Daily Show not having to stand up to journalistic standards, somehow missing the giant COMEDY CHAN bug in the corner.
To further the irony here the Daily Show frequently apologises and makes corrections when they are shown to be incorrect, even though they are a satirical show that has no need to be honest and upfront.
You’re getting dumber by the day guys and I have to be honest, I only follow your links now to see what the next train wreck is going to be.
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John Oliver
I loved your extremely erudite, witty, ‘to the point’ and absolutley hysterical video on gun control! Bloody clever and reduces the gun control lobbyists to the level of ridiculous satire where they all belong. Ignorant, unintelligent (just to emphasize my point) and just plain Stoooopid people!
Thank you
SAM
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Why anybody would think mumbrella has any more ethics than any other commercial media is the real mystery in these comments.
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@Fact – Those figures on wikipeadia are inconclusive and don’t even compare the same years. So, whilst your handle is fact, your substance is not.
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