Pauline Hanson has released an animated web series called Please Explain this week. On the surface, it’s a show about Hanson as the teacher to a class full of Australian politicians.
During roll call, Craig Kelly is caught texting everyone in class, Barnaby Joyce has a beetroot for a head, and Scott Morrison arrives to class late dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and lei. And, true to Hanson’s garbage and white Australian politics, Adam Bandt is ridiculed for paying respect to the elders of the Aboriginal land the school is built on.
To some, it’s a show with jokes that are, in some cases, good digs at the embarrassingly one-note characters of Australian politics (minus the dig at supporting First Nations people because fuck royally off).
Given its bias, it completely ignores one of the most outspokenly racist villains in Parliament, and paints Hanson as the only one with ostensibly no faults whatsoever. Huh.
Here’s the thing tho, it’s not political comedy when it comes from her. As these tweets perfectly explain.
am I the only person who finds the pauline hanson cartoons unfunny and dumb. I simply do not have the energy to find humour or quirkiness in anything 🤪 racists 🤪 do
— Jennine (@jennineak) November 12, 2021
I’m not going to win any popularity awards here but please reconsider sharing Pauline Hanson’s new video series. It’s designed to exploit your brain and get you to amplify it
— Tim Graham 🌻 (@timothyjgraham) November 12, 2021
In the wake of that Pauline Hanson cartoon, let’s remind ourselves what she stands for from her 2016 maiden speech to senate; racism, islamophobia, no welfare for young people, more restrictions on accessing healthcare, and more rights for abusers in domestic violence cases. pic.twitter.com/GDlZvKHXGx
— Kara Schlegl (@karaschlegl) November 12, 2021
https://twitter.com/jsspcr1/status/1459020363136860161
re the #auspol PHON cartoon narrated by noted white supremacist and xenophobe Pauline Hanson: you do not, under any circumstances, ‘gotta hand it to her’
— Chris (@stofsk) November 12, 2021
And, regrettably, it’s not the only fucked cartoon made by the studio behind it.
The web series was made by Stepmates, an independent animation studio from Melbourne who previously produced a cartoon for Seven described as Rick and Morty-like called Regular Old Bogan.
According to their website, it’s run by two white men named Mark Nicholson and Sebastian Peart who want to “Make Australia Funny Again”. Blatant Trump reference aside, the site also features some choice excerpts from their previous works.
In one video, based on audio from an episode of their podcast, one of them talks about the time ants infested their bed and a pair of shorts they were regularly using as a cumrag. Another, taken from their Seven show, references the boys trapped in a cave in Thailand, Elon Musk, and references of pedophilia.
And then there’s their Pauline Hanson series, which sure has some mildly funny jokes but is once again giving a platform to someone who has historically promoted attitudes synonymous with the White Australian policy, continued to disregard First Nations Australians, Australia’s Muslim community, and plenty more. Frustratingly, this series yet again allows Hanson to control her narrative and allows her deeply problematic past to be ignored.
