Re: Harry Cronnick Jnr down-under
It was a most strange situation.
This show is not rehearsed....no canned applause or laughter....it is off the cuff live....and humor is flying thick and fast....it goes for 2hrs....well.... it always over runs its time.
Harry has appeared many times and he has copped a bit of stick, and given his share out too.
He is well suited to it, but it has promoted his music and tours down-under too.
Anita and I were watching and we thought it was a tribute to MJ in a humorous way.
They did a good job....sounded great....audience were clapping along etc....everyone was getting in to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmaF7Pys7OI
Had you asked me what the term 'black faces' meant 2 days ago....I have never heard it before in my life.
Daryl had never hear of it either....I understand someone on Harry's side had to explain the term to everyone backstage.
Think the problem is....Harry recognized immediately where this skit would leave him back home, and he had to jump quickly.
No body else thought it any more than a humorous tribute the J 5.
That was how it was introduced!!
Then all the PC's got in on the act wanting a crucifixion, but then the remainder revolted to the point the polls show 80% of Aussies had a gutsfull and couldn't see any racisms.
The TV and news channels are all being very careful....creating a story to sell a paper isn't going to work here.
Read the 4th to last sentence in the Drs letter below...that's how life is here.
It is a really difficult situation and Harry is in the middle....he has to go home.....we don't!....we are ok....he's not.
A couple of stupid politicians called the show 'disgusting' yesterday, and today probably wish they had kept their mouths shut.
I don't think Aussies think they are racist....they judge people how they find them.
Below is the response from the MJ impersonator.
Cheers
Phillip
Twenty years ago myself and five friends painted our faces black and performed the Jackson Jive skit on Hey Hey It?s Saturday to great acclaim.
Two nights ago we did exactly the same skit and we?ve been pilloried for it.
It?s no defence to say that we didn?t think it wouldn?t have caused offence, because we?re all grown men now, not uni students, and we should have known better.
Nor is it a defence to point out that we?re actually not white men dressing up as black men, but a group of mainly coloured men dressing up as black men, because as ethnic Australians we should have known better ourselves.
We?ve made a public apology for what we did. So why DID we do it?
We went on Hey Hey because it was the 20th anniversary of us doing the skit at the University of Sydney Medical Revue, which led to us going on Hey Hey in the first place.
A couple of months ago we were asked back to do the same skit at this year?s Medical Revue, which we did. The recent passing of Michael Jackson probably gave the skit some currency as well.
So when we saw Hey Hey was doing a reunion show we sent in the DVD of our old performance as an audition. Channel Nine loved it and asked us to do the skit again.
We?re not so naive that we didn?t think it would be a little bit controversial to paint our faces black. We discussed it before the show.
But to be honest, we thought that we didn?t get any complaints 20 years ago, and we didn?t get any complaints two months ago at the Med Revue, so we figured it was probably all in good fun.
We all underestimated what the reaction would be, but in the end it was our decision to go on air dressed the way we did. The worst consequence of what we did is that the skit has raised the question of are Australians racist.
We?re genuinely horrified that our mistake could cause people to think that.
Out of the six of us, only one is Anglo-Celtic Australian. I?m Sri Lankan-Australian, there?s an Indian Australian, a Greek Australian, an Irish-Italian Australian and a Lebanese Australian. We?re all Australian.
Apart from the odd joke when I was at school, I?ve never been subject to racism in Australia. In other countries, certainly, but never here.
I think the fact that all six of us have gone onto very successful careers as doctors demonstrates the fact that Australians care more about ability than race.
Not to justify what we did, but one of the best things about Australia is the ability to laugh at ourselves.
But if what happened to us forces someone to think about whether they?re being racist or offensive before they make a similar comment or performance (especially one in front of a national television audience), then at least we may have extracted a modicum of good out of this.
