THE NAKED CITY – SORRY SBS – NOT MY KING!

It’s a Saturday night and you are surfing through the usual trash that the free-to-air TV stations throw up. You land on SBS and to your shock and horror they are devoting a great slab of their prime time space to a piece of monarchist propaganda titled ‘Our King’. The title itself is enough to send you into apoplexy, especially if you believe Australia should have severed any links with the grotesque British Royal Family years ago.

You only need to watch about five minutes of the marathon two hour program to get the gist before you decide to vent your fury with a letter of complaint. Let me make it immediately clear, I have nothing but general admiration for SBS and their choice of programming but in this case, they needed a strong verbal slap. I was exercising my democratic right of protest, which their website encourages, but their reaction was unsatisfactory, albeit predictable, to say the least.

I began by writing:
“I can’t believe that SBS, who supposedly cater to a large multi-cultural audience, many of them relatively new arrivals, would devote a prime time spot on a Saturday night to Britain’s new king – i.e. the bumptious, adulterous buffoon know as King Charles. The title was entirely presumptive – ‘Our New King’ – sorry, not my new King and not the King of many of my friends, a large number from different ethnic backgrounds. I have lived in Australia for over 60 years and I certainly don’t recognise the parasitic British monarchy in any form – nor do they”.

With my anger increasing with every word I went on to say:
“What about people who have settled here from former British colonies like India, where memories of vile and violent colonialist oppression haven’t been forgotten – not to mention our own First Nations peoples? It’s seldom said but Charles is an adulterer…but now heads one of the world’s most dysfunctional monarchies, desperately trying to maintain some kind of modern relevance – apart from their constant contribution to the tabloid press. Even the British are starting to hate him and demonstrate wherever he appears in public.”

Not wanting to sound like a complete nark I decided to throw a bit of satire and humour into the mix and as the screening was on April 1, I wrote:
“I could of course be way off the mark and the real reason you screened some two hours of this nauseating garbage was an elaborate April Fool’s Day joke – more intended to promote the cause of Republicanism with viewers realising what a total twat Charles really is. If so my apologies for any hostility and criticism above – and good on you for taking the piss. By the way – having not watched it through I am interested to know whether it touched on the saucy ‘Camillagate’ (aka ‘Tampongate’) affair and those very naughty tapes in which ‘Our King’ expressed his affection for his then mistress indicating he would love to be reincarnated as a tampon inside her knickers.

If this is the kind of joke you play on viewers on April Fool’s Day may I make a few suggestions for next year:
‘The Secret Sex Life Of Pol Pot’ (Just get some old footage of the murderous bastard and cut in a series of Cambodian Go Go Girls).’

‘Podiatry For The Rich And Famous’ (I’m sure the Daily Mail would come across with some of Fergie’s toe sucking pics and you could easily put together an hour of regal foot fetishism).’

‘Camillagate The Musical’ – Somebody is eventually going to stage it, so why not jump the gun and put out a saucy, unexpurgated singalong with a giant tampon as the leading man.’

SBS were quick to acknowledge my protest but simply referred me to their code of practice, also noting “Your comments have been shared with our management team and included in our Daily Audience Feedback Report, that is widely distributed within SBS.”

I fired back my disappointment at their response noting:
“If it was a program that objectively examined the role and legacy of the monarchy, fair enough. Instead it was essentially a pro monarchist puff piece centred around the very questionable ‘King Charles’ – the man who described the handing back of Hong Kong to China as ‘Chinese Takeaway’.”

I then received an email asking me “How would you rate the support you received? – Good, I’m satisfied – Bad, I’m unsatisfied”.

Deciding not to prolong the agony I fired back with one last barb:
“No explanation given as to why SBS is persisting with propaganda about the British Royal Family when it’s essentially offensive and insulting to anybody from a country which suffered at the hands of the British monarchy. Need I list them all. For First Nation Australians it was the British Crown which orchestrated decades of oppression in the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s. Heaven help your viewers when the forthcoming coronation circus takes place!”

This is pretty much the way complaints are handled by TV stations today – in a polite and seemingly diplomatic way but seldom taken seriously unless they have really overstepped the mark. Maybe I should not have signed my emails Guido Fawkes, a name which sailed well over the heads of the good folks in the SBS complaints department!

Postscript: If prime time King Charles wasn’t enough to upset all good republicans, SBS followed up the next week with a profile of reckless driver Prince Phillip and then royal photographer Arthur Edwards. What next, a touching portrait of Prince Andrew?