Recommendation: Have you been paying attention

One of my favourite things to watch on TV each week is Channel 10’s comedy quiz show Have You Been Paying Attention (HYBPA).

Featuring a revolving team of five well-known Australian (or sometimes New Zealander) comedians, the show involves guests delivering jokes, one-liners or quick quips in response to questions about the week’s news. Topics range from entertainment to sport and national affairs, with she show ably guided by host Tom Gleisner.

The show is also entertaining and enjoyable, at least for me, for what it says about the state of comedy. Much is made of so-called ‘cancel culture’ or ‘political correctness’ somehow serving to silence or limit topics and jokes comedians can talk about in fear of offending audiences and facing social or financial repercussions.

However, a regular viewer of HYBPA will recognise that the comedy is often quite risqué, and often veers into broad areas that many might deem controversial. What is different about the show though, is that jokes are almost always made from a position of respect for difference and for the right for everyone to participate and enjoy themselves: to put it simply, they punch up, at those who can afford to take a joke - whether they be out-of-touch business people, ignorant politicians or none-the-wiser sportspeople, rather than down at people who for too long have been the but of jokes because of some immutable trait they possess.

For one example, flamboyant news presenters are treated as welcome guests to be unironically celebrated, while alarmist xenophobes among the press are to be treated not with contempt as such, but are certainly not taken seriously. The joke is on them, rather than those they seek to demonise.

With this positioning in mind, the show actually affords its guests incredible lee-way and freedom to make often cutting satirical observations about the ridiculousness of our news. If this is where many young people are going to get their news of the week (and ratings suggest many are!), then I think that’s a good thing.