Cried the ABC host, ‘How vulgar!’

Who knew ABC comperus interruptus, Tony Jones of Q&A, is so easily shocked? Indeed, that he is such a po-faced prude?

Early in Monday’s show, conversation turned to the prosecution in Germany of TV satirist Jan Boehmermann, who recited on air some smut-dipped doggerel about Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Jones sought his guests’ opinions, stressing several times that the poem, which can be read in translation here,

“included allegations linking the Turkish President to bestiality, child pornography and other sexual perversions, so it was pretty out there.”

and

“… it’s pretty insulting, sexually explicit and even referring to the size of his genitals. I mean it goes on and on and on.”

To catch the full flavour of Jones’ disapproval you really need to watch the video of the segment, which conveys something akin to the host’s shock that such content could ever have been put to air.

Now we know something else about Jones: he doesn’t watch or listen to his very own ABC. Were he a more dutiful viewer, accusations of bestiality might have struck him as unremarkable. The Chaser‘s depiction of Chris Kenny mounting a dog would have prepared him for that.

And penis size? Why, the ABC recently devoted an entire show to the travails of a man whose penis is such a modest organ he has had a lifetime’s trouble coming to grips with his shortcoming.

A taste for child pornography? Has Jones never heard of former ABC colleague Andy Muirhead, ex-host of The Collectors, whose appetite for sadistic images of sexually abused children landed him first in court and then in jail? He must also have missed the Radio National program which examined the work of Melbourne artist Paul Yore, who grafts enormous genitals onto images of small children. The ABC brought its celebrated talent for nuanced analysis to that discussion.

As for what was broadcast in Germany being “pretty out there”, well Jones must have skipped the hungry Hungry Beast rap-song video of a few years ago. This featured a cast of real-life, er, “climate scientists” rapping about global warming and lamenting, amongst the clip’s other memorable vulgarities, how politicians haven’t done enough to save the planet because they were “too busy sucking dick in Copenhagen”.

And, no doubt to protect his innocence, Jones never listens to the ABC’s  Triple J. The radio station’s policy on censorship is reproduced atop this post. To save those with poor eyes the trouble of clicking on the image in order to enlarge it, here’s the sentiment that must surely shock Jones to the very core of his selectively puritan essence.

In 1989 triple j was the only station in the world playing NWA’s ‘Fuck Tha Police’. It bounced across the airwaves for 6 months before the police and politicians noticed and ABC management pulled it off the air.

Responding in a way that was true to the station, we played NWA’s track ‘Express Yourself’ for 24hrs straight – 360 times in a row.

The Q&A episode can be enjoyed in full via the link below. If you watch the ABC as seldom as does Jones, know that he is the snow-haired gent in the centre, the one who is forever interrupting his guests, especially those on the conservative side of any issue.

— roger franklin

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