Hi, I’m Mike TV

Television for the week of January 2nd.

Angry Boys

I’m lucky that one of the things I’m looking forward to in 2012 started immediately Sunday night on HBO. Which is good, because I fucking hate waiting for anything. I once took scissors to a bouncy castle I got for my birthday because my mom told em I had to wait for my guests to arrive before enjoying it’s bouncy magic. If I can’t enjoy it as soon as I want to, no one can enjoy it ever. So thankfully HBO took my threatening letters seriously, and aired Angry Boys on the first day of the new year. Smart move HBO, smart move.

Angry Boys is the brainchild of Australian actor/writer Chris Lilley continuing his trend of mockumentaries where he portrays various characters. If you haven’t seen We Can Be Heroes: Finding the Australian of the Year, or Summer Heights High, do yourself a favor. Lilley is a master at uncomfortable comedy, and has an insane talent for making you care about his characters, and even forget that no matter the race, age or gender- it’s a dude in his thirties that’s behind it all.

All of Lilley’s shows have overarching themes and messages worked into the comedy, but Angry Boys is the first one that tells you what it’s going to be focused on in the title. Jumping around the world, we meet the main characters that are the angry boys themselves, like Daniel and Nathan Sims (also in We Can Be Heroes), or characters that deal with boys, like the Sims’ grandmother Gran, who works at a juvenile detention center. We’re going to be introduced to more characters throughout the season, and I expect the show is going to tackle the root of young male anger around the world, regardless of class or race. If that sounds heavy for a silly show where an Australian man ends up in black face playing an American rapper, then mentally prepare yourself to deal with some shit. Lilley’s shows aren’t light like the Office; he dives headfirst into race issues, homophobia, and the more fucked up parts of human nature in general.

I enjoyed the first two episodes that aired this week, but I was left wanting. With his previous shows, Lilley brought the laughs hard along with the satire, and Angry Boys so far doesn’t have the guffaws the its predecessors did. I trust Lilley enough that not watching the whole show isn’t even an option, and more importantly (especially if you’re not caught up on the first two shows, which I obviously can’t stress enough how much you should watch them) his characters are compelling even when they’re not making you laugh. They’re layered and flawed, and every bit as real as the people you run in your normal life, and certainly more fleshed out than most sitcom characters you see.

In the first episode we meet the twins Daniel and Nathan Sims, who live on a small farm with their mom and gaggle of younger siblings. Their father died when they were young, and Daniel sees himself as the man of the house. He’s a loud, obnoxious foul-mouthed punk ass who dreams of building up the farm with his brother to have it become as successful as their father always wanted it to be. Nathan is mostly deaf, and is rapidly losing the remainder of his hearing. He deals with everything the world throws his way by giving it the finger. Their life is thrown into upheaval when their mom’s boyfriend Steve moves in, and around the same time Nathan shits on a cop car in tribute to his favorite rapper S. Mouse, and is told he has to go to a special school for the deaf hours away. It’s rare that a show captures the brotherly love/hate/rivalry, and Lilley goes through the full range of what it’s like to have a brother perfectly.

The twins are close to their Gran, who works at a juvenile detention center in Sydney. She’s a legend there, and is respected by the whole staff and the majority of delinquents, even with her less then sensitive attitude. She’s a racist, tough old lady who divides a soccer game into the light skins and dark skins, and even tells an aborigines boy that despite his race, he’s a light skin. Oh, she also has a game called “Gotchya” where she plays light-hearted pranks on the boys, and then says “gotchya!” Like when she told one kid he was getting early released, and packed up all of his stuff, and lead him to the front gate only to laugh in his face. I have to at least partially take back what I said about not laughing out loud, I almost pissed myself at this point. Despite her flaws, Gran cares about her charges, and hand makes them superhero pajamas, and comforts them when they’re crying. More than the rest of the staff, Gran gets that these boys have done some terrible fucked up things, but they’re still just kids.

The last character we meet in the first 2 episodes is S.Mouse, a rapper from LA who is at the top of the charts with the hit “Slap My Elbow”. S. Mouse is the character that brings up a lot of controversy, since as I said before Lilley is in straight up black-face. He doesn’t play it racist though, it’s easy to jump down that road given the circumstances, and the fact that he has other characters who are racist, but S.Mouse deals more with class issues than race issues. He’s accused of being a cookie-cutter rapper for kids, and wants to be seen as street, so he lies and says he grew up in the ghetto and had an abusive father, when he really grew up in a Bel Air mansion with a loving family. I’m interested in the artist’s struggle with portraying the image they want versus what the label wants, and S.Mouse at one point even says he’s creating an entertaining character more than going for real. Out of the characters we’ve met so far, he’s the weakest, but I hope Lilley can delve further into the issue of what’s more important for an entertainer- being real or being entertaining.

I don’t want to rate the show higher than it currently is. My faith in Lilley, and my disinterest with most of what’s on television would drive the show to 3 stars, but for now with the first 2 episodes, it’s a solid 2 ½. I’m looking forward to meeting the rest of the characters, and to see  how the show all comes together. Hopefully, this makes Chris Lilley finally becomes a widely known name like he deserves to be.-MG