Bro'Town faces racial flak

Oscar Kightley (centre) said he wrote about the negatives to make people laugh 'otherwise you'd cry'.

Comedians Oscar Kightley and the men behind Bro'Town have been accused of doing Pacific Islanders a disservice by perpetuating a negative stereotype of Polynesians as happy-go-lucky brown coconuts.

Respected academic and leading Samoan figurehead Dr Melanie Anae claimed people like Kightley - the high-profile member of the Naked Samoans - were doing nothing to promote a positive image of Pacific Islanders.

All people thought was that Polynesians were good at singing, dancing and making people laugh.

"People like Oscar Kightley promote those kinds of stereotypes, the happy-go-lucky funny brown coconut, the kinds of stereotypes we fought against in the 70s.

"We've moved beyond that stereotype of just being entertainers," she said.

Dr Anae, who has written a new book on the Ponsonby Panthers, the militant Pacific Island heroes of the dawn raids era, said it was time entertainers chose more positive role models to write about.

"That's all they do - our artists, our playwrights and our entertainers.

"They pick the negatives of our cultures and get rich on it by entertaining people."

Her comments have floored Kightley, who said he was so disappointed he didn't know what to say.

On Thursday night Bro'Town took the Best Comedy title at the 2006 Screen Awards. The animated show also took awards for Script, Comedy (Oscar Kightley, Mario Gaoa, David Fane, Shimpal Lelisi and Elizabeth Mitchell), and Achievement in Production Design for Ant Sang making it three out of three for producers Firehorse Films.

Kightley said: "If you look beyond Bro'Town, it's about boys that despite their shitty upbringings manage to do pretty well and have a laugh. All I try to do is tell stories. The point is to hold up a mirror.

"Maybe some people don't like what they see, but I find it interesting to look at our flaws.

Dr Anae, who directs Auckland University's Pacific Issues Centre, said while Polynesians who followed an academic path were boring to write about, they were the ones doing most for the progress of their people. "We are trying to become the successful role models, just going ahead doing what we do - we don't have time to wait around and just be entertainers."

Dr Anae said it was time for Pacific Island youth to change their attitudes and start taking responsibility.

At the moment, they were politically and socially ignorant, she said.

Many believed Dawn Raid was just something on a T-shirt or a recording label. "They're not being pro-active, they're not helping themselves, they're just waiting for handouts. The dependency mentality just wasn't there [when we were young].

"Now it's gone the other way. Kids grow up now in South Auckland, especially girls, thinking they'll leave school, have a baby, get a benefit and that's it."

She said advisory groups such as the Auckland City Council's Pacific Council were providing "ineffectual lip service" and were stacked with Pacific Islanders who were "fresh off the boat".

"Sure, we have things like the Western Springs Pasifika Festival. You see in Ponsonby people wearing lava-lavas. Our culture's been appropriated by the mainstream.

"But when you look at Pacific people, they're still populating our prisons and our hospitals and they're still at the bottom of the scale. Everyone's celebrating being Pacific but we're still being pushed under."

Kightley said he was disappointed by Dr Anae's comments about Pacific youth. The depressing plight of some of their people was exactly why he had chosen to base his comedy on the negatives, he said.

"I think that's most youth really. That's young people fullstop. I'm not into bagging my own community. I know all the statistics about Pacific Islanders, I know all the depressing stuff. That's why I chose to write about that stuff and make people laugh. Otherwise you'd cry."