7. Summer Heights High—a mockumentary set at an Australian high school that follows the lives of three people. The first is Mr. G, the egocentric, flamboyant drama teacher that takes every opportunity he can to further his career by making the musical he wrote and is directing the centerpiece of the curriculum. The second is J’amie, a spoiled junior who is at the school on what she calls an “exchange program”; she’s basically “slumming” at a public school instead of the private schools she has otherwise attended her whole life. The third is Jonas, a Polynesian 8th grader with both apathy for and hostility against school and only one desire: to break-dance in the common area.
Just on the surface, this is a funny show. Mr. G. is completely clueless about the world around him because it means nothing to him unless it relates directly to him. He had the gall to write the year’s musical based on the recent drug-related death of a student, and it didn’t occur to him that the student’s family may be upset about that. He also has no concept that the school cannot afford the massive budget he requires to pull off the performance.
J’amie is at the school to run it herself. She immediately identified the popular girls and became their leader. She’s all about being the center of attention, and she’s not above putting others down to do it.
Jonas is a very hostile young man who resorts to profanity (he frequently says, “Fuck you, Miss/Sir” as a way to show his displeasure) or juvenile behavior (his teacher’s request to “put his balls” on the floor prompted him to sit on the floor instead of just putting away the balls he was juggling). Jonas knows his behavior is wrong and will usually do as directed once a punishment rears its head, but he fights civility as much as possible up to that point.
If you don’t remember what I wrote about the show before, there’s also something very different about it: the three main characters are played by the same actor, series creator Chris Lilley. This isn’t a Saturday Night Live-type deal; he fully gets into the characters, and it is not done at all in a jokey manner. The humor does not come from the fact that a man was playing a teenage girl; the humor was from the writing and the plots. It was amazing to see him act in completely different ways, depending on the character he was portraying—and he was spot-on for all three. They each must have presented different challenges, but a grown man convincingly playing a high school girl is remarkable. He presented a girl’s mannerisms and way of speaking in a very uncanny manner.
This ranks up there with some of the best television I've ever seen. Check it out.
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