Tom Gleeson always felt like he got it for me. I had him on my list of Top Ten Australian Comedians Who Surprisingly Aren’t Rednecks after I first saw him do stand up in Brisbane; Sean Choolburra was on that same night. So it was surprising to me that Respected Twitter Aboriginal, @nareenyoung, called him and the whole Hard Quiz show out after I made an hilarious tweet about said show
https://twitter.com/handsomemurri/status/932480686484627456
@nareenyoung flagged that Hard Quiz, a quiz show based on a cunty segment from another TV show, once had a guest on who’s expert subject was anything but culturally appropriate. It was unculturally appropriate.
The 8 times Hard Quiz wasn’t woke were pretty much all in Season 2, episode 11. Though given their form here, across the whole series there could be anywhere up to 1,788 incidences.
The episode in question featured Beenleigh’s own Cheryl the Carer* with her expert subject “Historical Mass Murderers in Australia”, which was presumably cleaned up for TV as “Australian Explorers”. Firstfleet of all, your “Australian” “explorers” were “pommy” “cunts”, Cheryl.
I remember when this episode first aired. It was my birthday and the disappointment I felt when I decided to not watch it after seeing that topic was typical of the disappointment I feel about myself on all my birthdays. But after seeing the tweets from @nonstoptom and because I fucking hate myself and I need the punishment I felt compelled to check it out for myself on iView.
Mates, let’s experience some racism, hard!
Question 1 – In addition to claiming the east of Australia for Britain, James Cook was the first captain to diminish which on board disease? Answer: scurvy.
Woah up there. I see whatcha talkin bout Willis/Nareen. They’re being real relaxed when referring to the invasion here. I’ve heard of casual racism, but casual colonisation? And zero mention of the fact that Cook also pioneered biological warfare against Murris by spreading syphilis through blankets. Dirty pasty blanket-fucker nearly wiped us out, hard!
Question 2 – Sharing the name of a character from Harry Potter is what flagship upon which the first fleet was commanded. Answer: Sirius
Okay okay. Kind of minimalising the brutality of colonisation by evoking the brutality of Hogwarts. But as the old racist-apologist saying goes: let’s give them a chance.
Meanwhile, Cheryl is not doing too good with her answers. Another contestant keeps beating her to the buzzer. This prompts Tom to urbanly tell Cherub
I guess the hard part of Hard Quiz is passing up the chance to be racist.
Question 3 – Situated in a major national park is which austlriaan mountain, given its European name in 1840 by Polish born explorer… Answer: Kosciuszko.
K, see, this suggests they sorta get it. They kinda get that prior to colonisation, Murris were rocking out with our cocks out all over this brown spunk of a land. But this is more troubling than anything. It’s like they’re saying “Yaama, we can see this is problematic, but we’re gonna go ahead and do it anyway.” Like they saw the warning signs but went nah, fuckit, and fanged it straight into a great big pile of othering by normalisation.
Question 5 – Claiming to be from a fellow explorer, an 1861 letter to the editor of the Argus stated that the choice to travel without Aboriginal guides caused the failure of which duo’s expedition? Answer: Burko and Willsy.
K k. Swap out “guides” for “slaves”, because you know no Murri was out here watching his mob get slaughtered and then was all helpful in leading the murderous white folks to the next mob over so that they could get their murder on some more. Come the fuck on you whiter than Lleyton Hewitt fucks.
Question 6 – Nicknamed the ‘little explorer’, one trailblazing member of an 1883 expedition from Queensland to Darwin reportedly rode side-straddle for what main reason? Answer: She was a woman.
K k k. Are you sure it wasn’t so she couldn’t hurl herself off the horse at any given time to land a flying double heel kick on the nearest Murri? I’ve got my doubts 
Meanwhile, Chernobyl continues to struggle on the points front. It’s like she was sitting on this pretty good deal and then someone come along uninvited and is stealing it from her. I wonder what that feels like, Shendril? Tom rightfully mocks her for this and points out that one of the other contestants “is stealing her points like a mother…”
…like a motherfucking coloniser, Tom?
Thankfully, but not in the weird let’s have a national holiday in America to celebrate the start of colonisation and call it Thanksgiving way, Chezza’s special topic, much like the peace and quiet Murris had before these fucken explorers showed up, comes to an end. It’s worth noting that in a very Wikipediary own, Wikipedia has links to every other contestant’s expert subject that has ever been on Hard Quiz EXCEPT for Shirleys. Suck it, ya whitewashing history buff. Hard!
The next round on the game is called “The People’s Round’, which by now I’m taking as heavily coded code-speak for “The White Peoples Round”. Cheznay is swapping being on bottom score with some other contestant and I’ve never rooted for a white man to stop flip flopping harder. But just because Chezbutts round is over doesn’t mean the racism has to stop. Oh no. Oh no no no no no gif from Get Out. We get a Bonus Round Racism:
Question – Australian philanthropist Andrew Forrest is known by what nickname?
The answer surprisingly isn’t “mission manager”. Nor is it “Mr Make-An-Entire-Peoples’-Welfare-Entitlements-Only-Accessible-Through-An-Epay-System-Which-I-Own”. Nor “Mr On My Way To Steal Your Country for mining explorations”.
At the end of the “Only White People And White People’s History Matter My Peoples” round, the scoreboard is not looking great for Crystal Cherylndelier. She was about as successful as successive governments have been in their attempt to assimilate and exterminate Murris from this land. She was about as successful as the show itself was in intelligently and respectfully including colonisation as an expert topic. I kept watching the show and it was cool I guess but I couldn’t get the taste of having just had my history shat all over out of my mouth.
So as the closing credits music is pumping hard like I wish you would, we’ll hand it back to Tom to describe how well Chenille went at a being a decent person, and how the show went with being a good ally.
*Look I’m sure cherly is nice in that same way that the lady at social tennis is nice to you up until some new Sikh mob come to play and she whispers to you that she can’t stand Muslims, so, no offense, and I still hope that we can reconcilate, hard!
HandsomeMurri 