MY FATHER TAUGHT me, at an early age, an invaluable lesson about using humour to navigate painful events. 

At school, I faced constant bullying and racial slurs, with derogatory slang reducing my Aboriginal identity to harmful labels long before the ‘woke’ era made any effort to curb such language. At primary school I distinctly remember a day when I was filled with anxiety from being repeatedly called ‘Abo’ by a group of students and even by a teacher, as though I were to blame and warranted the abuse. My father’s response to this was a simple ‘So! You are.’ It may have seemed dismissive, but it reflected his sharp, sarcastic wit and was a powerful lesson in developing resilience. He followed this by explaining the importance of laughing in the face of adversity. From that moment, ‘So!’ became my way of defusing taunts and reclaiming my identity, power and pride. With a self-satisfied smirk, my mocking response caught bullies by surprise, defusing the situation. 

It worked.

I’VE HAD MANY run-ins with ignorant people on issues around power, resilience and sovereignty that’ve really rubbed me the wrong way over the years. How I’ve reacted has depended a lot on the situation and how I was feeling at the time – often I’ve been defiant, angry and fatigued, other times wary or just indifferent and even silent. When it comes to identity and sovereignty, a couple of scenarios have stuck with me. There’s the one I learnt in my primary school days from my dad, and another that replays over and over for First Nations people: irritatingly being asked, ‘Where do you come from?’ 

The irony of repeatedly being questioned about my identity is not lost on me: I belong to the oldest documented continuing First Nations cultural history in the world. Over the years, these approaches about my identity have varied in tone: serious, inquisitive, interested, ignorant, expressing solidarity, familiar, judgemental, racist, insulting – you name it. The questioners come from all walks of life: work colleagues, friends, neighbours, security officers, police, teachers, shop owners, total strangers, and even immigrants and other people of colour. How are First Nations people supposed to respond? How about with humour?

Blak humour is my most natural response, embodying the resilience, wit and truth-telling of First Nations people.

THE STORIES ABOVE are just a couple that have made it into the narrative of my creative practice-led PhD, Reconciliation Rescue: An Original Blak Comedy Series and Aboriginal Cultural Perspectives on Humour, which has two components: the scripted television series Reconciliation Rescue and an exegesis that contextualises its comedic elements. It demonstrates the power of Blak humour and comedy. My practical methodology in life – as for many First Nations people when dealing with negative experiences – is humour. Postcolonial burnout for us is real. Mental, physical and emotional exhaustion has been felt across generations and in all areas of our lives, politically, socially and economically. Yet humour comes to the fore as an antidote to the frustration – I tell myself that ‘there has to be a better way’, including to socially just reconciliation.

When I use ‘Blak’ to describe Aboriginal humour, not ‘black humour’, I’m embracing it as a distinct comedic style. This choice makes it clear that Aboriginal Australian ‘Blak humour’ is its own unique genre, in line with self-determination and ownership that First Nations artist Destiny Deacon speaks about. Aboriginal comedy also uses black humour, which often has a darker edge, effectively.

My PhD was the opportunity to not only write about, research and share Aboriginal humour and fulfil my dream of writing a comedy series – it was also a chance to look back on some of my favourite comedy shows and the most influential humorous moments from my own life.

I began documenting funny family stories in 2006, hoping to share them one day. A key milestone in my journey as a comedic writer was the 2009 production of my short film Aunty Maggie and the Womba Wakgun. I could have framed this as a story of hardship and poverty, reinforcing negative stereotypes. Instead, I chose to tell it with humour, highlighting the strength and resilience of an Aboriginal family – just as my father passed it down to me, as a funny story. 

My father, renowned Aboriginal visual artist Ron Hurley (1946–2002), was a great inspiration. He had a forty-year career dedicated to immortalising his people and culture through various artistic mediums, including painting, ceramics, printmaking and sculpture. His work emphasised culture, history, sovereignty, storytelling and honouring First Nations people, profoundly shaping viewer perceptions. With Blak humour as my weapon of choice, I aim to follow in his footsteps, with my own unique perspective and female voice.

The derision of life and politics in my stories resonates with the strong and inherent sense of humour shared by Aboriginal people. We see this humour as relevant to our everyday lives and experiences; my creative scripts for the comedy series Reconciliation Rescue address themes of identity, sovereignty, empowerment, survival, health and wellbeing, education, truth-telling and reconciliation. 

Aboriginal academic Lillian Holt once recalled a non-Indigenous filmmaker’s surprise at the idea of Aboriginal people having a sense of humour. The filmmaker said: ‘As a whitefella, I’ve never equated Aboriginal people with humour. It seems to me so incongruous.’

Really? It seems incongruous to me that anyone would think humour isn’t a big part of our lives. So, Mr Filmmaker, let me introduce you to our humour through the storytelling of First Nations people. 

GROWING UP IN ’70s and ’80s Australia, several iconic First Nations comedies made a real mark on me. The groundbreaking pilot Basically Black (ABC, 1973) was the first-ever Blak comedy sketch show on Aussie TV. It deployed bold, slap-in-the-face humour to hit hard against racism. Some might see as controversial the sketch featuring an Aboriginal Caped Crusader, ‘Superboong’, a superhero fighting racism only to be halted in his crime-fighting duties when he’s informed that ‘Blacks aren’t allowed in the local pub’. However, for me, the sketch of two Aboriginal scouts perched on a rock, watching as the First Fleet arrives and commenting, ‘In the long run, I reckon we’d be better off with a more restrictive immigration policy’, always elicits a burst of laughter. This sketch always comes to mind and makes me giggle when Australian racism flares up as right-wing media and politicians push the ironic fear of being ‘invaded’ by migrants.

Let’s not forget my favourite humorous Blak sovereign comeback in the 1977 film Backroads and the standout moment when Bill Hunter’s character asks Gary Foley’s character for directions, saying, ‘Hey, can I take this road to the pub?’ 

Foley fires back, ‘You might as well, you white bastard. You took everything else.’ 

Foley’s sharp, witty retort sums up the history of stolen Aboriginal land in Australia, using humour and sarcasm to deliver a powerful message about colonisation and dispossession. 

Then there’s the 1986 film BabaKiueria, which humorously flips Australia’s colonial history on its head. It imagines Aboriginal people invading a land inhabited by white folks. BabaKiueria is the response the white inhabitants give when they’re asked, ‘What do you call this place?’ The Aboriginal explorer responds, ‘Nice native name, colourful.’ Later, an Aboriginal journalist reflects on first contact, saying, ‘When the first Black settlers arrived in BabaKiueria, they found a native population cooking with primitive tools and even seemed to enjoy burning their meat. I have always been fascinated by white people.’ BabaKiueria is a clever twist on colonial education that turns the tables.

As a young adult, I loved laughing at the brilliance of Jimmy Chi’s theatre production Bran Nue Dae (1991). It tells the story of Willie, a young Aboriginal boy at a Catholic mission boarding school, who learns through humour how to embrace his Aboriginal identity and stand up for himself. The musical format made it not just funny but a clever way of teaching viewers about identity. Willie’s relationship with his mum, much like mine with my parents, plays a big role in shaping who he is. His struggle with white, religious authority is brilliantly shut down with the cheeky and powerful song ‘Nothing I Would Rather Be’, which pokes fun at colonial Australia while proudly asserting Willie’s identity. 

First Nations comedians, artists and creatives have been poking fun at colonisation for ages. Irony, black humour, sarcasm and parody are all well-loved tools in the comedy arsenal. Take, for example, the irony around the so-called ‘discovery’ of land that First Nations people had lived on for over 65,000 years. We laugh at the absurdity of pinning down a date for Australia Day, which has been changed multiple times over the years. The obsession with Captain James Cook? We ridicule that too, especially the added irony that he met his end on Valentine’s Day 1779 thanks to First Nations mob in Hawaii. The truth about Captain Cook has been retold again and again, recently with a comedic twist in the doco Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky (2020), co-written and hosted by Aboriginal comedian and actor Steven Oliver. 

FOR ME, HUMOUR has always been a way to strengthen and celebrate my Aboriginal identity. My PhD examines how Blak humour serves as a tool for resilience, survival and healing in the face of systemic oppression, as Aboriginal communities use it to assert their sovereignty, challenge stereotypes and provide therapeutic relief from trauma. It highlights humour’s transformative potential in reshaping mainstream perceptions and empowering individuals. Humour keeps the conversation going, helping us laugh at the ridiculous while telling our own truth. Since 1788, colonisation has perpetuated harmful myths and stereotypes about Aboriginal people, eroding our identities and sovereignty. Aboriginal humour offers a vital pathway for mainstream Australians to confront the realities of that sovereignty and of colonisation.

References

BabaKiueria, 1986. See ABC iView updated 2022. At: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/babakiueria

Backroads, 1977. Film. Directed by P Noyce. Australia: Phillip Noyce. At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075716/

Basically Black. ABC, 1973. Off-air. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cSKGGsrWL4 

Bran Nue Dae. 1993. Production program. Second production & national tour.

Chi, J & Kuckles. 1991. Bran Nue Dae: A Musical Journey. Currency Press, Sydney; Magabala Books, Broome, WA.

Foley, G. 2012. ‘Black Power, Black Theatre and Black Humour’. Tracker Magazine: be informed, be involved, be inspired. 19 August. ISSN 1838-8159.

Holt, L. 2009. ‘Aboriginal Humour: A Conversational Corroboree.’ Serious Frolic: Essays on Australian Humour. Frances De Groen (editor), Peter Kirkpatrick (editor), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2009. P. 81–96.

Hurley, A. 2009. Aunty Maggie and the Womba Wakgun. Film, 11 mins. Bunguburra Production. Screen Australia 2009. At: https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/the-screen-guide/t/aunty-maggie-and-the-womba-wakgun-2009/2661

Hurley, A. 2024. Reconciliation Rescue: An Original Blak Comedy Series and Aboriginal Cultural Perspectives on Humour. Doctorate of Philosophy. Thesis. Griffith University, Film School, South Brisbane. 2014.

Munro, L., Kate. 2020. Why ‘Blak’ not Black? Artist Destiny Deacon and the origins of this word. Available: https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2020/05/07/why-blak-not-black-artist-destiny-deacon-and-origins-word-1

Screen Australia, 2020. Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky, The Screen Guide, Screen Australia.  Available at: https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/the-screen-guide/t/looky-looky-here-comes-cooky-2020/38586/

Sargeant, C. 2018. ‘The many different dates we’ve celebrated Australia Day’. Available at: https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/voices/culture/article/2018/01/23/many-different-dates-weve-celebrated-australia-day