The Umpteenth Inaugural Annual Chaser Lecture

The Umpteenth Inaugural Annual Chaser Lecture

In many countries around the world, political satire is often a tool to combat oppression and to highlight the injustices done under a regime or dictator. Australian satirists The Chaser are hosting The Umpteenth Inaugural Annual Chaser Lecture for the third year running and this year’s guest will be the Venezuelan political satirists Elio Casale, Oswaldo Graziani and Juan Andrés Ravell who created the highly popular website El Chigüire Bipolar.

This year the trio became the beneficiaries of the 2017 Vaclav Havel Prize for the Creative Dissident, an award presented by the human rights foundation from New York City. The success behind the El Chiguire Bipolar website since its inception in 2008 is the way the trio disseminate fake news to expose the Venezuelan government from withholding real news and highlighting the chaotic nature of politics in the country.

City Hub spoke to Julian Morrow from The Chaser on the decision to choose the Venezuelan Trio and what makes them great satirists in his view, “We thought they were the perfect candidates just for the fact that they come from a place where freedom of speech is suppressed and they have won a human rights award for their political satire. In Australia we have the right to freedom of speech and that’s the sign of a mature democracy but it takes a lot more guts to do satire in a country where you could be persecuted or even killed for it.”

Don’t miss out on what will be an educational as well as an entertaining night.

Nov 30. MacLaurin Hall, University of Sydney. $303-$3025 (table of 10). Tickets & Info: www.thechaserlecture.com

By Daniel Jaramillo.

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