Jonah Takalua
Encyclopedia
Jonah Takalua is one of three main fictional character
s on the Australia
n mockumentary
series Summer Heights High
played by Chris Lilley
. Jonah is the only one of the three main characters in Summer Heights High to debut in the mockumentary, with Ja'mie and Mr. G appearing in Chris Lilley's previous television projects. Sydney Morning Herald television critic Michael Idato
writes that "Jonah Takalua is well on the way to becoming the voice of his generation."
children and "just naughty teenage boys", studying their behaviour and speech patterns. "Chris goes out and meets people his characters are like and he makes studies of them, takes notes or interviews people and sometimes films them. He watches those videos over and over and over," says Ryan Shelton
, who collaborated with Lilley on his first series, We Can Be Heroes: Finding The Australian of the Year
.
As a white man in his thirties, Lilley knew he could not easily pass for a Tongan teenager, and so deliberately surrounded Jonah with other Pacific Islander boys in order to make him more believable. "I knew that physically I didn't really look like a Tongan kid but if you surrounded him enough with the other kids and got the hair right, maybe people would get the illusion." He found playing Jonah more challenging than his other two roles, Mr. G and Ja'mie, but also considers him "the most rewarding to watch, perhaps because he is the most different to me".
, having immigrated to Australia when he was 3 years old. He is the second youngest of five children and was raised by his father, Rocky Takalua (his mother died when he was 7 years old) and adopted brother Avnish Goyani. He lives in Summer Heights with his father, his four siblings, two cousins and an aunt. He shares a room with his two brothers.
In the final episode of the series, Jonah is revealed to have been expelled from Summer Heights High, and is stated to be returning to his native Tonga to live with his uncle. On the final day of term, Jonah performs his story in front of the Gumnut Cottage audience, revealing a sensitive and heartfelt statement which epitomises the difficulty faced by the character, due to the racial and cultural barriers satirised within the program. In the final scene of the series, Jonah's graffiti tag - '*DICK
*tation' - is seen scrawled throughout the school as a final mark of his defiance.
on it.
Jonah has serious academic struggles. He attends a remedial reading course at 'Gumnut Cottage' with teacher Jan Palmer, the only teacher whom he apparently likes.
. Despite their claims, the breakdancing ability of Jonah and his friends appears to be that of beginner
breakdancers. Jonah and his friends have created a breakdancing crew called the "Poly Force", the only fully Polynesian
B-boy Crew in the school. Jonah and his friends spend the majority of their free time breakdancing in the school's amphitheatre
, which adds tension to a rivalry Jonah has with a year 7 breakdancer called Keiran McKenna.
Jonah and his friends Ofa, Joseph, Leon and Thomas enjoy punking
fellow students and teachers. With help from his friends, Jonah planned and acted in a prank where he was run over by a teacher driving a car. Previously, Jonah threw a year 7 student's bag over the train line; when confronted he claimed that he was only punking
him.
Jonah has also shown interest in modern graffiti
. He and his friends have vandalised various walls and objects on school premises, particularly the boys' toilets. Evidence that he is the culprit is often left via his personal tag, a drawing of a penis
followed by "tation", making it a play on the word "dictation".
As part of a remedial reading program held at the special needs class 'Gumnut Cottage', Jonah has also expressed an interest in conquering his illiteracy, stating the future possibility of him reading "Harry Potter
like in a day". Despite disliking other teachers and subjects in general at Summer Heights High, he shows genuine interest in the reading program and an affinity with its teacher.
described it as "a testament to both Lilley's and [the younger cast members'] acting ability that it doesn't seem totally strange that an actor in his mid-30's is playing someone who pals around with 13-year-olds", and commended Lilley's attention to detail in developing Jonah's various mannerisms, such as "the mumbled verbal diarrhea, the sprawling limbs [and] the physical affection with his boys." Catherine Deveny
of The Age
described Lilley's performance as "perfect", while Karla Peterson of The San Diego Union-Tribune
praised him as bringing to the role a "cherry-bomb energy and an outsider's empathy that makes Jonah such an aggravating charmer".
The character of Jonah also received praise, with several critics identifying him as the emotional heart of the series. His struggles with racism, an unstable home life, and a school unable to understand his needs form the most heartbreaking aspect of the series, said Dean Flannery of CBC News
. "Jonah is funny," Flannery wrote, "but his situation is not." Professor Stephen Dinham of the Australian Council for Educational Research
said that Jonah was a recognisable figure who exemplified a particular group of students who struggle in school, failing in literacy and falling behind their peer group while trying to cover up their difficulties with bravado and disruptive behaviour. Other teachers agree: "We've all known Jonahs", one Melbourne high school teacher told The Age. She pointed to the confrontation between Jonah and Miss Wheatley in Episode 7, in which the English teacher becomes near-hysterical in trying to silence a misbehaving Jonah, as a scene with which many teachers would be familiar.
Professor Dinham says that Jonah's experiences present a good illustration of the mistakes schools make when in comes to disadvantaged students. He argues that the "Polynesian Pathways" program in which Jonah is made to participate as a way of embracing his Tongan heritage suffers from the same problems that many such programs experience in schools across Australia. "What he really needed to do was deeply engage with Polynesian culture, which is a very rich one, and through that be challenged and really get some depth out of it," said Dinham. Unfortunately, a lack of time, resources and skills generally render these programs "shallow" and "tokenistic".
Not all reviewers took such a positive view of the character, however. Dave Shiflett of Bloomberg found him the "most annoying" of Lilley's three characters, although he added that his sympathy for Jonah increased as the series progressed. NJ.coms Alan Seppinwall considered him a "one joke" character. Some critics were unimpressed by a storyline in Episode 4 in which Jonah falsely tells his teachers that his father has been molesting him, only confessing his lie when his father threatens to confiscate his PlayStation
. Dr Helen McGrath, a senior lecturer in psychology and education at Deakin University and a counselling psychologist, said that Lilley had "gone too far". "This would distress enormously people to whom this kind of thing (child sexual abuse
) has happened," she said.
In September 2007, the Herald Sun
raised concerns about the impact of the show on students, with parents and teachers reporting that children were adopting Jonah's habit of referring to others as "homos" and telling adults to "puck off". Victorian Principals Association president Fred Ackerman criticised the show as promoting poor standards of behaviour. Child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said that although he considered the show "brilliant", there was a danger that young children—and even older people—would fail to grasp the show's satire, and that for such people Jonah's behaviour could be seen to be "mocking effeminate men and homosexuals as well as reinforcing racial stereotypes". However, youth researcher Professor Johanna Wyn dismissed these concerns, arguing that young people are now much more sophisticated in the way in which they consume media and would not see the show as a model for behaviour. Education Union branch president Mary Bluett agreed, saying that the show was "clearly tongue-in-cheek" and was not a matter for concern.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
s on the Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n mockumentary
Mockumentary
A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...
series Summer Heights High
Summer Heights High
Summer Heights High is a Logie Award-winning Australian television mockumentary series written by and starring Chris Lilley. It is a parody of high-school life epitomised by its three protagonists: effeminate and megalomaniacal "Director of Performing Arts" Mr G; self-absorbed, privileged teenager...
played by Chris Lilley
Chris Lilley (comedian)
-External links:****...
. Jonah is the only one of the three main characters in Summer Heights High to debut in the mockumentary, with Ja'mie and Mr. G appearing in Chris Lilley's previous television projects. Sydney Morning Herald television critic Michael Idato
Michael Idato
Michael Idato is a television critic and writer for The Sydney Morning Herald.He has worked previously at The Daily Telegraph, and at The Sunday Telegraph between 1995 and 1999 as a writer and columnist. Between 1992 and 1996 he was also the film critic for Australian Penthouse Magazine...
writes that "Jonah Takalua is well on the way to becoming the voice of his generation."
Concept and creation
In writing Summer Heights High, Lilley decided to base around three key characters (all portrayed by him) through whom he could examine three different experiences of high school, that of the schoolboy, that of the schoolgirl and that of the teacher. He created Jonah to explore the world of the male student, with the character's delinquent, disruptive personality arising from Lilley's desire to play a character very different from himself and the person he had been at high school. In order to develop the character's voice and mannerisms, he met and interviewed Pacific IslanderPacific Islander
Pacific Islander , is a geographic term to describe the indigenous inhabitants of any of the three major sub-regions of Oceania: Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, these three regions, together with their islands consist of:Polynesia:...
children and "just naughty teenage boys", studying their behaviour and speech patterns. "Chris goes out and meets people his characters are like and he makes studies of them, takes notes or interviews people and sometimes films them. He watches those videos over and over and over," says Ryan Shelton
Ryan Shelton
Ryan Shelton is an Australian comedian, actor, radio presenter, television personality, host and writer.- Biography :He attended St Leonards College for some of his schooling, where he met Hamish Blake...
, who collaborated with Lilley on his first series, We Can Be Heroes: Finding The Australian of the Year
We Can Be Heroes: Finding The Australian of the Year
We Can Be Heroes: Finding The Australian of the Year is an Australian mockumentary TV series created, written and starring Chris Lilley and directed by Matthew Saville.It follows the story of five unique Australians, who have each made a large achievement...
.
As a white man in his thirties, Lilley knew he could not easily pass for a Tongan teenager, and so deliberately surrounded Jonah with other Pacific Islander boys in order to make him more believable. "I knew that physically I didn't really look like a Tongan kid but if you surrounded him enough with the other kids and got the hair right, maybe people would get the illusion." He found playing Jonah more challenging than his other two roles, Mr. G and Ja'mie, but also considers him "the most rewarding to watch, perhaps because he is the most different to me".
Family
Jonah originates from TongaTonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
, having immigrated to Australia when he was 3 years old. He is the second youngest of five children and was raised by his father, Rocky Takalua (his mother died when he was 7 years old) and adopted brother Avnish Goyani. He lives in Summer Heights with his father, his four siblings, two cousins and an aunt. He shares a room with his two brothers.
In the final episode of the series, Jonah is revealed to have been expelled from Summer Heights High, and is stated to be returning to his native Tonga to live with his uncle. On the final day of term, Jonah performs his story in front of the Gumnut Cottage audience, revealing a sensitive and heartfelt statement which epitomises the difficulty faced by the character, due to the racial and cultural barriers satirised within the program. In the final scene of the series, Jonah's graffiti tag - '*DICK
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
*tation' - is seen scrawled throughout the school as a final mark of his defiance.
Education
Jonah has attended three schools over the past eighteen months. He was expelled from the two previous schools he attended for setting fire to a student's locker and defacing the Principal's car by spray-painting a penisPenis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
on it.
Jonah has serious academic struggles. He attends a remedial reading course at 'Gumnut Cottage' with teacher Jan Palmer, the only teacher whom he apparently likes.
Hobbies and interests
Jonah "lives for breakdancing" and wants to do it professionally when he gets older. Jonah claims he is one of the best breakdancers in the school, while his friend Leon Pulami claims Jonah is the best breaker in the suburbSuburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
. Despite their claims, the breakdancing ability of Jonah and his friends appears to be that of beginner
Beginner
Beginner Beginner Beginner (formerly Absolute Beginner is a German rap group from Hamburg, consisting of Eizi Eiz [alias Jan Delay/Eißfeldt], Denyo and DJ Mad.- Band history :...
breakdancers. Jonah and his friends have created a breakdancing crew called the "Poly Force", the only fully Polynesian
Polynesians
The Polynesian peoples is a grouping of various ethnic groups that speak Polynesian languages, a branch of the Oceanic languages within the Austronesian languages, and inhabit Polynesia. They number approximately 1,500,000 people...
B-boy Crew in the school. Jonah and his friends spend the majority of their free time breakdancing in the school's amphitheatre
Amphitheatre
An amphitheatre is an open-air venue used for entertainment and performances.There are two similar, but distinct, types of structure for which the word "amphitheatre" is used: Ancient Roman amphitheatres were large central performance spaces surrounded by ascending seating, and were commonly used...
, which adds tension to a rivalry Jonah has with a year 7 breakdancer called Keiran McKenna.
Jonah and his friends Ofa, Joseph, Leon and Thomas enjoy punking
Punk'd
Punk'd is an American hidden camera/practical joke reality television series that first aired on MTV in 2003 and was created by Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg, produced and hosted by Ashton Kutcher. It bore a resemblance to both the classic hidden camera show Candid Camera and to TV's Bloopers...
fellow students and teachers. With help from his friends, Jonah planned and acted in a prank where he was run over by a teacher driving a car. Previously, Jonah threw a year 7 student's bag over the train line; when confronted he claimed that he was only punking
Punk'd
Punk'd is an American hidden camera/practical joke reality television series that first aired on MTV in 2003 and was created by Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg, produced and hosted by Ashton Kutcher. It bore a resemblance to both the classic hidden camera show Candid Camera and to TV's Bloopers...
him.
Jonah has also shown interest in modern graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
. He and his friends have vandalised various walls and objects on school premises, particularly the boys' toilets. Evidence that he is the culprit is often left via his personal tag, a drawing of a penis
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
followed by "tation", making it a play on the word "dictation".
As part of a remedial reading program held at the special needs class 'Gumnut Cottage', Jonah has also expressed an interest in conquering his illiteracy, stating the future possibility of him reading "Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
like in a day". Despite disliking other teachers and subjects in general at Summer Heights High, he shows genuine interest in the reading program and an affinity with its teacher.
Reception
Lilley's portrayal of Jonah was broadly well-received by critics, with many praising the 33-year-old's ability to embody the teenaged character so convincingly. Claire Zulkey of The A.V. ClubThe A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
described it as "a testament to both Lilley's and [the younger cast members'] acting ability that it doesn't seem totally strange that an actor in his mid-30's is playing someone who pals around with 13-year-olds", and commended Lilley's attention to detail in developing Jonah's various mannerisms, such as "the mumbled verbal diarrhea, the sprawling limbs [and] the physical affection with his boys." Catherine Deveny
Catherine Deveny
Catherine Deveny is a comedy writer and stand-up comedian, and was a regular columnist in The Age newspaper between 2001 and 2010...
of The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
described Lilley's performance as "perfect", while Karla Peterson of The San Diego Union-Tribune
The San Diego Union-Tribune
-Predecessors:The predecessor newspapers of the Union-Tribune were:* San Diego Sun, founded 1861 and merged with the Evening Tribune in 1939.* San Diego Union, founded October 10, 1868.* Evening Tribune, founded December 2, 1895.-Ownership:...
praised him as bringing to the role a "cherry-bomb energy and an outsider's empathy that makes Jonah such an aggravating charmer".
The character of Jonah also received praise, with several critics identifying him as the emotional heart of the series. His struggles with racism, an unstable home life, and a school unable to understand his needs form the most heartbreaking aspect of the series, said Dean Flannery of CBC News
CBC News
CBC News is the department within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on CBC television, radio and online services...
. "Jonah is funny," Flannery wrote, "but his situation is not." Professor Stephen Dinham of the Australian Council for Educational Research
Australian Council for Educational Research
The Australian Council for Educational Research , established in 1930, is an independent educational research organisation based in Camberwell, Victoria and with offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Dubai and India...
said that Jonah was a recognisable figure who exemplified a particular group of students who struggle in school, failing in literacy and falling behind their peer group while trying to cover up their difficulties with bravado and disruptive behaviour. Other teachers agree: "We've all known Jonahs", one Melbourne high school teacher told The Age. She pointed to the confrontation between Jonah and Miss Wheatley in Episode 7, in which the English teacher becomes near-hysterical in trying to silence a misbehaving Jonah, as a scene with which many teachers would be familiar.
Professor Dinham says that Jonah's experiences present a good illustration of the mistakes schools make when in comes to disadvantaged students. He argues that the "Polynesian Pathways" program in which Jonah is made to participate as a way of embracing his Tongan heritage suffers from the same problems that many such programs experience in schools across Australia. "What he really needed to do was deeply engage with Polynesian culture, which is a very rich one, and through that be challenged and really get some depth out of it," said Dinham. Unfortunately, a lack of time, resources and skills generally render these programs "shallow" and "tokenistic".
Not all reviewers took such a positive view of the character, however. Dave Shiflett of Bloomberg found him the "most annoying" of Lilley's three characters, although he added that his sympathy for Jonah increased as the series progressed. NJ.coms Alan Seppinwall considered him a "one joke" character. Some critics were unimpressed by a storyline in Episode 4 in which Jonah falsely tells his teachers that his father has been molesting him, only confessing his lie when his father threatens to confiscate his PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
. Dr Helen McGrath, a senior lecturer in psychology and education at Deakin University and a counselling psychologist, said that Lilley had "gone too far". "This would distress enormously people to whom this kind of thing (child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
) has happened," she said.
In September 2007, the Herald Sun
Herald Sun
The Herald Sun is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia. It is published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Limited, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is available for purchase throughout Melbourne, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital...
raised concerns about the impact of the show on students, with parents and teachers reporting that children were adopting Jonah's habit of referring to others as "homos" and telling adults to "puck off". Victorian Principals Association president Fred Ackerman criticised the show as promoting poor standards of behaviour. Child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said that although he considered the show "brilliant", there was a danger that young children—and even older people—would fail to grasp the show's satire, and that for such people Jonah's behaviour could be seen to be "mocking effeminate men and homosexuals as well as reinforcing racial stereotypes". However, youth researcher Professor Johanna Wyn dismissed these concerns, arguing that young people are now much more sophisticated in the way in which they consume media and would not see the show as a model for behaviour. Education Union branch president Mary Bluett agreed, saying that the show was "clearly tongue-in-cheek" and was not a matter for concern.