account, with Lilley later deleting his social media accounts. Lilley's series Jonah from Tonga was called "racist" and resulted in protests from academics and Tongan youth concerned at the inaccurate and demeaning portrayals of Tongan culture. The show received criticism for Lilley’s imitation of a person of colour, which was dubbed by certain media commentators as “brownface”, an act they have compared to blackface minstrel shows of the 19th century and early 20th century. The creators of the 2004 ABC TV documentary series Our Boys stated that Lilley drew inspiration for the Jonah character from their work. The subject of Our Boys recalled being "absolutely embarrassed, full of hate, angry and exploited" by the "racist" Jonah character that was based on him. The series' director, as well as a teacher at Canterbury Boys High School also felt that the character "exploited" the Tongan students who Lilley had met while visiting the school after seeing Our Boys on television in 2004. Many major US civil rights organisations wrote to HBO expressing their "deep concern" over Jonah From Tonga. These included the NAACP, National Hispanic Media Coalition, American Indians in Film/TV, Empowering Pacific Islander Communities and The Asian Pacific American Media Coalition (which itself includes the Asian American Justice Center, Asian Pacific American Advocates, Japanese American Citizens League, Media Action Network for Asian Americans, National Federation of Filipino American Associations, and more). In 2019, Lilley was again accused of blackface by journalists for his Lunatics character Jana Melhoopen-Jonks, a South African woman. This accusation was later acknowledged to have been unfounded, as this character is "clearly white." Following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, BBC iPlayer removed Jonah from Tonga from its online streaming service. On 11 June 2020, Netflix confirmed it had removed four of Lilley's series from its streaming service, also in response to the Black Lives Matter protests and movement. In the weeks following these events, Lilley posted multiple videos of content involving the Jonah character to his YouTube channel. Filmography Discography Albums Singles Podcasts Ja'miezing (2021) (as Ja'mie King) Jana's Yard (2020) (as Jana Melhoopen-Jonks) Awards and nominations ARIA Music Awards The ARIA Music Awards are a set of annual ceremonies presented by Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), which recognise excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of the music of Australia. They commenced in 1987. ! |- |2008 | Summer Heights High soundtrack | rowspan="2"|ARIA Award for