Controversial Comedian Chris Lilley Teases The Return Of Summer Heights High’s Mr G

Controversial Australian comedian Chris Lilley has teased the return of one of his biggest characters: Mr G from Summer Heights High.

Taking to social media with a series of videos this week, Lilley has teased the return of Hellen “Greg” Gregson – better known as Mr G – an effeminate and often melodramatic high school drama teacher.

There is currently no concrete information on how or where the character will be returning.

This would be the first new television work from the comedian in several years, following his 2019 Netflix series Lunatics.

However, Lilley has faced mass backlash over a number of the characters he’d portrayed in his shows throughout the years, with many complaints stating his characters were discriminatory caricatures based on racism, homophobia, ableism and sexism. These characters included (but are not limited to) Tongan student Jonah Takalua, and a Black rapper called S.Mouse.

Lilley also faced strong backlash after posting an Instagram post of him wearing blackface.

The following year, Netflix pulled several of Lilley’s older shows from the service.

The rebirth of Summer Heights High drama teacher, Mr G

Taking to social media this week, Lilley announced with a series of videos that “Mr G Is Back.”

 

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Mr G was one of the three central characters in Summer Heights High.

It was a popular character at the time of the show’s release, and is one of Lilley’s characters that have stuck in people’s minds the most over the years – there’s even still Mr G memes and clips floating about on Instagram and Tiktok. You’ll also still hear the audio of Mr G clips being used on Tiktok, as well as remixes and plenty of drag performances featuring the popular song from his Summer Heights High school drama production, titled ‘Naughty Girl’.

But while the characters of Mr G and J’aime were widely loved characters, Lilley has faced accusations of racism and blackface starting from his very first show, We Can Be Heroes – but despite the backlash, he continued to portray the characters in various series’ going forward.

In the widely popular yet problematic Summer Heights High, Chris Lilley particularly faced intense backlash for his portrayal of Jonah.

He was accused of blackface when playing the character, as well as using demeaning and negative cultural stereotypes about the Tongan community.

Despite this, he later followed up with another series titled Jonah From Tonga, where he continued to play the troubled teenager.

Was Chris Lilley cancelled?

In 2020, it was revealed that four of Lilley’s programs – Summer Heights High, Angry Boys, We Can be Heroes, and Jonah from Tonga – had all been quietly removed from the Netflix streaming platform.

It was never confirmed why, and Netflix refused to comment at the time. There was speculation that it may instead simply be due to expiration of streaming rights. However – it was widely believed it was related to the backlash and blackface controversy.

But while supporters of Lilley’s adamantly argue he was “cancelled by wokeness” and removed from the industry completely, his back catalogue of work can in fact definitely still be watched. The bulk of his shows — Summer Heights High, Angry Boys, We Can be Heroes, Jonah from Tonga and Ja’mie Private School Girl — are all still available to watch on Binge.

Australian streaming service Stan currently features Ja’mie Private School Girl, and Lunatics is still available to watch on Netflix.