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Please Explain has more than 100 episodes parroting One Nation talking points on issues of national significance, including voting “No” on the Voice referendum, doubts surrounding Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations, and one simply titled The Woke Mind Virus. The film adaptation will release on January 26, purposefully scheduled to coincide with Australia Day. The date is mired in controversy for First Nations communities who mark it as the beginning of British colonisation; however, Senator Hanson told Sky News last year that the film was being released on the “most important day of the year”. Produced by Melbourne-based animation studio Stepmates, who also produced the series, the subject matter of the film still remains tightly under wraps. The existing show has been running for four years and aims to “educate and entertain” viewers, features Pauline Hanson voicing herself, alongside appearances from other political figures like Barnaby Joyce. A suite of the most famous faces in Australian politics appear on the show; however, they are all voiced by in-house producers at the animation studio. The show was created to combat the sense of “political apathy we often see in Australia”, a One Nation spokesman told NewsWire on Wednesday. “It started small, as a lot of these things do, and now we have half a million people tuning into the show per week,” the spokesman said. “The idea was to use the element of political satire, which has been a feature of political communication for hundreds of years. People have always used satire to talk about politics.” The animated show costs about $11,000 per episode to produce. The money was drawn from One Nation party funds or crowd-funding efforts, the spokesman added. While Senator Hanson expressed hope for the adaptation to be picked up by Netflix, the spokesman was unable to confirm whether any streaming platforms had shown interest.
