Comedian Guy Williams returns with a new season of New Zealand Today.
As 2024′s new political climate beds in and his satirical show New Zealand Today returns to Kiwi screens for a fourth season, comedian and “volunteer journalist” Guy Williams takes a break from testing the mood of the nation to talk patriotism, faith and his passion for Aotearoa.
Is there a more fiercely patriotic comedian than Guy Williams? Actually, scratch that. Is there a more fierce patriot than Guy Williams? The guy loves Aotearoa. And he loves Kiwis. Even the ones that routinely tell him to ‘f*** off’.
Which is something that happens a lot more than you’d expect. Williams has riled up a certain subsection of the populace by, it seems, simply existing. His politics lie unashamedly and proudly to the left of the left and a lot of New Zealanders do not like that one bit.
“I describe myself as very woke,” he says. “I’m a known Green Party supporter from the central city. I ride an E-bike to work most days. I harbour what’s described as woke views. I contrast with small-town New Zealand, which is normally the opposite of that. You know, shooting guns and none of that PC bullshit.”
This philosophical conflict between city boy and regional folk is a running theme in his satirical current affairs show New Zealand Today, which has just started screening and streaming its fourth season on Three and ThreeNow respectively.
Along with catching up with some favourite personalities of the show and updating stories from earlier seasons, the new season once again sees him bringing his big-city views to small-town New Zealand and, effectively, watching the fireworks.
An early episode sees him clashing with the folks down in Ōamaru who stubbornly — occasionally aggressively — don’t care for his factually correct insistence that they’re pronouncing the name of their hometown completely wrong and demonstrate a hostile desire to keep it that way.
“You know, small-town New Zealand might not see that [woke] perspective. I understand that because I used to be that person. I’m from Nelson, it’s kind of a small town. It’s pretty loose down there so I don’t want to go, ‘hey, you’re a bad person’. I want to say, ‘Hey, I understand you and I used to be you’. I like to think I can identify with people and together I can explain things in the nice way that they were explained to me by my woke friends.”
He sighs and says: “There’s a real divide between the woke city and the liberal country and these people are very similar people. They would get on great! Everyone enjoys inappropriate jokes. Everyone enjoys pushing the boat out. Everyone enjoys being cheeky.”
Social media, he reckons, is to blame for this fracture. It’s changed the filter through which we see the world. Now, instead of a curated news experience such as this newspaper or the 6pm news, people are algorithmically fed stories based on what’s trending in the social media circles they’ve previously shown an interest in.
“If you get your timeline wrong, you’ll get nothing but negative information and be bombarded with this horrible view of the world, which makes it very easy for politicians and people to present the view that we’re in the doldrums, things are going terrible, we’re down and out,” he explains.
“I always want to encourage those people, because I’ve been that person as well, to get off your computer, get off the internet, and spend less time on your cell phones.
“The average Kiwi punter is so much fun, so lovely. Even the people I disagree with or have abhorrent views, I could still hang out with them at a BBQ, you know. There’s a lot of views that I wish I could change or would like to change at the BBQ, but most people are pretty good and coming from a good place. What I’ve learnt is that even people who spread misinformation or harbour racist views, they’re coming from a good place.”
If you let Williams talk, he won’t stop. Especially when it comes to politics and/or New Zealand. He’s aware of this fact and early on in our conversation he says: “I’m going on a huge rant here, you’re welcome to cut me off at any point.”
Having honed his conversational ability on the stand-up stage, Williams is a charismatic and engaging speaker, so for the most part I’m happy to let him run wild. He has a lot of interesting things to say about a great many topics. But, this is one point in the conversation where I have to interject. Please explain, I say, how racism is coming from a good place.
“They look at the world and the internet tells them everything’s terrible and that spirals them down a rabbit hole of ‘what are we going to do?’,” he answers, before giving the abortion issue as an example.
People, he says, see non-stop anti-abortion stories that claim other people are murdering babies, so they begin thinking that abortion needs to be repealed. Babies, of course, aren’t being murdered but that doesn’t matter. They are taking in so much information that says that they are, and that shapes their thinking.
“When you look at their worldview, and you see that they think that people are murdering babies you can kind of understand where they’re coming from a little bit,” he concludes. “Every person I talked to, I end up understanding — even when I disagree with them — I go, ‘Yeah, I get what your worldview is’. I blame computers and the internet, and especially social media, for giving people this very skewed view. It’s just cooking people’s minds.”
A long time ago Williams once fancied himself becoming a politician, even studying political science at university. I think he would have been good at it. So does he.
“I thought I would be good because I developed one skill, which was comedy and the ability to talk in front of an audience and the ability to communicate simply. It used to annoy me that John Key, who is someone on the other side of the political spectrum from me, had this in spades,” he laughs.
“Even if you didn’t agree with him politically, you’d be like, ‘I like him as a person’, or, ‘I want to have a beer with him’. He had that charm. Even when he did things that in my mind were really bad like selling state assets, including power companies, which are going to be very important in the coming years as even my toothbrush and my bicycle run on electricity. That was a ludicrous thing to do. It’s going to hurt New Zealanders in the long run. But he got away with it because he was such a charming communicator.”
Williams is instantly likeable, something you can see for yourself as he manages to almost always charm or at least get a grin out of, the regular Kiwis he interacts with during New Zealand Today. He’d pass that political test but would fail the “having a beer” test.
He’s not a drinker. Never has been. He says he’s always been afraid of losing control but, more than that, alcohol problems run in his family. “But hey, this is New Zealand, they run in everyone’s family,” he jokes, before getting more serious.
“My mum’s dad was a bad alcoholic. I learned from the horrible experience of him that drinking can be pretty devastating. My mom was obsessed with Al-Anon and not drinking so she drilled that into me at a young age. When I went to uni, I just didn’t start drinking. I played basketball. It’s been a life hack ever since.”
He describes sobriety as a sort of superpower. One he credits his current occupation to.
“It’s where I got my delusional confidence from,” he laughs. “Because while other people at parties were using alcohol, liquid courage, I had to develop real courage. It sounds like a small thing but at parties, it was quite awkward at times.”
Drinking culture is so ingrained in our society that I can’t imagine just saying no at university would have been easy. He says he made the most of it by doing things like going to parties holding a can of Baked Beans like a beer and waiting to see if anyone noticed.
“I realized that everyone had this social anxiety and observed that the people who were ultra confident would have a leg up at a party or a leg up in comedy or the world. I was not like that coming out of high school.”
Despite his outward confidence, he says he still feels awkward, anxious and reserved a lot of the time but says he’s learnt how to fight through it. He also says he’s in therapy.
“I was just having a therapy session yesterday and the therapist was asking me how I felt and I actually didn’t know.”
Williams has been all over the country the past few months filming the show. It’s fair to say he’s spoken to more average Kiwis than most. It gives him a unique perspective on the country and the mood of the nation. As we enter 2024 I ask if he thinks that we’re on a good path right now.
“I’m not sure,” he hesitates. “But what’s worrying to me is that, because of the internet, our politics have become incredibly Americanised, which is a real shame. Because people look at the two major parties, and there’s not much difference. They’re pretty sensible. Which I think is a good thing. You want your politicians to be stable. I’m not the biggest Joe Biden fan, but it’s nice to not have the President of the United States making massive headlines every f*****g day for a new insane controversy. It’s nice to have boring politicians.
“You know, I disagreed with Bill English heavily politically. But I did enjoy how boring and sensible he was.”
Again, I feel the need to interject. Williams has clearly forgotten that English dominated international headlines and almost tore the nation apart in 2017 with the outrageous revelation that he puts canned spaghetti on pizza.
“That was depressing when his social media team tried to give him a personality when he doesn’t have one.” Williams laughs. “That’s fine. You want your public servants to not have one.”
He’s an interesting character, Guy Williams. If he wasn’t hosting New Zealand Today you could almost imagine him being the focus of one of its segments. The anxious chap who confronts and then somehow befriends racists and bigots. The towering giant at almost 2m tall that short people feel confident swearing at. The man who loves his country and shows that by making a show that takes the piss out of it and exposes the nasty or smallminded views held by its citizens.
He says he’s drawn to controversial topics or people, but New Zealand Today also shares his optimism and ultimate belief in people. Our people. Us.
Guy Williams isn’t mad or disappointed in us. He’s hopeful.
“Absolutely,” he agrees. “Everyone, even people whose views I definitely disagree with, I end up enjoying and having a lot of time for. Even if I go into something going, ‘I’m gonna hate this person,’ I come out thinking, I really like that person. I can see some of where they’re coming from, and some of where I wish I could give them a slap around the face and go, ‘you’re wrong on that’. They’re not bad people. They’re not evil. They don’t want to be a white supremacist. They’re just deeply misguided but we can connect with these people.”
He laughs and says: “I generally think 98 per cent of people in this country are good people. But we need to get out from behind our computers where we’re arguing with each other over ridiculous issues and get out there and enjoy each other.”
He pauses for a moment and then says: “That old New Zealand that people long for is still out there. It’s present in New Zealand today.”
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