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Netflix pulls four Chris Lilley shows in Australia and New Zealand

Netflix has removed four Chris Lilley shows in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement.

According to Deadline, four of his shows - Jonah From Tonga, Angry Boys, Summer Heights High and We Can Be Heroes - have all been culled from Netflix’s library in Australia and New Zealand.

Chris Lilley arrives ahead of the 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Australian premiere on December 16, 2015 in Sydney, Australia.
Netflix has pulled for Chris Lilley shows in Australia and New Zealand. Photo: Getty Images

Summer Heights High, which gained cult status amongst fans when it was released in 2007, and Jonah From Tonga, featured Chris playing Jonah Takalua, dressed in brown makeup and wearing a tight curly wig.

Meanwhile, Angry Boys saw the comedian don blackface for his character S.mouse, where he performed a song called ‘'Squashed N****' in 2009.

In We Can Be Heroes, Chris played a Chinese physics student called Ricky Wong.

They were all originally produced by Princess Pictures for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Chris Lilley in Angry Boys
Chris donned blackface in Angry Boys while playing S.mouse. Photo: Netflix

While those four shows may have been removed from Netflix, two of his other series’ Ja'mie: Private School Girl and Lunatics still remain on the streaming service, despite Chris donning brownface to play Jana Melhoopen-Jonks, who is described as a “South African lesbian and a pet psychic”.

Back in 2017, Chris Lilley apologised after a video of him dressed in blackface for his character S.mouse, singing ‘'Squashed N****' resurfaced from 2009.

Summer Heights High
In Summer Heights High he played Jonah Takalua, dressed in brown makeup and wearing a tight curly wig. Photo: ABC

“My social media pages are run for me to give fans nostalgic pics of clips from previous shows. A fan-made remix of a song from Angry Boys made in 2009 was posted recently. It is not connected in any way to current news stories. I apologise for any hurt caused by the misinterpretation,” he wrote on Twitter at the time.

The news comes after Netflix removed Little Britain from Netflix and BBC iPlayer as well as other streaming sites including BBC iPlayer and BritBox.

The controversial BBC comedy, which aired from 2003 to 2005 and starred David Walliams and Matt Lucas, has been criticised over the years for its use of blackface and stereotyping.

Their follow-up show Come Fly With Me, which aired between 2010 and 2011, also attracted similar complaints.

Both shows were pulled from Netflix on Friday, while BBC iPlayer recently took down the first series of Little Britain that had been available.

A spokesperson for the BBC told the Daily Mail: "There’s a lot of historical programming available on BBC iPlayer, which we regularly review. Times have changed since Little Britain first aired so it is not currently available on BBC iPlayer."

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