Where do we go after we die? It's a question we've seen tackled in film and television before, and the ideas run the gamut. There are more heartfelt, emotion-based depictions like Coco (2017), more scientific deep dives, like After Death (2023), and everything in between.
Now, Bad Ancestors is here to throw another theory into the mix. Created by Wendy Mocke, the miniseries delivers the vibes of The Good Place, but with all the comedy of your funniest older cousin at the family party*.
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*That's a lot, BTW.
The show follows best friends Nora (played by Mocke) and Charlie (played by Joseph Althouse) who reside in the land beyond the living. The pair are subjected to an unimaginable afterlife experience that involves having to "subscribe to capitalism" — AKA, work as ancestral guides for earthside Pasifika youths. Sounds easy enough, right? Think again! These teens aren't about to make their afterlives easy.
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The three-part series tackles the experience of growing up Pasifika and First Nations in a white world, but the comedic moments feel undeniably human, no matter where, when, or how you grew up. It hits hard with the jokes, but be warned! It can make you cry just as easily.
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It's also important to note that Bad Ancestors is the first of its kind — an onscreen comedy that was written, acted and directed by Pasifika and First Nations creatives. It's an absolute win for authentic and accurate representations of Pasifika communities in Australian media.
Speaking to BuzzFeed Australia, the cast and crew didn't mince words when asked about Lilley's depictions of Pasifika people. Calling his characters "detrimental", they slammed Lilley for making a "mockery" of Pasifika people and culture, and for exploiting vulnerable communities for laughs.
"I think that [the Jonah character] undermines the work being done in our communities to support and uplift one another," Althouse said.
Edward O'Leary agreed, and noted that the popularity of Lilley's Jonah character seemingly gave people "the permission to make jokes" and make assumptions about Pasifika communities they didn't belong to.
With Bad Ancestors, Wendy Mocke is turning the tables, both onscreen and behind the camera. She said that by creating the show with a "fully led Pacific Islander team with Indigenous creatives", they were finally released from being depicted as "the brunt of the jokes".
Producer Jessica Magro also stressed the importance of putting people who are truly from the community, who have "shared lived experiences" into "key creative roles" behind the scenes. The end result, she said, is cultural safety — a space where people are free to be themselves, and to create real stories.
The combination of onscreen and offscreen representation is evident throughout the series. Bad Ancestors feels real and unapologetic because it is. The show balances humour and sensitivity with precision to create an authentic, everyday story, which director Vanilla Tupu accredits to "Wendy [Mocke]'s incredible writing".
Nora and Charlie's friendship feels like the ones we have with our friends. It's not manufactured or culturally linked — it's just real, and Mocke and Althouse's onscreen chemistry feels like they were bantering off-camera before someone hit record.
Bad Ancestors gives us hope that more Pasifika stories (and ANY stories about diverse cultural backgrounds, TBH) can be told by the people who have lived them.
"The real key thing here is having [Pasifika people] in creative roles behind the camera, but not just as attachments — actually as lead creatives, head of department roles, above the line roles," Vanilla Tupu said. "I think that such an important step is putting us in these positions and making us non-replaceable."
Tupu added: "We're absolutely essential to telling the narrative and pushing these stories forward for our community."