Why ‘Headless Chooks’ Just Might Be The Most Gloriously Stupid Political Ad Of Our Time

Let’s get something out of the way up front. The most immediate – but by no means biggest – problem with the Coalition’s latest campaign advertisement, The Headless Chooks in: The Gillard Experiment, is that throughout the video, with precisely no exceptions, the chooks have heads. In fact, that the chooks have heads is especially memorable, because the heads belong to various members of the ALP, and one former member of the Coalition.

What we actually have is some chooks whose heads have most certainly been removed, but then replaced with the heads of humans. It’s nowhere near as catchy, but this problem could have been solved if the video was titled: The Chooks Whose Heads Were Cut Off Then Replaced With The Heads of Humans in a Kind of Nightmarish Island of Doctor Moreau Scenario in: The Gillard Experiment. And not for nothing, but this also makes ‘The Gillard Experiment’ sound much more sinister. You’re welcome.

The next problem you’ll notice with THCi:TGE / TCWHWCOTRWTHoHiaKoNIoDMSi:TGE is that it is irredeemably dumb. Now let’s not here confuse dumb with irreverent or dumb with robust or dumb with – and I’m looking at you, Twitter – offensive. This is just straight up, powerfully dumb. There hasn’t been a political ad so blunt and lazy since Alfred Deakin distributed pamphlets in 1908 that just read ‘Vote for me, you pack of stupid shits’.

And it’s especially dumb given how completely unnecessary it is. The message that Labor are by and large pack of incompetent nuffies is one that has already been communicated beautifully, mainly by Labor. From a completely pragmatic point of view, the Coalition doesn’t need to peddle this level of juvenile negativity anymore — and, more than that, they really ought stop it. The ‘relentless negativity’ of Abbott and his front bench is one of the few attacks from Labor that has gotten any traction. And when it’s clear to everyone that you’re going to win an election, and you now have the breathing room to really engage with the electorate and explain to them what you’re all about, choosing to still focus on the government kind of makes it look like you just enjoy being a bunch of arseholes. Guys, you’ve won. You’re curb-stomping a corpse, albeit while wearing honking great clown shoes.

It feels strange to even attempt to engage with this ad because you are, in no uncertain terms, arguing with the visual equivalent of a ten-year-old blowing into his hands to make a farting noise. It’s difficult to argue with a collection of disconnected quotes from Labor MPs attributed to cartoon chickens whose eyes bulge and roll around to signify that these are very silly headless chickens with the heads of humans indeed.

But let’s try anyway. Using the educational tools of chickens and ‘boingoingoing’ sound effects, the ad charts the history of the Labor Government since Kevin Rudd was deposed as leader in 2010. The PM is there, along with Wayne Swan, Chris Bowen, Craig Thomson, Simon Crean, Kevin Rudd and former Speaker Peter Slipper.

Now, never mind that Slipper was cleared of all allegations in the Federal Court, and that the judgment handed down made the Coalition seem like a bunch of vindictive and scheming muppets — because it’s clear that the Opposition more or less has a blank cheque wherever Slipper is concerned. After all, was it not Churchill who said, ‘History is written by the victors, in Flash, featuring chickens, accompanied by a song traditionally reserved for the embarrassment of the drunk elderly cohort at weddings’?

The ad hits all the Coalition’s favourite talking points. The surplus, the Carbon Tax, the leadership squabbles and, of course, the boats. In order to get that message across, the boats are represented by boats, drifting about in increasing numbers in the background (which explains why this video was set in what must be the only coastal chicken coop in Australia), while Chris Bowen flails about with an old timey telescope, powerless to do anything to stem the tide of arrivals because he is an idiot. Or, in this case, a bird.

Now I’m not making a moral judgment here, just a political one — but this does seem like a slightly jaunty way to deal with the issue of boat arrivals, given that it moved several members of the Coalition to tears in parliament a while back. Furthermore, it’s an issue the party has said — over and over again — it has no interest in politicising. But maybe I’m missing something in the minutiae of your chicken cartoon.

The clip ends with Simon Crean, goaded on by Kevin Rudd, blowing himself up and bringing the chaos of the scene to a giddy head. A nice voiceover lady says ‘Some things will never change’ as the chickens fight in a ball of dust and satire. Fin, roll credits.

It’s breathtakingly stupid stuff, but ultimately, that’s all it is. It probably represents little else than a staggering lack of judgment, and, hopefully, a woeful underestimation of the voters. If there is something offensive about the ad, it’s that it’s pitched at a level of partisan idiocy that hangs out on the fringes of the Internet, writing furious comments in its underpants. And of course the fact that, in a video about chickens and leadership spills, there was not one – not one – use of the coop/coup pun. For shame.

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Ben Jenkins is a Sydney-based writer. He writes for TheVine and Daily Life, as well as The Chaser. You can read his blog, or follow him @bencjenkins.