ON THE WORLD STAGE

September 2009. John Key: privateer, raconteur, lesbian Jeff Daniels look-alike, and current Prime Minister of New Zealand, appears on The Late Show With David Letterman to present the night’s Top Ten List. Our nation is divided. There are those who believe that this was a stunt designed for cheap laughs, to cement the popular post-Conchords vision of New Zealand: a socially and technologically backwards tribe of hicks lead by a PM who won the postion in town-hall raffle. Others think the event was PR gold and will inevitably bring a tsunami of tourists to our misty shores, their pockets fat with American green, to ogle our sheep, to pet our women, to ride our death-geyser-bungy-chute experience, and to purchase billions of green plastic tikis lovingly made by the children of China.

For what it’s worth, I think our leader acquitted himself as well as could be expected. But I also feel that his appearance was designed to be a ritual mocking. On the International Scale of Awkwardness (ISA) it was about as uncomfortable as watching the ‘slow kid’ at school perform ‘I Can Sing a Rainbow’ in the end of year concert. But worse, since in this case we were deeply connected to the subject of ridicule. So perhaps it was like being the slow kid’s parents sitting in the audience, feeling both a twinge of pride, but also a nagging sense that this is where inclusiveness undoes itself. The audience laughter was so full of tender fury that I expected a climax wherein they all rushed the stage and began holding our PM down and tickling him. In short, I feel as if our proud nation has been made to perform the global mass-media equivalent of the truffle shuffle.

The truffle shuffle

To set the scene: Key is introduced and enters, employing the nervous, one-armed gait of a new deputy headmaster at his first assembly. At 0.12 he appears to throw up some kind of gang-sign or Nazi salute. There is some banter: are we a wonderland? Do we like being known as Kiwis? Are we near Tasmania? Key blows his only chance for an off-the-cuff joke when he replies, “Yeah, and Australia … that’s the other bit of Tas …” but he stops short of what could have been a great little ad-lib, presumably because he feels like he's about to say something stupid. Letterman even asks, somewhat insultingly, if we get “the post” in New Zealand. Then he asks, even more insultingly I think, “Why is he out here, Paul?” The reason he’s here is to read the top ten list, “Reasons you should visit New Zealand.” Key does well with the series of gags, “We have the loosest slot machines on the Pacific rim,” “Get the whanau together, stay in a bach, crack open the chilly bin and slap on your jandals.”

A leader of a nation should, in some way, evoke power and confidence. It doesn’t have to be much—eloquence, a personal presence, a self-confidence, an eye patch—anything that shows the world that he has earned his position as leader of the country by being better than most. Watching this curious sideshow I kept wishing it could have been David Lange out there. He wouldn’t have fluffed the Tasmania joke, he would have nailed it. He wouldn’t have let Letterman get away with almost saying “New England” instead of New Zealand. And at the end, when Letterman approached him to say, “Well done, thanks for stopping by,” there would have been no doubt whatsoever in the mind of anyone watching who the most important person on the stage was.

I suppose that anyone from New Zealand who felt agony while watching this (and likewise anyone from the US who felt a sense of superiority,) could take a moment to watch this classic clip:

Prime Minister David Lange at the Oxford Union Debate.

They could also take a few moments to privately celebrate some of our country’s past achievements. Our citizens have, among many things, unlocked the secrets of the atom, given women the vote first, achieved manned flight around the same time as the Wright Brothers, discovered the structure of DNA, headed up the first US space program, conquered Everest, took away and defended the America’s cup, pioneered the nuclear free movement. Most importantly, they have created a proud and forward thinking egalitarian democracy whose citizens have a strong sense of their own identity, and who can, when asked, point to their own country on a map.

But what do I know? Nothing, probably. See what you think of Key's appearance.