National broadcasting service RÚV has apologised for a comedy sketch that satirises the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance.
The sketch, a screenshot of which you can see above, was aired on RÚV’s Stundarskaupið, the children’s version of the annual “year in review” satire comedy show that airs every New Year’s Eve. In the animated sketch, Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson is depicted as Star Wars’ Jabba the Hutt, while Minister of Finance Bjarni Benediktsson is Darth Vader. Amongst their antics in the sketch are destroying both the Landspítali national hospital and the building that houses RÚV.
Members of parliament for the ruling coalition were none too pleased with the sketch and voiced their outrage, amongst other places in a column printed in Fréttablaðið. Written by Progressive MP Karl Garðarsson and Independence Party MP Elín Hirst, they lambasted the comedy skit as tantamount to “political propaganda aimed at children”.
RÚV has since apologised for the sketch, emphasising that Stundarskaupið was well-received when it premiered last year, but this sketch in particular may have gone too far.
“In the 2015 Stundarskaup was a sketch that was not in harmony with the editorial policy that we have followed regarding children’s and family material,” the apology from the programming director reads. “There is full reason to apologise for it. I and the producers of Stundin Okkar agree that children’s material should not be a place of political controversy, and that position has not changed.”
You can watch the sketch in question here, in Icelandic.
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