From The Simpsons to “The Simpsons of the South Pacific”: New Zealand’s First Primetime Animation,bro’Town

Abstract

New Zealand’s first primetime animated program, bro’Town, ran successfully for five seasons between 2004 and 2009. Described by its creators as a “modern-day non-PC satire,” bro’Town focuses on five New Zealand teenagers of Samoan and Maori ethnicities growing up in Auckland. While the program was promoted as “The Simpsons of the South Pacific,” its audience, critics, and politicians have celebrated it as a twenty-first-century New Zealand creative success story. This article explores the historical, cultural, and economic forces that have shaped bro’Town in the context of the debates on media globalization using the framework of hybridity as “the cultural logic of globalization” as well as the framework of global television formats. The authors suggest that bro’Town represents a complex case of television program adaptation and provides a unique case study to examine the multilayered nature of contemporary hybrid cultural forms moving beyond the simplistic local—global dyad.