Is Green the New Black?

“There’s no debate in this town without me – on any issue or at any level of government or religion or even in a household. I will always be called in. My opinion is sacrosanct in this town.”

These humble words belong to Perth comedian, Paul “Werzal” Montague, one of six comedians invited to participate in the upcoming “Is Green the New Black?” Comedy Debate. Hosted by the Conservation Council, and set to take place on World Environment Day, the debate will be traditional in structure, but unique in its speakers. With Malcolm Dix, Andrew McDonald, Steven McKiernan, Xavier Susai, and Nicole Hodgson joining Werzal, the ideas expressed are bound to get a little controversial.

Personally, Werzal doesn’t consider himself ‘green,’ and admits that his carbon footprint is “probably king-kong like.” Werzal was obviously selected not for his position on environmentalism, but rather for his comedic expertise. He has been moving through Perth’s comedy scene since the early nineties, and has worked as a comedian for both the ABC and 96FM. For him, environmentalism is just “something you do.” That said, Werzal’s more pragmatic appraisal of environmentalism does leave him in an ideal position to argue for the negative side of this debate.

“I think the organisers clearly read which people made sense for which side,” Werzal agrees, “because there will be a lot of comedians on the positive side, like Malcolm Dicks or Andrew McDonald, who will inevitably leap on the bandwagon to try and impress the smelly-armpit-dreadlock brigade by harping on about the environment. The thing is that I have no objection to saving the planet. I’m into that, just let’s not pretend it’s cool. That’s all I’m saying.”

Werzal doesn’t agree that Hollywood’s recent attention to climate change issues renders environmentalism attractive. Instead, he believes that “the more you preach something, the less sexy it becomes,” even when hot young things like Cameron Diaz and Leonardio DiCaprio are heading the campaign. “The more celebrities stand up and preach, the less cool it is and the less cool they are. The thing is that, with the impact of human existence on our poor little planet earth, we’re never going to be able to relax and say, ‘Everyone’s doing a great job, just chill out for a while and we’ll get back to these practices in ten years.’ The urgency is always going to be there, and as long as people are saying ‘Do it, do it, it’s got to be done,’ it’s never going to be hip.”

He explains his position by likening conservation to toe-nail cutting, as something that you can care about only in so much as you know it has to be done. “It’s a pragmatic issue, like teeth-flossing or monogamy,” he adds. “It’s something you do because the consequences of not doing it are worse than doing…. I object to the premise of ‘green is the new black’ because it kind of implies that green is somehow sexy, that it’s cool or hip. It’s neither cool nor hip, or sexy or mysterious like black. It’s not fun, it’s not good times, it’s not something you feel special doing, it’s just something you do.”

With such passionate conviction, it will be interesting to see Werzal under the pressure of rebuttal. He believes, however, that comedy is ideally pre-disposed to respond to such questions. “It’s a temptation to get too political or too preachy but you’ve definitely got to do this,” he emphasises. “I think what comedy has to do is look at what we’re being told and ask questions of it. A lot of these issues are present to us as, ‘We must…’ And what I want to do, as a comedian, is ask ‘We must… what?’ or ‘We must… why?’”