The ABC’s You Can’t Ask That is back for a sixth season with eight new episodes, featuring misunderstood, judged, or marginalised Australians answering the public’s anonymously submitted questions. All episodes of the new series, as well as the first five seasons, will be available to watch on ABC iview from Wednesday 28 April.
The new season will also screen weekly on ABC TV, kicking off on Wednesday 28 April at 9pm with Cheaters. This is the episode that took years to make because when producers put out the call for people who had cheated on their partners to appear in an episode, they were generally met with stony silence.
Other episodes this season include Ex-football Players, where Dean Widders, Brock McLean, Todd Carney, Dan Jackson, Willie Mason, Ian Roberts, and Jude Bolton are put on the spot to answer questions like; ‘Why do so many of you treat women like shit?’, and ’Have you pissed in your own mouth?’
Normally seen on The Bachelor, Osher Günsberg joins a collection of diverse Australians living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) who want you to know that it’s so much more than washing hands or keeping a tidy desk. In the episode on OCD, Osher says: “People have in their mind an idea of what someone living with a mental illness looks like. But it’s me counting roses in a nice, tailored suit on primetime television. That’s someone living with a mental illness.”
In Amputees, eight amputees share their stories and answer whether or not amputees really can feel their missing limb, or if they ever get sick of being an ‘inspiration’.
In Families Of Missing Persons, the show features everyday Australians whose lives were changed forever on the day a loved one disappeared. When Bruce Morcombe’s 13-year-old son Daniel went missing from a bus stop in December 2003, it sparked the largest criminal investigation in Queensland’s history. When Bruce picks up a card and reads it out loud: “What would you say to them if they could hear you?” he answers: “That we never gave up, that we tried, and I wish I was a better parent.”
The episode Lesbians features Janette ‘Jabba’ Moor, who met her partner in prison and regards sex with men as “very boring”. In the first You Can’t Ask That to focus solely on sexuality, the episode features nine women who talk about the fascination and fetishization of what they do in the bedroom, the double discrimination of being ‘both a woman and gay,’ and what life’s like when your world isn’t centred around men.
Despite over 200 years of migration history, the episode Chinese Australians shows that many continue to feel othered, still having to prove that they belong. Douglas Lam says with a smile “I’m a 100% dinky-di… This is my country; I’ve been here longer than you – bugger you”.
And finally, the episode Adult Virgins is touching, humorous and relatable. The group of adult virgins are asked questions such as, ‘Why are you still a virgin?’ and ‘Why not just pay a sex worker and get it over with?’
You Can’t Ask That airs 9pm April 28 on ABC iview.