Over seven seasons, You Can't Ask That has given a voice to misunderstood and marginalised Australians who front up to answer the most brutal and probing questions you can imagine.
The latest series features bogans, gay men, models, porn stars and people who have experienced post-natal depression, juvenile detention, prescription drug dependency and addiction, and dementia.
Co-creator, series director and interviewer Kirk Docker gives ABC Backstory an insight into the work that goes on behind the scenes, how the team finds people willing to answer the tough questions, and the questions he's found the most confronting to ask.
How did You Can't Ask That come about?
"It came about in in 2015 and was created by myself, Aaron Smith and Jon Casimir," Docker said.
"Aaron and I worked together on [ABC TV show] Hungry Beast and Jon is co-creator of Gruen and worked with us as a bit of a mentor. So, the three of us hit it off and we wanted to pitch a show together.
"We'd created this segment on Hungry Beast which was a vox pop and, rather than what vox pops typically were, which was asking people's political opinion or testing their knowledge on current affairs, we asked people big universal questions about life: 'What do you fear? When was the last time you cried? What's been the longest moment of your life?'
"When you stop people on the street and you ask them something personal as opposed to sort of testing them, people are very quick to open up. If you really listen to them they'll tell you all sorts of things about their life.
"So, we really loved this sort of format, and we were also captivated by this sort of 'ask me anything' type thing that was happening on online at the time.
"And, in 2015, if you remember, political correctness was a really a hot topic. Everyone was really worried about what to say and how do you address people for fear of causing offence.
"People with the big voices, politicians or celebrities or people with big social media presences, explained to us how we should or shouldn't behave.
"We wanted to tackle that environment and, rather than shy away from having these big conversations, actually confront them head-on and pass the mic to the person who never gets a voice and let them speak for themselves, as opposed to experts or commentators speaking on behalf of misunderstood and marginalised people.
"So, it was a combination of all those things that came together and, at the time, iview was commissioning content and we got a 10-by-10 minute slot.
"When we were making it, internally, the ABC went 'Wow, there is something in this' and they decided to put it on the main channel and it went from there.
"And there's now something like 35 different seasons of the show around the world in nine different languages.
"It's the most successful ABC format in history, it's one of the most successful Australian formats in history.
"That's as exciting as it gets for us because it's one thing to sell your show overseas and people watch our content — that's a nice pat on the back – but what's great about the show is it's localised, it's local, misunderstood groups, answering local questions so when you see it pop up in other countries they have their own curiosities and their own things that you can't ask.
"For example, Italy did a transgender episode in their first season similar to us and it was very, very different.
"So, it's really cool to see it all around the world but it wasn't easy. We had to really campaign hard to get a second season, third and fourth season. It's a challenging world making content and it has to remain relevant.
"You Can't Ask That could have easily been a show that, I think, could be really worthy or really boring if you're being too careful with it. I think it's the playfulness and the humour, which makes it really accessible.
"I think there's a number of reasons why it's successful and, first and foremost, it's the candidness and the honesty with which the people speak."
How do you come up with a topic to focus on and find the people willing to go on the show?
"As content makers, we try to make stuff that excites us, that challenges us, that creates "f..k me moments", which is what Andrew Denton [Hungry Beast creator] used to ask us for in the office.
"And that's something we strive for — moments that make your eyebrows stand up, things that people can discuss the next day, that challenge your own ideas, your own stereotypes, your own biases, that's what we're trying to do.
"We think of the topics as a series of buckets, so mental health, gender, sexuality, sex, a disability, then we will often have something that's a really challenging topic, a heavier topic.
"When #MeToo was prominent, we looked at sexual assault. I was particularly interested in suicide attempt survivors and we did that, domestic violence, people who have killed someone by accident.
"It was an idea that we'd had for a number of years, that we thought would be really interesting to investigate, how your life could completely change on a dime. And then we try to have something topical — last year we did Chinese Australians to try and look at coronavirus from a different angle.
"So, we have these 'buckets' and then we think, 'Are there 10 burning questions that you would want to ask this group of people'? That's a really good test to see if the topic would work.
"When we sit with the producers and we have a list of 15 or 20 questions, like with porn stars we had endless questions — you know this is a good sign, this is a good topic.
"Then we tend to go out publicly with a list of 12 topics and ask people if they've got questions they'd like to ask or if there's people who might like to be part of that group on the show.
"That helps us determine what those final eight episodes might be and if you can actually find the people to be on the show — we've often suggested 'lotto winners' and it is just impossible to find the people to participate.
"To find virgins, the producers spent a lot of time on the internet on Reddit and in forums, with nudists my producer went and lay on a nudist beach and spoke to people that way, for other topics they go through the media or organisations, it's just really good research work.
"For each topic, we also try and go for a person [who] you might recognise in that group, someone that might challenge your assumptions, someone that is a bit different from the norm and we want a mix of age, of gender, of ethnicity, of sexuality within that group as well.
"We want to put people next to each other [who] might surprise each other.
"So, in the gay men episode we've got Barry Charles, otherwise known as 'trough man', whose sexual fetish is golden showers and he's known for laying in the troughs at urinals at gay parties and is quite a gay icon.
"We sat him next to a 22-year-old, quite conservative, gay guy who only wants to have one partner, wants to get married and have kids. So, them comparing notes was really interesting for them, but also for the audience, too — not all gay men are promiscuous, not all gay men want to get married."
"My producers might speak to up to 100 people before we decide on that mix of the eight that make the episode.
"And then, once we've decided on those eight, they're in, it's not like we interviewed someone and didn't like how that went so we'll do someone else.
"Every single person, if they come with the courage to tell their story, they've made it and I can proudly say no one's ever been cut.
"The backdrop and the set packs down into eight bags that we can take anywhere on the smallest plane, or we can pack into a car, that we set up in someone's house, in a hotel room, or in a town hall.
"We go to where the people are, which is important to us, because we're going to represent voices from all around the country.
"I might interview that person then for two, two and a half hours. We'll go deep, there might be 10 follow-up questions off that initial first question and it's often in those follow-up questions that we get into the really interesting stuff. I want to get past the sort of the superficial answer.
"So, we might end up in the edit suite with 15 hours of stuff that has to get cut down to 30 minutes, which is a challenge.
"I'll give the editors, Kenny Ang and Nick McDougall, four episodes each. We'll give them some notes and explain what we're trying to achieve with each episode, some really important points that we found through research that we think are important to come out, etc.
"They watch all the rushes and come back with a with a rough cut, which might be an hour and a half of those voices linking to each other.
"What we're trying to do in the edit is not tell eight individual stories, we're trying to tell one unified story in a way where each person links to the next person, [then] links to the next person.
"And the front and the end of the episode are really important, when they're walking in, taking their seat introducing themselves, or the end where they sit back and go 'thank God that's all over', or 'absolutely loved that' because it's a reminder to the audience that these are just normal people, they're not actors and they're not experts.
"We've done 64 episodes now about 64 misunderstood, marginalised groups of Australians out there.
"You'd never think that if you were to put a number on it like that and there's more."
Over the seven series, what's been the question you've found the most confronting to ask?
"I would say that the most-confronting question was in the dementia episode, in this season, which was, 'Do you want to kill yourself before you become a vegetable?' It felt insensitive.
"This person knows that they're deteriorating and the idea of calling them a vegetable, which is what they are going to become, and that you ultimately want to end your life before you become this thing that no one wants, that's the most horrible thought.
"So, I was nervous about asking that, because I knew that it's a delicate subject matter and it was hard, too, because of the coronavirus, I had to do some of those interviews via the internet, which I don't really like doing because with those sorts of questions they can't feel my energy in the room.
"But to the credit of every single person on the show, they took that question with humour, they laughed it off.
"They talked about [their] end of life, about whether they'd like to take up euthanasia if it was available. And it just reminds me, every single time, that people have this incredible resilience.
"They've not got dementia and completely lost all will to live. They've had to find something. I'm often wowed by people, by their honesty, by what they've experienced, by how full-on some people's lives are and how they still have the courage to get up and keep going.
"The thing about the questions is, even though they are blunt, offensive, rude, there's often a much deeper thing we're trying to get to behind those questions.
"We had a question in amputees last year: 'Has anyone f....d your stump?', which is a horrible question. And one woman said yes, she had used it in her sex life which, ultimately, [highlighted] fears about finding love, finding acceptance, finding a partner who didn't judge her when she had this disability.
"The other group of questions that I found really challenging was way back in season one in the fat episode where I thought the questions were particularly harsh: 'Why are you so fat? Why don't you exercise? Why don't you eat less?' But, again, the participants sometimes hit back, sometimes say, 'That's a terrible question to ask me and I'll explain why'.
"People sometimes send in questions that are insults disguised as questions, and we'll steer away from those, but most of the questions that you feel like you most definitely can't ask are often the most burning questions. They're the ones that everyone wants to know.
"In this year's episode on post-natal depression the question, 'Did you want to hurt your baby?' I think was a particularly tough question, but the answer, overwhelmingly, was: 'I was expecting this one to be in there and here's the truth'.
"As harsh as that is, if we didn't ask that question, everyone would feel like we didn't ask the tough question. So, the harshest question, or the one that you really feel like you shouldn't ask, is normally at the very top of the list."
What's been the most difficult episode to get up?
"Probably the kill someone episode, that was very challenging. We were interested in the experience of an ordinary person. What would happen if this happened to you one day and how would it impact your life?
"It's not like there was a group, like Dementia Australia, to find these people and it's a particularly sensitive thing to talk about. For some of these people, this is a lifelong thing that they have to carry that has impacted family and friends.
"One woman killed her best friend in a car accident. Another gentleman ran over his child in the car. These are very, very, very sensitive things to talk about.
"But these people were very brave and it was a chance to share the burden, a little bit, allow people to hear their take on it, to imagine going through that experience, everyone would know you as that person who's done that thing, that's often never spoken about. That took us two years to pull together.
"Cheaters also took two years, because there is so much stigma and shame around that and such a lack of willingness to forgive people who have done that.
"And, for me, it was interesting because of this word 'empathy'. A lot of people think that they do it [empathise] but I think a lot of people just go through the motions because, when the cheaters episode went live, there were so many comments online, on Twitter, and someone left a comment saying: "I can normally empathise with people on this show, but I can't empathise with these people."
"I just thought: 'What? You can't empathise with someone who made a mistake? Or someone who followed their heart? Or someone who hurt someone they love? Or someone who did something stupid when they're drunk?'
"I think you can empathise with that experience, you don't have to agree with it, but you can understand it and empathise with it and I suppose that's what we're ultimately trying to do on this show, is just to normalise things that maybe we're quick to judge in normal life and say, 'Hey, this is just a normal person who's gone through an extraordinary experience.'
"A lot of people [who] appear on our show have come out the other end so we get to hear the wisdom: 'How did you come through that? How did you grow from it? What did you learn from that?'
"In Cheaters, people had got through the other side, worked with psychologists, had become better people and better partners so, even though Cheaters is a titillating sounding episode, we thought that was a really, really important episode talking about relationships."
Why do you think people are prepared to go on and subject themselves to such confronting questions?
"I think now they realise we're going to treat their story with respect and they're giving their take from their lived experience, not someone else giving their opinion on it.
"I think, also, all the people [who] come on our show own who they are, own their story. That's an important part because, if they own it, then they're comfortable talking about it.
"They've faced these questions a lot of times in their life but often from someone's snickering behind their back or someone asking in an inappropriate way or rude way.
"But, with our format, they get the power — in some sense — they're the centre of attention, they get to pick the question up and take that question before anyone else, they get to respond however they want to respond and that's a rare chance for people.
"At the end of the interview, I say [to them] if there's anything you don't want included let me know.
"Often, they will say, 'I was expecting those questions to be worse. I've faced worse in my own life'.
"But it's not for everyone, there are definitely people who have said, 'Yes' and got cold feet at the last minute. It's a big risk to come on TV and talk about these things. It's called You Can't Ask That because we don't hold back on the questions.
"But I often keep in touch with old participants and the feedback is incredible. It's not uncommon to hear that they've had this overwhelming positive response from friends, family, complete strangers, thanking them for speaking so openly.
"I got this email the other day from this guy, John Grayson, who was in our terminally ill episode in season one. His email was titled in brackets: 'I'm finally dying'.
"He's now in a hospice and he said he still gets emails from people, thanking him for being on the show and answering those questions and he said it was such a highlight for him in the last few years of his life.
"So, I think, it's been overwhelmingly positive for the people who are on it and for the audience.
"The most common feedback I get is, 'I laugh, I cry, I learned something, he changed my mind on something' and that's the highest compliment I think we could get — that people are learning something from our show as well as it being entertaining."
You Can't Ask That is on ABC TV on Wednesday nights at 9pm or binge the whole series on iview
