Love Letter to John Safran

If I am a fangirling about anyone it must be John Safran. I watched his Music Jamboree, Race Relation, John Safran vs God and Speaking in Tongues. I read Murder in Mississippi (God'll Cut you Down in the US) and Extremism. I listened his Triple J episodes with Father Bob and his podcasts about true crime. I even have his songs Melbourne Tram and Down to Jewtown on repeat. In 3 short points I want to explain why John Safran is my spirit animal.

1. His Topics: Race, Religion, Conspiracies, True Crime: John Safran has no shame in going deep into these topics. They are complicated, messy, and at times uncomfortable. He tackles them head on, getting his hands dirty (sometimes with chicken blood, while getting woodo cursed). There is no solution, but a thread of events, mostly personal that lay out the big theories of these topics.

2. His approach: For a lack of a better word I’d say “authentic”. He is approaching things with an open mind and judging them if he feels weirded out, even if that’s not culturally appropriate. But he does so by completely indulging into a topic and mostly “making a fool of himself” (As Sheikh Omar Bakri would say during the “Big Fatwa”). Whether that’s blackfacing or going on a date as a Thai ladyboy he will make you laugh and thus think.

3. His craft: John Safran is awkward and this is reflected in the medium he uses. Intended pauses or countless “ MHMs” on Triple J, Stylistic writing to emphasize his curiosity, and cinematographic realizations of him as a completely different character when showing dramatizations are just a few aspects that emphasize his message via the use of medium.

Inspired by him I walked around in a dishdasha for my uni newspaper article, or bought a greek orthodox priest robe to bless people at pree drinks.

John Safran is funny, interesting, and involuntarily counter cultural. As weird as this sounds, I really want to be his friend.