Netflix has removed four Chris Lilley comedy shows with controversial characters.
The streaming service offered no statement on the matter but did confirm to Variety that We Can Be Heroes, Summer Heights High, Angry Boys and Jonah From Tonga have been dropped from the Australian and New Zealand platform.
It comes as the Black Lives Matter movement is reignited across the world in the wake of George Floyd's death in America.
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Summer Heights High and Jonah from Tonga feature the same polarising character Jonah Takalua, who attracted widespread criticism when the shows debuted in Australia.
The Guardian's Morgan Godfery said about the persona: "No matter how worthy the satire, Jonah's brownface is never neutral. Is it really necessary to dress in brownface to make the point that 'the Island boys', to quote one of Jonah's teachers, have a hard time at school?
"The danger here is that instead of critiquing stereotypes, his character risks re-inscribing them. When high schoolers tell their teacher to 'puck off', are they critiquing 'Island' stereotypes or indulging in something that's only acceptable when impersonating a brown body?"
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In Angry Boys, Chris Lilley controversially debuted his black rapper character Shwayne Booth Jr, also known as S.mouse, who lives in America. The character performed the highly problematic song 'Swashed N****' on the show, which, again, gained a lot of angry comments.
Speaking to Ralph magazine in 2011, Lilley explained how he approached the character, saying: "The world of S.mouse is not my world - I don't know people like that. I know about the world of hip-hop because I'm interested in that kind of music but I wanted to show that world in a different way, not just present all the usual clichés.
"I wanted it to be a genuine story about a genuine guy. But being in that make-up, speaking that way and interacting with the black actors who played my family... it was very far-removed from anything I'm used to."
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Lilley also portrayed Chinese physics student character Ricky Wong on We Can Be Heroes.
Two other Chris Lilley comedy shows, Lunatics and Ja'mie Private School Girl still appear on Netflix.
That's despite the former having a South African female character named Jana, which led to many people questioning whether Lilley was donning darker makeup to portray the animal psychic. Lilley's producer Laura Waters shut down any comments of blackface.
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"Correcting some confusion - in the new show Lunatics, Chris Lilley is not portraying a woman of colour," she wrote. "When the series is released you will see that Jana is a white woman with huge 70s style curly hair."
Lilley has copped loads of criticism over the years for some of his more controversial characters, however he revealed that he doesn't listen to the haters.
The Australian comic told The Weekend Australian: "Reading all those opinions would affect me, and it would affect what I was trying to create next. Earlier in my career I didn't have to think about it [social media]. Now I choose not to. It's easy - you just don't look."
Featured Image Credit: Netflix/ABCTopics: TV and Film, News, Australia