Jonah

Jonah or Jonas (Hebrew: יוֹנָה, Modern Yona, Tiberian Yônā ; dove; Arabic: يونس‎ Yūnus, Yūnis or يونان Yūnān ; Latin: Ionas) is the name given in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh/Old Testament) to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC. He is the eponymous central character in the Book of Jonah, famous for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation. The biblical story of Jonah is repeated, with a few notable differences, in the Qur'an.

Story of Jonah

Jonah is identified as the son of Amittai, and he appears in 2 Kings aka 4 Kings as a prophet from Gath-Hepher, a few miles north of Nazareth. He is therein described as being active during the reign of the second King Jeroboam (c.786–746 BC), and as predicting that Jeroboam will recover certain lost territories.

Jonah is the central character in the Book of Jonah. Commanded by God to go to the city of Nineveh to prophesy against it "for their great wickedness is come up before me," Jonah instead seeks to flee from "the presence of the Lord" by going to Jaffa, identified as Joppa or Joppe, and sailing to Tarshish, which, geographically, is in the opposite direction. A huge storm arises and the sailors, realizing that it is no ordinary storm, cast lots and discover that Jonah is to blame. Jonah admits this and states that if he is thrown overboard, the storm will cease. The sailors try to dump as much cargo as possible before giving up, but feel forced to throw him overboard, at which point the sea calms. The sailors then offer sacrifices to God. Jonah is miraculously saved by being swallowed by a large whale-like fish in whose belly he spends three days and three nights. While in the great fish, Jonah prays to God in his affliction and commits to thanksgiving and to paying what he has vowed. God commands the fish to spew Jonah out.

Jonah Takalua

Jonah Takalua is a fictional character in the Australian mockumentary series Summer Heights High, and the titular character in the six-part Jonah from Tonga. He is portrayed in brownface by Chris Lilley, who also created the two shows. In 2007, referring to the character's appearances in Summer Heights High Sydney Morning Herald television critic Michael Idato wrote that "Jonah Takalua is well on the way to becoming the voice of his generation." Referring to Jonah from Tonga in 2014, a series in which the character is much more heavily featured, Fahina Tavake-Pasi, the executive director of the National American Tongan Society, said: "When you’re white trying to play brown and have never been in the community, what comes out is the stereotype of what’s underneath that brown paint: a white man’s stereotype, a white man’s racism, a white man’s perspective of our community, a white-man assumption, devaluing, all of that.”

Concept and creation

In writing Summer Heights High, Lilley decided to base the series around three key characters (all portrayed by him) through whom he could examine three different experiences of high school, that of the schoolboy (Jonah), that of the schoolgirl (Ja'mie King) and that of the teacher (Mr G). He created Jonah to explore the world of the male student, with the character's delinquent, disruptive personality arising from Lilley's desire to play a character very different from himself and the person he had been at high school. In order to develop the character's voice and mannerisms, he met and interviewed Pacific Islander children and "just naughty teenage boys", studying their behaviour and speech patterns. "Chris goes out and meets people his characters are like and he makes studies of them, takes notes or interviews people and sometimes films them. He watches those videos over and over and over," says Ryan Shelton, who collaborated with Lilley on his first series, We Can Be Heroes: Finding The Australian of the Year.