Lest anyone accuse me of wanting to side with Piers Morgan in his clumsy defence of Chris Gayle’s excruciatingly public chat up lines in Australia, I must make clear I usually follow the satirical magazine Private Eye in dubbing him Piers Moron.
The former CNN presenter and editor predictably fell into one of his renowned Twitter controversies after suggesting that the Australian journalist Mel McLaughlin should have been “flattered” when the Jamaican batting legend propositioned her during a post-match TV interview in Hobart.
Morgan has form on awkwardly-received flirting himself. On his first day as co-presenter of ITV’s Good Morning Britain last November, his immediate riposte to a jokey reference by co-host Susanna Reid to herself as “Morgan’s TV wife” was “Do I get conjugal rights?”
Quite funny actually. But like his off-the-cuff defence of Gayle, it was clearly a projection of embarrassing middle-aged wishful thinking.
Stick to annoying the NRA with support for Obama’s efforts on gun control, Piers!
As for the Jamaican batting legend himself, he at least appeared to dimly notice Ms McLaughlin’s discomfort, because after responding to a question about his hitting style by saying, “to see your eyes for the first time is nice. Hopefully we can have a drink afterwards,” he added the now viral: “Don’t blush, baby.”
Somewhat strangely, upon fining Gayle $10,000 for breaching expected professional standards during the interview, his appropriately named Big Bash employers, the Melbourne Renegades, cited “cultural differences” in his defence.
As a performer sometimes expected to respond to hecklers, I have to feel sorry for Mel McLaughlin because I am sure all her friends afterwards will have told her the perfect comeback line to Gayle would have been for her to have brought the stadium down by telling him: “In your dreams.”
Next time, maybe.
But in the meantime, it’s all been enough to create a perfect storm of social media outrage. That’s the way the INTERNET works.
However, I can’t help agreeing with Gayles’ defenders that as bad behaviour by sports stars justifying a professional fine goes, his offence was remarkably trite and relatively harmless.
Must everything that sports stars say be subjected to online lynch mobs?
I think not. The case of Tyson Fury, the recently crowned British world Heavyweight boxing champion, comes to mind.
A huge petition was organised in December calling on the BBC to rule him out of the running for its popular Sports Personality of the Year vote because of his history of misogynistic and homophobic remarks.
In addition to suggesting “a woman’s place” was “in the kitchen or on her back,” Fury’s expression of religious beliefs equating abortion and homosexuality with paedophilia, understandably caused offence.
Whether the call to ban him, which is predicated on the inherently flawed idea that sports stars have to be role models, was justifiable, is a moot point.
In the event, Great Britain’s Davis Cup hero Andy Murray deservedly romped home and Fury failed to make the top three.
Recognition went where it was due. To a well rounded, dry-witted individual whose enormous ability has struggled to keep pace with his contemporary Novak Djokovic snapping at the heels of Laver and Federer in the all-time-greats stakes.
For his part, Murray, a massive boxing fan, refused to have any truck with calls to ban Fury, while clearly not endorsing his comments.
Perhaps he had in mind, like I did, Tyson Fury’s turbulent upbringing in the much stigmatised Irish traveller community.
As an articulate, if foot-in-mouth, individual, Fury’s accomplishments could have gone some way to overcoming the gross caricature of Irish travellers exemplified by Brad Pitt’s incoherent portrayal of a traveller boxer in the film Snatch.
Or more likely he was thinking of Muhammad Ali, no mean slouch himself with sexist remarks, who was the most popular sports personality in Britain (and the world) bar none in the 1970s.
Although occasionally called up by the likes of Sir David Frost on his (since recanted) Nation of Islam beliefs about white people being devils, his popularity in the UK never dimmed, as the public relished his charismatic wordplay and immense sporting talent.
The world has clearly moved on since then, a friend wistfully remarked during a chat about Tyson Fury.
Were people in the “old days” really more sexist, racist, and homophobic than today, or is it the case that allowing more space for offensive speech made it easier to challenge and ridicule bigoted views?
As it happens, the Fury furore erupted in the UK around the same time as half a million members of the British public petitioned the government to ban Donald Trump from the UK, after the curiously coiffured, would-be Republican candidate suggested banning Muslims from the United States.
For once, at least, governing politicians resisted the lure of cheap popularity by calling upon the UK’s traditions of free speech, and pointing out the lack of logic in responding to Trump’s offensive pandering to racists in seeking to ban Muslims with another ban. Two bans don’t make a right.
This was clearly the sensible stance.
By all means, refute his remarks freely and see how he responds.
And so it came to pass that Trump has gone on to compound his offensiveness, duly giving all US citizens good cause to pause before hitching their votes to his much-hyped bandwagon.
The same goes, in less globally important ways, for the increasingly inept responses by Fury, Gayle, Morgan to calls on them to retract their varyingly offensive remarks. This has merely helped give the public insight into their inner thoughts.
For this, we can thank the one thing all these prominent and powerful men have in common: Their failure to appreicate one of the golden rules of stand-up comedians.
When in a hole, stop digging!
