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May 13, 2009
The fallout from Monday night's Four Corners has a way to go yet, but it looks as though Matthew Johns' career prospects are being worked out today. And Kevin Rudd has yet to declare his personal disgust.
Plenty has already been said about the simple, but complicated, issue of rugby league players' off-field behaviour and a continuing pattern of abuse of women. Simple because sexual violence is plain wrong. Complicated for all sorts of reasons, some of them explored in the Four Corners program.
Consent is fuzzy when all parties are drunk. Some women do consider footy star-f.cking a hobby and how are dim footy players expected to know the difference? Players are trained to practice tribal aggression and encouraged to think of themselves as exceptional. The normal rules of reporting assault don't apply when a woman is going to be subjected to suspicion and outrage from clubs, media and fans. Boys will be boys. There's something suspiciously homoerotic going on. And on and on it goes.
Personally, I'd be happy if rugby league sank into oblivion altogether. Matthew Johns is just the current symbolic figure to embody a small part of what's wrong with the whole ideal of televised meathead aggression.
He'd be a significant scalp. High profile playing career, Footy Show co-host, game commentator. He's an all-round media star, which is part of the problem. If Nine and Fox sack him, justice can be seen to be done and we can all forget about it and get on with our lives.
Trevor Cook thinks Johns should apologise, make restitution, and make a difference. I'll go along with that, as long as it's relentless. He should keep his Footy Show job, and his good deeds should be broadcast far and wide.
And dig up another Deb Spillane to take his commentary job. While Johns sets the example for the appropriate treatment of women, a strong female commentator can set the example for a proper female footy fan. And find some token psychologist for league broadcasts to point out the Freudian connotations of just about everything the game thinks is manly and the Footy Show thinks is funny.
Update
Part One of the Tracey Grimeshaw interview with Mathew Johns and his wife on A Current Affair There are three parts to the video on the Current Affair site. It is an excellent interview.
For good commentary on the issue a useful place to start is still the article linked to early in the post---- Michael Jeh's One of the Boys over at Unleashed. This describes the culture of the NFL, which is where a lot of the problems lie, since this is a culture accepting of the degrading treatment of women.
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I didn't watch the 4 Corners show, but from the bits I heard in the media flows it looks as if they only scratched the surface of the deep seated sexual abuse that is currently being covered up as good clean consensual group sex.
Interesting how quick the politicians are to condemn sexual images by Bill Henson, but are so silent when it comes to rape NFL style. They all run for cover.