A scandal of poultry proportions
Roar Pro By Benjamin Conkey, 10 Apr 2009 Benjamin Conkey is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- AFL, Brent Harvey, North Melbourne Kangaroos
It’s early days in the latest football misdemeanour, an AFL scandal already dubbed, Chicken-Gate. If you haven’t heard the news yet, the Kangaroos AFL team are in trouble after making a sex video about a Rooster.
I’ve just seen a short clip of the video. It’s nothing more than grown men acting like kids. It’s actually the kind of video that would of done well in a video production class at university.
The Kangaroos players told a story using Boris the Rooster, a sexual deviant who couldn’t resist having it off with a real chicken.
Unfortunately, though, for the players, they aren’t filmmakers. They are paid to play football, not direct the next Tropfest short film.
It’s the kind of humour Sam Newman uses all the time on the Footy Show. He gets away with it because he’s an entertainer.
Kangaroos captain Brent Harvey says the video was only made as an in-house joke. But that was until someone decided to put it on Youtube.
It’s not the worst thing football players have ever done. But in this climate, with all the problems facing all codes of football, it was quite a stupid thing to do.
In saying that, I find it ridiculous that the AFL is going to ‘educate’ the players. I think the public humiliation of this is already enough. I’m sure the players are already thinking that the only thing they did wrong was to put it on Youtube.
It was a bit of pre-season fun.
Perhaps they should be applauded for getting creative, rather than drinking another ten beers and physically harming someone.
I find all this talk about how offensive the video is funny. If people know the video is offensive, why do they even watch it?
Because we are all voyeuristic, deep down.
We want to know what everyone is talking about. If someone says we should be offended, we are.
Maybe I’ve watched too many South Park and Family Guy episodes, but it wasn’t that offensive. It was just a childish prank that no one would ever know about, if someone had kept the video in the club’s locker room.
Recommend this story.
- Explore:
- AFL, Brent Harvey, North Melbourne Kangaroos
April 10th 2009 @ 10:20pm
Dave said | April 10th 2009 @ 10:20pm | Report comment
You still dont get it Kurt…it is the production of such material (the thought processes or lack of in this case) that is the worry…the stupidity for grown men not to see what was wrong in their actions (apparently they do now!)?? And your defence of them, defending not what they did but that not many people would have seen it, almost beggars beyond belief. Thank goodness the football club took appropriate action demanded an apology from their players, a fine, donation, public apology at media conference, further education for the players etc. Doesnt seem like they share your view.
April 11th 2009 @ 7:17am
Kurt said | April 11th 2009 @ 7:17am | Report comment
Actually Dave you’re right, I genuinley don’t get it. All I can say is I hope your outrage meter goes up to 11, as you’ve already ramped it up to about a 9 over a rubber rooster. You’re going to have to ramp up the rhetoric to biblical proportions when someone actually does something bad.
April 11th 2009 @ 8:37am
Dave said | April 11th 2009 @ 8:37am | Report comment
Kurt
Whilst you are busy attacking me have a read of this comment in todays Age perhaps explains the matter a little better than l have to help you get it;
http://www.theage.com.au/news/rfnews/north-video-is-degrading/2009/04/10/1239223053981.html
BTW No one has said this is a hanging crime but…how you and others can defend what the players have done says we have a long way to go in addressing of these issues in our society. If have read all my posts l am also not singling out AFL players (in terms of attitudes) but players from all codes.
April 11th 2009 @ 12:26pm
BigAl said | April 11th 2009 @ 12:26pm | Report comment
. . . mmmmh! – Dave, I think Kurt is not defending what the players did – just the exposure it is getting in the media.
I think we’re all going to have to get used to this thought of thing ! – what with mobile phone tecnology/photography & the internet etc,… anyone with just the slightest public profile will have to watch out that what they hope is a private fart is not captured and posted.
Interesting – with the advances in technology all the seers were talking about the dangers of Big Brother – and it’s little brother that’s becoming the problem !
April 11th 2009 @ 3:24pm
matta said | April 11th 2009 @ 3:24pm | Report comment
Its sad to me that with how far we have come as a race, people cant just brush things off.
The truth is its probably a 50-50 split between who is and isn’t offended by the clip – and thats not based on sex. Plenty of young strong educated women I know cant get over how much is being made over it. Dave, you’re suggesting that silly little things like this are a blight on humanity and our culture while some people think its not much or even kinda funny. So, whos right? NO ONE SO DON’T TELL PEOPLE WHAT THEY SHOULD AND SHOULDN’T FIND FUNNY – GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE AND LET IT GO.
April 11th 2009 @ 3:26pm
matta said | April 11th 2009 @ 3:26pm | Report comment
For the record, I dont find the clip funny at all but Jesus, dont we have bigger issues to deal with?
April 11th 2009 @ 4:59pm
Dave said | April 11th 2009 @ 4:59pm | Report comment
matta
Just point out where l have said this is a blight on humanity? If you can read, l said its not a hanging crime! However as you have put your opinion so have l! Looks like we have a different opinion and thats fine but at least, if you are going to have a go, stick to what l have said not what you want to hear from your perspective. Below is the Age article;
North video is simply degrading
Patrick Smithers | April 11, 2009
TAKE your pick of the most appropriate “chickengate” adjective: Puerile? Childish? Infantile? Crass? Sexually tinged?
All thrown up by sports commentators in this town yesterday, and all wrong. No wonder the lads think the reaction to Little Boris has been overblown. They just don’t get it.
Try a few more: Obscene? Disgusting? Immature? Not even close. Obscenity can be challenging, disgusting can be funny and immature can be endearing. Boris was none of these things.
So there were no actual victims in the film? Well, bully. Of course there weren’t. It starred a couple of chickens, one rubber, the other deceased.
Then why on earth does it matter? It matters because it provided an insight into a mentality that, too often, ends up with real violence against real people. Just ask Nathan Bock’s girlfriend, or the countless women assaulted by men every day. Think of the club’s most recent famous player. Ponder why Phil Cleary is so fired up.
One commentator compared it to Brendan Fevola wearing a dildo in Federation Square. There is no comparison. Depending on your point of view, that’s silly, rude, or offensive, not to mention embarrassing for the mother who has to explain away the ridiculous man to her children. The Kangaroos’ production is different. It’s the normal stuff in the film that makes it scary, if you can call a rubber chicken and a dead chicken having a drink at the pub normal. Pot for him, wine for her. Just like any Saturday night after the game in pubs across the country. Footballers chatting up sheilas.
But sometimes it goes too far, as it does here. He roots her in the dunny, in the club rooms, on a desk, throws her violently against the wall, drives over her and roots her again.
If that’s too much information, sorry. But the selected bits shown on The Footy Show gave the impression it was a bit of undergraduate fun. The Herald Sun posted the most benign parts online and asked its readers to be the judge. A dishonest question if ever there was one. No wonder its feedback is full of complaints about the “feminist sook brigade”.
Enough has probably been said. We don’t need a self-righteous mob. Despite some quibbling, North seems to have reacted well. No doubt there are fine men at the club feeling bruised and reflecting on where this four minutes of madness came from. Most will never lay a hand on a woman. Equally, we shouldn’t hide behind euphemism to characterise what is best described as degrading.
Patrick Smithers is The Age’s night news editor.
April 11th 2009 @ 4:59pm
Benjamin Conkey said | April 11th 2009 @ 4:59pm | Report comment
Dave, do you remember when Sam Newman got into trouble for having that mannequin on the Footy Show representing Caroline Wilson? He was paying her out for having terrible dress sense so he put clothes on the mannequin that Caro should wear. AFL football women like Sam Lane were outraged by this because they said it was demeaning and offensive etc. But then Sam Lane joined in with fat jokes about Nick Stevens on the show ‘Before the game’.
Who is to say that Nick Stevens wasn’t offended by these jokes?
The Footy Show panel members constantly heckle host Garry Lyon on the show for having so much hair, and they refer to Jason Dunstall as an ape, which is clearly more ‘offensive’ than what Newman said about Caroline Wilson. Why don’t people complain about that? Why are women so precious?
My point is, this is Australia. We take the piss out of everyone and everything.
Yes the Kangaroos video was not funny. It wasn’t really anything. If anyone thinks they might be offended, there is no obligation to click the links on the news websites. You can’t really be offended if you don’t watch the clip….
April 11th 2009 @ 5:04pm
Benjamin Conkey said | April 11th 2009 @ 5:04pm | Report comment
Dave, on your last post. How can the Age be on the moral high ground when they posted the video everywhere on their wesbite?
April 11th 2009 @ 5:05pm
Kurt said | April 11th 2009 @ 5:05pm | Report comment
Come on Dave, I wasn’t ‘attacking you’, I was attacking your stated position on this issue which is just a bit different. And I understand you are not having a go at AFL specifically. At the end of the day if we’re all going to be held responsible for our ‘thought processes’ rather than our actions and we’re going to equate a silly chicken video with actual violence against women then I think we are in danger of becoming completely unhinged as a society.