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When booing is taken too far

Roar Pro
29th July, 2015
20

The world is a strange place. While people go hungry, militant groups try to take over the world, and politicians worry about how to hide their next helicopter trip, we in Australia sit at the dinner table and debate the merits and ethics of booing.

Booing has been around for a long time. Whether you hear it when a politician sets foot on stage or certain identities walk into a room, the art of booing has long been used by the Australian public.

Yet for the first time in a long time, a pastime which has always had a jovial undertone is being debated as a serious matter.

Unless you’ve been stuck in a helicopter high above Geelong, there is a national debate taking place over the justifications for booing one of the great champions of the AFL, Adam Goodes.

Conspiracy theories abound as to why the booing is taking place. Some think it’s for staging and acting for free kicks, others think it’s because he called out a 13-year-old girl in the crowd for a poor and uninformed remark about the player’s race.

The AFL thinks it might be to do with the colour of Adam’s skin.

The fact that is interesting in the whole debate is that no one knows why people are booing. I honestly don’t think Adam knows why people are booing, they just are.

What is clear in the debate is the seriousness with which booing is now be taken. It seems to have moved on from the jovial thing to do when you are watching the best player on the other team take your team apart. It seems to now being a representation of your opinion towards a players race, manner and personality.

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Suddenly booing has become serious.

Booing does affect individuals. The King (Wally Lewis) has always said that it hurt a little bit when he, as Australian captain, would lead his team out onto the SCG to the sound of the crowd booing.

But Wally realised later in life that this booing wasn’t all that serious. He realised that the booing may indeed have been a compliment to the player and leader that he was for Queensland, rather then being anything judgemental about who he was as an individual.

The booing of Adam Goodes is interesting. It appears as though it began – or at least began to be noticed – after Adam established his views on the plights of Aboriginal people. And for many this has been established as the reason for the booing.

In becoming a higher profile athlete, Adam’s game was also more closely scrutinised. Through being scrutinised, certain people noticed Adam may have been exaggerating contact to draw free kicks.

Again, for many this has been put forward as the reason for the booing.

There are only two conclusions to draw on this debate. Firstly, for some reason people feel the need to boo Adam on the field of play and that need to boo will continue to be debated.

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The second conclusion is a lot more serious. It appears that booing an individual – or at least this individual – is an ill-informed judgement call about someone based on what he does off the field and what he stands for on it.

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