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Sam Newman – no laughing matter

22nd June, 2017
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Television personality Sam Newman leaves the Melbourne Magistrate's courts after appearing on a road rage charge, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010. (AAP Image/Joe Castro)
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22nd June, 2017
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Imagine having a bizarrely altered face like Sam Newman’s and then having the gobsmacking audacity to refer to someone else as an ‘it’.

In case you’ve been living under a rock – as many ageing, white men who think they are funny have been – on The Footy Show this week Newman made transphobic remarks (not jokes) about the American Caitlyn Jenner, who is transgender.

At a time in his life when the 72 year-old oafagenarian could be spending his time doing something meaningful like hiding his own Easter eggs, he’s instead sitting on his Channel Nine throne waiting to hurl insults at vulnerable people in a sad attempt to prop up the increasingly fragile part of his ego that is unable to be rectified by cosmetic surgery.

The defence of Newman as trying to ‘be funny’ is paradoxically laughable. As Newman, journalists Mark Robinson and Eddie McGuire have all been forced to discover, being funny is much harder than it looks.

Being a minimal-thinking jerk with a flagrant disregard for the feelings of others, however is much easier, which is why so many lazily choose that path.

I’m not transgender so I can’t speak for people who are, but I am a human being who considers the impact of my words and actions on others. I also have a mate who recently announced that she is transgender and I can’t begin to imagine the complex emotional experience she has lived up until this point in her life.

Compare that to the emotional experience of Newman, deciding who to insult every week in the name of cheap laughs. My mate has more courage, integrity, intelligence, humour and compassion in her new wig than Newman has in his entire being.

Television personality Sam Newman leaves the Melbourne Magistrate's courts

(AAP Image/Joe Castro)

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That Newman was set up by Billy Brownless is a cowardly, pathetic excuse. Who could seriously expect any different from Billy, the Geelong simpleton who has previously and publicly called women ‘hookers’ and compared his wife to a wallet?

Sadly, Brownless thinks he’s being funny too, though unfortunately for him he is unencumbered with the neurological apparatus required to be so, unless of course your humour gene is trapped in the 1970s when punching down was accepted as funny.

The defence of ‘humour’ no longer stands. Unlike the intellectual states of Brownless, Newman and others, the world changes, which is why sexist, racist and otherwise hurtful comedy is now exposed as the base rubbish that it is.

That people who are clearly incapable of higher level thinking are continually given public platforms to disseminate their vile and stupid thoughts is the only part of this that comes as a shock.

None of this is about the ‘nanny state’ or ‘political correctness’, it’s about not being a mean and nasty. Commercial television fails to recognise this in the pursuit of ratings and revenue, and viewers are complicit from their lounge rooms.

Vicitm blaming is usually frowned upon, but not by me. If you watch The Footy Show Sam Newman’s cruelty is exactly what you deserve. Could anyone seriously expect any different?
But thankfully, everything is okay now as Newman has apologised.

Just like Mark Robinson apologised when joking about Alex Fasolo’s mental health and Eddie McGuire apologised when joking about Adam Goodes and Caroline Wilson, and Wayne Carey apologised for whatever he did and the St Kilda Football Club always apologise when their club’s archaic culture is exposed.

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The only problem with these apologies is that no consequences are attached to them. They are so insincere and meaningless that the repeated transgressions by the blundering buffoons are entirely expected.

That St Kilda of all clubs chose to castigate Newman in defence of transgender people has got to be one of the greatest examples of token altruism since Ted Bundy wrote a thesis on crime prevention.

I’d sooner accept vaccination tips from Pauline Hanson than moral platitudes from the Saints.

St Kilda would be better served ‘doing’ rather than ‘saying’ if they want the public’s perception of them to change. In their defence, the mistakes of young men are far more forgivable than those of old men.

Peter Cook once said, ‘I have learnt from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly.’

As can Newman, McGuire and Brownless. Now that’s funny.

I eagerly await Newman’s 2018 apology.

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