What was Brian Taylor thinking last Saturday night? He’s no fool, a sharp talker and a better than most caller of a footy game.
He’s got a bit of cheek, wit and theatre. But what got into his head when he called Geelong’s Harry Taylor “a big poofter?”
BT was just being one of the boys, mouthing off for Seven’s footy faithful. He was reacting to Harry Taylor being chaired off the ground by his teammates in celebration of his 150th game. BT’s no stander on ceremony. Such celebrations are ‘crap’ and made Harry look like “a big poofter.”
This is more than a bit rich. It’s offensive.
Seven’s panel laughed at BT’s comment. Comic Mick Molloy has prior form on homophobia. In 2010, he and sidekick Eddie McGuire were accused of making homophobic comments against American skater Johnny Weir during Nine’s coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Who could ever forget Molloy’s apology.
“I suggested that there was a disaster happening at the ice skating rink because organisers had found out one of the male ice dancers wasn’t gay”, Molloy declared, “and I apologise for that really sincerely.”
Geelong great and coaching aspirant, Cameron Ling, also laughed as did Luke Darcy. He was on Triple M when McGuire made his ‘King Kong’ comment. On that occasion Darcy realised McGuire had crossed the line. On this occasion, however, he laughed along with the boys.
A savvier bunch would have immediately issued an apology, but BT waited until half-time. By this time Seven’s management and the AFL had stepped in requesting BT say sorry. What a farce it turned out to be. Taylor looked silly and the apology seemed half-hearted.
BT was benched by 3AW for Sunday’s Pies-Bombers clash. As he explained, the station’s management had given him “a day off to collect [his] thoughts.” He was also off to modern managerialism’s other preferred course of punishment, counselling, whatever that entails.
The hope is that BT will emerge a more enlightened person, give up his blokesworld ways and begin to embrace social and cultural diversity.
You can’t help feeling sorry for him. Twitterers called him a throwback to the eighties when racism and poofter-bashing were part of footy culture. Before Michael Long and Nicky Winmar made their stands, anything went on the field.
Though the AFL has done a great deal to stamp out racism, BT’s so-called ‘gaffe’ suggests poofter-baiting is still part of the game. Serial sledger, St Kilda’s Stephen Milne, called Magpie Hertier Lumumba a ‘f****** homo c***’ in 2012. Milne was reported by an umpire, but Lumumba would have preferred to let the matter lapse, because such remarks were “so normal in our society.”
They were echoed on the Footy Show when Sam Newman labelled NFL draftee Michael Sam’s kissing of his boyfriend “annoyingly gratuitous.” It was heard in the claims of former Lions and Bulldogs player Jason Akermanis who questioned football clubs’ readiness to accept gay players. For his comments, Akermanis was pilloried in the press and sacked by the Bulldogs.
Similarly, Hawthorn great Jason Dunstall and the Herald Sun’s Damien Barrett have cautioned that an openly gay player would suffer crowd taunts.
Judging from BT’s remarks, they’d also suffer the odd ‘poofter’ jibe from the commentary box. He’s got form in this area. In June he made an on-air remark about a colleague’s “gay” dress sense.
Unfortunately BT’s most recent ‘gaffe’ coincided with Ian Thorpe’s dignified coming-out interview with Michael Parkinson. Thorpe told of the constraints his swimming career had placed on his life. He was called “a poof” and “faggot” in the street, and lived his life in a strait-jacket.
“I was trying to be what I thought was the right athlete by other people’s standards”, he explained.
He asked did Australians want their “champions to be gay” and had concerns about his marketability which kept him living the “lie.”
The cost for athletes who do come out has been high. Not only have they seen their earning potential decline, but some have faced ostracism from colleagues and families.
Take Justin Fashanu. He was Britain’s first million pound black football player, and one of only two to admit publicly they were gay while still playing.
His manager at Nottingham Forest, Brian Clough, chided Fashanu for going to “poofs clubs.” When Fashanu finally came out in 1990, he was abused from the terraces and ostracised by his equally famous footballing brother, John.
Rejected by his family and the broader football community, Justin committed suicide in 1998.
His story suggests why few gay footballers come out. The costs are too high.
So too does BT’s so-called ‘gaffe’.
To label someone a ‘poofter’ is to suggest that person doesn’t belong. Their values not only differ from the so-called norm, but also are lesser. It’s not a word that promotes social inclusion or diversity, and goes against the trends in contemporary Australian sport.
In April, Australia’s major sporting codes committed to ban homophobic behaviour. Some AFL players and clubs have gone further. Carlton’s Brock McLean and Richmond’s Daniel Jackson have marched in support of gay rights, while last week the Geelong Football Club endorsed marriage equality between the sexes.
Despite these moves for a more inclusive football and sporting culture, blokesworld opinions are still heard. This is not forty years ago when poofter was part of the lexicon and gays faced criminal charges for not being straight.
We have moved on. States have removed anti-gay legislation. At the risk of bloke-bashing, it’s now time to get homophobic remarks off the field and out of the commentary box.
Dr Tom Heenan lectures in sport studies at Monash University
casper
Guest
Insult to the german shepherd breed in my opinion. The worst part in any of these tightly scripted public apologies is the underlying feeling that they are sorry because they were caught out, not for what they did. That's the semtiment of the footy players who get sacked or suspended & BT appears on the same wavelength. He'd be nearly an irrelevance nowdays.
Shouts Chen
Guest
I think that Brian Taylor needs to get out of the commentary box from Channel 7 - sick and tired of his tone. And Channel 7 has had the worst commentators in its broadcast history. Lets keep our fingers crossed for Channel 9 to win the AFL rights. Channel 9 has decent commentators
Doc
Guest
My 16 year old is an AFL player and complete footy-head. When we were watching TV and heard BT call 'Professor' Taylor a 'poofter' my son was contemptuous of BT, even remarking that BT was 'a dickhead' for saying it. Not only that, when I asked why he made the astute observation that BT 'had form', was in no doubt about what BT meant when he said it and unlike the game day panel - he did not find it funny at all. While using terms like 'gay' amongst his teenaged footy-head mates isn't (for the most part) a homophobic slur - although they consider the term 'poofter' certainly is - but something more akin to a gratuitous insult and only OK when its used between mates humourously but not outside of this context. Kind of explains why he not only knew exactly what BT meant and why he was so contemptuous of BT for saying it. Pity more of the grownups on AFL Game Day Live couldn't be so discerning - condemning BT rather than laughing along with or even at him.
Jason Wilkins
Guest
Uh oh, it's the "PC gone mad" line again. alicesprings, if you talk to people in a respectful way, then you will have no problems communicating with anyone. It's that simple.
Jason Wilkins
Guest
:-) I see that Ash has no comeback for that
Dean
Guest
mcmanpp, I think I love you :-)
mcmanpp
Guest
I think Brian Taylor was expressing a homophobic comment. He wasn’t complimenting Harry Taylor. It was a put down that his wave to the crowd was worthy of ridicule because it was the behaviour of a poofter (ie gay man) who is an inferior male. Phobia or fear of homosexuality can be shown as an aversion to or dislike of behaviour that the homophobe regards as insufficiently masculine.
Macca
Guest
At times the latest commnets to show up unless I post something, letters and numbers got me moderated so I use team names
Bayman
Guest
Ash, BT's 'light hearted comedy' is only aimed at others to make them appear silly, embarrassed, uncomfortable. Strange, given he's the joke! As for keeping us informed, which game are you watching? He's opinionated, I'll give him that but opinions aren't facts, nor are they information. I will concede, however, that I'd rather watch BT than anything involving 'Hutchy'!
Bayman
Guest
Keep going, Macca, you haven't listed every club yet....
Bayman
Guest
Not a bad assessment of BT's attributes as a commentator......and I'm still trying to work out what Mick Malloy has to offer the game as a footy panellist. A complete waste of space and time. I presume Channel Seven is under the impression that what the punters want is 'entertainment' rather than football. So we get BT rabbiting on about who knows what and saying things that are meant to be absolutely hilarious but turn out to be a bit insulting. The word was that this segment was rehearsed, not ad lib, so one can only wonder at the genius who is producing the football coverage at Seven. It's fine for Seven to demand BT apologise but what happened to the behind-the-scenes guru? I dare say, mcmanpp, that even some Collingwood supporters are now saying that BT is really a Richmond guy, not a Magpie. I guess you can take the boy out of the bush but not the bush out of the boy. Country WA must seem like a long time ago to BT now but old habits obviously die hard. Perhaps there should be a time limit on how long a commentator can continue on air. Some, like BT and Eddie, have been in the media so long they seem to think it was especially designed for them so they can do and say what they like. After awhile they just stop being relevant or informative. They start digressing because they assume they have something important/witty/knowledgable to say. After awhile, it turns out, they're wrong! They're just wasting our time. I certainly don't think BT is homophobic, I just think he's past his use-by date.
Dean
Guest
at 1:13 in the video "What are you doin here you poofter?" at 1:23 "Take that ya big fag"
Dean
Guest
at 6:12 in the video "Watch out - there are a couple of poofters down the track"
Dean
Guest
@Shrek, Call every boy and every man that you see, a 'p--fter' or 'f-gg-t'. Call every black person that you see, a 'n-gg-r'. Call every girl and every woman that you see, a 'd-ke'. After all, according to you, they're just plain old slang, right?
Dean
Guest
"It's hard enough for lads at amateur level to be truthful to their teammates about being gay" Yep, as this article suggests: http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/news/10273706/Homophobia-follows-player-from-NZ-to-Sydney
Shrek
Guest
the term "poofter" first appeared in 1911 whereas "Dickhead" appeared in 1969. To state that dickhead has long lost its offensive value due to time as compared to a term conned 55 years prior is plain stupid. The term poofter is used as slang to reference gay people and this is well established, the only difference is the word, NOT the meaning as they mean exactly the same thing so I fail to see how apart from sensationalism and feigned insult, this can be more denigrating then a term literally meaning you have a dick on your head. As to your point about it being a homophobic slur, homophobia means exactly this, An extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people. As I have explained the definition of the word poofter, you can clearly see how it fails to be a homophobic slur (a popular catch phrase for the ignorant) as it is slang for homosexual male. Not irrational, not an aversion, just plain old slang. Stop feigning insult where none exists and un-knot your knickers.
Dean
Guest
Do you find this story amusing, Bill? http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/10273706/Homophobia-follows-player-from-NZ-to-Sydney
Dean
Guest
Is this also funny to you Bill? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8kHRLGfMtY
Dean
Guest
Food for thought http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23tFWqaS2cc
Dean
Guest
Do you think this is a minor issue, Lyn? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvMIOUuY11M