By Jonathan Howcroft
Last night on The Footy Show Sam Newman called someone a monkey. More than once. He offered further detail by indicating that same person had only recently stopped swinging from trees in a jungle. The person he was referring to was Malaysian. Later on in the same caustic segment Newman introduced Serena Williams into the same derogatory equation.
Sam Newman is a successful public agitator. Like Kyle Sandilands, he knows what he’s doing and revels in his notoriety. He is expert in pushing the boundaries of decency, knowing that the result is greater fame, increased ratings and an inflated ego. Unsurprisingly, he is loved because of this. Channel Nine, for example, pays him a reported $3m for his opinions. Not only that, the station has repeatedly backed him against claims of misogynism and racism as well as a plethora of on and off air indiscretions. When he was briefly stood down from the show in 2008 it was on compassionate grounds to recover from prostate cancer – not because he superimposed the face of a leading female sports journalist onto a cardboard replica of a semi-naked model before touching and goading it during a live broadcast.
When Newman made the monkey comments last night the faces of colleagues Gary Lyon, James Brayshaw and Brendon Fevola all dropped in horror. None of them said anything. None of them made a stand or walked out. Within minutes the team were playfully force-feeding Lyon sheep’s testicles.
On the message boards of the AFL’s most committed supporters the immediate response was mixed, but pre-emptive defence of Newman’s comments was far stronger than claims of their inappropriateness. The most prevalent tone adopted by Newman’s defenders was that what he said was not ‘racist’ per se – it just happened that the Malaysian gentleman and Serena Williams were both dark-skinned. This is followed up by the assertion that Newman makes no allowances for his targets, that anyone and everyone is fair game, irrespective of nationality, colour, gender or whatever. It was offered in Newman’s defence that, in the past, he has referred to white Australians as monkeys. So that’s alright then.
Clearly not.
The second theme in Newman’s defence is the assertion that, in the words of Avenue Q, ‘everyone’s a little racist sometimes’. Who cares if what he said was racist, it’s only the ‘PC brigade’ and uptight do-gooders who actually think it matters.
Except it does matter.
I’m not going to explain why Sam Newman’s comments and actions last night, and over a long media career, are repulsive. If you need an explanation you probably wouldn’t understand it anyway. All I want to know is how, in 2009, are individuals like this still able to get away with this kind of shit? Why does nobody take a stand? Why don’t supposedly educated and respectable colleagues like Lyon and Brayshaw pull him up over it? Why doesn’t Nine publicly rebuke, fine and sack him?
I suspect if I contacted Newman and his supporters I would be told ‘it’s all part of the game’. If I don’t like it, don’t tune in. But as Newman’s anthemic theme tune tells us every week – it’s more than a game.
