In Which Your Hostess Takes A Tired Subject And Flogs The Dead Horse Further

Erin Andrews.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Shut up. Enough already. I don’t care about it anymore. Talk about Michael Jackson or some other less exhausted subject.

My apologies. It’s just that, ever since the news broke, I’ve been in shock to discover that guys like to see hot chicks naked. I’m surprised somebody hasn’t started a magazine or something to fulfill the demand. Then I read the following and my state of confusion over this baffling revelation was replaced with awe at how absurdly self-righteous some people can be.

I wish women would stop propping up men’s sports. If women didn’t attend NFL games or NBA games, or even watch them on TV to help drive up ratings, they would be doing more to stop men from behaving badly than they could ever do otherwise. If they encouraged their sons to play sports instead of paying to watch other people play baseball or football or basketball or soccer [or *cough* hockey - ed], they would be sending the message that athleticism is good, but pro sports culture is bad. And it is, nothing but bad.

I am well aware this suggestion is the stuff of fantasy. That said, I never have understood why women participate in male sports culture, and then turn around and criticize it when something bad emanates from it. It’s a waste of time, pure and simple.

One douchebag behaving douchey does not invalidate the entire culture of pro sports. Maybe I’m insulated from a lot of it because very little of said douchery occurs in the sport of hockey. The NHL is a league where just being a dick at a press conference can get you booted off of a team. Ask Sean Avery about that. Besides, I’d wager with confidence that some asshole would be willing to violate the privacy and dignity of a woman such as Erin Andrews if she were an actress, a dentist, a lawyer, or a fry cook at a truck stop diner. Being a sports reporter has nothing to do with male interest in having a peek at her ta-tas. The only thing that makes her job relevant is the celebrity status that brought the video into our living rooms instead of it being private bathroom wanking fodder for one lonely pervert.

Pro sports bring hours of entertainment for family and friends. They encourage civic pride and give people hope by having victory to root for. I can’t think of a single professional team that doesn’t require their players to participate in community-based charities, not that most of them wouldn’t do so voluntarily. They generate revenue for cities that contribute to public services. Children have athletes and successful, skilled adults to look up to (not all of them are jerks, you know) and aspire to their levels of achievement. This is why I participate in “male sports culture.” One creep with a camera catching some hot tail on tape without her permission does not toss all of the positive aspects of sports out the window. I wouldn’t dismiss the workforce at a Hershey’s factory as evil just because Jeffrey Dahmer killed and ate people (he worked at a chocolate factory, too!). Baby, bath water. You know all the clichés.

Pure and simple, I’ll thank the author of that blog to leave it to me to decide what is or is not a waste of my own damn time. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check baseball scores.

~Emily Beezwax

The “Married With Children” Effect

Dearest Mr. Lars von Trier,
I am writing you to express my outrage over your latest morally repugnant (apparently) film entitled Antichrist. Like others who have not seen it yet feel comfortable passing judgement on its merits, it is my wish that such motion pictures presenting themselves under the guise of high art and serious examinations of human emotions be banned from cinemas nationwide. Anything so bereft of virtue and fortitude has no place for public consumption among civilized persons with any regard for human temperance.

Rather than allow what appears to be a dreadful film slip into the obscurity it so rightfully deserves, I shall speak of it to all of my peers and loved ones and write a letter not only to my member of Parliament, but also the Prime Minister. I also intend to assemble a jury of fellow-minded citizens who share my concern for the distribution of such filth and seek to ban its like in the future. We will not allow awareness of such matters slip past larger public recognition. You can thank us for the excessive royalties and success once they are received.

Sincerely,
Edna Welthorpe (Mrs)*

*with thanks and possible apologies to Joe Orton. ~Emily Beezwax