Cracks in the Ice
Update: Extrovert US skater Johnny Weir is likened to "a bit of brokeback" by Eddie McGuire & Mick Molloy, while international media begins to pick up on the story.
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On Wednesday I watched the Men’s Figure Skating Short Programme on Foxtel. It was a world class event brimming with talent, and as the commentator observed, impossible to separate the top bunch.
One of the best athletes was US skater Johnny Weir, who I learned was one of the more colourful personalities in the finals. The extrovert Weir had already received death threats due to wanting to wear fox fur as part of his outfit. He decided against it. But he certainly put on quite a show, wowing the crowd with a theatrical performance and finishing sixth for his efforts.
He wasn’t the only showstopper. Japan’s Daisuke Takahashi put on such a performance he was likened to Michael Jackson by one commentator, while another was referred to as a “man’s man” amongst figure skaters.
Fortunately I didn’t have to hear the humour that Nine wheeled out later that night in its highlights package between Mick Molloy and Eddie McGuire. But by the sounds of things I missed quite a performance.
Yesterday Crikey ran a story on their chat which it quoted via this transcript:
EDDIE MCGUIRE: …what about the fashion at the ice skating?
…
MICK MOLLOY: They don’t leave anything in the locker room those blokes.
EDDIE: They leave nothing…
MICK: When they get out there…
EDDIE: They don’t leave anything in the closet either do they? [Laughs].
MICK: They [laughs], well they — careful you’ll get yourself into trouble there…
EDDIE: Sorry mate.
and
MICK: Look at this guy, it was like one of those fake tuxedos that you — even Prince saw that and went, oh hang on, you can’t go out wearing that. Oh look out, the hay seed look’s in this year. What is that?
EDDIE: A bit of broke back?
MICK: A bit of Brokeback Mountain exercise. You can’t wear it. They’re very flamboyant, they love a bit of colour as we said.
It’s now become a bit of a wildfire story, and it isn’t hard to see why. Out of context it’s hard to defend. In context it really isn’t any easier.
Several readers yesterday commented to TV Tonight that there were ‘homophobic’ comments in Nine’s coverage:
– “Their continual homophobic inuendo has convinced me to pay for the Foxtel coverage.. Seriously these two clowns should be barred off television.”
– “Unfortunately Mick Malloy had to waste time making homophobic comments last night and waste more time apologising for the same style of commentary on the previous night.”
– “They should call nines coverage of the Olympics, ‘The Footy Show on Ice’ disgusting appalling, sexist, homophobic, uneducated, uninformed.”
– “Just when Nine’s Olympic coverage couldn’t get even more terrible, now Eddie and Mick Molloy made gay jokes at a male figure skaters routine. Homophobia still alive and well at Nine.”
It has since been picked up by other media including News Ltd newspapers and gay press, as well as attracting fiery comment online. On the back of Nine’s NRL Footy Show comments being accused of vilification the timing is unfortunate. Of course rarely are such issues so black and white -Nine is also airing Dante’s Cove, showing no signs of any issue with sexuality.
Meanwhile, McGuire has already attracted criticism for his interview with Australian Silver medallist Dale Begg-Smith in which he appeared to prod the athlete into saying he was robbed of Gold.
Molloy and McGuire didn’t mention the Weir controversy last night during the Vancouver highlights package. Molloy is now travelling back to Australia to fulfill earlier commitments, which were in place before being booked by Nine.
TV Tonight contacted Nine over the issue which advised that there had been no complaints received prior to the Crikey article, which it declined to respond to.
Johnny Weir and the other amazing skaters take to the ice today for the Gold Medal in their event.
It should be quite a show, costume and all.
UPDATE:Â The comments are now being picked up by overseas media including NBC Philadelphia, The Sun, Digital Spy.
Source: Crikey,
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102 Responses
Has anyone listened to the crap James Brayshaw has been saying about men cuddling up together during some of the track events? It is just beyond the pale. David, is it possible Nine can be banned from hosting the Games again if ABA receives enough complaints?
Nope.
Johnny Weir will be interviewed by Eddie McGuire on Vancouver Gold highlights on Sunday night.
Wow great. Now the rest of the world is going to think Australia is racist and homophobic….
Eddie has all the charm of a cane toad. Nine’s live-ish coverage in the morning at least shows the sport (a little of it) but the evening program with the toad is actually the UnOlympic or AntiOlympic Show: we can hear about the games but we’re just not allowed to watch them (following Seven’s great example). Eddie and Mick (ribbit) think they are Roy and HG…but we don’t need light relief from the sport if we’re not being shown any in the first place!
I think homophobic remarks are a little over rated these days.. I dont understand what they wanted to achieve by saying that though.
@ Angry Young Man
The Medal Cermony hasn’t even been held yet. The Ceromony today was the flower ceromony.
The Ceromony will be in Vancouver Friday Night Canadian Time @ 7:00pm Pacific Time. which is 2pm AEDT on Saturday Afternoon.
I am pretty sure it will be live on Foxtel but Nine might be hamstrung by there horse raising committments as a Group 2 Race at Caulfield is due to be run at 2:05pm.
Re: The Comments I think that tonights show showed that this is a storm in a tea cup and the man who is laughing the most is the skater himself
Hello all idiots out there… when a program/movie is not rating/getting reviews, launch a publicity stunt..!! Have you not seen this before..?? Wait for the ratings tomorrow…
Only makes me feel better that all of Australia watched him destroy a network only to give up the job after it was way beyond his capabilities.
I could make plenty of comments about “gay” stuff while watching a football game, think eddie would find that funny?
Eddie just he held up an ad for a show by Johnny Weir in US magazine, in which he describes himself as a ‘Drama Queen”. Him being an extrovert is to promote himself it turns out! The over reaction to Eddie’s comments was an over the top over reaction.
Usually it is only The Daily Telegraph and The Herald-Sun who exaggerate stories just to get a headline.
I’m still amazed they gave Eddie a TV station to run. Ye gods. WIN’s coverage of the olympics is woeful. A bunch of non-sport crap, eddie and assorted dragged-in personalities, and then the best runs and the Australians. I want to see more sport and less of the crap about Vancouver and Canada and Eddie.
I’m a gay guy and I say “lighten up”. As an audience member, you’d have to blind not to be thinking what they were saying. A lot of the figure skaters are very effeminate. Not a criticism, simply a fact. I found the comments blokey and cheeky, hardly homophobic. In fact, I’d just turned to my partner at home before they said anything and commented “He’s a great skater, but he’s a huge girl.” But in a politically correct world, it’s obviously not kosher to state the bleeding obvious in public.
This coverage on Nine has been awful. They didn’t even play Torah Bright’s medal ceremony with the whole anthem. I effin’ hate having to buy a separate channel just to watch the Olympics… In America it’s broadcasting for 850 hours on NBC while we get screwed. There’s already three sports channels on Foxtel – what a con job. Argh.
Was Eddie McGuire “Humphrey B Bear” in disguise?
@tom. stop believing in the crap 7 put forward and the ioc don’t see what 7 show now do they. 7 don’t deserve the rights. they wouldn’t have even shown that snow board final today. it would be shown tomorrow at 10 to midnight
Eddie McGuire is just terrible with everything he’s on. He’s not talented i don’t know why Nine keep giving him hosting and commentary jobs.
ABC should have the Olympics and be able to show it on all 3 channels so we get even greater coverage and not just Australians. They’d at least do it with class.
Ten/ONE should have all other sports. Seven’s Olympic coverage, Australian open, and it’s AFL are all pretty crap as well, but they do have a lot of decent commentators. Nine are just bad all round.
@ Tom…you must of missed 7`s coverage of the Beijing games when they did ‘Yum Cha’ ….that was television at its absolute worse…almost on a par with ‘The Cirlce’!
@IronicReference, actually its probably more like 99% but went conservative!…..am sure the Mardi Gras will even up the ledger, but who would dare criticise them?…lighten up!
Molloy needs to fine tune things to point out the completely ridiculous clothing these people are wearing. Straight or not there is something bizarre about how adult athletes are asked to appear in a sporting event. Anyone on SYTYCD on Ten would be laughed off but yet in international ice skating it’s normal to dress like a doosh
@tom
7’s coverage of Beijing was horrible. Don’t you even remember them showing Aussies winning Gold on Delay??
Why On Earth would anyone want 7 to show the Olympics or any sport has got me baffled. They are the worst in the business at every sport.
I was played a short grab of the commentary last night and wasn’t outraged or offended, and I’m an openly gay man.
Sure it was blokey and probably stupid, but this seems like a massive beat-up.
I’ve heard drag queens make more cutting remarks to straight people.
I haven’t been watching the telecast, so maybe I missed something, but are we getting a little too sensitive ?
Of course I take homophobia and discrimination Very seriously, but I think these guys were just being silly.
I doubt they’ll repeat their “jokes” !!!
well at least there is one good thing about 9’s coverage – people (and the IOC hopefully) will now realise where the games belong – back on 7.
I cant understand why 9 won the games in the first place after 7 kept winning IOC awards for the coverage. perhaps it’s just another case of the chequebook doing the talking.
I’m already feeling dissapointed at the prospect of enduring 9’s attempt of olympic standard coverage in 2012. At least by then the IOC shall hopefully have learnt their lesson and returned the games to 7. Lets just hope bruce is still hanging around to show eddie how it’s done.
If 95% of people found that funny, then we are all in a lot of trouble. How is making weak observations about flamboyant figure skaters wearing flamboyant clothing in anyway funny? Eddie just needs to keep on putting that fake smile on for the camera, its the only thing he’s good at.
I didn’t see the Eddie-and-Molloy show, so I am neither offended nor outraged by their comments, though upon reading them they do appear to be largely unfunny or, at most, out-dated and probably not appropriate for what is meant to be a serious sportscast for Nine’s premier sporting event coverage of the year.
But, to compare them to Roy & HG’s comments is unfair. For a start, Roy & HG appeared in a light-hearted off-peak show that served as a wrap-up of the day, it was not part of their network’s primary Olympics coverage. I also don’t recall them making any directly-homophobic gags but I could stand corrected there. But the context that they appeared is different to what Eddie and Mick Molloy were supposedly there for this time.
I’m gay and I loved it. Saw nothing wrong with it. Keep it up Eddie!