I'm wondering if it's something about football culture, in your country and ours... we have problems with our footballers too, especially in their dealings with women. When you think about it, footballers tend to live sheltered, exalted lives away from a lot of the social rules that our teens usually get immersed in. They get plucked form obscurity and elevated to the staus of gods, almost, and are encouraged to do some fairly horrible things in the name of "team bonding". None of these of course publicly admitted to, but some ex-footballers have come forward and told their stories. But when these often imprssionable boys grow to be men, their attitude to women and anything lesser than them (in their eyes) is one of degradation, of enforcing that sense of degradation and of asserting their strength and virility.
Obviously not all of tem. But some of them, certainly.
We have a large number of Aussie footballers who are falling from grace. None stands out more than any other although a couple of teams specifically, keep coming up in the discussions of the depths of depravity. I used to face-paint for one team (painting with easy child 2/difficult child 2) and while our team was OK (and still hasn't got nay scandal associated with it) the team with the really bad name caused us a lot of trouble. We didn't see any of the players, but their fans were horrendous also. The police presence for that game was much more obvious and alothough we were placed well away from the other team and their fans, we still had osme problems with the other team's fans finding their way to us and causing trouble.
One player, Barry Hall, is just one example of a player not fully understanding when he's done the wrong thing. He was for a while the pin-up boy for the entire football code, the TV ads encouraging promising young players to come study at the (fictional) Barry Hall Hall. He was chosen for the campaign because of his reputation as a decent person as well as a top player. The occasional incident (head-high tackle, striking, etc) was dealt with as, "these things happen, all players can be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Then we all saw on national television, Hall punched out a rival team's player. It was classic, it was obvious, it was a haymaker of apunch that felled the other player like an ox. The cameras caught it all. But what the cameras also caught was the crowd's shocked gasp, which was met by Hall's angry shrugging gesture which clearly implied, "What? Is there a big deal or something? Get over it!"
When later questioned, his first comments were, "he was shadowing me too closely, I reacted out of instinct."
The response of the football officials was, "if that is your instinctive reaction, you need to do something about your instincts."
He is only one player. He is actually one of the better-behaved players!
So I did read up on Vick and what he did, I was just as horrified. But I say the same thing - punishing just him is not the way. You need to look deep into the entire football cutlure, of the way stardom is created while boys are still too young to handle it. They're not equipped to cope with the fame, with the adulation, with the hero worrship and it goes to their headds and they think they can do no wrong.
It's been said that some Aussie football teams are encouraged to have group sex with whatever female tey can persuade to assist. Some women are coming out and saying (afgterwards) that it was rape. Or that they agreed to have sex with one, but suddenly they found the rest of the team in the room and were too scared to say no. These women all reported attempts made to silence them afterwards, by officials trying to shield their team from the results of their own actions. And it happens over and over, with the same teams. We hear news reports, then the woman says, "Sorry, I made it up." Not beleivable, but what can you do?
So we need to look at culture to bring about bigger change.
For those concerned about the ad - it's a photo of a billboard. It has a picture of a person on it, not of an animal. Don't be afraid to look at it. But I do find the expressed fear of looknig at it, to also be an indictment on PETA.
When are the models of the world gonig to wake up?
Hmm... culture again?
Marg
Oh, gawd. That's just their style. I don't expect classy ads from them.
