The recent dust-up over sportscaster Brent Musburger's remarks during the national championship college football game about Miss Alabama reveal once again just how preposterous modern secular liberal culture has become. It is another bit of evidence that when a culture no longer has an actual religion to provide its centripetal force, it spins off into silly absurdities.
We can now put the protest over Musburger's remarks down as one more example of the weird sort of sexual puritanism that is coming to characterize it.
Musburger remarked on the girlfriend of Alabama quarterback A. J. McKarron, Katherine Webb, saying that she was a “lovely lady” and “beautiful." He turned to his broadcast partner Kirk Herbstreit and said, "you quarterbacks get all the good-looking women."
Well, apparently, this is a severe breach of propriety among the stuffy new feminist schoolmarms who have placed themselves in the position of cultural hall monitors and have proceeded to write Musburger up on charges of, well, we're not quite sure. The New York Times gives us the skinny ..., er, I mean, tells us the full extent of Musburger's infamy:
“It’s extraordinarily inappropriate to focus on an individual’s looks,” said Sue Carter, a professor of journalism at Michigan State. “In this instance, the appearance of the quarterback’s girlfriend had no bearing on the outcome of the game. It’s a major personal violation, and it’s so retrograde that it’s embarrassing. I think there’s a generational issue, but it’s incumbent on people practicing in these eras to keep up and this is not a norm.”"Retrograde"? Seriously? Maybe in the austere environs of "Women's and Gender Studies" department (or next door at the journalism school), but some of us still remark on beauty when and where we see it. In any case, I think we can officially announce that the sexual revolution is eating its own young.
This kind of thing, of course, is not uncharacteristic of left-wing movements. In communist countries, for example, there were severe strictures on sexual conduct and even dress.
After a frontal hand salute and click of her heals, Carter continues:
“I think because sports has been such a male-dominated domain, he obviously felt license and privilege and he’s been able to do that for years,” Carter said. “But the masculine aspect of sports is changing.”Right. Women will soon be playing football and the cheerleaders will be selected from the least physically attractive women on college campuses. Mark your calendar.
But what is so utterly nonsensical is that, in our celebrity culture, we have a veritable worship of appearance. Yet our intellectual culture prominently features feminists who stand there, their arms folded and lips pursed, wagging their fingers at everybody else but Hollywood for remarking on somebody's appearance. They exist side-by-side, Janus-like, in a strange sort of alliance.
And sports programming is supposed to ignore anything that does "bear on the outcome of the game"? Oh c'mon. They do it all the time. Are they going to dispatch a contingent from the National Organization for Women on Super Bowl Sunday to lament the fact that Beyoncé is doing the halftime show? Of course we all know that her looks had nothing to do with her career success, but how does that bear on the outcome of the game?
Oh, and have you noticed anything about all these new female sportscasters? You know, the ones who all look like they missed their calling as cover girls? Not a blemish to be seen. I know what you're thinking: that's soooo, I don't know, retrograde to say that. So if it's retrograde to say it, why is it not retrograde to do it?
So we know that Webb, the one about whom Musburger's remarks were made, must be scandalized by all this. Right? Well, not exactly. Here how the Times reports Webb's response:
“It was kind of nice,” Webb told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “I didn’t look at it as creepy at all. For a woman to be called beautiful, I don’t see how that’s an issue."Woah! Is this girl from, like, the 12th century or something?
If I ever see Sue Carter, professor of journalism at Michigan State, I'm going to remark on how nice she looks in that outfit.
3 comments:
Martin, I think there's something else going on here as well.
There's a species of female who believes that a man must be worthy of the right to ogle a beautiful woman.
As a 73-year-old man who looks like a great-grandfather, Brent Musberger doesn't fit that bill. He is unworthy to notice that the lady is gorgeous.
Joe Namath in his prime could have made precisely the same remarks, and it would have gotten chuckles and perhaps even an appreciative smile from the ladies. Joe Namath was worthy. Stud. Alpha male. Super Bowl-champion quarterback. A reputation as a bit of a rake.
Same objective behavior, with an old beta male, is creepy.
Hey, I didn't make the rule, I just report.
Should have added... appealing to women is the latest thing in broadcast football.
Go to the NFL Network and you will see two types of sportscasters: ex-football players or coaches, most of whom with impressive resumes; and gorgeous women whose football credentials are non-existent.
What you will not see is homely old women or men of any sort who are not ex-football greats of some sort. Exception: analysts make occasional appearances, and for the most part they look like Joe Everyman. They come on camera, smile, spill their analyses, thanks, now go away. Every profession has its geeks and they must be tolerated for their specific knowledge.
There appear to be no female football geeks. First question asked of Matty Ice after the Atlanta last weekend, by a lady broadcaster, gushed, "How does it feel...?" etc. The feminization of American society continues apace, even in professional football.
This is all a payback from the days of yore when the boys' clubhouse posted a sign, "No gurls allowed!" They just wanted to prove they can join your club anytime they want to.
BTW there are (or until recentl were) women's football leagues. And if there were a woman who could play in the NFL at a competitive level, why, they'd have to let her in. "After all, she's capable of playing!"
Of course, this most certainly does not work both ways. Many men who are not capable of competing at the NFL level could compete quite well in the women's league, but would be prohibited from doing so. The fact of their capability would be the least important fact on the table.
I see the same things in other fields. Watched a YouTube clip of the Diva Big Band, a jazz band composed of just women. It's an excellent group. As a bass trombone player, I was particularly impressed with their bass bone player, a very attractive young woman who can blow the walls down.
But they're doing something they could never permit men to do: operate a professional organization and exclude the opposite sex.
Ever notice how much Carrie Nation and J. Edgar Hoover looked alike? Up to and including the way they dressed.
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