David Penberthy: Why the outrage over Geelong Cat’s Mad Monday shows Australia is losing its sense of humour and becoming too PC
Danger and Baz were condemned for dressing up as cowboys and alluding to Brokeback Mountain, how did so many Australians become professionally humourless?, writes David Penberthy.
A wonderful old friend of mine (name redacted) now works as a (profession redacted). He is a solid citizen these days but when at university he used to hold these fancy dress parties at his parents’ house in (location redacted) each year which became the stuff of legend.
I have hysterical memories of these parties, one of them around the theme of (theme redacted), the other billed as (theme redacted). At one of the parties a mate of mine bought some bubble wrap and went as (outfit redacted), a female friend went dressed as (outfit redacted), and I hired a tuxedo and a (item redacted) and went as (outfit redacted) and woke up the next day in a shower cubicle covered in baby powder.
A great time was had by all. (Great times redacted.)
If only life came with a delete button, and we could redact the stupid bits as per a freedom of information request.
How did so many Australians become professionally humourless?
How did we get to the point where we will see a group of young people having a good time, and instead of feeling a wistful pang for our own youth, regard it as the basis for some kind of moral panic or political lecture about their abhorrent conduct?
The tut-tutters have been out in force this week using their annual vehicle for outrage, the AFL’s Mad Monday tradition, to ply their censorious craft.
The criticism Mad Monday attracts can be split into two groups – the wowserish, conservative criticism that it is just silly and juvenile, and the modern left-wing hand-wringing on politically correct grounds.
The flashpoint for the outrage was something which I am sure most normal people regard as completely innocuous - the decision of Cats stars Patrick Dangerfield and Bailey Smith to go dressed as cowboys and Max Holmes frocked up as the veteran footy journalist Caroline Wilson.
Holmes has been admonished by some feminists for holding Wilson up to ridicule, as if the mere mimicking of a celebrity is innately offensive on the basis of her gender, ignoring the fact that others including Richie Benaud and Lou Richards have been the subject of dress-ups in the past.
Bailey Smith found himself in even deeper hot water for posting a picture of this cross-dressing mayhem with the caption “Caro never looked so good”.
Apparently this is some kind of misogynist crime. I have seen columns written declaring Smith’s actions “go beyond the usual revelry” of Mad Monday and “reflect a deeper issue, the normalisation of misogyny in Australian football”.
It’s interesting to hear that an organisation that has ploughed millions into growing the women’s version of our national game and which defends it from misogynist ridicule is itself a haven of misogyny.
It wasn’t just the so-called misogyny though. What about the alleged homophobia of it all as the Geelong boys let off some steam?
In another display of PC overreach, Dangerfield and Smith were condemned by some LGBTQI folks for dressing up as cowboys and alluding to Brokeback Mountain, that powerful movie which sensitively chronicles the covert relationship between two gay men in rural USA.
Former West Coast player Mitch Brown, the first AFL player to declare himself bisexual, had this to say: “Last time I checked, losing a grand final doesn’t make you gay, but being homophobic definitely makes you a loser.”
It was quite a literal analysis and one that requires a mental stretch to make – that Danger and Smith were so upset at losing a footy match that they were insinuating they might as well have been in a homosexual relationship.
It must be exhausting for all these people trying so hard to be offended by things.
And by “things”, I mean a bunch of blokes letting off steam and having heaps to drink at their end of year booze-up.
In a year that the AFL has copped a lot of flak – deserved flak – I would end season 2025 by paying it a tribute.
I would commend the AFL for defying its recent straightening instincts and letting Geelong’s Mad Monday pass without sanction.
Given their recent form, you could see Danger getting one week down to a fine for wearing the cowboy gear and Smith missing the first game of the year for the aggravated offence of the Instagram post.
The league has got itself into enough strife in the past by trying to make the world a perfect place, with all of the inconsistencies it invites.
The league spent the past month grappling with the logic of coming down on Izak Rankine like a ton of bricks while sheepishly defending old Snoop Dogg for some of his less PC contributions over the years.
Maybe the AFL has learnt that its past attempts to intervene and manage stupid behaviour have jarred with the majority in the community who think it should lighten up and stick to their day jobs.
None of this would be happening without social media either.
The great thing about growing up in the pre-digital era is that there is no evidence of any of the ribaldry that happened at the redacted location of the redacted parents of my redacted friend.
The added tactical bonus for us analogue types is that any actual photos of what occurred at our parties are gathering dust in a box in the shed somewhere, and we are such Luddites that we wouldn’t know how to upload them onto Instagram anyway.
There is no conclusion to be drawn from this week, other than people occasionally do stupid stuff, especially when they’re young and drunk. It doesn’t make them hateful and it doesn’t make them irresponsible. It makes them normal. Those who condemn them have forgotten what it’s like to be young and ratty, or they are so politically obsessed they see every apparent flaw in human behaviour as a chance to bolster their street cred with their right-on opinions.
Goers: If you say this about Adelaide, you’re the problem
