Why Kochie bristled on-air at casual ageism. It offended me, too

In the world of breakfast television it’s hard to tell what’s sincere and what’s not, but Kochie certainly looked annoyed this week. The Sunrise weather reporter, Sam Mac, was wrapping up his cross from in front of a magnificent triceratops skeleton being exhibited at the Melbourne Museum.

“Now I could finish by making a joke about us already having a 67-million-year-old fossil on our show, but I won’t,” Mac said.

Sunrise weather reporter Sam Mac, right, with fellow cast members Samantha Armytage, David Koch and Mark Beretta.

Back in the studio, David Koch adopted the strained, thin smile familiar to anyone on the receiving end of such a joke. “I’ll ignore that the way it should be ignored, Sam,” he said.

“You know I love you!” Mac replied, chuckling, and perhaps sensing the discomfort.

“Let’s talk about ageism later,” Kochie said, moving on to the next item.

David Koch is 66 years old. He’s hosted Sunrise for 20 years, chairs the Port Adelaide Football Club, and has his fingers in various other pies. He’s given zero indication of slowing down any time soon.

This year I’ll turn 64. I, too, have a job I love, a full calendar, and no intention of hitting the brakes. So obviously I was doing some projecting when I cringed at this exchange. But I bet I wasn’t alone.

So how does such a seemingly innocuous flippancy stir up real emotions in me and, apparently, David Koch?

It’s always dangerous to equate ageism to sexism or racism or homophobia. They are not the same things. But there are certainly illuminating parallels and the “just a joke” phenomenon is one of them.

I doubt Sam Mac’s intention was to offend or cause anyone to feel bad. Doubtless he would have thought he was making a safe and gentle crack cushioned by oodles of precedent. But I think what we generally miss when we make jokes that affirm societal prejudice is the sheer power we invoke.

When we make jokes that belittle someone because they are gay or dark-skinned or old, we dump centuries of brutal prejudice down on their heads. “You are this thing that has been and continues to be seen as ‘lesser than me,’” the joker says. “Remember?”

The brutality is usually not intended but that hardly matters. In an instant, Mac’s joke unfairly relegates Kochie to a box from which there is no escape. “You are old, like a fossil, which is associated with incompetence and irrelevance and indicates it’s time to retire. I’m not saying that, of course, I’m just joking. But still.”

Of course, no single case of casual ageism matters much on its own. But every one has an erosive effect. To be constantly reminded that something inherent about you is perceived as “less than” is harmful to human souls. Indeed, according to the World Health Organisation, older people who hold negative views about their own ageing will live 7.5 fewer years, on average, than those with positive attitudes.

It’s why I’m so passionate about the need to start holding ourselves to account and second-guessing our casual ageism. The problem with such a call is you are cast as the fun police. A joke murderer. A woke, politically correct virtue-signaller.

I do actually sympathise with that critique. Good people don’t like hearing that something they’ve been doing without malice might actually have been causing pain. It triggers guilt and shame, and that’s no fun. So it’s always easy to respond defensively and much harder to change.

But while I’ll agree that not every ageist joke is a big deal, consider the flip side: Would it be such a big deal to knock them off?

Is it really so horrible to imagine a world in which weather reporters think of non-ageist throwaway lines for the end of their crosses? Is “OK boomer” really a riposte without equal? Will we have lost something sacred if we stop reflexively calling older women “dear”?

Casual prejudice is always a gateway to the bigger stuff. It creates permission to keep sliding up the scale. So if we start being just a little mindful of our casual ageism, who knows? Perhaps the long-term effects will be profound.

Marlene Krasovitsky is campaign director for EveryAGE Counts.