Sent to me by our friend Allan.
Enjoy.
~O
Is it wrong to associate the swiping of security cards as you enter the CBC proper with the symbolic severing of the dangly parts that men have below the belt-line?
When insidethecbc.ca recently posted a note about meteorologist Clare Martin moving to Vancouver, I submitted a comment.
It was disallowed.
You see, I made the mistake of implying something that had to do with s-e-x.
I suggested that Clare’s popularity has as much to do with her well-tailored pantsuits as it has to do with her “perkiness”.
Also that her job did not really require a brain, and that Bif Naked could get better ratings.
Tod couldn’t handle it, and my juvenile opinion disappeared into the ether.
But his censorship is, I think, indicative of the hypocrisy that pervades media in this country.
We want all the toys and culture of our American neighbours but still reserve the right to look down our noses at them.
With the exception of the odd billboard for lingerie or a chubby in her underwear, our media is uniformly agreed that Canadians don’t get horny.
In fact, the slightest hint of passion is to be suppressed.
Take, for example, two recent clips from the mass media of the U.S.A.:
http://www.youtube.com/…
You won’t find these kind of fireworks and free speech on Canadian television or radio; certainly not on the CBC.
What you will find is this:
George laughs, thinks this is cool. Shooting blindly in hopes of killing the bad guys.
Yeah, that’s really funny.
Some might find this horrible and obscene, but at least it’s not about people having sex.
12 Comments
I’m surprised you allowed my last remark to go in.
It was of course intended as a joke and wordplay and not to cast aspersions on Ralph.
Poor guy. All those years at the CBC and his reputation is largely that of being a whipping-boy when someone wants to personify all that is vacuous and dumb about broadcasting. Now George is well on his way to filling those shoes.
I adore you, Ouimet, because you reek.
Of integrity.
I don’t know who Gay Byrne is, unless that’s how CBC’ers refer to Ralph Benmergui.
I’m not sure that Ned Flanders has the same flair for self-promotion. It really should be called Inside Tod Maffin.
If Ned Flanders had a blog it wouldn’t be much different than Inside the CBC.
JH
Tod,
The only thing you should be protecting people from is lies, not opinions.
As a kid I watched Percy throw his chalk in the air, and as an adult I helped him set up his new iMac. So I know that meteorologists have brains. Percy was very, very smart.
But if you’ve ever stood before a map to deliver the weather, the first thing you realize is that it’s going to take a lot more than numbers to keep viewers watching while you point to clouds in a place eight provinces away.
And yet, even the right eight-year-old could do it without a degree.
Clare’s smile is part of an expensive and self-indulgent alternative to a direct feed from Environment Canada. It’s the branding of a personality with a view to future marketing opportunities like children’s books titled “Where Do Clouds Come From?”
No one uses chalk any more, but fifty years later and the weather report is still just a perky personality standing in front of a map.
George cannot kiss up enough to the guy from Vice magazine trying to sell his Jackass video.
Where was Tony Burman’s integrity when this reprehensible and sick shooting from the rooftop was delighting Strombo?
And you know that this lanky dude would be the first to crap his pants if anyone started shooting back.
Vice may look cool, but it amounts to sex and violence as vomit in print, and guns as a fashion accessory.
Even Ghomeshi uses them as guests because, like his black-shirted bro’, he wants to appear edgy and worldly.
George is basically a hockey thug, with no discernible talent other than his ability to fool the simple-minded with a fake sincerity.
And he too could do the Weather.
Then again, the Hour’s Richard Dawkins interview was actually decent compared to the ones he subjected himself to on US television, precisely because it wasn’t confrontational.
It’s times like this I miss Gay Byrne.
Tod, don’t you get it? Your response is EXACTLY what Allan is talking about.
CBC would never air the stuff in those video clips (Rosie vs Elizabeth, or Chris Hitchens ripping on H&C).
You won’t allow personal attacks on a blog about CBC because, what? It’s not genteel enough?
I’m not asking for Fight Club 24/7, but this watered-down, let’s all be nicey-nice and very passive aggressive approach is bullshit. And why we continue to slide into irrelevance.
Just based on the second-hand evidence, it seems the comment was about a specific persona, including the sexual aspect, and was not, as Maffin malaprops, an ’œattack.’
People on TV are hired in part for their looks and yes, of course that’™s up for discussion.
Allan,
I’m amused that you think your comment was moderated because of sex!
In fact, your comment was a personal attack on an individual, not on their work or a policy. And for those kind of comments, I will continue to moderate them.
To be fair, your comment was probably axed coz he’s gotten grief over sexist commentary before and didn’t want the hassle.
And really, saying something like “people only like this chick coz she’s well-turned-out, and her job is brainless, and she could be replaced by a sXe bi punk rocker” could easily be read as sexist.
It’s a shame, it’s that kind of thinking that leads to things like homophobia and the assumption that sex education causes increased teen pregnancy and STDs (when quite the opposite is true.) In healthy adults (at least to a certain age) sex is the strongest drive outside of personal survival (food, water, shelter etc).
It also plays a very strong roll in how people react to, well nearly everything really. TV execs know this, you can tell (most of the time) by looking at the people who are on television.
To deny the importance of it in 2007 is like denying gravity, evolution or global warming.