I was never a fan of The Footy Show, and for the longest time, I particularly detested co-host Sam Newman. But, much later, I read some interviews with him and came to reappraise my dislike. Firstly, I realised that he, just like Jeremy Clarkson, is to a large part playing a role. Secondly, I saw that beneath his buffoon exterior lurked someone of at least moderate intelligence and wit, with an admirable and vocal distaste for bullshit.
Bullshit like the wokeism that has subsumed Australian Rules Football.
From putting up a statue of a woman footballer for doing nothing more noteworthy than flashing her growler, to the endless, tedious rituals of rainbow jerseys, fatuous “Welcome to Country” ceremonies and “rounds” for every intersectional victim group imaginable, the AFL has become a left-wing propaganda outfit first, a football league a distant second.
The AFL’s ridiculous wokeism reached a kind of apotheosis at half-time at this year’s Grand Final. Half-time “entertainment” at the Granny has long been famous for all the wrong reasons. From wheeling out 80s has-been Americans, to the embarrassing foldback failure that led to opera singer Maroochy Barambah being solidly and gratingly off-key for the entire national anthem.
But 2022 plumbed new depths of right-on embarrassment.
The AFL had an official Welcome to Country by Uncle Colin Hunter Jr. as the proceedings began as well as an Acknowledgement of Country by MC and Seven commentator Hamish McLachlan.
The day also featured a tribute to celebrated late actor, musician, activist and Elder Uncle Jack Charles.
“Celebrated”, in the sense that almost no-one outside of a courtroom had ever heard of him until he carked it. Whereupon every Sally Virtue-Signal and Sebastian Soyboy at the ABC suddenly claimed that he was, like, the most famousest person, ever.
Just ignore his decades of flagrant criminality, including heroin use, violent burglaries and a record of convictions that rivalled the Cats’ goalkicking.
“They did a eulogy to an Indigenous man called Uncle Jack, who I believe didn’t play football at all.
“Why would you have to actually give him a eulogy at the grand final. For what reason? It’s sheer projection to its patronising nonsense.”
As Newman pointed out, the AFL’s double-standards are breathtaking.
“If he was a heroin addict and if he was a felon, where would that leave someone like Wayne Carey?” Newman said.
“Wayne Carey, who has been ostracised from every AFL job, from every broadcasting commitment – a job that he’s had – because he was found with some crushed-up antidepressants in a nightclub.
“So he gets railroaded. He actually played football Wayne Carey … he’s been a great commentator and he’s been completely thrown under the bus and yet Uncle Jack Charles – good on him. And I see he’s getting a state funeral.”
Giving a career criminal a state funeral in Victoria is almost appropriate, really.
But the AFL was only getting started on its Aboriginal Karaoke Hour. They somehow managed to resuscitate long-forgotten two-hit-wonders Goanna, to do an excruciatingly awful rendition of Solid Rock that rivalled Meatloaf’s infamous 2011 appearance. At least Meatloaf had the excuse of being near-hospitalised with illness.
“But the virtuous, patronising nonsense that the AFL go on with. A patronising campaign to foster this feigned indignation to divert from their own paranoid white privilege – all they do is drive a wedge between the footballing public, yet we see through it.
“We had a man with a beard came out and told us … about where the boundaries of all the various tribes and things go. Just an absolute propaganda chat about nothing.
“And then, if that wasn’t enough … then the CEO’s brother gave us welcome to country.”
News.com.au
Even Aboriginal Elders are starting to ark up at the ubiquitous welcome to country bullshit, which they rightly see as trivial and empty. The sight of a white multimillionaire parroting a rote-learned script is little short of insulting.
As is the idea that Australians have to be “welcomed” to their own country.