Public morality is a landmine

Melbourne Herald Sun, July 17, 2014

We regularly see landmines going off beneath some of our media personalities.

Maybe they had been the life of the team's night out when they were younger, a laugh a minute in the locker room. But one day on The Footy Show or commenting on a match or during some live to air transmission, they say or do or touch one topic too many and boom! the landmine goes off.

"But all I said was..." too late. Now they are spotlighted as a perv or a racist or devoid of moral conscience. From a golden life when everything was theirs, they descend into a hell of newspaper revelations, camera crews outside the door, people they haven't seen for 20 years revealing what they did then, every thoughtless act of the past suddenly revealed.

What they did then might have been funny then, but not now. Many a career has come crashing down when the laughing stopped. They have been caught on the pendulum of public morality. It was once ok but now it's not.

There must be a lot of middle-aged rock stars remembering back to the teenage groupies of 30 years ago and nervously wondering what exactly did happen, and what ages were the girls.

But the pendulum swings the other way too. Our greatest swimmer, Ian Thorpe, reveals that he is gay. Once that would have been the end of his career and support. Now I'm not so sure.

Any sponsor seen withdrawing after this week's fanfare would find themselves the subject of a massive backlash. In fact sponsors are more likely to come in rather than run out. Public morality has turned.

You might recall my column last week, where the ANZ supported the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras and decorated their "GAYTMs" with rainbows and kisses. A bank in drag?

But on the pendulum, while one sexuality swings up, another swings down. Men's magazines have suffered from the onslaught of the internet - but also I think, from a more moralist younger generation.

In recent times we have seen the "girlie" section of the newsagents slim down and magazines like FHM and Ralph plunged in circulation before disappearing from the shelves.

In their place have come the health and fitness magazines. But it's a funny thing though - look through their contents pages and as well as "Build the perfect abs" or "Is your body made for running", you'll find "Make sex incredible" and "Buy her the sexiest lingerie". So the boys' mags haven't disappeared, they have just changed their disguise.

The other day I went to the movies and a thought struck me. Seated either side were fellow patrons and they held wine glasses which they sipped through the film. I smiled. When I was a kid, there was no way you could take a drink into a cinema - you'd be marched straight out.

Yet every seat had a neat little ash-tray screwed to the back of it, to catch your ash and butts as you heartily smoked all the way through the feature. A girl with a tray sold Dixies and cigarettes down next to the screen. I don't think you'd get far lighting a fag in your movie seat today.

So how the times have changed. Drinks were forbidden, smokes were ok. Now it has completely reversed. Yes, public morality is subjective and changes with the times.