ESPN's Bill Simmons acts like a total dick for no obvious reason except that he's a total dick.
UPDATED BELOW
Is he always like this? I don't read the column on a regular basis or anything, but as he's making his NFL predictions for the week, Bill Simmons also takes the opportunity to engage in some jarring, inexplicable, out-of-nowhere misogyny:
My favorite random subplot of the preseason: when the Vikings watched Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels practice for a few weeks, then sent Jared Allen, Ryan Longwell and Steve Hutchinson to Mississippi to beg Brett Favre to come back … and a devastated Jackson had to meet with the media and say diplomatic things like, "I felt I was the best prepared. I felt confident I was going to be the starter. But I understand the situation." This is reason No. 5,718 why women could never play professional football. If Jackson were female and Favre got injured in Thursday's Saints game, we'd have this exchange on the sideline:
--Brad Childress: "OK, T-Jack, just go out there and run the offense, we can win this."
--T-Jack (crying): "Oh, now you want me? Why don't you ask Brett to win it for you?!?!?!? Why don't you ask your little whore!!!!!!!????????"
Um...what? It's hard to know how to react to something like this. Is there some context that would somehow magically make this less asinine? It doesn't have anything to do with anything else in the column, as far as I can see. Bill Simmons apparently just wanted it to be known what irrational, hyperemotional bitches women are compared to the stoic, manly men of the NFL. Using what I can only assume is meant to be humor. Sports in general may have something of a boys'-club mentality, but good lord.
It's actually hard to even be offended by this, because it's so obviously, blatantly inappropriate that you almost can't believe the guy actually wrote it. But I'm kind of managing it. Seriously, Bill, fuck you. Am I to assume that most of Simmons' predominantly male audience just sees something like this and chuckles along? If so, we're in even deeper shit than I had imagined.
UPDATE: So I initially saw this in a link from Lawyers Guns and Money that was making an unrelated point. I pointed out the above in comments, and other commenters confirmed that yeah, Simmons is pretty much always like this. You know...I always think I'm hardbitten and cynical, and then something like this comes along and shows me that all that time I was actually adorably naïve without knowing it. What a twist!
It's one thing to accept that the media contains implicit sexist/misogynistic narratives; it's quite another to accept that a high-profile sportswriter can punctuate his columns with regular "bitches suck lol amiriteguys?"s without anyone raising an eyebrow. I mean, I guess because of my incredulity I'm reacting to this more strongly than maybe I otherwise would, but regardless: what a fucking prick. I mean, yeah, MSNBC--the allegedly-"liberal" network--has an honest-to-god Neo-Nazi as a regular commentator, but while this is definitely some bullshit, ol' Bat-Puke Cannon pretty well keeps his more repellent views to himself in that venue, as far as I can tell. Whereas this--I mean, goddamn, is this the image that ESPN wants to project? WTFuck, people. Double-You. Tee. Fuck.
Is he always like this? I don't read the column on a regular basis or anything, but as he's making his NFL predictions for the week, Bill Simmons also takes the opportunity to engage in some jarring, inexplicable, out-of-nowhere misogyny:
My favorite random subplot of the preseason: when the Vikings watched Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels practice for a few weeks, then sent Jared Allen, Ryan Longwell and Steve Hutchinson to Mississippi to beg Brett Favre to come back … and a devastated Jackson had to meet with the media and say diplomatic things like, "I felt I was the best prepared. I felt confident I was going to be the starter. But I understand the situation." This is reason No. 5,718 why women could never play professional football. If Jackson were female and Favre got injured in Thursday's Saints game, we'd have this exchange on the sideline:
--Brad Childress: "OK, T-Jack, just go out there and run the offense, we can win this."
--T-Jack (crying): "Oh, now you want me? Why don't you ask Brett to win it for you?!?!?!? Why don't you ask your little whore!!!!!!!????????"
Um...what? It's hard to know how to react to something like this. Is there some context that would somehow magically make this less asinine? It doesn't have anything to do with anything else in the column, as far as I can see. Bill Simmons apparently just wanted it to be known what irrational, hyperemotional bitches women are compared to the stoic, manly men of the NFL. Using what I can only assume is meant to be humor. Sports in general may have something of a boys'-club mentality, but good lord.
It's actually hard to even be offended by this, because it's so obviously, blatantly inappropriate that you almost can't believe the guy actually wrote it. But I'm kind of managing it. Seriously, Bill, fuck you. Am I to assume that most of Simmons' predominantly male audience just sees something like this and chuckles along? If so, we're in even deeper shit than I had imagined.
UPDATE: So I initially saw this in a link from Lawyers Guns and Money that was making an unrelated point. I pointed out the above in comments, and other commenters confirmed that yeah, Simmons is pretty much always like this. You know...I always think I'm hardbitten and cynical, and then something like this comes along and shows me that all that time I was actually adorably naïve without knowing it. What a twist!
It's one thing to accept that the media contains implicit sexist/misogynistic narratives; it's quite another to accept that a high-profile sportswriter can punctuate his columns with regular "bitches suck lol amiriteguys?"s without anyone raising an eyebrow. I mean, I guess because of my incredulity I'm reacting to this more strongly than maybe I otherwise would, but regardless: what a fucking prick. I mean, yeah, MSNBC--the allegedly-"liberal" network--has an honest-to-god Neo-Nazi as a regular commentator, but while this is definitely some bullshit, ol' Bat-Puke Cannon pretty well keeps his more repellent views to himself in that venue, as far as I can tell. Whereas this--I mean, goddamn, is this the image that ESPN wants to project? WTFuck, people. Double-You. Tee. Fuck.
posted by GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. at 2:19 AM
Not to distract from your larger point, but "Bat-Puke Cannon" is awesome (not the man, obviously).
Thanks, but I can't take credit for that...well, I CAN, inasmuch as I DID come up with it all by my lonesome, but a quick google search reveals that I'm hardly the first one.