I had a bit of a row with my roommate the other day. Well, not a row, more a good-natured debate. The topic? Jason Manford.
As you are probably aware Jason Manford got fired from his job as host of The One Show a few weeks back (or ‘resigned’, whatever) following allegations that he had indulged in internet sex despite having a wife who was pregnant with their 3rd child. Now my debate with my roommate was not on the morals (or lack thereof) of such a disrespectful act. The debate was: should he have been fired for it?
My roommate’s argument was that as an employee of the BBC Manford was required to show a certain amount of decency in the way he conducted his life. My argument was: why?
He’s a grown man and as his extra-curricular activities had no bearing on his ability to read from an auto-cue, the decision to fire him was ridiculous. Arguments that he’s a role-model are moot - he’s not a children’s TV presenter nor does he present for a programme entitled ‘The Benefits of Celibacy.’ The One Show is a naff magazine show that spouts useless crap anyway, so why should I care what its presenters get up to in their own time?
During this debate me and my roommate managed to drudge up the whole ‘Sachsgate’ affair. When Brand was fired and Ross was put on suspension – I understood it. Not sure I agreed with it, but I got the arguments. These guys used license-fee-payer’s money to make pathetic phone calls to an old man in order to brag about sleeping with his granddaughter. Well, that wasn’t really on, was it? But until someone can prove Jason Manford was using my money to get his rocks off, I don’t see how it’s in anyway the same situation. Yes, we pay his wage. But we do that so he’ll do his job - which he was handling just fine. So why do I care if he wants to risk his marriage? He can dress up like a giant baby and get a woman in a gimp mask to throw spaghetti at him whilst four men stand around jerking off, for all I care. As long as he washes off the spaghetti before he turns up for work, he’s fulfilled his remit as a television presenter.
Leaving behind the image of a nappy-clad Manford for a moment, (or forever, hopefully) - the drudging up of the Sachsgate affair had actually forced me to confront my own hypocrisy.
As you are probably aware Jason Manford got fired from his job as host of The One Show a few weeks back (or ‘resigned’, whatever) following allegations that he had indulged in internet sex despite having a wife who was pregnant with their 3rd child. Now my debate with my roommate was not on the morals (or lack thereof) of such a disrespectful act. The debate was: should he have been fired for it?
My roommate’s argument was that as an employee of the BBC Manford was required to show a certain amount of decency in the way he conducted his life. My argument was: why?
He’s a grown man and as his extra-curricular activities had no bearing on his ability to read from an auto-cue, the decision to fire him was ridiculous. Arguments that he’s a role-model are moot - he’s not a children’s TV presenter nor does he present for a programme entitled ‘The Benefits of Celibacy.’ The One Show is a naff magazine show that spouts useless crap anyway, so why should I care what its presenters get up to in their own time?
During this debate me and my roommate managed to drudge up the whole ‘Sachsgate’ affair. When Brand was fired and Ross was put on suspension – I understood it. Not sure I agreed with it, but I got the arguments. These guys used license-fee-payer’s money to make pathetic phone calls to an old man in order to brag about sleeping with his granddaughter. Well, that wasn’t really on, was it? But until someone can prove Jason Manford was using my money to get his rocks off, I don’t see how it’s in anyway the same situation. Yes, we pay his wage. But we do that so he’ll do his job - which he was handling just fine. So why do I care if he wants to risk his marriage? He can dress up like a giant baby and get a woman in a gimp mask to throw spaghetti at him whilst four men stand around jerking off, for all I care. As long as he washes off the spaghetti before he turns up for work, he’s fulfilled his remit as a television presenter.
Leaving behind the image of a nappy-clad Manford for a moment, (or forever, hopefully) - the drudging up of the Sachsgate affair had actually forced me to confront my own hypocrisy.
I remember those couple of weeks. I remember the country basically going mad; discussing nothing but a couple of presenters attempting to be edgy and basically taking it too far. What really got my goat at the time was the amount of complaints. So many more people complained about the calls then those who had actually heard them when it was first broadcast. I found myself wondering how people could be so pathetic. Didn’t they have better things to be doing then complaining about something they never would have heard if it hadn’t been for the non-stop media coverage?
Of course, this holier-than-thou attitude towards the masses was before I caught myself doing what was basically the same thing.
Over a year later I read a now-infamous article by Jan Moir in The Daily Mail. The article concerned the death of ex-boyzone member Stephen Gately. Moir had taken it upon herself to decide (before the autopsy report had even come in) that Stephen’s sexuality had in some way contributed to his death. She backed this up with ‘evidence’ of the completely unrelated suicide of Matt Lucas’s ex-husband, concluding that the gay ‘lifestyle’ somehow lead to death and despair.
The article was ignorant, spiteful and just downright bizarre and I complained about it. A lot. Not officially, you understand. I’m a firm believer in free speech and that just because I was offended by the article it didn’t mean that it wasn’t her right to scribe the ghastly thing. But I did bitch to anyone that would listen.
And the thing was – I hadn’t even read this article in the paper itself. I had read it online – after being told to by National Treasure Stephen Fry. If it hadn’t been for the Twitterati I never would have known of its existence. But now knowing it did, I could hardly ignore it. It was then that I realised my own hypocrisy: those that had complained over Sachsgate had every right to. Whether they heard it when it was first broadcast or not – knowing their license fee was supporting two utter pricks without a sense of boundaries, is not something they felt they could ignore.
So there it is: I’m a hypocrite. I sneer at public outcry before outcrying very publically myself. But I learn. It may take me a year or two but eventually I realise I must apologise to the public I had previously damned. As to whether Jason Manford should have to apologise to anyone but his wife, well, that I’m not so sure about.
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