Sandilands: offensive, and more

Kyle Sandilands has received a trouncing over the last few days for being rude and offensive. But criticisms of his behaviour on the grounds of offensiveness miss the mark in regard to the latest incident involving him and his chef de claque. Sandilands certainly takes delight in trying to give offence, although when called out, he excuses himself by saying that he is just doin’ what comes naturally. But giving offence is not the same as practising discrimination, and that is what should be the focus in the current controversy.

Various corporations have withdrawn their advertising from Sandilands’ program on 2Day FM. This is likely to have the same effect as the last time they withdrew their advertising in 2009. At that time, Sandilands was taken off air by the umbrella company Austereo, which announced that it was conducting ‘a review of the principals [sic] and protocols of our interaction with our audience’. Review concluded, Sandilands and Jackie O simply picked up where they had left off, and the advertisers returned.

Along with his old tricks, Sandilands resumed making his tired old excuses. In response to criticism of his recent intimidation of Alison Stephenson, for example, Sandilands fell back on the well-worn cliché with which many Australians defend or excuse racist and sexist behaviour. It goes like this: I am not racist or sexist because my rudeness, stupidity and offensiveness are indiscriminate, and are not just directed against non-whites or non-men. Sandilands stated his deep commitment to equality along these very lines:

We live in a country of free speech, you’re allowed to say what you want and so am I. Whether you’re male, whether you’re female. I treat everyone equally. It doesn’t matter your gender, your race, your sexual preference, you’re equal as far as I’m concerned. If we’re all really equal, how can these people bring up these things and turn it into such a male versus female thing? It is pathetic, grubby journalism. And I’m really surprised that all the TV stations got fooled by one news organisation that I was some sort of woman hater.

This is textbook Sandilands. His defenders and even some of his critics likewise claim that his sole ‘crime’ is that he is in (very) bad taste. And on that basis Sandilands rails against the ‘fun police’ who would curb his appetite for mucking up and ruffling the feathers of bourgeois good taste in Australia. Charles Purcell conjectures that ‘Castigating Kyle has become a form of “bogan bashing”, to be heard at many a comfortable gathering, a shared hatred of him being not only a sign of good taste but the price of cultural admission.’

I don’t want to underestimate Sandilands’ general stupidity, of which I have personal experience. Several years ago, a 13 year-old former schoolmate of my son left a message for him on our phone. The message purported to be left by a DOCS officer concerned that my son’s mother (me) was sexually abusing him. Our answering service recorded both the time the call was made (while the boy was on lunch break at an inner-city and very un-boganish private school) and the boy’s mobile number. The boy’s father made light of the matter, claiming that it was simply a ‘prank’ to which his child had been dared by a radio program, egged on by his ‘friends’. At the time I thought that this was a particularly lame fib told by the child to cover for his own behavior, but it was later pointed out to me by police that such pranks are a part of the ‘Desperate Acts’ contest in the Kyle & Jackie O show, for which there is (or was) a prize of $1000. The boy who was incited to play this ‘prank’ was one of 100,000 children aged between 10 and 17 years who listen to 2Day FM in the morning, as recorded by the October Nielsen survey.

Propagandists for the current state of the media regularly inform Australians that children are ‘media savvy’, and are not passive or gullible media consumers. There is no question that Sandilands goes out of his way to cultivate active consumers, but he also cultivates and rewards their gullibility. ‘If you don’t like it, turn it off’, the worn-out argument about free speech goes. Much as I would like to, I can’t turn off the radio of that gullible schoolboy and his parents.

Moreover, ‘turning it off’ might be some kind of lame response to offence, but it is not in any way an effective or appropriate response to discrimination.

Sandilands likes to add a touch of Benny Hill to his use of race or gender stereotypes, apparently on the mistaken idea that it can’t be discrimination if it is a sleazy joke. Sandilands and Jackie O’s 2010 conversation with some former girlfriends of Tiger Woods is typical in this respect:

At one point, Jackie O asked Devon James about how Woods ranked as a lover, and about the size of his penis. ‘Because we heard that he’s, like, massive, like a donkey, is that right?’ asked Sandilands. Ms James replied: ‘Yeah, I’d agree.’ Sandilands added: ‘Were you surprised, [saying] “Man, you’re half Asian, half black, obviously the half black is what’s going on downstairs”?’ The women were later encouraged to make a drawing of Woods’s genitals, which was posted on 2Day FM’s website.

This is offensive. But its offensiveness works in a different way from someone picking their nose, spitting, or saying ‘fuck’. The reason this conversation goes beyond mere offence to all and sundry is that its work of insult or humiliation ‘is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin’ of Woods, and draws directly on discriminatory stereotypes about black men and about Asian men. Being offensive generally is no defence to being offensive on racial grounds. In defining discrimination, for example, the Racial Discrimination Act provides no exemptions for personal rudeness or stupidity. It is no excuse under the Act that, in addition to performing an act or a speech-act of racial discrimination, a person adopts a general practice of rudeness.

So here’s the thing. It is quite possible to be rude and offensive to everyone, at the same time as that part of the offensiveness that is racially targeted can constitute discrimination. Or that part that is sexually targeted. Sandilands’ attack on Alison Stephenson was offensive. As David Penberthy noted, ‘He’s a cretin, a hate-filled belligerent whose talent is in inverse proportion to his offensiveness.’ But Sandilands’ attack was more than offensive, given the terms in which it was publicly made. Sandilands said,

Some fat slag.... What a fat bitter thing you are. You’re deputy editor of an online thing. You’ve got a nothing job anyway. Just so you know, you’re a piece of shit…. Alison, I can tell you, you are supposed to be impartial, you little troll….You’re a bullshit artist, girl. That’s what you are. You should be fired from your job. And your hair, your hair is very 90s. Yeah, and your blouse, you haven’t got that much titty to be having that low cut a blouse. Change your image girl, and watch your mouth, or I will hunt you down.

This is not robust criticism, but an attack and a threat. Here’s what he is saying: uppity women got it coming to them.

Sandilands could not even manage an apology when faced with advertising flight, saying to Stephenson that he had replied to her criticism of his tv show ‘like any normal Australian would do’. And he reiterated that she should take care not to make him angry by getting above her station: ‘If you took a personal offence to it Ali I'm sorry to you, but maybe you should think again before you start going [against] different people.’

Sandilands managed to find some female defenders – so presumably he can’t be sexist. Jackie O predictably came to his defence, although she didn’t close off her options entirely, saying, ‘I don’t think I could ever work with someone who was a woman hater.’ And Wendy Harmer claimed that people were misguidedly ‘playing the gender card’: ‘If Kyle is removed on the charge that he is disrespectful to women, that’s only the half of it and, I believe, merely serves to reinforce the view of males that they are being “got at” by females: “Drink a cup of cement and harden the f***k up!” will be a common response. “Piss off, you ugly old bags,” will be another.’ In other words, pretend to be good girls and try not to make them any more angry with us than they already are.

Intimidation and threats on the basis of race or sex are not just offensive. And pretending that they are simply and only offensive is no path to equality.