Samantha Lane | April 10, 2008
'GARRY, it was degrading, it was humiliating, it insulted me … it insulted a lot of women." Caroline Wilson, on Footy Classified, Channel Nine, Monday night.
This time last week on The Footy Show, Sam Newman used a staple gun to attach a cutout picture of Wilson's face to the forehead of a mannequin. The life-sized doll was dressed in nothing more than a sheer, skimpy, aqua bra and underwear set.
Inspired by a letter published in this newspaper's Green Guide section that discussed what Wilson wears on Footy Classified, Newman made clumsy attempts to dress the mannequin but mostly he manhandled it.
He flicked the top of the knickers, he put his hands squarely between the doll's legs and he thrust it into the face of Craig Hutchison, who sits alongside Wilson on Monday nights. It was violent and vulgar.
"Do you think your partner on Footy Confidential (sic) would look good like that?" Newman asked. "Would she look good in those?"
The stunt was going down like a lead balloon but co-host Garry Lyon who, like Hutchison, sits alongside Wilson on Footy Classified, allowed Newman to continue. The only thing Lyon saw fit to correct was the name of the Monday night show.
This, we were told by Lyon four days later, was one of the occasional times when the "robust" football program had been guilty of "wandering over the line".
Those not employed by the network might prefer the words blokey and occasionally bullying when talking about the Channel Nine production.
But after Wilson was last year admitted to one of football's biggest boys clubs, joining a panel on the more cerebral hour of football chat, change appeared to be happening for the better.
It was happening in the correct way — without fanfare — as Wilson, the chief football writer of The Age, was employed to demonstrate her expertise alongside some of the game's former greats.
On Channel Nine, Wilson is referred to as football's first lady. It made the events of last Thursday night all the more staggering.
Newman was only one of several culpable parties. By failing to speak up in a meaningful way against one of his sidekicks, Lyon, in particular, betrayed one of his Monday night teammates shockingly.
Alarm bells should have been ringing early — namely when a scantily clad mannequin and a rack of clothes was ordered from the props department. Apparently Newman has his own producer to help co-ordinate his stunts.
Regardless, it is the executive producer — in the case of The Footy Show and Footy Classified, Tim Cleary — who makes the final calls. At the last resort they could have sent messages through earpieces to abort the segment immediately.
For years now Channel Nine has insisted its flagship football show does not alienate women. But as a woman working in footy who talks regularly to most of the women working in footy, I could provide compelling evidence to the contrary.
Just one example, communicated to me by SMS from a former AFL employee last Thursday night, was this: "… the man (Newman) should be sacked. What an appalling show. Garry Lyon and James Brayshaw are pathetic the way they failed to control the show. Pathetic."
Afterwards, I messaged one of the members of The Footy Show team, whom I count as a friend. In his reply he described Newman as unstoppable and admitted the whole affair was uncomfortable.
This is more than a media issue, it is an AFL issue. The Footy Show broadcasts a snapshot of our code's culture into hundreds of thousands of homes around the country every week.
Last week's episode portrayed an environment and culture that no sound-minded woman would want to be part of or support.
The reality is quite different. By and large the football industry is a safe place for the women who work in it. A place where, contrary to the events of last Thursday night, women are not objectified, sexualised or ridiculed in the workplace on the basis of their gender.
And while at AFL House there are still embarrassingly few women in senior management roles, the league can rightly boast about the unique representation of women on club membership data bases and on TV ratings reports.
But clearly, the scene is still not immune to the ugly women-demeaning issues that most AFL fans like to think remain the NRL's curse.
Now, even before round four, we have another case to throw into the basket. Perhaps it was overly optimistic to think that in 2008 football, and more specifically the women who work in it, had seen the last of it."
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the footy show deaming to women.......????...no really????...flower me....
