Margaret Court: Scientist
There’s not much I can say that other, more talented writers have said about Margaret Court but fuck it, I’ll throw a few syllables into the ring and see if they match up. Everyone knows about this but I’ll lay it out, some previous tennis MASTER said that gay people were worse than hitler, or friends with hitler or just hitleresque. It’s all a bit messy. This tennistician once hit balls in a line for money and is now seen as a valid moral arbiter of a nation of 22 million people.
There’s nothing more than any media outlet loves than causing pure, purple, searing outrage. Court’s love-40 to ignorance is no exception (see I made a tennis pun [that took me about 40 minutes worth of research on wikipedia, the only experience I’ve had with tennis was an abortive attempt at private school when I was forced to do sport and mario tennis {AMAZEBALLS GAME}]). She’s pure molten crazy but unlike the average crazy motherfuckers that you and I know, she’s given a podium because of her ball handling skills. Yes, just because she interrupted her serial bouts of glossolalia to hit balls in a socially acceptable direction gifts her her a title as a moral and intellectual arbiter. Fuck that noise - if we’re going to listen to sportspeople tell us what is moral and what isn’t can we at least get boxers to interpret the bible to us? Nothing could possibly be as funny as watching someone who has been serially concussed for money interpreting the song of solomon.
I understand most of the media makes money by trolling people into a form of continuous heisenbergian outrage. We’re never entirely sure of what we’re outraged about because that would involve quantifying it. It’s fairly easy to be justifiably pissed off at maggie court over her idiotic bile. I mean, sure she’d have a point about people who are homosexual and lesbian being homosexual and lesbian purely after sexual abuse if there was any evidence of any manner that proved her point. I mean even a fraction of evidence, a whisper, a gram that gave any of the idiotic pronouncements she’s spouting, bible in one hand and, I assume, rotting grey matter in the other a mite of validity. Hell, if we’re going to take the mental pronouncements of someone as biblical (humour) purely because they’re famous, why not dial it up to 11? If we’re going to put morality up to a popularity contest based entirely on how much airtime someone has received, why not take moral advice from world champion IRL counter-strike player Martin Bryant? He’s obsessive, he has feelings and he’s more than willing to share them with the public - why not take his insane pronouncements as indicative of the zeitgeist of australian culture? He’s no less famous. Admittedly, though, his recommendations would be for increased ice cream consumption rather than biblical literalism, but that’s just part of the grand rainbow tapestry of human experience.
If we’re going to treat social mores like a game of media top trumps then hell, why not throw down your highest valued card first? When I first heard about this brouhaha I had no idea who Margaret Court was, I somewhat intrinsically imagined her as a purveyor of discount preserves. Had they rolled out martin bryant hacking on gays I’d have been straight up to date with the media goss. Look, letting the crazy people speak for attention is a media stunt and one that’s played out quite well. Say what you will about Bryant’s massacre, it was at least indiscriminate. If we’re going to attack people because of their genetics, wouldn’t we all rather they were attacked because they’re human than killed because of a particular chromosomal makeup?
To the media figures, if you hold the concept in your amoral attention-seeking frontal lobes for even a second, it makes sense. Why outrage 10% of the population when you can attack the entire target market at once? Condemnation tends to bring viewers, wondering what they’re missing out on. If you’re so fundamentally sociopathic that you’re willing to trade the dignity and security of an entire proportion of the population for ratings then why not push the envelope? Hell, push Bryant off the stage and wheel on the minstrel show. Go to the wilds of afghanistan and do dial in beheading shows. “Want to save your father, kids? It’s only 45c a phone call!”. Imagine not just the money you’ll make but the impressions you’ll get! Imagine what CPM the romans were getting on the coliseum. If you’re outsourcing your morality you may as well get the greatest amount of traction from your utter absence of it. Hell, it’s only human.
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