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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

In being completely appalled by this attitude to Oscar Pitorius' trial?

305 replies

perfectstorm · 02/03/2014 15:46

So Paddy Power have decided to run a poster campaign and national media ad campaign on whether Oscar Pitorius is convicted of killing his girlfriend, complete with an image of him as an Oscar award, and the slogan " "It's Oscar Time. Money Back If He Walks." Their blog says, "Global media attention, bar-stool conversation and pillow talk will shift from the Oscars on Sunday night to Oscar on Monday when the Blade Runner straps on his prosthetic limbs for the long walk to the high court."

I don't know if it was an accident or whether he murdered her, but does it actually matter? A young woman is dead, this is a murder trial, and they think it's casual entertainment people can take a flutter on, akin to the sodding Oscars.

Are they run by David Brent?

OP posts:
merrymouse · 03/03/2014 17:47

"But it isn't being used to sell stuff in UK"

That isn't how digital marketing works.

"I disagree that offensive humour normalises, maybe in some cases where its widespread an repeated but here the whole point is that rightminded people know its wrong"

Presumably you live in some kind of bubble surrounded by "right minded people".

perfectstorm · 03/03/2014 17:49

Mumsnet have a really well argued guest post up on why this is so disturbing.

OP posts:
MsHighwater · 03/03/2014 17:50

I won't be signing the petition I'm afraid. As much as I deplore what Paddy Power are doing with this ad, I won't endorse a petition that fails to recognise that, celebrity or not, Oscar Pistorius is entitled to the presumption of innocence until and unless his guilt is proven.

Technical · 03/03/2014 17:52

YES merrymouse exactly. That's not how digital marketing wires because people on the internet perpetuate it. Which us why they shouldn't.

BTW; I'm not a man, I probably should be getting on with dinner and you do realise that every time you dismiss an opinion simply because you think its male you're just as bad as those youre accusing?

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 03/03/2014 17:56

Sorry technical, was flicking through and saw lots of people saying they were chaps and I thought you were one of them. But I was actually talking about contrarian, or have I got that wrong too?

Technical · 03/03/2014 18:07

afaik contraian is the only man here which is a shame because it would be good to have wider views.

It dis make me see red when you dismissed him on thexgrounds on his maless without any attempt to argue the point - that doesn't help the cause at all

perfectstorm · 03/03/2014 18:12

I disagree that offensive humour normalises, maybe in some cases where its widespread an repeated but here the whole point is that rightminded people know its wrong

You inhabit a different world to mine if you think all right-minded people know that - or rather, that all people are right-minded automatically, without any form of societal pressure. Katie Price's disabled young son was the butt of jokes about how he would probably rape her. And not everyone thought that was wrong. Sure, fine, the shock value "is the point"... but so too is the fact that we live in a sexist world, and making nastily misogynist jokes in that world is somehow now expected to be fine, "because everyone knows that's what they are!" Um, okay. You really think all the young men this is aimed at know that? Seriously? Or is that a figleaf and an excuse for continuing misogyny under a new "lighten up, it was just a joke!" disguise? "I saw your boobs" at the Oscars last year was a prime example of a joke that was "too clever for most people to get!" Um, yeah. A bloke jokes about how many famous women's boobs he's seen, and it's women's fault for noting that this objectification is not okay because, obviously, his unmentioned and unstated intention wasn't to laugh at women getting their tits out, it was to mock the sexist paradigm of Hollywood film-making.

There's another thread on AIBU which (correctly) challenges the way in which TV presents women hitting men as somehow okay, when that would no longer be the case in a soap if presenting the reverse. It's taken campaigning and work to alter attitudes to domestic violence against women in mainstream drama (and I agree with the other thread's OP that work needs to be done in making it equally unacceptable towards men). When I was a kid, Dynasty showed marital rape as justifiable - the perp was a hero and his wife's evil twin refusing him sex while impersonating her. My mother sat me down and went through why this was so appalling, though in retrospect I'm pretty staggered such material was shown pre-watershed on a Saturday... then when I was a young teen Corrie showed a sympathetic character blackening his wife's eye, and she in turn was shown as provoking that and using makeup to worsen the impression. I remember women's charities kicking up a huge stink with the latter storyline, and I also remember them being told they were just giving Corrie publicity and that ignoring it would be better.

Those saying that were wrong. Cultural acceptance in tv drama of intimate partner violence towards women has been vastly reduced, and the manner it's shown altered from the victim-blaming of the past, and that happened not by ignoring and pretending it would go away, and thus in actuality colluding, but by challenging, campaigning and educating. We went from Dynasty, to the McDonalds, then to the Jordaches on Brookside and Trevor and Mo on EastEnders, and you can track changing social attitudes with that evolving attitude in mainstream popular culture. But ads such as this, and jokes such as the Katie Price ones, show more needs to be done. And it is being - hence the petition, and the complaints.

OP posts:
merrymouse · 03/03/2014 18:16

"That's not how digital marketing wires because people on the internet perpetuate it. Which us why they shouldn't."

There is a point where Paddy Power depend on the good will of people and government to carry out their business. There is a level of offensiveness that we don't have to tolerate.

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 03/03/2014 18:16

It is a shame, because I know lots of men who would quite happy put a match to a poster like that if they saw it, several of them because they've had to help rescue their mothers or other relatives from violent situations.

I wasn't having a go because he was a man, but come on "I think technical closes the argument perfectly" is pretty patronising don't you? It's not really for him to say whether other people might have some views on this.

SauceForTheGander · 03/03/2014 18:19

There's a lot of anger on twitter from men as well for this ad - it isn't just a gendered issue I agree.

Though I think there are things some men don't always consider, like the impact on personal safety of "jokey" misogyny. Just as I didn't used to be as aware of racism as I am now. Personal experiences do inform your opinions.

I accept MsHighwater's reasoning . I have formed a very definite opinion about this case - but I can see that's not in the spirit of the justice system.

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 03/03/2014 18:20

Great post, perfect. (and I agree with the other thread's premise as well, will have to track it down) You watch an old film now - maybe not even that old, 70s? And a man will slap a woman, and two minutes later the script has her kissing his face off. That just looks so, so wrong now.

perfectstorm · 03/03/2014 18:21

The blokes I know are disgusted by this. And I don't insult all men by thinking they universally hector and patronise women, either. Some do, however, and I don't consider it unreasonable to point that out when it occurs.

OP posts:
perfectstorm · 03/03/2014 18:23

Yeah, I also respect MsHighwater's reasoning. It's a shame the petition doesn't clarify that he's not yet been tried, and that his defence (fear of an unknown intruder in a country where such intruders murder very frequently) should be heard, and I completely understand her reluctance to back it - maybe an email to an MP or something is a better route for people who feel strongly that way on those grounds, but equally strongly about the company behaving this way.

OP posts:
perfectstorm · 03/03/2014 18:25

Elephants, the post is here. (Sorry to repeat post so much.)

OP posts:
CaptChaos · 03/03/2014 18:31

Utterly morally reprehensible. Even for a bookmaker.

I can't believe that anyone calling themselves a human finds anything about this whole situation even mildly amusing.

MarmaladeShatkins · 03/03/2014 18:47

I agree with Elephants.

And I certainly didn't dismiss Contrarian because he's a man; I dismissed him because he came onto the thread with the opening gambit "I'm a bloke and I find it funny."

Technical · 03/03/2014 19:01

Im disgusted by it too . I just don't think kicking up an international media storm about it is helpful - quite the opposite.

kim147 · 03/03/2014 19:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MostWicked · 03/03/2014 19:45

It will appeal to Paddypower's target market

That says everything about what they think about their target market. A bit thick, puerile, devoid of marl compass.

My teenage son didn't find it funny. He was appalled by it and sent me the link to the petition before I even heard about it. My husband didn't find it funny either.

Technical · 03/03/2014 19:48

Well yes MostWicked, They don't think highly educated astute people are going to waste their hard earned gambling do they?

kim147 · 03/03/2014 19:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MarmaladeShatkins · 03/03/2014 20:13

Absolutely, Kim.

If there weren't people willing to stand up and speak up against such arsehattery, we'd still be tolerating the likes of Jim Davidson doing his hysterical funny-faced brown people routine.

EverythingCounts · 03/03/2014 20:49

The petition on Change is up to 75K signatures now.

MsHighwater I see your point and I didn't much like some of the wording of the petition. But I'm going to overlook that on this occasion because of the sheer unpleasantness in every possible way of the ad. Of course Oscar Pistorious deserves to be considered innocent till proven guilty and the petition should refer to Paddy Power trivialising Reeva Steenkamp's violent death rather than her murder. But the aim of the petition is to get the ad withdrawn and I can support that.

bobthebuddha · 03/03/2014 21:52

As Linerunner said, Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey's son apparently is directly involved. The world's gone a bit mad,frankly. But hey,it's all 'mega Lolz' so that's okay, right?

The deleted Dromey tweet

SkaterGrrrrl · 03/03/2014 21:58

Have signed the petition.

Keeping quiet about this kind of misogyny doesnt stop it, it perpetuates it.