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Moral Outrage Friday

Upated: Magda apologises for a gag on cyclists, while netballers are irate over Hungry Beast. But Liz Ellis laughs off any controversy.

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liz-ellisIf it’s Friday it must be Moral Outrage Day.

There are two stories in today’s press (ok, well one was yesterday) in which TV comedy moments offended somebody.

The first was Magda Szubanski’s appearance in Good News Week in which she had a go at cyclists who take up too much of the road.

“I don’t want to have to be in my car looking at your sweaty lycra bum raised in the air,” she said.

“Ride your stupid bike on the stupid bike path!”

(Magda from 1:20 secs)

But the gag caused offence to cyclists (apparently). There were probably other cyclists who weren’t offended too but unfortunately they make for lousy press.

Szubanski, who was herself the target of off humour from Kyle Sandilands, has apologised.

“We all make mistakes and the point is that hopefully we learn from them. Clearly my joke was stupid and insensitive but perhaps it has brought to light that there are frustrations amongst cyclists and motorists,” she said,

“Hopefully some good will come of this and it will help promote useful dialogue between the two groups.

“As a gesture of solidarity I have offered to participate in the National Ride to Work Day on October 14. Apologies again … and, yes, I will be wearing lycra.”

The second furore concerns a quick skit in Hungry Beast which parodied NRL scandals. A silhouetted man described how he had been ‘assaulted’ by netballers.

Netball Australia chief executive Kate Palmer said, “This skit, while attempting to be satire has missed the mark, is in poor taste and it has the potential to damage the reputations of Liz Ellis OAM, our former Australian Captain and netball great, and the members of the Australian Netball Team.”

Really?

No, really?

What about what Liz Ellis herself said on The 7PM Project on Tuesday this week? She showed a pretty good sense of humour then.

In a comment on AFL’s ‘Mad Monday’ antics, Ellis said during her early days of netball the girls got up to a few antics of their own.

“Finally we got to have Mad Mondays and we used to go to the pub and dress up as blokes,” she said.

“There has been allegations in the past that the Melbourne Vixens has No Undie Monday and -I don’t know if I can say this at this time- Titties-Out Tuesday.”

‘Nuff said.

Updated:  Ellis’ spokesperson Jessica Ball told ninemsn, “She knows it was a joke and can see the funny side of it — she doesn’t feel defamed at all,”

“She is out on the golf course playing a round right now, which shows how concerned she is about this.”

TV Tonight understands the Hungry Beast sketch was never part of any bigger story to air next week. It was a one-off end of show gag.

Source:  The Age, Daily Telegraph

44 Responses

  4. LOL if anything positive is to come from this it’s that free press is being given to the largely ignored (ratings-wise) Hungry Beast and GNW which are facing some fierce competition of late.

  5. I don’t mind bike riders when they obey the same rules on the roads as everyone else, many times I’ve seen them go strait through red lights or just go up on to the foot path without stopping. Then they wonder why they end up on the front of some truck coming the other way!

    And bike pants are good, if you have the butt to wear them LOL

  6. I knew that Magda would have to make an apology. We’ll get offended by anything these days. It seemed to me that she went a little overboard with the biker-bashing, but it was a joke after all. If you ask me, what they should apologize about, hilarious though it was, was ganging up on and publicly embarrassing the poor audience member in the front row.

  7. Love how car drivers believe because they pay a rego fee they own the road, no wonder you’re w**kers and cannot deal with other uses be it motorbikes, trucks, cycles pedestrians etc.

    Sure it’s all a joke (this was anyway) but then go and ride a bike yourself on the road and see how funny it is after getting treated like crap all because cars wanted to go 20km over limit and you won’t/can’t. If it’s all too PC for you then why feel so insecure to defend GNW/Magda, surely you’d have no worries over a “trivial” issue like this, but actually you do.

    Lucky for Magda this deflects from her crap other show.

  9. I don’t mind cyclists who are on the roads, but when councils spend large amounts of money on nice new bike tracks and the cyclists don’t use them but instead ride on the highway right next to it then that peeves me off.

  10. What’s that episode of south park where they try to do a christmas pageant at the school, which is progressively toned down due to outcry about themes found offensive by each religious group? In the end the christmas pageant is kids on a bare stage, doing interpretive dance dressed in a grey leotard.

    I think comedy in Australia should be reduced to someone sitting silently in a big green field with paper bag over their head.

    Of course, no doubt bloody today tonight or the herald sun would pick up the story of the outrage and hurt caused to the ‘tuckerbag enthusiasts society’ or something.

    australia – get a grip.

  12. Cyclists-obey the road rules and please chill out.

    Magda please chill out.

    Liz Ellis-dead set legend.

    Australia-harden the f**k up please.

    p.s Ten points for a razor scooter (TISM)

  13. Haha just read an article about the Liz Ellis, netball sketch. Liz Ellis says she thinks its funny and so do i after reading some of what’s said.

    This is from ninemsn article

    “At first it was just me and Liz Ellis and that was fine, but then one by one they all appeared and they all started clapping and cheering her on … and they each tried a weird position,” he says in the sketch.

    The interviewer says: “What kind of weird position?”

    “Wing defence, centre … goal attack,” he replies, before apologising for crying.

    Haha i literally laughed at loud reading that. Lucky i was alone when i read it.

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