TRY HAVING A LAUGH
WHEN did we Australians become so serious? Aussies are renowned the world over for being able to tell and take a joke, we’re cheekily irreverent, we love beer and a barbie, we love a laugh, and the truest test of character has always been if you can tell a good yarn and shout when it’s your turn.
Now every day there’s a new storm of outrage as the permanently offended lecture us all about the most minor perceived slights. Too often, offence is taken when it is in no way given.
What’s worse, our politicians are helping to breed this mentality when they should be stopping it.
One of the latest knicker- twisters was an ad by an online bookmaker featuring drug- cheat Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson.
The bookie was spruiking its “performance- enhanced” phone app and used a heap of hilarious doping puns.
But now the Advertising Standards Bureau has demanded the ad be pulled because it “condoned steroids”, and “glorified drug cheats”.
Johnson cheated to win Olympic gold in 1988 … surely 29 years is long enough to soothe people’s pain.
How about you just take it in the manner in which it was delivered and laugh at it like the millions of others who didn’t feel moved to complain?
The average Aussie is sick to death of having everything scrutinised by government watchdogs intent on limiting our freedoms and dictating what constitutes good taste or humour. But they’re too scared of being criticised to stand up and say “enough”.
People need to understand – and be taught – that it is impossible to go through life without being offended.
They should also be taught that there’s a difference between flagrant bullying and a bit of banter.
Instead of people being told to harden up and move on, they’re told they should run to the Government or whinge for reinforcements online.
We also had the recent controversy involving The Footy Show in which host Paul Vautin joked to an Aboriginal guest who