Caller, you're on the air

I moved to NZ to get the hell AWAY from AFL football, which in some eyes would disqualify me from holding an opinion on the removal-from-duty of AFL commentator Kelli Underwood. But of the games and highlights I've seen in the years hence (and no, there was no escape to be had, it appears), Kelli Underwood's AFL calling was actually pretty ordinary. As a play-by-play caller - remembering the players names and positions - she knew the game enough for the job. But, and there's no underestimating the importance of this for someone who is known almost entirely by the sound of their voice - her voice was desperately fucking annoying. The particularly desperately fucking annoying part - which may well have been her producers' idea at Channel 10 - was that she bellowed forth with some sort of constipated Rabs-Warren-Lite roar whenever anything 'exciting' happened, if it can be said anything 'exciting' ever actually happens in AFL football. As though she'd been told, or had decided for herself, that the only way to be taken seriously as an AFL caller was to grunt and groan like an old wharf. Or Dennis Cometti.

So, as with a lot of people who aren't particularly good at their jobs, Kelli got fired. I don't have a problem with that. I would have fired her for spelling her name with an 'i' like a particularly boganlicious extra from Kath and Kim, with accent to match. I wouldn't have hired someone with a desperately fucking annoying voice to call AFL games any more than I would have employed Bobcat Goldthwait to do voiceovers for funeral home ads on TV. However, as a result of holding this view, clearly I'm a bogan sexist fuckwit and should be compulsorily sterilized, if the sneerings of something calling itself a Penbo on Rupert's shit version of Crikey are to be believed. Clearly, anyone who supports the firing of Underwood may as well be joining Matty Johns and the Cronulla Sharks in a pre-season 'bun', you misogynist prick. There must be some sort of gender-political version of Godwin's Law at work here. Surely as soon as you claim the entire other side are sexists, you lose the argument, yeah?

Nah. And so the impossibility of even discussing Underwood's competence in a rational manner becomes apparent. You can't simply say they were crap, as was pointed out about BBC Formula 1 caller Jonathan Legard before he was given the arse in favour of having two colour guys and no actual commentator - an experiment in breaking down stereotypical sports-broadcast roles as daring in its own way as having a female caller in an AFL game. And that, really, is the issue. Underwood's hiring, wrongly or more wrongly, was seen as some great watershed for gender politics, rather than a curiosity at best and marketing-led dubiousness on Ten's part at worst. Quite why there actually is any expectation of gender balance in the media presentation of professional sports that are overwhelmingly dominated by players and coaches of one gender or the other seems strange.

I'm carrying no candle for the way sports are 'traditionally' presented on TV, either. Standard operating procedure appears to be to have some pretty young thing on the sideline, picked for appearance rather than knowledge or ex-player reputation, to giggle and swoon through lines of Captain Obvious questioning while the ex-pros in the booth - overwhelmingly of the other sex - pat them condescendingly on the head after every throw-back-to-the-combox. The most striking example of that sort of tokenism is actually One HD's netball coverage. Quite what the fuck that grinning tool who knows less about the game than I do is doing front-and-centre, other than as eye candy for the target demographic, I have limited concept. Although if anyone can actually tell me which of Fox Sports' fleet of identikit peroxide blondes is which, I may actually be able to make sense of their Big Bash cricket coverage.

This is not, repeat NOT, to say women can't present, commentate or report on men's sport, or vice versa. Far from it. There are many brilliant, hugely talented female sportswriters out there. (And then there's Rebecca Wilson.) Some of them played professionally (like Sky NZ's Melodie Robinson, a very sharp rugby analyst who happens to have won more World Cups than any All Black living or dead - not hard since the men ritually choke in the knockout stages every four years), some who didn't. Some are actually very good at that otherwise-token sideline role, demonstrating a knowledge of the game and its nuances which far outstrips the position description - Mel McLaughlin of Fox Sports' A-League coverage comes to mind. It's the tokenism of that role which grates, no matter the gender balance of the sport in question. It wasn't Kelli Underwood's fault she was promoted into a role which she didn't quite have the skillset for; you could call it the Peter Principle in action. But we should be able to have a discussion about that without blinkered arsehats declaring anyone and everyone who disliked her commentary to be a sexist, fascist, rapist or Nazi.

Then again, as my mate AJ just pointed out, while Ian Healy has a paying job at Ch9, NOBODY should be sacked from a commentary gig.

What do you think? I'm Doctor Yobbo, with a Y. *affects comedy leprechaun accent*

The Doctor is OUT.