Imagine you're watching the Tri-Nations Rugby game at home with a few friends. You're all getting a little fired up, probably with a couple of personal wages on who's team is going to win, and your team is behind by one point after giving up a staggering lead of 25points. So the game is 39 - 38 South Africa's way when Kurtley Beale stepped up to kick a penalty goal from the halfway touchline on full-time. The Wallabies win. What an awesome game. You get on twitter and rub it in the faces of everyone who said they would lose. "Suck on that faggots".
Oops. You're an Olympic gold medalist with millions of eyes watching your every move and judging everything you say and do. Quick take it back. Too late it's already been put out there for people to react. And boy do they.
What Stephanie Rice said on Twitter is really very tame compared to the sort of response you would hear if you went to a pub after a game like that and I know very few people who would take offence to it. I don't think that the word is really regarded as such distasteful homophobic slur as is once was. Unfortunately for Miss Rice it's those few who do take offence that have the loudest voices.
Jaguars reaction to this mishap was normal. The reason companies have contracts with celebrities like Stephanie Rice is because of the public image that they represent. Once that public image is tainted the contract is void. Say if you had a contract with a phone company to provide a phone service. If for some reason the phone service was cancelled you would expect the contract to be cancelled also, or for an agreement to be reached where you are no longer in a contract for a service that you aren't getting. Well it's like that. Stephanie Rice was in the contract to represent the squeaky clean image that Jaguar wants. Since she is no longer that image Jaguar is entitled to terminate the contract if they so chose. Obviously it's not quite that simple and it would have to depend on the terms of the contract and other such things.
Personally I don't think that Jaguar needed to respond as harshly as they did. It's even possible that they will get a small amount of negative publicity from it. Hopefully it was just an attempt to be politically correct, but they do have to show that they can't allow controversial and ignorant slurs like that within their brand.
Joe Francis, member of parliament for Jandakot, has recently put his Jaguar car up for sale because of this incident. He's had four Jaguar cars over a number of years.
ReplyDeleteWell jaguar had a small window of opportunity to weigh up the options and go with the lesser of two evils. Either way they'd get some bad publicity and this way they are maintaining their image. Who's to say someone else would'nt have done the same thing if Jaguar kept Rice on.
ReplyDeleteThen on Jaguar's part was this a 'knee-jerk' reaction! or are jaguar a bunch of f*******
ReplyDeleteI think few of us realise the huge sacrifices that come with fame.
ReplyDeleteI'm involved in the grass roots of swimming. I wonder if any of those wide eyed dreamers, that swim the black line each day at 5am, could ever imagine being in Stephanie's shoes.
I'm personally Francis didn't take Stephanie's age in to account and "give her a break". If I was still voting in his seat, he just lost my vote.
Swings and roundabouts :)
meant to say "personally surprised" - where is the edit function here? lol
ReplyDeleteOur sporting stars are getting younger and younger, and access to social media is so easy and instant.
ReplyDeleteThere will be more incidents in the future.
Oh and Shae, your retort to Keith's post: "Who's to say someone else wouldn't have done the same thing if Jaguar kept Rice on."
ReplyDeleteTouche!