Christine Brennan is not making any sense. I have always liked her as a reporter. I think she is smart, funny and displays a very strong understanding of the subjects about which she reports. But her recent comments about Erin Andrews and the dirtbag who violated Andrews’ privacy make no sense.
For those who don’t know, Erin Andrews is a very pretty sports reporter for ESPN. She is also, in my opinion, very smart and appears to work hard. While she is very, VERY attractive, there is nothing about her work that makes me think she got that job solely because she is pretty. Anyway, someone, we don’t know who, appears to have taken some sort of peephole video of Andres while she was naked in her hotel room. If my understanding is correct, someone actually drilled a hole into her hotel room wall and used a very small camera to get this video.
I know. Very creepy. So there is an upside to me being so physically unattractive. I have to assume that no one will try anything like that on me. But I digress.
Anyway, this has been a huge media shitstorm for days now, complete with pathetic dudes going online looking for the video and enterprising computer hackers using the promise of the video as bait to get people to download a virus to their computer. Serves the lame searchers right if their computers get infected.
Add to this the opinions of Brennan, a widely-respected sports journalist, who, via Twitter, said about the Andrews imbroglio “Women sports journalists need to be smart and not play to the frat house. There are tons of nuts out there.” Candidly, I’m not even sure what that means, but I think it says that this is Andrews’ fault because Andrews is somehow “play[ing] to the frat house.” I’m not sure what Andrews has ever done to earn that sort of admonition. I don’t follow Andrews all that closely and I gave up Playboy and Maxim years ago (I think it was a combination of maturity and becoming the father of a little girl), but I don’t recall ever seeing Erin Andrews doing photo layouts for either of those magazines or any like them. In fact, other than being merely pretty, I can’t think of a single thing that Erin Andrews has ever done that would suggest she is in any way capitalizing on her sexuality or her physical attractiveness. Again, I could be wrong, but I simply don’t think that’s the case.
If I am right, I’d like Christine Brennan to explain how Andrews was ever “playing to the frat house.” It just makes no sense. It’s not Andrews fault that she is pretty, although I can’t think of anyone who would begrudge her the ability to maximize her physical beauty if that’s what she wanted to do. But since when is being pretty playing to the frat house? I happen to think Christine Brennan is also actually pretty but does that mean she is playing to the frat house? Is she playing to the “middle-aged dad house” (where I reside) or some other venue entirely?
Brennan tried to walk back those comments by saying that she uses that “frat house” line all the time in speeches and she wants all women to avoid that. OK, I’ll go with that. It’s probably a good practice for women everywhere to avoid playing into sexism. But, still, I have this niggling little feeling that Brennan wasn’t directing that commentary at all women. She was talking about Erin Andrews who, I must repeat, did nothing more than walk around naked in her own hotel room. That’s why I am having such a hard time getting over this “frat house” comment; there is no way (that I can see) to look at this and come away with any impression other than Brennan was admonishing Andrews and saying that Andrews played to the frat house and, ergo, bought this on herself.
Later on, in another tweet, Brennan said that we (by “we” I believe she meant women generally and probably female sports journalists specifically) “still need to be twice as good to get half the credit. So I want us to play to the 12-yr-old girl, not the frat house.” Again, I think Brennan was trying to explain her use of the frat house line without actually apologizing for it. But, again, this makes no sense. It appears that Brennan is still saying that Andrews somehow played to the frat boys and was not playing to the twelve year-old girls. I won’t doubt for a second that Brennan is right about doing twice the work for half the credit; I’m not a woman, but it seems to me that sports and sports writing are fields that would be a Petri dish for sexism and chauvinism so I’ll take her word on that and thank her for doing her part to make the world a better place for my daughter. But still…How in the world is Erin Andrews doing anything bad to twelve year-old girls? By being pretty? By allowing people to see that she is pretty? BY walking around naked in a room where she has every reasonable expectation of privacy? I just don’t get it.
Brennan later on tweeted that Andrews has her full support, that what happened to Andrews was “bad” and that she (Brennan) “will continue to fite [sic] for her and for all women.” Well that’s very decent of her to admit that what happened to Andrews was bad and to promise to continue fighting for Andrews, because it certainly didn’t look like she was fighting for Andrews when she said all that stuff to begin with.
I will admit, based on all the things I’ve listed so far about Brennan’s comments, I could be taking things out of context. I mean, Twitter is not a great forum to have any kind of nuanced discussion about things like the right to privacy and sexism. So maybe, possibly, Brennan is misunderstood here. But I don’t think so. I haven’t heard the tape, but it’s being reported that Brennan also pointed out that Andrews once wore a too-short skirt into a locker room and also touched one of the people she was interviewing. Umm…OK, Christine. What does that have to do with anything? If you aren’t saying “she was asking for it/she was begging for it/she deserved it” then why do you bring up the length of her skirt at all? And are you saying that you have never touched the arm of anyone you’re interviewing? I don’t want to get too worked up over one (possibly lascivious/possibly innocent) graze of the arm here, but if you don’t think that Andrews had it coming, why do you bring it up in the first place? That’s what makes me think that my interpretation of all your tweets is accurate. You had a chance, in a radio interview, without a limit on the number of characters you used, to say what you meant and you chose to highlight her skirt and what she did physically with her hands. Don’t blame me for noticing; you’re the one who said it.
Also in Brennan’s radio interview she is reported to have said “She doesn't deserve what happened to her, but part of the shtick seems to me is being a little bit out there in a way that, then, are you encouraging the complete nutcase to drill a hole in your room.” What the fuck? Schtick? What “shtick” are you referring to Christine? Does Andrews even have a shtick? And did you really just say that Andrews “encouraged” a guy (crazy or not) to use a drill and peephole camera to look at her naked? Why wouldn’t she just pose for Playboy and get it over with if she wanted people to see her with no clothes on?
Again, I have always liked Christine Brennan. And I still do. But I have lost some respect for her. It’d be a lot easier for me to find that respect again if she’d just apologize and admit she was wrong and quit trying to walk back her comments without actually taking them back. But as it is, it appears that Brennan has adopted the role of the pearl-clutching head of the Women’s Auxiliary who always knew that Andrews girl was trash and would never amount to anything, certainly nothing respectable.
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