Back in the 1970’s there was a TV show that started with Hey You Guys! https://youtu.be/H_iGaQglnKg
In the 1980’s there was a movie with a similar tag line… https://youtu.be/4Vv5CsP1pAg
Fast forward to 2019, and a Canadian sports commentator gets fired for saying “…you people…”
Now I know that the whole Don Cherry “you people” scandal is top most in current Canadian divisiveness. Some people say that his comment was anti-immigrant, or culturally insensitve. Others state that it’s not meant to be derogatory, that it’s meant to be about those that don’t support our veterans by wearing a poppy.
I think that a lot of the problem stems from the fact that Grapes (Don Cherry) has said many controversial or insensitive things over the four decades of his commentating career. You can see these comments on https://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/don-cherry-s-history-of-controversial-comments-1.4680505
My question is, if he was let go over this one comment, why wasn’t he more drastically penalized for his earlier comments. So far in his career, he has offended women, indigenous people, former hockey players, climate change activists, and “left wing pinkos”.
It seems to me that CBC and now Rogers (who owns Hockey Night in Canada) were okay with his comments before, a simple “views expressed aren’t necessarily the broadcasters”, was sufficient to make the comments acceptable. Now this whole “you people” incident is too much and he must be taught a lesson.
I would have been okay with Rogers saying that they gave Grapes one last chance at not being offensive, but he crossed the line again. That would have at least said, he was given warnings about his previous comments, but their explanation is just that what he said wasn’t acceptable.
I’m not saying that what he said wasn’t offensive, or actionable, but I take issue with how the network is dealing with it.
If we have issues with Grapes and his comments, should we not also take issue with other comments made by other TV personalities? They should all be held to the same standard.
Is it now offensive that a children’s television show would start their show with “Hey You Guys!”, or a movie have a “Hey You Guys!” in it too? Least of the offensiveness should be that it’s not gender neutral? Should it not be dubbed over with a “Hey You Non-Gender Specific Individuals!”?