“Eugenie Bouchard had no idea the man with the microphone in his hand and mischief in his heart would ask her to “do a little twirl” to show off her outfit for the TV cameras and the crowd at the Australian Open in Melbourne this week. What followed was an exercise in farce control, as journalists hungry for a story seized on social media criticism to portray the incident as “Twirlgate”.
The villain of the pantomime was Ian Cohen, a reporter from the shouty school who does the sort of low-level courtside interviews with players immediately after a match that would not be out of place in a holiday camp.”
Read more here: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jan/22/eugenie-bouchard-twirlgate-australian-sports-reporter
John Iadarola (http://www.twitter.com/jiadarola), Ben Mankiewicz (http://www.twitter.com/benmank77), and Ana Kasparian (http://www.twitter.com/anakasparian) of The Young Turks discuss.
Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
Comments
You know Ana. Why don’t you worry about the massive difference between the amount of money in the purses of men’s vs. women’s tennis.
Yeah, “twirl for me” is a bit sexist, but the difference in prize money is outrageous.
Worry about what matters
Serena Williams is #1 btw Eugenie Bouchard is #7.
While I agree with your sentiment, I think he could have just asked them to explain their outfits (Nadal was asked to explain his shorts this Australian open and not asked to twirl), each grand slam has there own personality and with the exception of Wimbledon the 50% of the on court interviews is to make the player relatable to the fans then the more serious questions are generally asked when they face the mass press after they have chance to talk to there coaches. Lots of the press travel with the players over the season so they the get an idea of their personalities and who they can have fun with. They have asked male players to dance, do impersonations, and years a Andy Murry had been talking about his improved fitness and was asked to flex (full disclosure it was at his home country’s tournament by his home media).
There are definitely degrees of sexism and double standers.This would be something that’s not a huge issue but somethings to just be aware of.
Sorry, I meant this comment for the Think Tank video.
Turn the scenario around. A woman interviews a man who just won the mens event. She tells him to do a twirl, he does, interviewer gets a laugh, women in the crowd get to scream, everybody has a laugh and it’s a non issue, especially to the man.. Don’t look too deeply into this kind of stuff. Inappropriate? Sure. So? Life goes on.