OP/ED: Out of left field: Firing Drex an insult to women AND media
By Kyra Hoggan
Ed. Note: A quote in this editorial alludes to a vulgar cuss-word. If a reader finds that troublesome, please read no further.
I’m guessing lots of people in the tri-city area remember Australian deejay Drex, of the Drex and Johnson morning radio show on Mountain FM.
Drex, whose real name is Justin Wilcomes, left our area in June of 2012 to accept a promotion to a Courtenay radio station, 98.9 Jet FM – and was fired this morning for a Dec.-19 interview with Premier Christy Clark, in which he asked a controversial question.
I find this so hypocritical, moronic and unjust, I’m not even sure where to start.
A listener emailed Drex wanting to know if Clark liked being a MILF (meaning Mother I’d Like To F@#$), to which she replied, it’s better than being a cougar (a slang term for older women seeking romantic congress with younger men).
Both Clark and Drex took heavy criticism in the media for the remarks, which were deemed by some to be hugely derogatory, sexist and degrading to women.
Here’s my thing – anyone who has ever listened to Drex knows his stock-in-trade is an edgy, sometimes even harsh, sense of humour. Listeners here ate it up –and those who found his style offensive simply switched to the less-raunchy, but still excellent, Wayne and Jayne morning show on EZ Rock.
Did Drex cross a line? Well, duh. That’s his job.
Because every person draws their own lines about what humour makes them comfortable, this kind of comedy simply demands that the comedian cross lines, with varying degrees of success. (Think Conan O’Brien, Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, George Carlin).
In fact, if Drex didn’t cross lines, his station would have had ample cause to fire him for abject failure to be amusing and over-the-top, which I believe simply has to be a factor in why they hired him in the first place.
Derogatory to women. Pfffft. Drex is derogatory to everyone, and listeners eat it up, and his bosses knew that when they promoted him.
I’m a woman, last time I checked … and I feel far more degraded, belittled and insulted by women who can’t let anyone have a sense of humour even a little outside their own tastes without a public lynching ensuing – THAT, to me, implies a weaker sex. Not being weak, angry or impossibly dour myself, I actually found the bantering with Drex to be the only time I’ve liked Clark throughout her entire tenure in office. I can’t help but wonder just how weak you’d have to be to be unable to simply push the button to switch stations if you don’t enjoy Drex’s humour – and how arrogant you’d have to be to demand everyone else fall in line with your values. These moral arbiters of comedy must’ve been apoplectic during Eddie Murphy’s heyday, and Andrew Dice Clay must’ve made them want to strangle themselves with any bras they hadn’t yet burned.
I’m a feminist, and strong, and independent and capable – and I’d appreciate it if self-righteous, self-appointed moral security guards would please stop treating me and my sisters like we’re all so weak and fragile that we can’t even withstand an off-colour joke. AND, that we need them to defend us, rather than being able to do so ourselves.
Talk about degrading.
Nor can I help but wonder about the station’s motivation here – the story had died in the media. No one was talking about it anymore. A behind-the-scenes punishment would have kept it dead. Now all of a sudden, JetFM’s making province-wide headlines again, while no longer having to pay an expensive on-air personality.
Luckily, this will work to Drex’s advantage, too. Although I can’t imagine he’s popping champagne corks this evening, he’ll still be better for the whole debacle. Media personalities are a brand – and this coverage will do nothing more than solidify Drex’s brand while increasing his market share. I’m not at all concerned for him.
I AM, however concerned about a media that’s either, in my opinion, too incompetent to see how this will prolong the story or else has an ulterior motive that cost an excellent employee his job. I’m concerned about a media that will allow South Park to air, but at the same time will cooperate as the Politically-Correct Gestapo withdraw a person’s livelihood based on a single questionable comment, if even it’s arguably the kind of comment he was hired to make. I’m intensely concerned about feminists who are fighting deejays instead of the glass ceiling, domestic violence, and sex-based criminality.
I’m more than a little interested to see how long it takes a reporter to ask Clark what she thinks of this development, and how she responds.
Well, what’s done is done – I think we should all check back in a decade. Let’s see then how JetFM is doing, what Clark is up to, and how Drex has fared. There’s little question in my mind about which will be the most successful.
