I would like to offer a word of strongly enthused advice to Eddie McGuire over his recent drowning “joke” and subsequent “apology”: Get better writers or keep your damn mouth shut.

This could be extended to the entirety of the AFL, Triple M and anywhere where the phrase ‘boys will be boys’ is now used as a permissive defence. Because the concept of personal accountability — it would seem — is just not being recognised.

If unsure what I’m referring to, at the AFL’s Big Freeze event held last weekend (which raised $2 million for Motor Neurone Disease research), McGuire, the president of the Collingwood Football Club and media personality said as he prepared to slide into a pool of ice water that the next year, journalist Caroline Wilson should do a one woman slide,

“And I’ll put in 10 grand straight away, make it 20. And if she stays under, 50. What do you reckon guys?”

He said this to the knowing guffaws of the Triple M commentary team, and probably some of the listening audience. However, seeing as violence against women is a huge problem in this country, a concerned and unimpressed section of the community took to calling out the comments as vulgar, especially as they were made mere days before McGuire welcomed a new AFL women’s team into the Collingwood fold. Oh, and he said this stuff during the White Ribbon AFL round, which is aimed at prevention of violence against women.

Tact and timing never were strong points of McGuire, and frankly, it’s a bit tiring to hear him trot out the same standard of non-apology we keep hearing from this man, who, even after last year’s comments surrounding Adam Goodes and his treatment and behaviour regarding Jessica Rowe, still hasn’t learnt one iota of how jokes or indeed personal accountability work. When he finally did talk about these comments, what he could offer as his way of taking responsibility for his words was:

“[I’m] really disappointed that these comments have led to these feelings from people… I apologise and retract them in the spirit of what we’re trying to achieve, which is to look after women and children in our community.”

You hear that, folks? He’s ‘disappointed’ we didn’t get on board with what he was saying and that our opinion is different to his. He’s ‘retracting’ them for the women and children.

To wit and viz: I’m sorry YOU didn’t like my joke. Think of the children.

Here’s another piece of advice for Mr McGuire: Go Fuck Yourself.

Below is some of David Letterman’s comments after making what was perceived as a tasteless joke about Bristol Palin, a few years back:

“… and I thought, ‘Oh, boy, now I’m beginning to understand what the problem is here. It’s the perception rather than the intent.’ It doesn’t make any difference what my intent was, it’s the perception. And, as they say about jokes, if you have to explain the joke, it’s not a very good joke.”

Here we see someone who at least had the humility and knowledge to admit that his joke didn’t go over well and that the onus to ‘sell’ the joke was on him. McGuire and the fleet of ‘ larrikin characters’ employed by Triple M (of which James Brayshaw, the North Melbourne Club’s president was one) may have shared a bit of an amusing in-joke with each other at the expense of a journalist they do not see eye-to-eye with as a consensus. Maybe they did this with the intent of sharing it with the audience, but fact is, it was perceived as tasteless. And demonstrably unfunny. The fact is he thinks it’s OUR fault we’re upset by his words, even though he cannot sell his own premise. “It’s the perception rather than the intent” needs to be drummed into this sort of ‘it was just a joke’ mentality that has pervaded some quarters of the Australian media landscape. You don’t get to dictate terms if people didn’t laugh.

Here’s a last piece of advice for Mr. McGuire: Please don’t insult the people who are unimpressed by your words by insinuating it’s on them if they didn’t like what you said. No one person is so beyond criticism that their words are safe. You messed up. Show some actual humility OR let someone else write your jokes. And you are unfunny. Channel 9 in particular has days and days of footage to prove this.