Have you gotten a load of this ridiculous "controversy" Boston sports blogger David Portnoy (aka "El Presidente") is embroiled in over a post he wrote about Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen's son? Portnoy's blog, Barstool Sports, a typically raunchy "sports/smut" site, recently posted a photo of a naked Benjamin Brady, age 1 1/2, playing on the beach with his mom, with the headline "Check Out The Howitzer On Brady's Kid." The post went on, "Just swinging low like a boss. That's what MVP QB's do. They impregnate chicks and give birth to big dicked kids. PS -- The mom's ass ain't bad either."
Please arrest these women -- they're shooting "kiddie porn"
As any sports fan with half a brain could see, the post was playing off the "Tom Brady Is God" mentality that permeates Boston, but then it quickly got turned into a kiddie porn/NAMBLA "issue." Sports radio inflamed its audience -- WEEI banned him and then encouraged people to call up and say he should be murdered ... and then, surprise, the death threats starting rolling in -- but Portnoy stood his ground until two "embarrassed" cops paid him a visit and said it might just be best for everybody concerned if he took the photos down, which he did. ("I basically didn't want to get into a pissing contest with the cops or state.") While I can appreciate that some people weren't particularly amused by Portnoy's puerile post -- get it, Eli Manning's son probably has a vagina? -- is it really necessary to start demonizing people and branding them child pornographers and pedophiles over a disagreement about humor? Sure, he "started" it. But it was a JOKE, people. Portnoy didn't run up to the kid and rip his clothes off, and he didn't post the photos "on" the Web. He commented on paparazzi photos that were sold for profit on the Internet. Call him a tasteless idiot and stop reading his site all you want, but enough with the death threats and faux outrage. Save your anger -- and action -- for the thousands of children who really are being sexually exploited, and don't have an entourage of bodyguards and millions of dollars to protect them.
Portnoy is rightfully unrepentant -- as Deadspin points out, one of the "high-minded" sports shows condemning him once compared inner-city schoolchildren to a gorilla -- but after seeing him interviewed on the local news, there was something else about him that made me wonder about where some of this rage is coming from. See if you can figure out what it is ...
3 comments:
Insane...were you thinking that there might be more than a tinge of homophobia at play here?
Obviously, I don't think the man deserves death threats. It's pretty clear what he intended the joke to be, and that he wasn't trying to make a kiddie porn joke.
That said, he posted a picture of someone else's child's genitals on the internet and made jokes of a sexual nature about the child's genitals. That's beyond offensive. It's probably criminal.
I don't think you've made a fair comparison with your picture of the baby and the two women. Both pictures are perfectly innocent -- a child playing at the beach, naked. It's what Portnoy DID with the picture that crosses the line.
@Ryan: Bingo. I guess this guy is like the Mark Zuckerberg of Boston and married, but just watching the video I'd have sworn he was a tad light in the loafers.
@Mark: I agree with you completely -- and think you evaluated the situation more fairly than I did -- except for one key fact: This is 100 percent NOT criminal. And to say he "posted a photo" is completely misleading. A for-profit paparazzi organization "posted" the photos and Portnoy commented on them. (Was it the most tasteless way he could have? Many would argue yes -- but even you concede it was done with the intent of humor.) I say save the outrage for the thousands of children who are actually being sexually exploited -- and don't have bodyguards to protect them -- and the death threats for virtually no one.
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