Sunday 29 March 2009

Paul Henry defends his right to act like a child

TVNZ has received a number of complaints about Paul Henry, following his making fun of Greenpeace's Stephanie Mills for her facial hair. But this champion of free speech is unrepentant and refuses to apologise to the many people he has offended and upset.

In his capacity as a maker of profound social observations, Henry also added, "The thing that interested me wasn't the fact that she had facial hair. It was the fact that everyone can be amazed by it, everyone can be thinking about it, everyone can see it as an interesting thing, but no one can say anything". Good stuff, Paul. Thought-provoking. Could it be that most people, by the time they reach adulthood, develop a sort of filtering mechanism that stops them from saying every single dumb thing that pops into their heads?

The highlight of the linked article is the beautifully understated comment of the University of Otago's Dr Annabel Cooper, who said of Henry, "They should get grown-ups to host those shows". But the thing is, if someone's made it to Henry's age without working out why belittling and hurting other people is a bad idea, there's really not much hope for them.

4 comments:

Paul said...

Is there some contractual requirement that all the men on TVNZ have to be dicks? Still, Paul Henry is by far and and away the dickiest. No broadcaster should tolerate this sort of behaviour.

Brenda said...

excellently named facebook group called "FUCK YOU Paul Henry".

http://tinyurl.com/daq9pb

Julie said...

Anon, did you really think posting your hate in a different thread would be ok?

Julie said...

Oh dear Anon, you are a slow learner today aren't you? Props for using Ms in your personal attack though.