Updated at 2:43pmPT with comments from Charissa Thompson.
Today’s episode of ESPN’s First Take tackled the issue of the New England Patriots’ post-game party. While Skip Bayless didn’t find much fault with the players dancing (possibly intoxicated) at a previously planed event, Rob Parker was most concerned about the fact that there didn’t seem to be many women at the event. Clearly uncomfortable with so many men, some of them shirtless, dancing together, he begged, “where are the females?” Good heavens, we must have females!!
Host Charissa Thompson soon chimed in that at least one woman was spotted near the dance floor, adding, “so that’s good news.”
Thompson said in an email to me that she didn’t mean anything by it:
I was merely making a casual/innocent reference in the context of a response to something Rob said about the lack of women in the party video. When the video then showed a woman, I was simply responding to him. I didn’t mean anything by the comment. I hope this makes sense to you.
It does make sense. I imagine with all the foolish banter between Parker and Bayless, there’s lots of time to be filled and it’s not easy.
Still, this incident is an example of the underlying root of homophobia in many people. It looks weird to some people to see so many men having fun and dancing together without a woman present. These are bigger-than-life men, heroes of today, and they must have women present, damn it! Otherwise it’s just…well…plain wrong. Weird. Queer, if you will.
Why is Parker so afraid of a room of men dancing together? Why does there have to be a woman to de-homofy the environment? Why can’t a bunch of guys who just went through a grueling 19-game season simply dance around together and have fun with friends? It’s sad to see this paid ESPN employee so desperate to declare the scene “no-homo,” and I must say I was disappointed to hear Thompson chime in upon seeing a women with, “that’s good news.” Though her thoughtful response goes a long way!
For his part, Parker is little more than a Bayless-type attention-seeking clown. He’s gotten into trouble in the past for saying Kevin Love would suck in the NBA because he’s white (Parker is black). He had to leave The Detroit News in shame for his pitiful columns.
This is no slam against ESPN. We have praised ESPN repeatedly for the company’s inclusive policies and actions. It’s just sad to see the locker room uber-macho posturing that’s allowed to get on the air. Unfortunately they haven’t posted the clip online so we can’t share it.
A Tweet to Parker was not returned.
on Feb 7th, 2012 at 6:49 PM
I’m not a fan of Rob Parker in general on 1st take because most of the stuff he says is baseless. As for Charissa Thompson haven’t seen her enough on ESPN. I’m not surprised that Skip really didn’t care either way about the men dancing alone together. I can’t wait to watch tom. because I have a feeling that Stephen A. Smith will be on Skip’s side with this one.
I’m surprised this site didn’t talk about how Parker among others were calling for the Giants head coach to be fired this year, and how wrong they were. They were also wrong about Tebow, and the Packers.
on Feb 7th, 2012 at 6:50 PM
I saw a video on YouTube and was wondering where the ladies were.
Obviously I have no issue with dudes dancing together but it did seem a bit odd that Gronk was dancing with only dudes — I mean it was only dudes dancing. Maybe they thought it was OK to dance since a football player was also dancing? I did see that female dancing with Gronk at one point.
Then it was back to dancing with dudes.
on Feb 7th, 2012 at 8:01 PM
Before the author takes it upon himself to defend the LGBT community from homophobia, let’s first confirm that such bigotry is actually PRESENT (it clearly is not in this instance). And forget defending us; allowing this type of idiocy such a broad platform to represent us to the media is just embarrassing.
The fact that no wives were on the dance floor was invoked only to place full responsibility on the players’ shoulders for their decision to dance in what could be perceived as “celebration” following what SHOULD be the most devastating loss of their careers. It was mentioned to negate any excuse of “I wasn’t celebrating, my wife just wanted to dance.”
It’s a shame someone of this ilk possesses the means to speak on behalf of the LGBT community, especially considering he’s either too dishonest to present the full context of the situation, or too oblivious to dig a millimeter below the surface of a story. In this case, there is no “story” at all.
on Feb 7th, 2012 at 8:35 PM
I saw the video, and it makes me wonder why Gronk was taking off another dudes shirt?
on Feb 7th, 2012 at 9:10 PM
TJ, you completely misrepresent what happened on the show and the context in which Parker made his comments. It had absolutely nothing to do with wives. Your representation of the situation is completely fabricated.
This was homophobia in the most literal sense – fear of any hint of male-male affection. For Parker there had to be a woman there or it was a bizarre, weird situation.
on Feb 7th, 2012 at 11:03 PM
TJ, you’re an Uncle Tom douche bag.
Thank you, Cyd. You are awesome.
on Feb 8th, 2012 at 1:32 AM
There’s always going to be some sort of homophobia whenever grown men get together, especially when it involves major sporting events or lots of beautiful women. I’m not saying we should condone this but we’re not being realistic if we think that some sort of homophobia won’t come up. Just saying.
on Feb 8th, 2012 at 10:50 PM
Cyd, thanks for pointing this out, and for countering that brain dead TJ (whom I think is really one of these straight sh*t-stirrers on this site!) The underlying homophobia in sports is so unexamined that the lives of the clueless are not worth living (to paraphrase Socrates, who was gay, so I guess his thoughts were just a bit too paranoid, too.)
on Feb 9th, 2012 at 6:16 PM
I don’t understand why Charissa Thompson is being given a free pass here. I understand exactly what she meant, and her sorry-ass apology doesn’t mean jack.