We Need to Plan Boycott of ESPY Award Advertisers

I don't know anything about how to go about getting people to participate in a boycott of advertisers.  However, I think it would be a great idea to boycott ESPY advertisers considering the extreme disrespect Disney / ESPN has shown to real heroes by using the Arthur Ashe courage award for a publicity stunt.

As I suggested in a previous post I started suspecting that Disney arranged for the actor formerly known as Bruce Jenner to get the award after  I discovered that Disney had premiered its own reality show about a man becoming a woman called "Becoming Us" at the same time as the Vanity Fair article about Jenner becoming a female impersonator and the courage award announcement.  

[News stories have misrepresented Jenner's plans.   Jenner doesn't want to have sex with men so he isn't homosexual.  He doesn't want a sex change operation so he isn't a transsexual.  He simply wants to pretend to be a woman.   An entertainer who appears as a female is called a female impersonator. A non-entertainer who does that is called a transvestite.]

There is an old saying in the field of counter terrorism that can apply to other areas of human behavior.    "Once is an accident.  Twice is a coincidence.  Three times is enemy action,"

It is unlikely that those three events occurred at the same time by coincidence.  The fact that Disney was in direct control of two events and could have influenced the third indicates that Disney arranged for the Vanity Fair article and the award announcement to coincide with the series premier.  

My understanding of the way programs are scheduled is that schedules are usually set months in advance because of the time needed to write, cast and perform the program.   Disney likely told  ESPN someone at Disney would select the winner of the Arthur Ashe award so the people at ESPN  wouldn't announce giving the award to a legitimate candidate.  Disney  probably didn't tell the people at ESPN the name of Disney's selection at first to avoid the name becoming public before Disney was ready.  The claim by people at ESPN that they weren't considering anyone else for the award essentially proves my case.

I've had trouble thinking of expressions bad enough to describe the actor formerly known as Bruce Jenner and the people at Disney and ESPN.  I've forgotten a lot of the "military language" that might work, but it wouldn't do any good to remember them because the text editor would delete them.    There are some western terms that might be appropriate like "skunk" and "sidewinder" [ a type of snake that moves sideways].  I've decided to borrow an expression from Jed Clampett on the "Beverly Hillbillies"  -- Jenner and company are "lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut."  Walter Brennan's character "The Colonel" in "Meet John Doe" used the term "heelot" meaning a "lot of heels" -  people who try to get your money.

Jenner and the heelots at ESPN / Disney seem to believe that the rich should not only have all the money, but all the honors.   Those who believe that someone as wealthy as Jenner should receive a "courage" award for taking money to live out a long time dream must have warped minds.

Giving such an award to Jenner at the present time is particularly inappropriate considering the people whose dreams were recently taken from them by an evil madman in Charleston, S.C..

Lauren Hill was a young woman who played college basketball until a fatal form of cancer cut her life short.  When she found out she wouldn't be able to realize her dreams, she dedicate her remaining days raising money so that the disease that stole her dreams wouldn't steal the dreams of any other young people.

Sgt. Noah Galloway volunteered to risk his life protecting us through military service.  An explosive device in Iraq that took his arm and leg forced him to change his dreams.

This isn't the first time Disney has stomped on someone's dream.   If I were Walt Disney, I'd try to come back from the grave and haunt the sidewinding heelots who run the company.

Many of  your daughters know a lot more about a group called the Cheetah girls than I do.   I have read about the courageous creator of the book that the group is based on. She is far more deserving of a courage award than Jenner.   Deborah Gregory was raised in foster care from the age of 3 and aged out of the system at 18 -- that is no one adopted her.    The young black woman didn't let that background hold her back.  She began designing clothes and worked as a runway model before becoming a writer.   She thought she had it made when Disney offered to buy the Cheetah girls and offered her a share of the profits.  She didn't know Disney would claim the people in charge of the project were apparently so incompetent that the project wouldn't make a profit -- or at least so Disney claimed.   Disney's claim would be enough to discourage me from investing in the company.   If Disney lied about the project's profitability that would be an even bigger reason to not buy Disney stock.

Last fall Disney stabbed many of its employees in the back by replacing them with immigrants.   "[A]bout 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost."  Disney's action demonstrates that the biggest threat to well paying jobs is legal immigrants rather than illegal ones.  

A company that would treat the creator of a major revenue source like Cheetah Girls the way Disney did and turn the jobs of its employees over to immigrants wouldn't hesitate to abuse a courage award named after a courageous black athlete as part of a publicity stunt.  I hope someone knows an organization that could organize a boycott of ESPY advertisers.

Disney Apparently Ordered Award for Jenner

In my previous post I discussed the possibility of bribery being involved in the selection of the so called courage award for the actor formerly known as Bruce Jenner.  I had planned to ask in this post if Disney might have ordered ESPN to give the award to Jenner because it was thinking about a movie deal with him to take advantage of his previous association with the popular Kardashians.   Then I discovered that Disney had premiered its own reality show about a man becoming a woman called "Becoming Us" at the same time as the Vanity Fair article and the courage award announcement.

There is an old saying in the field of counter terrorism that can apply to other areas of human behavior.    "Once is an accident.  Twice is a coincidence.  Three times is enemy action,"

It is unlikely that those three events occurred at the same time by coincidence.  The fact that Disney was in direct control of two events and could have influenced the third indicates that Disney arranged for the Vanity Fair article and the award announcement to coincide with the series premier.  

My understanding of the way programs are scheduled is that schedules are usually set months in advance because of the time needed to write, cast and perform the program.   Disney likely told  ESPN someone at Disney would select the winner of the Arthur Ashe award so the people at ESPN  wouldn't announce giving the award to a legitimate candidate.  Disney  probably didn't tell the people at ESPN the name of Disney's selection at first to avoid the name becoming public before Disney was ready.

Jenner is in no way qualified to receive the Arthur Ashe award because he hasn't done anything yet except talk.  A recipient of the Arthur Ashe award should first demonstrate he can walk the walk and not just talk the talk.   In the past the award was given only after the recipient had done something, usually over a significant period of time except in tragic circumstances such as the Columbine massacre.  Recipients have generally either encountered  personal tragedy such as dread medical disorders or murder or done something significant to help  others.   

If the award was really about the homosexual/transsexual situation, the logical recipient would be long time female impersonator RuPaul Charles, the so-called "drag queen " who has been impersonating women, onstage and offstage,  and helping others to do so for  years. RuPaul has improved the image of those female impersonators called "drag queens" who had previously been at the fringe of the entertainment field.   RuPaul is a recording artist whose recordings have appeared on the charts in both America and Britain.  RuPaul's acting credits include appearing as a woman in movies based on the wholesome American family sitcom "The Brady Bunch".

Jenner doesn't look like he will be significantly different from any other female impersonator.  RuPaul is obviously a better choice than  Jenner if the award is to go to a female impersonator.  But then RuPaul is a  black man of ordinary means who entered the business at the bottom and worked his way up.   Jenner is a rich white guy who until recently was part of the Kardashian family media "circus".  This situation has allowed Jenner to enter the female impersonator business at the top with Jenner's own reality show instead of having to earn the opportunity through performances.

I believe Jenner is getting preferential treatment because of his association with the Kardashians, but if I were black I ,might think otherwise.   In fact if I were black and a member of a civil rights organization I would be encouraging my fellow members to demonstrate against Disney / ESPN because of the misuse of the Arthur Ashe award to benefit a white entertainer. 

Jenner is getting an opportunity to realize a long standing dream and get paid for it.   Other suggested candidates had to give up their dreams, or at least alter them.   There is a saying that if life throws you lemons, you should make lemonade. Lauren Hill and Noah Galloway didn't just make lemonade.  They made lemon meringue pie.    

Did Jenner, or E! Network, Pay for Arthur Ashe Award?

I'm not accusing anyone of bribing ESPN or its employees at this point.   I'm just looking for a logical explanation for giving the wealthy actor formerly known as Bruce Jenner an award for courage for a decision that required no special courage because the decision is going to make him even richer.  I also want an explanation for why ESPN which is owned by ABC is going out of its way to promote a program on the E! Network which is owned by NBC.   A bribe is a logical possibility considering Jenner's purported wealth and the tendency of many rich people to think they should be able to buy anything they want. 

I'll suggest another possibility in my next post.

How can anyone with an ounce of sense give a courage award to someone for accepting a reality show contract to appear as a woman, or, for that matter, as Count Dracula or a clown?   I don't recall anyone giving Jamie Farr a courage award for playing the crossdressing Cpl. Max Klinger on "M*A*S*H*".  Would Jenner have gotten a courage award if Paramount had given him a contract to appear in public and on television as part of a new "Star Trek"  series in which he  played an alien such as a Klingon, a Bajoran, or maybe even a Cardassian?  

Perhaps if Jenner's "condition" had kept him from getting a contract there might be some merit in considering his action courageous.  How can doing something that is financially rewarding be considered courageous?  Giving Jenner an award based on his "condition" implies that he is afflicted with something dreadful like Jim Valvano's cancer or Pat Summitt's dementia.

The whole decision smells like there is more than one dead skunk in the middle of the road.   The timeline for Jenner's various publicity activities strongly implies that Jenner, or more likely his publicity agent, had arranged with ESPN for the award before the interview with Diane Sawyer was telecast on April 24th.  ESPN's announcement just after the publication of  the Vanity Fair article appeared  sound's like they scheduled the announcement in conjunction with  publication of the article. The claim that they hadn't been  considering anyone else implies they made the decision long before the article was published.  The award will be given out just before Jenner's new series starts.

Considering the prestige associated with the Arthur Ashe award, the expectation would be that potential nominees would be selected by at least the end of March so they could be properly evaluated.  The people at ESPN seem to be saying they waited until the last minute and grabbed Jenner's name  out of the news.   Wouldn't it be more believable to think that they worked out a deal to give Jenner the award as part of his publicity campaign for his new show?  Or, in other words the award is just part of a publicity stunt.  It is common to pay those who help publicize a tv series.

ESPN and Capital One Are Dishonoring Real Heroes

The decision by ESPN and Capital One to allow the actor previously known as Bruce Jenner to desecrate the Arthur Ashe courage award dishonors real heroes.  Jenner has done nothing to deserve the Arthur Ashe  award.

Jenner's decision to be the character Caitlyn in an E! Network reality show is a common type of  action in the entertainment industry.  There is nothing unusual about an entertainer with a male body impersonating , or playing, a female character.  His action involves no more courage than all entertainers must have to perform before an audience.   His theft of the Arthur Ashe award to make himself look courageous is nothing more than a sick public relations stunt.  

It doesn't take courage for someone to take a high paying entertainment job that doesn't involve physical danger like the driver of a truck load of dynamite would face.   Many of us old guys would be willing to let our hair grow, or wear a wig if the hair has stopped growing, and put on a dress for the kind of money Jenner is getting from the E! Network..   Some of us might be willing to go even farther than Jenner is willing to go and let them remove what David Letterman calls our "junk".   When a man reaches 65 it sometimes isn't much more than junk anyway.

Giving a courage award to someone who has done nothing courageous dishonors those who have actually done something heroic.  Giving an award named after the black man who integrated the American Davis Cup team to a wealthy white entertainer so he can further his career is sick.    When Arthur Ashe discovered he had received an HIV infection from a blood transfusion he worked to educate people about the disease and founded Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS and the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health.   Jenner's decision to do a new reality show playing a woman doesn't remotely compare to what Ashe did.

The actions of a young college woman named Lauren Hill does compare favorably with  Ashe's actions.  When she found out she was dying of an incurable cancer she dedicated the remainder of her college basketball career to trying to raise research funds so other young people would not have to share her fate.

Sgt. Noah Galloway didn't get a fatal disease in Iraq, but he did lose an arm and a leg.   If I had suffered that type of injury in Vietnam I would probably have spent the rest of my sitting in front of a tv set.   Galloway chose to fight back like Arthur Ashe and became a motivational speaker and even finished 3rd in the show "Dancing with the Stars".

Both of these individuals demonstrated far more courage than Jenner has. I recently saw a news story about a young father who demonstrated far more courage than Jenner.  When a man attempted to steal his car with his son inside, this courageous father jumped on the moving vehicle and held on as long as he could. 

The men and women who have served in the War on Terror have demonstrated far more courage than Jenner.    The same can be said of those who work as police officers or firefighters.

If Jenner accepts the award he will mark himself as a coward rather than a hero.   Jenner's attempt to steal the award reminds me of an old Warner Brothers cartoon about a phony hero dog.   At the start of the cartoon "Fresh Airedale"  the dog helps a burglar by serving as a lookout until the car chases the burglar.   When the dog hears someone coming he pretends he has chased the burglar away.  When the dog hears about another dog being called the "Number 1 Dog" he travels to the Number 1 dog's home and attempts to push him into a pond.  The phony hero misses and ends up in the water.  The Number 1 Dog rescues the phony, but is exhausted by the effort.  The phony revives first and when he hears people coming acts like he rescued the Number 1 Dog.    The dogs in the cartoon were males, but Jenner wants to be referred to as a female.   When you get older you sometimes have trouble remembering some words.  Does anyone remember the word for a female dog?

Reality Show Star Jenner Steals Courage Award from Real Heroes

ESPN has damaged the credibility of the Arthur Ashe "ESPY" Courage Award by planning to give the award to reality show actor Bruce Jenner for what appears to be nothing more than an elaborate publicity stunt.  Jenner claims he's now a female character called "Caitlyn" but admits he hasn't had, and doesn't plan to have,  an operation to change his body from male to female.   As far as I'm concerned a person with a male anatomy, or at least a close approximation, should be referred to as "he".  A  person with a female anatomy should be referred to as "she". 

I might let him get away with this farce if there weren't much better qualified candidates for the award.   The late Lauren Hill is one such candidate.    Even though cancer had given her a death sentence, she continued to play college basketball as long as she was able to so she could to help her team and she could  raise money to fight cancer so others might not have to go through what she was going through.  Hill reminds me of one of my childhood heroes, Lou Gehrig, who continued to play baseball during the early stage of ALS.   Hill was a real hero who gained nothing from her heroism except personal satisfaction for having done something to help others.   The Arthur Ashe award would mean a lot to Hill's parents because it would show that others recognize the value of Hill's sacrifice.

Sgt. Noah Galloway is another qualified candidate.  Galloway literally gave an arm and a leg for his country in Iraq as the result of an encounter with an IED explosive device.  He didn't let his injuries stop him.  He became a motivational speaker and finished third on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars".

Jenner is an actor who has already benefited from portrayal of the character called Caitlyn by being the subject of a Vanity Fair article.   American male actors have been playing female characters for generations.  Tom Hanks started his career playing a woman on the tv series "Bosom Buddies".  Comics Milton Berle and Flip Wilson frequently played female characters on their television shows.   There is no legitimate reason for giving Jenner an award for courage when he's doing something actors often do in their careers.  He may be playing the character for longer periods of time than other actors have, but then they weren't doing reality shows like Jenner does.  The Arthur Ashe award is unlikely to mean anything more to Jenner than something he can use in ads to get people to watch his character.

I was going to urge a boycott of  ESPN but how would anyone know if the boycott was in place?   A boycott of ESPN's owner the Disney corporation could be effective. We should boycott 'Disney if it doesn't agree to give the award to Hill or some other worthy recipient.  We should also urge Disney to replace the current group that chooses the recipient of the award with people who themselves have had to deal with adversity either directly or indirectly through family members.  People might also call their local ABC affiliated station to protest.

We should also request the Federal Communications Commission and Congress to investigate the highly questionable circumstances of the award to Jenner.   He announces on ABC's "20/20" in April that he thinks of himself as a woman and then two months later we're told Jenner will get the Arthur Ashe award and there is no runner up.    It's hard for me to believe that they would give the award to Jenner without being paid off by Jenner.  At best the whole thing sounds like an elaborate publicity stunt in which ABC was a active participant.