Foot in Mouth
October 16 – 2006
On a recent episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart manufactured a “Crowd Violence Scale” that included, among other things, “your local soccer team just lost.” The footage accompanying this benchmark was not of fan violence. Instead, a clip of the Hillsborough Disaster in full-bloom filled the screen.
We thought the bit was funny at the time, and only later realized the true nature of the footage. This kind of misstep is probably harmless, and deserves little more than a “not cool, but don’t worry about it.” Still, the sight of the chaos that ensued when 96 people were crushed to death in an incident that had nothing to do with hooliganism, yet is being referred to as an example of hooliganism, kinda’ rankles. In other words, you wouldn’t show a picture of the Pentagon in flames and make a joke about pilot-error.
But hey, as long as we all remember what happened, a little slip-up isn’t a big deal, right? Right? Uhhhh…right?
[...] Both incidents are as sore a subject in Merseyside as can be found, and Cohen’s foray into either showed a pretty serious disregard for football-fan etiquette (and makes Jon Stewart’s Hillsborough misstep look like good, clean fun). Within 24 hours, a Liverpool fan-site brought the story to the Kop and not too much later an online petition asking for Cohen’s removal cropped up. Days later, Cohen reportedly mentioned on his radio show that he had received email death-threats over the matter, and was planning to speak to the LAPD about the situation. To our knowledge, Cohen has stuck by his “I’m entitled to my opinion” defense and refused to apologize. [...]
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