http://www.cagepotato.com/video-dana-white-migh…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvOwhSWe0ms&feat…
Instead of releasing a timely, orderly stream of video blogs for
UFC 98, Dana White and co. opted to do a
couple before the event and then a multi-part epic afterwards. As
with most multi-part epics, the majority is forgettable stuff that
should have been edited out. But around the eight-minute mark in
this video things get interesting when Dana White does an interview
with Edge Magazine and claims that everyone from fighters to fans
would be totally cool with an openly gay athlete in the
UFC.
This is obviously not true, and Dana White knows it’s not true.
What’s amazing is not that he says it anyway, but that he thinks
pretending to be ignorant of homophobia in the world of men’s pro
sports is the best way to smooth things over with the gay
community. It isn’t. It’s blatant pandering, and the effect is
actually worse than admitting that the world of MMA would have a tough time adjusting to an openly gay
fighter.
Check Dana White’s reasoning for claiming that MMA would welcome a gay fighter with a big, burly hug and
a kiss on the cheek: a) grappling is kind of homoerotic to start
with, so dudes who do it are cool with gays, and b) the fighters in
MMA are all really nice guys. And the fans,
that 18-34 male demographic that is so revered for its tolerance
and acceptance of all things gay? They wouldn’t care either.
As an attempt to placate the people he offended with his Loretta
Hunt blog, this is a miserable failure because it asks them to go
along with a story that they know, from experience, to be total
bullshit. These are the people who can’t get married in most of the
U.S., can’t join the military without keeping part of their
identity a closely-guarded secret, and White is telling them that
the UFC and its fans would accept them with a
good-natured slap on the ass.
Look around at pro football, baseball, basketball, and boxing.
Then tell me where the openly gay athletes are. There are
undoubtedly gay men in all those sports, and probably at this very
moment in the UFC as well, but they know the
sporting world isn’t ready to accept them yet.
If Dana White really wants to ingratiate himself to the gay
community he shouldn’t try to sell them on the lie that the
UFC is somehow more accepting than the rest
of the sports world and mainstream American culture in general. He
should instead tell them that that’s the version of the
UFC he’d like to have someday – the version
where no one cares who you sleep with after the fight (even if it’s
Jenna Jameson) as long as you deliver inside the cage. But that’s
not the world we live in just yet, and no one’s going to be
grateful to Dana White for pretending that it is.