CITI FM’s foul videos smell like a ratings stunt

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2016 (3134 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We all have our regrets. I regret clicking on the link to Wheeler in the Morning’s Transcona Girls and wish I could return to a time in my life in which I was blissfully unaware of an upsetting lyric about clams. But here we are.

I’m referring, of course, to one of two music videos that were posted to, and then removed from, 92 CITI FM’s website. The songs themselves are actually a couple of years old, but someone mysteriously decided they were worth expanding into animated videos.

Transcona Girls is set to the tune of the Beach Boy’s California Girls — even though Transcona and California don’t have the same number of syllables, but that’s the least of this song’s problems. It trots out some truly vile stereotypes — Transcona girls are sluts with venereal diseases! North End girls are stabby thieves! — and is a terrible layer cake of misogyny, racism and classism. North End Boy, meanwhile, is set to the tune of Thank God I’m a Country Boy by John Denver and is just as bad. Sample lyric: “Well I got no worries ’cause I’m real high/I got a big woman, weighs 305/I don’t have to work ’cause I collect E.I./Thank God I’m a North End boy.”

Yes. All the edge and wit of a Grade 7 locker room.

Many Winnipeggers took to social media Monday night to express their disgust, specifically calling out the videos for being sexist, misogynistic, classist and racist — as well as the lesser transgression of being not funny. And indeed, these songs punch way down.

On Tuesday morning, Dave Wheeler was conspicuously absent from his eponymous morning show.

Around 7:30 a.m., it was confirmed he’d been suspended. Wheeler’s apology, which was read by his co-host, Rena Jae, concluded: “We’ve heard the concerns of our community clearly and apologize for the videos that were offensive and in poor taste.”

Have you, though? Because if you had heard the concerns of the community clearly, you’d understand this isn’t about being in “poor taste” and “insensitive” but rather about perpetuating harmful stereotypes — and finding those stereotypes funny. The language absent from the apology is telling; there’s a difference between saying a video is offensive and demonstrating you understand why it’s offensive.

But Wheeler isn’t the only one who should be held accountable. Ostensibly, he didn’t act alone. Craig Pfeifer, 92 CITI FM’s program director, released a statement saying Wheeler will be suspended until the station has “completed a thorough review of the situation.”

Andrée Noël of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council confirmed the CBSC has received “a number of complaints” about the videos, but the council has no jurisdiction over content posted to a broadcaster’s website, only content broadcast on-air — which seems like a weirdly outdated policy in an era in which almost all traditional media outlets have digital presences.

However, she said a few people who filed complaints claimed they heard the songs on the radio, so the next step in the process is to ask the station for its log tapes from that time period so the CBSC can review them.

Of course, not everyone is outraged. A cursory scan of CITI FM’s Facebook page reveals many of Wheeler’s fans are rallying around him and the station, bravely showing solidarity against the meanie PC police. The videos don’t appear to be damaging the brand of his show, Wheeler in the Morning. Rather, it seems as though this was a successful publicity stunt during this, the second-last week of spring ratings. This is what rock radio does. What do we expect?

The answer is more. We should expect more. And we should certainly expect more from the people who say they care about this city and the people who live in it.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca