Hey guys can you do me a favor? Go image search “Lara Bingle”. Stop whatever you’re doing (getting creepy on Chat Roulette, “working”) and search that term right now. See that? Google handily suggests “Lara Bingle shower”. Through it’s infinite digital wisdom Google knows that people in showers are usually naked (except this guy) and therefore highly searchable. But more importantly Google knows that earlier this week a nude photo of Lara Bingle in the shower surfaced online.
Though it only surfaced recently the shot was actually taken a few years back by Aussie Rules footballer Brendan Fevola who proceeded to handball it widely through the AFL community (See what I did there? I’m kicking metaphorical goals). None too impressed, Bingle promptly threatened legal action against Fevola citing breach of privacy, defamation and misuse of her image. Yesterday however, it was reported that a handful of opportunistic Women’s Magazines had offered the Cricket WAG $200,000 to tell her side of the story aka sell a shitload of magazines. This of course, would render any legal action against Fevola null and void and paint Bingle as a hypocritical money-grabber. Bingle’s management have since denied any intention to sell her story but the question still remains – what would you do? Pocket an easy $200,000 or fight it out valiantly in an arduous court battle?
It’s moments like this when you should seek guidance, not from God or sagely friends, but from popular culture. Pop Culture is all about weighing up the options. What would you do, flash in the pan R&B group City High once asked, if your son was at home crying all alone on the bedroom floor cause he’s hungry – and the only way to feed him is to sleep with a man for a little bit of money? That passage really helped me through a tough time in my life and I think in Bingle’s hypothetical cash vs. credibility conundrum we should enlist Popular Culture to help suggest a suitable course of action.
THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED
Before he died in 1963, American poet Robert Frost dropped some mad knowledge on those faced with difficult life decisions. Don’t take the wide, well-trodden boulevards he said but opt instead for creepy thickets that scream “forest molestation!”. “Two roads diverged in a wood” Frost declared in his 1916 ode to individuality The Road Not Taken “and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”. In this scenario the “road less traveled” would be receiving money from a magazine in exchange for explaining your side of a nude scandal spawned by a guy named Brendan. Because people get sued everyday but who knows anyone named Brendan?
THE SLIDING DOORS EFFECT
If you didn’t come of age during the nineties – Sliding Doors was a terrible faux-existential snoozer that explored one ingeniously simple premise: does twice as much Gwyneth Paltrow screen time make a film twice as bad? The answer was yes but in its defence Sliding Doors also explored the at-the-time-revolutionary idea that everyday decisions, no matter how mundane, can change your life in unimaginable ways. In one scenario Gweynth Paltrow caught the train home on time, then caught her boyfriend cheating on her, then caught a one way ticket to deaths-ville.
In the scenario where she missed her train however, Paltrow swapped crazy epiphanies for staying alive. We’re assuming that Lara Bingle likes her life with its extravagant mansions and virile sportsmen and we’re also assuming that she likes her job – stoic cricket spectator – so we’ll assume that she wants to stay alive for as long as humanly possible. Using Sliding Doors as a reference point we recommend that she “miss the train” as in the gravy train as in the cash for comment gravy train and sue Brendan Fevola like his crime was as heinous as naming his offspring Apple.
Winner: Sue! Sue! Sue!
(YOU GOTTA) FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT (TO PARTY)
Fight For Your Right was the first single from The Beastie Boy’s breakthrough LP “Licence To Ill”. It’s also sound advice for people considering a hypothetical decision that involves definitely getting paid and potentially losing respect or potentially getting paid and definitely gaining respect. Were it up to Uncle DMCA, Ad-Rock and Mike D – Lara Bingle would be on the phone to Woman’s Day right now recounting and exaggerating the sordid details of Bredan Fevola’s fetish for goal posts and flags. Then she’d use that $200,000 to throw the best party ever. It’d be awesome because Michael Clarke would be doing Champagne beer bongs but the evening would end sourly when somebody accidentally impaled them self on a cricket stump after falling from the third story balcony (probably Andrew Symonds).
Winner: Take The money and run.
So there you have it two plays one. Guided by the mystical Chakra of Popular Culture Lara Bingle should discount her management’s advice and take the $200,000 and run. Besides, according to Jay-Z, Brendan Fevola would be totally cool with getting sued:
What could you do to me? It’s not new to me
Sue me; fuck you – what’s a couple dollars to me?
But you will respect me, simple as that
Or I got no problem goin back
Back where dude? Carlton? Over and out guys.
Title Image by Graham Denholm via Getty
