The Daily Telegraph may have in the end dragged its listless, shambolic weight behind the ‘yes’ vote, but you could tell they were never really happy about it. News Corp‘s stable of columnists were pretty uniform in their approach to the issue: they would say something under their breath about how they supported equal rights before launching into lengthy, unhinged tirades about how everyone who agreed with them on that stance is destroying the very fabric of Australian society. It was a bit confusing.
It almost seemed like they were trying to walk a fine line between nominally supporting what they knew to be the right thing while still trying to wage a vicious culture war with progressives to keep their readers hooked. Almost exactly like that, even.
It seems fitting then that they would try and toe the same line when it comes to the announcement of the results of the postal survey – obviously, they can’t say it’s bad because they came out in support of it but at the same time they can’t let those gays and lefties get too excited about the whole affair.
A difficult position to hold. Impossible, some might say. Dear readers, it is not. Gaze upon the front page of tomorrow’s Daily Tele:
https://twitter.com/wrongdorey/status/930756398933098496
Let’s contrast that to, say, the Sydney Morning Herald‘s front page for tomorrow:
Thursday’s front page 🌈 pic.twitter.com/s5J61KqMQV
— Ben Cubby (@bencubby) November 15, 2017
Instead of some celebratory splash of rainbow and colour and joy, the Tele has opted to go with the kind of half-joking ‘MARRIAGE IS HELL’ comedy that absolutely kills it with dads everywhere. And it is a joke, sure. But jokes have subtext.
The subtext here? “We begrudgingly grant you that you got this thing you wanted. But guess what? It sucks actually, we didn’t even want it anyway, there’s no reason for you to celebrate.” If that image was anymore desaturated it would just be a featureless rectangle of greyish beige.
Not to mention the phrasing of “votes to redefine marriage” which is meant to arc up their readers at the thought of young people coming in here and changing the meaning of things. Marriage wasn’t ‘redefined’, my dudes: Australia is preparing to bring the legal definition of marriage in-line with how marriage is understood in modern society.
Regardless, there’s absolutely no way they can kill our vibe: gay won today and will continue to win, and we can all take solace in the implicit assertion that whoever did the front page hates their marriage and also the knowledge that the most recent reference their audience will get is ‘Married With Children‘.
Look in fairness to them, though, there’s a fair chance if they ran a rainbow on the front page at least one of their readers would both shit and go blind. Best to play it safe.
