Naomi Osaka (7/10) has been making waves in the lead-up and now opening rounds of the French Open. Not for her phenomenal play or big upsets or horrendous mistakes on returning serves. No, she's making waves after the recent announcement that she's mentally unstable and is a danger to herself and others.
She didn't directly state this, of course. She couched it in (ironically) media friendly terms while announcing she would refuse to talk with the media in her (mandatory) post-game scums. You see, dealing with people asking her questions about her performance is harming her mental health. It's depressing, says Osaka, to answer questions about your performance in a internationally popular sport in which you've spent your life aiming to excel in.
The 23-year-old said in a statement on Wednesday that she would not "do any press during Roland-Garros" because "people have no regard for athletes' mental health."Now on one hand you almost want to applaud her: Donald Trump style she's decided to take the media to task. Of course, President Trump still gave press conferences and simply challenged them to their faces. Osaka wants to run and hide because her inferior brain is unable to handle being asked the same questions without either giving the rote answer or coming up with clever new responses. She's not upset with the media narrative (even though she has had cause to be when the shaved ape whined about their match a few years ago), she's mad that she's being asked questions that cause her to "doubt" herself. If it's true that her mental health is at risk, she's a danger to herself and others and needs to be immediately removed from Roland-Garros and locked away in a rubber room until she's cured."We're often sat there and asked questions that we've been asked multiple times before or asked questions that bring doubt into our minds and I'm just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me," she said.
Unfortunately that hasn't even come close to happening: she received a $15,000 and a threat to be removed from the tournament entirely. They have also not apparently followed up with her (media narrative-framing) request to have her fines donated to so-called "mental health charities". She of course is always only one loss away from being eliminated from the French Open the typical way, but we can't count on the world #1 ranked player not savagely murdering somebody in that event. After all, she's fucking crazy.
That is, of course, us taking Osaka at her word: it's of course 1000% possible that her mental health is a bullshit cover story for the reality that she just doesn't want to have to answer questions that she doesn't like. By couching her cowardly actions in the trendy buzzwords of "mental health" she is, as noted above, using that same major media presence that she supposedly hates in order to try to get what she wants through subterfuge. It's not entirely unsuccessful: Tumaini Carayol in The Guardian (of course) gushes about how brave her stance is and throws in some random President Trump hatred because again this is The Guardian and no take is too retarded. NBC's Chris Kluwe frames it in terms of bad takes by journalists, that superstar athletes wish would just go away (until, of course, it's time to broadcast the games. One wonders if Osaka's stance would change if all broadcasters decided they would cease to cover her games and bury her tournament wins on the bottom of page C27) and let them get on with the business of being superstar athletes. At least her points out the long-term economic impact of her decision:
Without the media's being able to interview athletes, that connection dwindles, and salaries go down as fans spend less money. From a financial perspective, giving the media more access to athletes means more money for athletes, so it's understandable why it's considered part of the job.Indeed, and like most human beings, "mental health" has emerged as a quick cure-all to what we sensibly used to call being weak. Osaka is weak. She is inferior. If she really is crazy she needs to be locked up and (optionally) cured. If she's using this as a scam she needs to be harrassed every minute of every day until she cries herself into a ball and disappears forever. Athletes have complained about bad media takes before (we've covered this topic before, in fact), and obviously every conservative has far more reason to refuse to play the media's games than every athlete combined.The problem, of course, is that just because something makes people more money doesn't necessarily mean it's the best course of action. For too long we've ignored the mental health of professional athletes, demanding that they be warriors able to withstand any sort of pressure no matter what it takes to do their job. It's time that we, as a society, have an honest conversation about the damage that can cause — which Naomi Osaka's statement beautifully illustrates. Mental health is important no matter who you are, and athletes are first and foremost human beings.
Yet it's the most woke of the athletes who tend to get the most sympathetic of coverage who want to control when and how they are portrayed by the press. English soccer players are campaigning to control what you say about them on social media. After Oilers defenseman Ethan Bear was criticized for the role his uncivilized play contributed to the recent Oilers sweep, and how that was tied to his uncivilized cutlure, the media was quick to take his side against "hateful" comments. (as is typical in these stories, we're also never told or shown what the offending comments are so we can judge for ourselves). Osaka seems to want the best of both worlds: exposure of her sport and her own matches, but then the ability to hide away when people want to talk to her about topics she doesn't want to talk about. Her opposition to the media is very one-sided and shallow, and rings hollow.
Just like you'd expect from a nutjob psycho.
Update, 7:19pm: The crazy bitch has voluntarily taken a break to cure herself of her dangerous insanity and withdrawn from the French Open (and presumably tennis on the whole)
