While there is a certain amusement value in having a performing monkey for a PM, his participation in the great rape jape yesterday was too far even for his fans.
Barry Soper: Has John Key gone a step too far?
The trouble with John Key is that he likes to be liked. He’ll bend over backwards to accommodate, be it posing for duck face derpies with university students, publicly planking, or poncing along a catwalk showing his metrosexual side in a Rugby World Cup volunteer’s outfit.
Does John Key go a step too far? His latest outing was to a couple of commercial radio stations. At the first one he was asked to enter a cage in the studio, which he reluctantly did after asking the show host whether he looked like a zoo animal.
Once inside he was asked to pick up a bar of soap, and to the uproarious laughter of the station’s staff, he did. Apparently it’s a reference to prison rape, which of course Key wouldn’t have been aware of. When he observed the soap smelt bad and was greasy, he was told it was from a urinal.
Claire Trevett: John Key’s good-sport shtick becomes uncomfortable
Key has made his informal interview slots on commercial radio a major part of his media strategy. Politically, it is is a good tactic. Commercial radio reaches people who don’t give a poop about the more serious side of politics. Key knows that and plays to his audience accordingly.
But he has a startling tendency to go overboard. He can not even blame the hosts who come up with the ludicrous things they get him to do. He’s been in the game seven years and has the choice of saying “no”.
Just as Caesar thrice refused the crown, Key resisted requests to get into the cage three times. But then he caved. Once in the cage, the ‘drop the soap’ jokes came out and Key played along, analysing the soap.
Key may have been oblivious to the prison rape references and crude Deliverance quote involved. But no Prime Minister should put himself in a cage, let alone one that ends up with jokes about prison rape.
Wonder what the ringmasters will have Key doing for our amusement next year?
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