Entertainment

Bad Players? Blame the Girlfriends!

by Maitri Suhas

In a beautifully disgraceful article on Wednesday, The New York Post boldly blames Kate Upton for her beau Justin Verlander's shortcomings. Verlander, a player for the Detroit Tigers, has been in a slump, and The Post goes so far as to call the downslide a symptom of THE CURSE OF KATE UPTON. They provide a very detailed investigation, using past evidence to stake their claim: when she was dating Mark Sanchez from the Jets and Blake Griffin from the Clippers, both players apparently had horrible seasons. So, conclusion drawn: Upton is a witch who is hexing her athlete boyfriends, because their poor performances can only be attributed to their whiny girlfriends who are just demanding too much energy and attention that should otherwise be used for the game.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry? Because this kind of slut-shaming is such a reach, such a shaky, shoddy claim, and yet it's not totally benign: people subscribe to this crap! Way back in 2008, Jessica Simpson was pegged as the scapegoat for the Dallas Cowboys loss against the New York Giants since her then-boyfriend Tony Romo made the choice to take a vacation with her to Mexico some days before the game. Local news websites ran polls that basically asked, "Should we witch-hunt Jessica Simpson for the loss?" and their was an overwhelming belief that she might have had something to do with it.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

It's not particularly enraging because it IS so ridiculous, but for there actually be a post floating around the Internet called "The Curse of Kate Upton" and no one asking "WTF?" is just exhausting. A real line from the "article:" "But what if the problem has nothing to do with [Verlander's] right arm and everything to do with the buxom blonde on his arm?"

Are you serious with this shit. If there were awards for jumping to a sexist conclusion, I'd shower them all upon the Post, because to assume that a baseball player's poor performance has nothing to do with his physical ability (aka his entire livelihood) and more to do with the "curvaceous curse" (the Post's demeaning moniker for Upton) is just full blown idiocy.

It shouldn't be taken so seriously, but the myth of the siren that destroys the man is tired, and we need to put it to rest. If a sports star isn't performing properly, that's physically impossibly to blame on their girlfriends, unless the women they are dating are poisoning them or otherwise literally impeding them somehow.

Both Upton and Simpson have literally NOTHING TO DO with the poor performance they're being blamed for, other than the fact that they have the sad misfortune of dating sports stars with fans who hate women.

Ugh.