Perhaps even more popular than the online photo galleries of what the “celebrities” wore, are the galleries of the drunks and post-come-apart bogans as they unravel towards the end of a long day’s drinking.
The Instagram page “Drunk Girls of the Melbourne Cup” has more than 28,000 followers. It features women double-fisting booze bottles, accumulating grass stains as they flop alcoholically on the field, and lurching barefoot to the toilet for relief. It is as cringe-making as it is compelling.
Just as we now consider gladiatorial battles barbaric, and are horrified by the casual drink-driving that was routine a generation ago, will we one day look at the Cup and wonder how and why we ever did it?
Because as much as the fashion, alcohol, gambling and celebrity industries try to convince us otherwise, the end result does not resemble a scene from My Fair Lady. Try Gin Lane instead.
via An orgiastic carnival of drunkenness and death: has the Melbourne Cup passed its use-by date?.
It is heart wrenching to see these beautiful young people smashing themselves and possibly ruining not only an expensive frock or suit, but reputation. The Ladies in particular leave themselves open to all sort of exploitation.
That we call the Melbourne Cup “The race that stops the nation” is appropriate. Businesses have a lot of downtime with sickies on the day, and also the following day, when our “once a year” punters are in need of a good lay in to recover.
Predicable the promotion of the event is all about having glamour, winning $$$ and fun, fun, fun. Never does promo show the punter broke, drunk, dishevelled, trying to get a lift home. There is no fun or pleasure in a sickening hangover, an empty wallet; and where is the glamor in the humiliation of having you bad behaviour splashed across the morning papers and posted on social media for the world to see. Australia has a serious alcohol mentality within the younger generation, that it’s ok to have a few too many sometimes. No one would deny anyone the right to have a drink, but when the “sometimes” become a regular occurrence it becomes a minefield that is often left for others to sort out.
Dave S.