Danny MacAskill under fire over Playboy Mansion video

I'm not offended by the video. Most people wouldn't be.

But whether you (or he) like(s) it or not, he *is* a role model. And he's perpetuating a stereotype of women being the submissive objects of desire. Ditto podium girls, a 'tradition' that is well past its sell-by date.

I really want my son to get into cycling when he's old enough. But I don't want him thinking that fun tricks or feats of endurance are what men do, while women are just things that stand around to be perved over. The 'it's just a bit of fun, lighten up' defence doesn't work - people said the same about minstrel shows and jokes about Pakistanis. Neither are acceptable any longer.

Just quickly on the 'Savile-ey' point though, that's extremely harsh. One might disagree with Hugh Hefner's lifestyle, but he is up front and honest about it. In his own way (why is not one I'd choose to endorse) he advocates freedom of expression and freedom from adhering to society's norms. On the other hand Savile was a psychopathic predatory paedophile and necrophiliac who hid his darker urges behind a jolly public persona, using his influence to keep his disgusting abuses hushed up. Completely different.

Won't someone please think of the children?!?

I'd originally wanted my baby son to learn to ride a bike one day, but that plan's ruined now! I might as well buy him a Panzer tank and dress him as a Nazi!!!

This video is a bloody outrage and sends Britain back to the dark ages. In fact, I'm so distraught I'm going to have to go look at pictures of the lovely Cavandish's in order to calm my nerves. Mmm, Peta...

Heaven help the offended/degraded brigade who watched it should look at popular music videos, post watershed TV or the like for fear of apoplexy.

If there's one thing that really has jumped the shark, it's 'hilarious' references to Godwin's Law.

I keep forgetting what 'jumping the shark' means. Every time I look it up, I forget it again.

I think they should've had Peter Sagan riding no handed wheelies pinching every arse in sight.

It must have been hard.

In fact, after the shoot, I reckon he'll have gone back to the hotel and had a stiff one.

Diet coke. Bullshit.

'Danny gets the ride of his life at the Playboy Mansion' is how the Mirror describes it.

Bring back Beavis and Butthead.

Last to the party but dull, boring video of MacAskill doing lots of samey stunts Ive seen in about 5 other videos of his but now with added *tits*.

Pathetic way to get views for a video.

I'm not offended by the content but I am disappointed that Danny (and the people behind this video) think it takes this to get me to watch.

What this says to me is that he is now spent and has fuck all else to offer. I wont be watching any of his other videos.

Shitty clickbait crap.

What is amusing is how it dredges up all the male privilege and misogynist comments, and how those people think that if they arent offended then no-one else has the right to be.

Definitely sorts the wheat from the chaff.

Loved the Video.

Read the breathless drooling in mainstream rags like the Record or the Mirror reporting this story:

"ride of his life", "eye candy", "saucy stunners", " scantily-clad models", "buxom beauties", "every male’s fantasy" etc etc ...

... pathetic out-of-date misogyny.

A PR disaster.

Id be intetested to know if this was his choice or asked to do it by his sponsors who pay his bills.

I haven't watched it, but as long as he parks up with his front wheel in a bum crack at the end a' la Billy Connolly, that should be fine.

I liked the comment that pointed out the previous articles about the cycle-passion calendar here. There's your high-handed journalism...

Seems road.cc was so horrified they needed to run the story and benefit from the resulting web-traffic while (pretending to?) hand-wringing about it. Somewhat reminiscent of the usual tabloid fodder when they write pieces about how some celeb is horrified at the release of some betraying sex-vid/photo/etc. all the time gaining circulation and slyly raising the profile of the "scandal". The Tabloids don't show the sex-vid, but they piggy back to gain circulation and in the process make very sure all their readers know where it is and can find it if they want.

Somehow it never, ever, occurs to editors, journalists and cycling website administrators that it might be more moral to self-censor and sacrifice circulation.

It's lame. But it's lame because it's lame, not because it is even remotely sexist or mysogenistic.

I hope the publicity the outraged are giving this video only boosts the money Macaskill makes as a result.

Oh and for what it's worth, the eighties were really no less enlightened than today.

Some people have too much time on their hands if this offends them. American gun ownership, war, famine, political corruption, greedy bankers; this is just a bloke on a bike and some girls. I hate the phrase but get a life.

Let's be under no illusions. For the corporate entities on both sides of this fence, it's all PR at the end of the day.

For the rest of us, we're grown ups and can decide for ourselves where this bit of "advertainment" falls on our moral compass. Some don't like it, some do, some don't give a shit either way. Fair enough.

Personally I think adorning any ad (be it for bikes, energy drinks or jubilee clips) with scantily-clad women is an anachronism. But then, this fits the bill because Playboy and its reanimated cadaver of a founder are anachronisms too. It couldn't be more outdated if Danny had doused himself in Hai fucking Karate.

I don't think MacAskill's done himself any favours. Red Bull, on the other hand, will be loving it.

1) If it is true that this is 2014 and not the 1980's then why will a sports woman who is excellent but plain looking earn far less than a less talented woman who is better looking?

2) What percentage of 'top-shelf' publications are owned, managed or edited by women? Exactly who is exploiting who?

This craze for 'competitive being offended' should be made an olympic sport. All the competitors have to watch increasingly innocuous youtube videos as the elimination heats progress and the one, who like that vulpine fella, can still produce a stroke inducing apoplexy of faux moral outrage at the most innocent footage the judges could find on the entire web gets the gold. Going by this thread the UK has strength in depth in this sport so we should do well.

Saw this come up in my Facebook feed a couple of times. Didn't watch it, as guessed he'd done stuff which is more fun and/or more amazing in terms of his undoubted skills. This, just scrunched up my nose, and said "Nah, he's probably done better."

Do Vulpine think they own MacAskill? What is with this nonsense? "He's a role model, so he has to conform to our agenda and be of service to us". How about this as an alternative, he should live for himself.

And let us not forget, they decry him for appearing with Bunny Girls, but "vulpine" means "foxy", that's right, their team is called the Foxy Women's Cycling Team.

Feminists are the sexual perverts I worry about most, because it's their dogmas which infect every corner of society, and to the highest levels of government. They're the misogynists who propagate the view that the women who enjoy their sexual radiance and choose to share that aspect of themselves with the rest of us can't be self-aware and intelligent but must necessarily be victims of male heterosexuality. And it's the Feminists who are the man-haters who relentlessly promote the ideology that healthy male heterosexuality must be suppressed and hidden because it is dangerous, dirty and deviant.

You. Gotta. Be. Kiddin'. Me.