They say there is no such thing as bad publicity, but that's a load of rubbish.

Just ask Mel Gibson or The Dixie Chicks. Or Gary Glitter. Publicity can destroy a career as easily as it can make it.



And while it's easy to say it's not the publicity that made the difference but the actions that caused the publicity, there's a sliding scale.

One could argue Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic tirades are a bit worse than apologising for a cowboy in Texas starting a war (let's not even mention Mr Glitter) but both suffered a massive public backlash.

The tricky thing to negotiate, if you are someone famous and in the public eye, is which publicity is good and which is bad. That sounds kinda obvious but the tides of public opprobrium are trickier to navigate than they might at first appear. It's sometimes hard to figure out in advance just how outraged the public will become in these modern times; an age when causing offence to one group or another is a mere tweet away.
Or a Facebook post, as Georgian soprano Tamar Iveri found out in Australia last week.
She was released from her contract to perform in Opera Australia's production of ‘Otello', after a post on her Facebook page from last year was uncovered that seemed to be describing gay people as 'faecal masses”.

The post appeared to be a grammatically-challenged letter to the Georgian president after Christian orthodox groups violently assaulted members of a gay pride march in the capital of Tbilisi.

'I was quite proud of the fact how Georgian society spat at the parade … Often, in certain cases, it is necessary to break jaws in order to be appreciated as a nation in the future, and to be taken into account seriously,” the post said. 'Please, stop vigorous attempts to bring the west's ‘faecal masses' in the mentality of the people by means of propaganda.”

The Facebook masses (not just the ‘faecal' ones) were upset. Then she was 'released from her contract” and the masses were happy again.

'Thank you Opera Australia. Be assured you've made the right decision and you'll receive an abundance of continued and new support for coming to this decision,” one person wrote.

But some of the masses still weren't happy.

'Took your time but got there in the end,” said one. 'In future make some checks on guest artists.”

That's an interesting idea. Vet opera singers depending on their view of homosexuality. Why not? And better add in a few questions about racism just to be certain. And obviously check whether they support Japanese whale hunting.

Okay. Clearly I'm going too far here. No one would ban someone from performing simply because they have politically incorrect views about animal hunting.
Let's flash back to last month, when UK headlines read:

‘Call to axe Metallica Glastonbury show after star voices TV series on bear hunt'.
Yep, you got it. The story (from the relative sanity of ‘The Guardian') tells us: 'More than 10,000 people have joined a campaign calling for Metallica to be dropped from Glastonbury due to their frontman's support for bear hunting. Organisers of the campaign claim the metal group's politics are ‘incompatible with the spirit of Glastonbury', citing singer/guitarist James Hetfield's reported involvement in the upcoming documentary series ‘The Hunt.'”

The spirit of Glastonbury? Wow. Glastonbury is a rock festival. Sure, it tries to be clean and green and recycle, as you need to when 140,000 people gather for five days, but it's a rock festival.

And Hetfield's sin? He provided narration for a History Channel series about hunting brown bears on Alaska's Kodiak island. Which is, apparently, incompatible with rock ‘n' roll.

Which raises an interesting question. Who should be banned next?

I'd start with anyone who eats meat. Why not? Animal-hating bastards. Smokers too obviously (except dope smokers). And better follow the opera company line and ban anyone homophobic. And racists too. And Mel Gibson. No more anti-Semitic slurs. Actually, ban anyone who gets drunk. Think of all the disruption it causes society. That can't be compatible with the spirit of rock ‘n' roll.