Imperfections.
What do you do with somebody like Ethan Fowler? He's an important part of skateboard history, but flawed as a person. I don't really have a definitive answer. I suppose you recognize the talent to an extent while mentioning the transgressions.
I haven't posted anything with Ethan since the Free Skate Magazine interview with Benny Fairfax from May of 2021 was published. In the interview, Benny recounts how Ethan called him the n-word at a show Ethan's band was playing in Los Angeles. To say Ethan looks bad in the story is a major understatement. I have no intent to post anything else with him, but I found this ad and was pondering what to do with the characters who ruin their legacies.
I feel like the skate media probably covered for Ethan when he was at his peak. If you read between the lines and piece together assorted stories over the years, you get the sense that his personality could politely be described as prickly at best. I imagine there were a few incidents that were swept under the rug because he could do great backside lipslides on handrails. The fact that he has essentially vanished makes it much easier for him to be lost to the sands of time, which is quite possibly the best case scenario in this particular situation.
Slap - July 1997 Volume 6 Number 7
4 comments:
Here's the full interview with Benny:
https://www.freeskatemag.com/2021/06/04/the-american-dream-part-4-of-6-benny-fairfax/
Oh well. He said a mean word. People forgive skateboarders who sold hard drugs, murdered people and did far worse than be a jerk. Ethan was a great skater and him being a jerk is only legacy ruining to those with liberal politics.
Did you read the interview with Benny? It was a tad worse than him simply saying a bad word. And yes, skateboarding has forgiven a lot, but also sometimes the skaters in those cases have made amends for what they said or did. Some of them maybe shouldn't be let off the hook. If Ethan surfaces from the swamp and offers an apology, things are maybe all good. The obvious parallel is the Baseball Hall of Fame because there are plenty of guys in there who aren't exactly saints.
I read it and I understand that Ethan's been a pariah since that accusation and Slap forum lost its mind in response. It's funny, I had in mind Fabian Alomar when I made the above comment about drug dealers and violent skaters, lo and behold I and found a post on this very blog from 2011 which says:
"[Fabian] fell on some hard times, but has hopefully gotten everything back on track in life"
Everyone was rooting for him, and all the other guys on Menace who admitted to robbing people and being thugs. No such sympathy for Ethan though. Newsflash: being a drug dealer and violent criminal is a lot worse than saying the n-word. By the way, I bet if Benny had called Ethan a "honkey" or "cracker" because he was pissed off, no one would care.
I don't know why skateboarding attracts such a weird combination of toughness with political correctness. You have guys throwing themselves down stairs in life and death situations, but if a guy is in a bad mood and says something racist, homophobic, or sexist, despite the fact the "victim" can choose to walk away and not care, you reputation is finished. To me it's pretty lame.
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