Hiding Behind the Sunglasses

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Corey Worthington is a young Australian boy he held a party that went too far and erupted into an event that made news around the world thanks to this entertaining Youtube video. Corey hides behind his glasses throughout the entire interview. In further interviews and reports, Corey dons the bright yellow sunglasses and a colourful baseball cap as if it were his trademarked look. However, this look has become a disguise. Creating and sustaining this image, Corey is able to not own up to his responsibilities and transcend the boundaries that the media has created for me.

Further coverage of Corey gives him more realization that he is in a public space to play and not experience the harsh consequences of his actions. He knows the minute he takes off his sunglasses is the same minute he returns backstage and back to the punishments that await him.

This is a perfect example of Silverstone's concepts on Play and Performance within the media. It also is a fairly humourous example to relate to Bakhtin's Carnival theories, as the party itself became carnivalesque and now it has extended itself more theoretically into the media coverage of the event.

As patronizing and condescending as the reporter is in the interview, she needs to realize that her interview with Corey further redeems his lack of responsibility of the event. With every second that he is on the screen, he is living longer in the arena of play and does not have to follow the rules of society. Corey has transcended the boundary, and the longer he can sustain his own conception of a media image, the longer he can stay out of the painful consequences of his crimes.