Cleveland Cavaliers joke about domestic violence in playoff hype video
The Cleveland Cavaliers have a message for fans whose partners prefer other teams: Pummel them until they, too, like LeBron and company.
The team aired a hype video inside the arena during Wednesday night's game against the Bulls that riffed on Dirty Dancing. But rather than basking in romantic, acrobatic twirling, Cleveland's video showed a man in Cavs gear throwing his girlfriend to the ground when she reveals she's a Bulls fan.
"I thought you were all in," the man says.
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"Well, I'm all in now," the woman, now in Cavs gear and holding an ice pack to her head, replies.
Certainly the Cavaliers did not set out to mock victims of domestic violence. But the video's suggestion that physical abuse is an effective form of coercion is, at best, horribly tone deaf and needlessly offensive.
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Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.
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