When you're living in a 24-hour news cycle fueled by manufactured controversies and sensationalised opinions, it can be hard to tell which stories are actually worth getting worked up over (like Charlie Hunnam being cast as Christian Grey), and which ones are of no real importance (like Charlie Hunnam being cast as Christian Grey).
A Look Back In Anger is our weekly retrospective of who was winning the Outrage Olympics this time last year. Which stories are still with us 12 months on, and which ones vanished without a trace? Who forgave and forgot, and who maintained the rage?
Kevin Rudd enthralled the nation with his passionate support of same-sex marriage this week, but this time last year, it was Julia Gillard (remember her?) taking a stand. Gillard pulled out of a speaking engagement with the Australian Christian Lobby after ACL leader Jim Wallace said same-sex relationships were more harmful than smoking. Wallace slammed Gillard for her "abandonment of the Christian constituency", because the atheist Prime Minister obviously had the complete support of the ACL before her withdrawal.
Sadly, this was also the week that Julia Gillard's father, John Gillard, passed away. As we'll see in the weeks to come, conservative media commentators were exactly as respectful of Gillard's loss as you'd expect.
AFL player John McCarthy died after falling nine metres from the Flamingo Hotel rooftop in Las Vegas (he was attempting to jump off the roof onto a palm tree). McCarthy's death occured at the start of a post-season holiday with his Port Adelaide teammates; his passing shook the league, and this year's post-season celebrations have been far more reserved.
At the Democratic National Convention (kind of like an Australian campaign launch, but held over three interminable days), Barack Obama was making his support for LGBT rights clear. The Democratic Party presented a united front, except for one dissenter who stuck out like a sore, possibly bigoted thumb — Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who seriously misread the vibe with his closing prayer.
Obama's occasional sparring partner, Kanye West, was busy responding to criticism of his new song about girlfriend Kim Kardashian, 'Perfect Bitch'. "Is the word BITCH acceptable," he tweeted, before clarifying: "To be more specific, is it acceptable for a man to call a woman a bitch even if it's endearing?" The newly minted feminist went on to release 'Clique', which featured the lyric: "My girl a superstar all from a home movie."
The 2012 VMAs were held on September 6; the event came and went without incident, although Miley Cyrus and P!nk made headlines with their similar haircuts. It was a simpler time. "Woah 2 girls have blonde short hair!" an unphased Cyrus tweeted, before prophetically adding: "The whole world should go into panic mode. Redickkk."
Nicki Minaj was pilloried for a verse on a Lil Wayne track in which she appeared to endorse Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. "I'm a Republican voting for Mitt Romney," she spat, which sure sounded unambiguous enough, but Barack Obama wasn't so sure. "Yeah, I'm not sure [an endorsement] is actually what happened," he told a radio interviewer, explaining that Minaj "likes to play different characters". Minaj later confirmed she was being sarcastic, and thanked POTUS for understanding. Once Obama's political career is over, a job as a Rap Genius editor awaits.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, apparently looking to add 'Captain Obvious' to his list of diplomatic titles, told the UN General Assembly that Syria's humanitarian situation was "grave and deteriorating". Spurred on by Ban's words, the world's mightiest superpower rushed to intervene.
A wave of coordinated bombings and shootings across Iraq resulted in the deaths of at least 108 people (and injuries to at least another 371) on September 9. The attacks occurred nine months after US military forces withdrew from the region, leaving the country in the hands of Iraqi security forces. So anyway, who's still pumped about Syria?
Canada closed its embassy in Iran and expelled Iranian diplomats from Canada, with Canuck Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird declaring the rogue state the world's "most significant threat to global peace and security". Ben Affleck is currently turning the saga into a film, in which a lone American hero shuts down the Canadian embassy.
A suicide bomber attacked a funeral ceremony in Afghanistan on September 4, killing 25 civilians. Totally coincidentally, the Afghan ministry later claimed to have killed 27 armed Taliban insurgents that day, so there.
Actor Michael Clarke Duncan died on September 3, leading competitive grievers to pretend they loved all his films. Even Daredevil.
The very concept of true love died on September 6, when comedy power couple Amy Poehler and Will Arnett announced their amicable separation. Sadly, their split proved to be the real deal, and not just some sort of elaborate promo for the fourth season of Arrested Development.
Game Of Thrones screenwriter Vanessa Taylor revealed that Season 3 would be "more visual" and "less about clever dialogue", leading fans to speculate that the show would be dumbed down and less interesting. And they were right, of course.
Despite all that bad news, there was one unequivocal good news story. One man offered us a ray of hope; one man overcame great adversity to shine on the world stage; one man lived up to an ideal that we could all aspire to.
One man... oh, you've already figured out who it is, haven't you?
