Dire Straits and the Faggot Word

When I was at work today, I couldn't help noticing how the CBC was playing this very small story.

Over and over again. As if it was the biggest story in the world, and faggot wasn't an "offensive word."

And they weren't the only ones.

The decision nabbed international headlines (with Fox News and TV Guide among the U.S. websites to pick up on the story) and prompted furious debate on Twitter, where "Dire Straits" and "CBSC" were both trending topics in Canada.

So you can imagine how I felt when I came home and discovered that even on Progressive Bloggers, it was a feverish gang bang.

Gawd. Some old straight guys just don't get it.

So for the record..."Money For Nothing" is NOT banned in Canada. Radio stations are only being asked to play the newer version, which the band has included on at least three albums.

Nothing stops anyone from buying the original version, playing it at home, and shouting faggot all they like. If that's what turns them on.

But let's not pretend that replacing the word "faggot" with "mother" changes the context.

One sanitized version of Money For nothing replaces "faggot" with mother, another bleeps the epithet entirely, so that "See the little faggot with the earrings and the makeup," becomes "See the little (bleep) in the earrings and makeup." Seems to me that the context is still there. We know the character is deriding those 80s rockers with the big hair for their apparently feminine ways.

Or that the so-called satire wasn't an epic fail, as Mark Knopfler, who is no Mark Twain, reluctantly seems to recognize.

Apart from the fact that there are stupid gay people as well as stupid other people, it suggests that maybe you can't let it have so many meanings - you have to be direct. In fact, I'm still in two minds as to whether it's a good idea to write songs that aren't in the first person, to take on other characters.

And the original version shouldn't be played on the public airwaves because gay people don't like to hear the faggot word. They hear it enough.

And it's KILLING gay kids...

"I think it's extremely important to take these words out of lyrics in popular culture," said Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale Canada, an organization that promotes equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-identified people.

Oh boy. What can you say when not ONE of all the MSM stories and blog posts I read today saw fit to mention the plight of bullied gay kids?

What can you say about this feverish gang bang over the "right" to use the word faggot? Even in the so-called progressive blogosphere. Even if it hurts gay people.

What can you say about all those old straight guys who still don't get it?

Except, I hate BULLIES.

Like a kidney stone, or a stubborn stool, everything PASSES.

And of course, for all those fighting so hysterically for the "right" to say sing FAGGOT.

The last acceptable slur in the world.

This song is for YOU...



Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.