Loading ...- Category:
- Soap Box
- Author:
- Phil Scott
- Posted:
- Tuesday, 14 April 2009
Offence has been in the news lately. Jerry Lewis, the superannuated comedian, called cricket a fag’s game and fags were duly offended. Quite right, too! How dare anyone associate us with the dreariest pastime on earth?
In Britain, radio DJ Chris Moyles mocked the gay pop singer Will Young, using a girly high voice. The UK’s broadcasting watchdog complained that this incident had the potential to cause considerable offence.
By the way, does Will Young actually have a high-pitched voice? Most pop singers do. It’s a long time since anybody with a deep voice had a hit.
And aren’t all comedy radio jocks unsubtle and uninspired? Judging from the ones I’ve overheard on taxi radios, I’d have to say yes. So it doesn’t seem like anything to get excited about.
Recently, David Marr wrote a piece on offence for the Herald. I’m inclined to agree with him. Frankly, I’d agree with David if he said day was night.
He thinks we spend too much time being offended, and the most easily offended sectors of society (eg Christians, monarchists, all-purpose fogeys) are responsible for curtailing our freedom of speech. Stewing in their offence, they lobby like buggery and laws get passed just to shut them up. It doesn’t work, of course: these people like being offended. High dudgeon gives them something to live for.
Speaking as someone who has made a squillion inappropriate jokes and given offence freely -” both intentionally and not -” I’m a great believer in the adage -˜Get a life’. If someone rubs you the wrong way, your best option is to move on. Why let them win when they don’t deserve to?
It may be different in that claustrophobic panic-room known as the workplace. There, you are stuck with the same bunch of gloating breeders, fat retards, incompetent bullshit artists, up-themselves wankers and whinging losers day after day. Homophobia can fester, according to a university study.
I believe if you’re in that situation -” and I court controversy here -” you ought to entertain the possibility that any abuse you cop is purely personal. You are, after all, part of a group who are forced to spend most of their time together but would rather stick pencils in their eyes. That’s a recipe for abuse without a doubt.
If you gang up on the fat girl who cries a lot and can’t even do the simplest bloody thing right, it doesn’t mean you think all fat people are terrible: it means she personally gives you the shits. But you don’t say Jessie who shits me, you say the fat retard. It’s shorthand.
Well, the same thing might apply with homophobic slurs. It could be your colleagues’ lazy way of saying they dislike you as an individual. And if there’s a lazy way of doing something, people in the workplace will find it!
(Note to editor: You still want me to work from home?)
Tags: Chris Moyles, David Marr, fags, freedom of speech, homophobia, Jerry Lewis, offence, Will Young
April 15th, 2009 @ 12:24 am
the fat retard shouldn’t be shorthand. the real problem with using the word retard is that you’re not playing on a level field. people with special needs don’t have the option of sticking up for themselves. using the word retard just mocks them further and is so unnecessary.
April 15th, 2009 @ 10:03 am
Perhaps we should let a few things go through to the keeper. After all, if we got worked up about every homophobic insult we’d be in a constant state of apoplexy. But what if someone said Jerry Lewis, for example, was just a “closet poofter”? Do you think he’d let that one go? Too often, gays are told to chill out and not take insults too seriously by people who wouldn’t tolerate abuse dished out against them.
April 21st, 2009 @ 10:34 am
I was walking up MacLeay Street here in Poofs Point one day when a car load of hoons passed and one of them called out, ‘Hey! faggot!” About twenty queens turned round. It wasn’t an insult, we call each other faggot all the time. I guess it’s a bit like the ‘n’ word that blacks use with each other. Personally, I think there are just too many full-time victims around these days, I can almost hear their sphincters puckering on these forums every day.
May 5th, 2009 @ 9:39 pm
Only gays can use that “f” word, while blacks can only use that “n” word. Sorry I think [as a white, athiest, autistic, gay male as a gay rights activist who is 22 years old - having a P2 licence, (yes that is quite a few minority groups I am in)] that all those words are DEEPLY AND VERY OFFENSIVE!!!!
However you can use that word “fag” – IF IT IS IN REFERENCE TO CIGGERETTS OR SMOKES ONLY.