Dot in the Sky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dotinthesky) wrote2004-06-21 01:26 pm
dotinthesky) wrote2004-06-21 01:26 pm
The 4-minute post
I'm unprepared for today's cold spell, my lips are chapped, and I'm wondering why perfectly intelligent breeders straight people insist on using the word gay in a derogatory form:
Did you see her outfit last night? She looked sooooo gay!
Oh my God! Backstreet Boys are soooo gay!
I was, like, on the phone to my friend Chad and he said the gayest thing!
We are not amused. By "we", I mean gay people who have grown up knowing that something was slightly different about them, who had effeminate voices (like myself) and had to put up with other kids calling them names. Why do you want to squash us like that? In any case, "gay" means happy - so why try to bastardize the word and make it negative?
Are you one of those people that reads Vice magazine because you are soooo cool, and you feel soooooo post-modern and above caring? The people who I've seen using the word "gay" in a pejorative form are people who have gay friends. Maybe everyone is so sophisticated and beyond caring. Maybe I'm guilty too because I've made mix tapes for my friends with Patti Smith's song "Rock and Roll Nigger".
Should you and I not care about words anymore?
Did you see her outfit last night? She looked sooooo gay!
Oh my God! Backstreet Boys are soooo gay!
I was, like, on the phone to my friend Chad and he said the gayest thing!
We are not amused. By "we", I mean gay people who have grown up knowing that something was slightly different about them, who had effeminate voices (like myself) and had to put up with other kids calling them names. Why do you want to squash us like that? In any case, "gay" means happy - so why try to bastardize the word and make it negative?
Are you one of those people that reads Vice magazine because you are soooo cool, and you feel soooooo post-modern and above caring? The people who I've seen using the word "gay" in a pejorative form are people who have gay friends. Maybe everyone is so sophisticated and beyond caring. Maybe I'm guilty too because I've made mix tapes for my friends with Patti Smith's song "Rock and Roll Nigger".
Should you and I not care about words anymore?
no subject
the connotations (and denotations) words have are absolutely historical, as malaniat said, and relate to discourses and events that exist in the public consciousness, in fairly ordered ways. "Gay" used perjoratively doesn't mean just "lame"; it got to "lame" by way of such concepts as "lacking in forcefulness/power/effectiveness" > "effete" > "failed masculinity".
(parenthetically, the perjorative/so-called-"lame" "gay" is unlikely to be used with regard to female nouns; people use it to talk about male or generic (slanted toward the male, by default) nouns exclusively. would you say britney spears or kylie minogue is "gay/lame"? how about nickelback?)
like o says, it's not a question of mere political correctness, but linguistic precision and sophistication. using vague language is not just boring and offensive and ignorant, it's less insightful (and therefore, less incisive, critical, funny, etc.).
no subject