Ironically, some of the best traits we cherish as Canadians can be taken a little to far.
Recently, the media where all over an incident which appeared to be the proverbial storm in a teacup. A slice of 80’s dinosaur rock broadcast on a radio station, and the outrage it caused one listener, highlighted the very Canadian tendency of over reaction by public bureaucracy. A 26 year female in Newfoundland, heard the song (ironically, made the year she was born) on a local rock station in St. John. Shocked by the use of the word ‘faggot’ in the lyrics, she protested to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC). They ruled that the unedited version of the song was unacceptable for air play on private Canadian radio stations, as it breached their own code of ethics. And so, because of one person’s complaint, all radio stations across this mighty land cannot now play the unedited version of this song.
Without doubt, the CBSC where right when it concluded that “like other racially driven words in the English language, ‘faggot’ is one that, even if entirely or marginally acceptable in earlier days, is no longer so’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_for_Nothing_(song)) The term is objectionable and in itself marginalizes those who deem themselves gay. So, in one sense what the CBSC concluded is correct. The term is objectionable and shouldn’t be broadcast to one and all. It is why we do not hear a along list of words and terms that are deemed profane, objectionable or are negative of those of gender, colour or as here, sexual preference.
However, context is everything.
The song itself, is a working man’s viewpoint watching video’s of rock stars. In an interview with Dire Straits lead singer: Mark Knoppler, he states that the guy is a ‘..real ignoramus’ and envies rock stars who ‘…get money for nothing and the chicks for free’. Knoppler was in an appliance store in New York, where he was taken back by a delivery man spouting lines that ended up in the song. So when you hear ‘….that little faggot with the earring and the make-up’ and see the video of the song, it make sense for what it is. In effect, it’s highlighting how intolerance for others different to ourselves exists today, and the easy use of offensive terms in our everyday language.
Also, the term ‘faggot’ also has been ‘reclaimed’ within the gay community, in much the same way as the infamous ‘N’ word has for the black community. For example Dan Savage’s popular ‘Savage Love’ advice column made use of the salutation ‘Hey Faggot’ for many years.
I get all this. I really do.
I appreciate that the person who lodged the complaint has the right to do so. I applaud that she did. Apparently, the song has been criticized for being homophobic before, when it was first broadcast back in the 80’s. However, the song is still 26 years old and has been broadcast unedited to our ‘sensitive’ ears over those previous 26 long years. No, I contend the real and more important issue here, has more sinister consequences on us all, if left unchecked.
This is how one complainant, has the power to make a self-regulating civic body, to issue an edit that has the considerable power to stop a song being broadcast from coast to coast to coast. All on the basis of one person in 33,739,900 people living in Canada today (World Bank, 2009).
Wow. That really is the power of one taken to a whole new, stratospheric level.
It appears, to this humble citizen at least, that in our frenzied attempts to protect the sensitivities of labeled minorities in our community, we seem to throw out another great Canadian trait we are equally proud to stand behind. That more pragmatic, reasoned approach that is needed while hotter heads prevail. Think the well earned reputation of our Canadian forces in hot-spots aboard, where others appreciate our more humane efforts in peacekeeping.
So, how does common sense, context and a pragmatic approach come into how one individual can affect a decision so far reaching to so many? It doesn’t. Basically, in the haste to validate the individual, the aftermath leaves a very skewed sense of what is appropriate. Where extremes exist and the twain rarely meets in the middle.
For example, Vision TV broadcasts the BBC soap opera ‘Eastenders’. It portrays life in the east end of London, where live revolves around the local pub. Nothing new there if you know any Brits out there (LOL!). In England it goes out in the early evening. Yet, here at 6pm I have to hear an overly dramatic luvvie intone before each episode that ‘..viewer discretion is advised’ due to ‘mature subject’ matter. Mmmmm. Meanwhile, my own mother of 74 recently had the fortune to see a report on sex aids on the Global TV main news . Apparently, it showed a syringe going into a tube connected to a model of a penis. This was apparently suitable family viewing at 6:30pm.
Or I can go to my local Safeway and at eye level in the check out line I can read about ‘BAD GIRL SEX: 75 Very Naughty Moves to Try on a Man’ from the latest edition of ‘Cosmopolitan’ while I hear ‘Mummy what is the bad girl doing again?’
Bottom line: If a gay person says its OK that I can hear an offensive term against their persuasion. That’s OK. Am I really going to kneel over in shock if I hear this term muffled under a twanging guitar by an over bearing egotistical rock star? No, probably not. I’m really pissed off that someone the other side of the country can decide what I can and cannot because of a government body that basically should know better. CBSC: grow up.
I’m also fed up of an overly dramatic luvvie in a recording booth somewhere advising I might see something ‘mature’ when my counterpart viewer in the UK, (where the show is made) isn’t so childishly pandered to. Just STOP IT! Finally, I do believe in common sense censorship, and having ‘BAD GIRL SEX’ screaming in checkout 5 really isn’t clever when young children are running around. You wouldn’t put Playboy with the same tag line on the same shelf, so why should it be different for an apparently progressive, ‘I am women hear me roar’ publication?
As they say in the homeland: It’s not big and definitely not clever…..
Respect the individual but heed the voice of calm reason as well……
In the meantime,
peeeaaaaaccceee out sisters…………
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