Friday, March 9. 2007That's Some Faggotty Faggotry, You Fag!Recently in a CNN interview with a hilariously uncomfortable straight, white guy, out rapper Deadlee talked about reclaiming the F-word. Not the F-word most rappers have already so easily claimed (minus the re-), but the other F-word. Our F-word, so to speak. Check out the original piece here: Regardless of his attempt (and the attempts of Queer Nation and other gay and lesbian activists before him), we've been hearing the word faggot come out of a lot of straight mouths these days in a lot of uncomfortable ways. As he says in the interview, Deadlee uses the word and it's variants a lot in his own work. Check out these lyrics from his song No Fags Allowed:
Those words don't exactly take power away from the word or reclaim and make it powerless. It seems to be associating a new negative connotation to the word - giving it more power and evil power at that. So I wonder, when is it okay to say faggot or fag or faggy or faggotty or faggotry? And who is it okay for and why? God knows, I use the word freely in positive, negative, and ironic ways. Like on this post for Big Queer. More often than not I use it negatively when someone queer is all closety, e.g. "What a fag. Like we don't know." I rarely use it that way for someone who is gay and not closety. I do like it as a celebratory word, too, especially in the form faggotry. I mean, faggotry just sounds fabulous, like, the movie Shortbus had some awesome faggotry in it, know what I mean? But then just when I think, oh yeah, saying faggot is fine, some dunderheaded straight cartoon character comes along and starts fagging it up. Like Ann Coulter to much applause. Or Paris Hilton to much derision. This is definitely not okay, right? And I know what you're going to say: they're straight. Of course, it's not okay. So then what about Green Day? They're all straight (I think), and they use faggot in a way that I think is totally awesome in their song American Idiot. Once again some lyrics:
I've got no conclusion here. In fact, when I try to work it out, I end up thinking in circles. It feels a lot like queer did in the early '90's when Queer Nation was trying to pull that word into the gay mainstream (and, it seems, succeeded). I feel like Justice Potter Stewart in trying to pin down when saying faggot is right or wrong: "I know it when I see it." Me on par with a stuffy, white Supreme Court Justice? That's so gay...uh, queer...er, faggy...um. Huh. Never mind. Trackbacks
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Nice Supreme Court tie-in.
#1
on
2007-03-13 08:06
What I don't find too amusing is even today, too many people
find it to be amusing to slur other people and groups who deserve to be protected from taunts and abuses. I find that Women's Rights, Family Rights and rights of those GLBT Individuals need to be protected and just because TV or whatever brand of entertainment makes us more hyper than Red Bull doesn't make it okay.
#2
on
2007-03-26 00:19
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If you're not familiar with the song, it's an all-out anti-Bush, anti-War on Terror rant. The lyrics above jump to the conclusion that because Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong and his band are against Dubya and his terror meets Terror tactics, they must be the fags that the bigoted right hates so much. Why does this reclamation of the word seem so much more exciting to me than when openly gay Deadlee tries it out?
