Bleeping faggoty sluts

[desperance]

Good grief. The BBC is censoring "Fairytale of New York", apparently on the grounds that it might offend me. Never has so far, y'know...?

Comments

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Shane MacGowan is offensive, but that's more for his crimes against aesthetics.

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

It's not that you might be offended, it's the people who might be offended on your behalf that cause all the trouble...

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

On behalf of my fellow scumbags and maggots, I have to agree--a very offensive song!

Wait, that's not the offensive line...?

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

I never really liked the words of the song.

But I certainly wouldn't want them changed because they might someday somehow offend someone

[yendi]

I'm confused; aren't they afraid that assorted drug-addled women of loose morals will be offended by the line, "old slut on junk?" Why aren't they blocking that line, too?

[julesjones]

Apparently they are...

But are also failing to block the word "arse".

I bring you this news courtesy of my flist, I've no idea myself what is or is not being blocked, not having listened to Radio 1 for some years. (I gather that Radio 2 has no trouble playing the full lyrics, old fuddy duddies that their listeners are.)

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

I think its just a ploy to guarantee it going to No 1. After all, it worked for Frankie and Relax.

As Jules says, Radio 2 - like wot I listen to - is quite happy to play the whole thing.

With a song in my heart and a pill on my tongue . . . Je t'aime, moi non plus.

[julesjones]

I have now been earwormed by Relax, and it's All Your Fault for mentioning it. Good thing I'm not writing any sex scenes today.

I feel pretty and witty and of unspecified sexuality

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

I wonder if these censors are the same people who used to censor anything gay-related for "promoting homosexuality"? Either way, I tend to think I know better than them, based on evidence like this.

I've also not forgiven them (assuming it's all the same people) yet for changing the "I feel pretty" song in later productions of West Side Story to include "night" instead of "day" so it could rhyme with "bright" instead of "gay". If that what it takes to keep civilisation from collapse I'd be inclined to give up.

Re: I feel pretty and witty and of unspecified sexuality

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I've also not forgiven them (assuming it's all the same people) yet for changing the "I feel pretty" song in later productions of West Side Story to include "night" instead of "day" so it could rhyme with "bright" instead of "gay".

I have harboured the same resentment for decades - but this turns out to be unfair. The original (1957? from memory) cast recording of the Broadway show has "bright/night"; it was rewritten as "day/gay" for the (?1961) movie, possibly because in the stage show she sings it in the evening, in the movie it's the morning after...

Re: I feel pretty and witty and of unspecified sexuality

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

Oh no! I hate it when one of my resentments gets taken away by people wriggling their way around into not having been bad after all. Still, perhaps they did something else I can be annoyed about instead.

[cherylmmorgan.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite Christmas songs, because it does actually get played on in-store muzak every so often, thereby bringing actual good cheer to tired shoppers. I have a video of Kirsty performing the song with The Pogues on my laptop somewhere. I think I'll just go play it. Again.

[takrann.livejournal.com]

Radio 1 have just issued a statement and said they have retracted the censorship!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Truly? Excellent; at lunchtime they were still standing by their guns. Ah, the power of the web...

[julesjones]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7150693.stm

And doubtless all expensive and excellent faggots will be heartened by this news. :-)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

*is heartened*

Thank you!

Now I shall go and be sluttish. I feel it a duty tonight.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

Ah, the joys of political correctness. Maybe you can designate some friends to be offended on your behalf.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

However, veteran gay rights activist Peter Tatchell said Radio 1's original actions were right.

Bloody hell. Since when did campaigning for gay rights slither into condemnation of vaguely offensive language?

Of course, Tatchell may be being misrepresented here. He said some really very sensible things on the Guardian site in criticism of the regrettable hate speech legislation. This doesn't really seem to match up.

I demand the right to be offended sometimes! Otherwise how can I feel able to robustly condemn the things that I find disturbing and offensive?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I demand the right to be offended sometimes! Otherwise how can I feel able to robustly condemn the things that I find disturbing and offensive?

Exactly. If we ever get one, I want it written into the constitution that every citizen has the right to be offended, and an equal right to give offence.

I've just commented in a later post about Tatchell. Sometimes he's so obviously right, but sometimes - well, not. As now.

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

It's not a right, its a duty. I really hate to think of a world where everyone agreed with me.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I suspect 'no danger of that' might be an apt phrase at this juncture - but yes.

[possumqueen.livejournal.com]

Wow... I had always regarded the BBC as an unfettered guardian of free speech, ever since Monty Python days when I was in high school(mid-1970's) and sat glued to Public Television in the US, grooving on British material both comic and dramatic. There were about five students in my high school who watched, understood the references, and loved the Python gang. We formed a rebellious underground. "Do you like it?" "...This isn't even funny..." "Right, feck off."

Well, it all spawned an intense love of English literature as well as its bastard child American literature, and by extension and profound contrast all literature. I'm an unabashed Anglophile to this day.

So this shakes my foundational beliefs of all that is right and holy. Censorship? Et tu, BBC? Even a thwarted attempt is disturbing.

And here I thought my hometown USA was the last bastion of intolerance and religious-rightish benighted duncery. No? Color me disillusioned. ;)

Yet I am oddly relieved to know that even the BBC will cave to consumer pressure when it comes to advertising revenues. Yay for social unrest, it triumphs again. As long as there is no heavy artillery involved. *glowers* Hm, yes, every part of the world is equally guilty of that nonsense, straight across the political spectrum.

-A-

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Fighting supposed offensiveness is what activists do on a slow news day in a rich society. It's discouraging that this kind of silliness is what they find to do, on both right and left.