Well
I was going to do a post about plastic surgery, botox and the like ,
and how it all worries me a bit – all off the back of a
conversation had at work as part of my strict ‘Try To Talk About
Something Interesting To Make The Day Not A Complete Waste’ policy,
or TTTASITMTDNACW if you prefer. I got home, sat down, powered
up the MacBook, and then had a quick peep at Twitter, because I am
very easily distracted. Whilst skimming through the widely
boring tweets, I landed upon a link to The Guardian newspaper
website, on which there is an article about how the Apple iTunes
store has censored the title of a book by Naomi Wolf, called ‘Vagina:
A New Biography’.
They went for the much more subtle ‘V****a:
A Biography’. The book looks at how the lowest female sexy
part, once apparently sacred or something, has become cast as a
threat, asking why in an “increasingly sexualised world, it is
thought of as slightly shameful”. Now then, first of all they
seem to have proven that there is at least a bit of shame attached,
because they starred out letters and all that, which is odd because
you can get plenty of songs with the word in all its glory from the
very same site. Secondly, they must have realised their
mistake, because I just checked and it’s not censored now.
Clearly,
it’s hilarious. Silly old Apple, facepalm. I don’t
know who made the decision to protect us from the word vagina, but if
they still have a job, I hope they explained it as some sort of
satirical prank gone awry, and that they were fortunate enough to be
explaining it as such to an iDiot, because: duh. However, it
does illustrate that everyone’s offended by something. I
recently saw something about a petition going round, requesting that
comedians not make jokes about rape. Depressingly, I deem it
necessary to point out that I am in no way in favour of rape, if
anything I’m against it. Rape is definitely bad. But I have
also definitely laughed at jokes that contained, or inferred towards,
some sort of rapeyness. I’m also not sorry, they were funny.
I have also laughed at jokes about the dead, disabled, infants,
the elderly, women, and men. It’s an equal opportunities
thing. I suspect you have too, but if it makes you feel better,
you can pretend you haven’t and that I’m a terrible human being,
in fact that’s kind of nearish the point. You might be
disgusted that I find some or all of the things I listed open to
comedic licence, you might be mentally listing all the ‘poor taste’
jokes you know, someone might – I suppose – find the word vagina
offensive, but that’s not a good reason to lock me, or the person
making the funnies, up – or to censor a word used in medicine,
education and other innoccuous fields.
In
terms of spoken humour, I think anything is fair game. I might
not find mirth in what’s delivered, but someone else almost
certainly will, so basically, tough shit. I’m not saying
people have no right to be upset, disgusted or in some way offended
by anything – and to voice that – but that doesn’t mean you
should be able to ban things, or to punish a person for saying it. I
suppose I think of Twitter and Facebook as a continuation of verbal
discourse, which given the hoo-ha about privacy is probably quite
naive, but there you go – and by punish, I guess I mean in a
legal sense. You can shun them, you can request that they don’t
post such things on your feed, you can even write letters and
petitions, but it shouldn’t result in someone being remanded in
custody. Just shouldn’t. If the joker is consistently
posting on an individuals feed and, having been told to bugger off,
is not buggering off, that’s probably harassment, or bullying, or
some such, and that’s a different matter. But in essence,
it’s all or nothing baby.
Bad
language is another one. So many cuss words, such little time,
and so many people to decide that some of those words really hurt
them, but that others are fine, or that you can’t say that word to
a woman, or not in the office, or whatever. It’s a very
personal thing, again I personally like a bit of heavy swearing, not
much bothers me, if anything at all. I’m aware that in some
environments it’s best not to and that there are words that
especially rile people, but I also tend to lean towards the ‘so
what’ and ‘gleefully winding people up with that knowledge’
side of things. I can only speak for myself here, but isn’t
it ok for people to say stuff, and for you to not like it. I
know it’s not, but… isn’t it? Can’t you generally just
shrug and go ‘nope’ and walk away, or if you don’t mind
swearing tell them to fuck off. I mean, I know you can’t
but…. just, y’know, mostly…. couldn’t you? I might be
trivialising the whole thing, and it is definitely more complicated
than I can be bothered to write about, but really, stuff should
mostly be gotten over, including yourself.
So,
yes. Some things aren’t funny, but it’s not a crime to have
a go at making jokes about them- or it shouldn’t be – at
worst it shows bad taste and a lack of comic talent. If you
don’t like it, don’t listen to/watch/read it, and simply continue
with your life, not liking it. Also, swear words exist and have
their place, but that place probably isn’t school, work or Nans
funeral just as the coffin is lowered. Best to use them to
suggest passion or disgust, to make or strengthen a point or when you
hit your thumb with a hammer, rather than while you settle the bill.
It is your right to be able to express your offence. It is not
your right to never be offended. It’s a challenging world:
engage.
And
as for ‘V****a! What the f**k, s**t, c**k, c**t, and bum was
all that about.
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