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Is 'A Fairytale of New York' homophobic?

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    Is 'A Fairytale of New York' homophobic?

    Cool, you got it, Pants, and apologies for thinking that you were 20 years younger than you are. I don't know where I got that from and it may have saved the day if I had known.

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      Is 'A Fairytale of New York' homophobic?

      Pants wrote:
      Ta for that MsD. Actually really interesting to read.

      To be honest, I think the bunfight between you and Bored came out of a simple misunderstanding. You said a lot of people round your way used the term “paki” and “paki shop” as “pretty much a term of affection, familiarity and acceptance”. I think what Bored was saying – and I agree 100% with him, as I think you do too – is that the intention of some of the people using the terms and those it was used about were out of kilter. While many white people may have been using it in a matey, colloquial way, it was actually very offensive. So it was an interesting conversation about peoples’ intentions but it didn’t seem to me that any of us ever disagreed about the actual result of people using these words.

      “Of course Bangladeshis were Pakistanis until 1972.”

      Ha, yeah. I was born in Bangladesh in 1972. I very nearly qualified as being a real, actual Paki instead of just a ‘paki’!

      Hey Wingco, back on the FONY thing, I only just got around to watching that clip from Louie you posted up. Brilliant. The gay stand-up expressed better in a few seconds at the end what I spent 15 pages of this thread trying to say.

      (if you haven’t seen it, it’s here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-55wC5dEnc )
      Sorry not to reply before, Pants. I saw the last post on the thread was from Bored and thought it best avoided.

      I could have saved much typing, although I'm glad you found it interesting, if I'd just talked about retrospective contextualisation; it wasn't that we used/accepted racist language and then stopped, it actually wasn't racist at the time, in that it wasn't intended to make anyone feel bad, or any way, about their race nor to convey bad feelings towards anyone based on their race. Racism cannot be determined by someone feeling they are subjected to racism, it requires intent and agency. If the word changed usage etc. later on, that doesn't change that fact. I have never "used racist language" as asserted by BoE. (That's a very offensive charge, btw, as well as a daft one).

      And this applies similarly to homophobia.

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        One particular faggot had had enough of faggot talk so he wrote something at 3am on Christmas Day.

        we’re tired. And sad. And increasingly scared. And if- like Shane McGowan, or Rob Brydon, or James Corden, or Ruth Jones- you’ve never been called a faggot (or any of the other words for difference) by someone who knew it to be true and wanted to do you harm, then you don’t get to tell us that our sadness and our fear aren’t valid.
        Happy Christmas, that word in that song. I pray god it’s your last.

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          Out of interest, does it have the same impact when used in something like Goodfellas or The Sopranos?

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            I don't think that happens in the same way. At least, it doesn't to me. People don't gather drunkenly to shout Goodfellas lines at the tops of their voices once a year, not round my way anyway.

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              MacGowan recently complained that he was beaten to No. 1 by "two queers and a drum machine", so his homophobia is not just a song character.

              https://anti-mega.com/again/things-i-have-faved-12/

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                I think that piece I linked to deals quite well with the "it's a character" shite anyway.

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                  Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                  I don't think that happens in the same way. At least, it doesn't to me. People don't gather drunkenly to shout Goodfellas lines at the tops of their voices once a year, not round my way anyway.
                  Yeah, good point, well made and, as the linked piece alludes, you arent going to hear Goodfellas lines randomly in John Lewis [I assume]

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                    I was very surprised they didn't change the line in the Gavin and Stacey special. It was the only sour note in an otherwise brilliant piece of TV.

                    Reading that blog post has made me think again about the show.
                    Last edited by Patrick Thistle; 27-12-2019, 00:02.

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                      Yeah, it's easy to change it, no point in clinging to it.

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                        Unless you want to make a point of it, which that blog author thinks they did.

                        It struck me at the time as a mis-step. I expected them to jink it with an edit. Cut to the outside of the pub to show how noisy it was inside. Then cut back. Would have been easy to do.

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                          I've not seen Gavin and Stacey, but from what I understand the faggot line was used as a punchline of sorts. They know it's offensive, they're playing on it being offensive, and now all the usual bores are going on about the "professionally offended", PC brigade and snowflakes. It's pretty shit all round. If that's what Gavin and Stacey want to align themselves with, then it's not for me, ta.

                          Louis CK managed to have a proper conversation about the word after extended use. G&S showed no willingness to and played it for guffaws. Load of shit, mate.

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                            https://youtu.be/Vi8zeaxtB-w

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                              Louis CK can fuck off and die, mind.

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                                Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                                Louis CK can fuck off and die, mind.
                                Yeah. It's a shame it had to come from him.

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                                  Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                                  One particular faggot had had enough of faggot talk so he wrote something at 3am on Christmas Day.

                                  Thanks for sharing this, a must read that should really put an end to any 'debate' about this.

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                                    never liked it, even as a teenager i had figured out it was wrong

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                                      Seeing the age of this thread I went back to see if I'd said anything in a more ignorant version of myself. Thankfully not.

                                      One thing did occur to me as I read posts written by many of the big beasts of golden age OTF, whose disappearances are sometimes lamented by old timers on here, is that we aren't missing anything by not having them around any more. Unless they've evolved.

                                      Another thought on this is it reminded me of hearing a lairy twunt of a Cardiff fan shouting faggot at Alexandre Lacazette when I went to Arsenal v Cardiff in January. My friend Mel confronted him about it and he protested to his mates quite loudly that it just meant a piece of wood etc etc but he knew what he was doing when he shouted it. He also tried to goad me but I wouldn't engage with him. That would have been a fight, but I left him to being berated by a short blonde girl which was just embarrassing for him. We also dobbed him in to a steward who bollocked him as well.

                                      The song getting airplay, the Gavin & Stacey writers' decision, are just going to embolden wankers like that who think homophobic slurs are just bantz and they're somehow heroic for yelling that type of abuse.

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                                        Oh right, this is an old thread. Let's see if I was on it.

                                        Aha, yes indeed.

                                        This calls for some kind of Whatsapp "I told ye all so" GIF.

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                                          Some posters appear to have changed position since 2011/12.

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                                            Originally posted by ChrisJ View Post
                                            Some posters appear to have changed position since 2011/12.
                                            Probably not a bad thing.

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                                              I still think it was fine in context, sung in character and written by someone whose sexuality was somewhat fluid.

                                              It's moved further into the mainstream. I don't think it should be bellowed lustily and non-ironically out of its original context.

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                                                I had a discussion of this retweeted into my timeline a couple days ago. In it, Shane was being quoted as saying that that word is what the character would have said, and that he has no problem with people changing the word now. fwiw.

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                                                  Good lord but there was some rotten old bollocks spouted on this here there wasn't there?

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                                                    Some of it is very funny, though, even a post of Taylor's made me LOL when I read it just now. I made a good joke on about page 5.

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