Friday 14 January 2011

Money For Nothing: Faggots On The Radio

"The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has ruled that "Money for Nothing," a Dire Straits hit from 1985, is too offensive for Canadian airwaves. The song is being singled out for the repeated use of an anti-gay slur — "that little faggot" — in its second verse," reports Rolling Stone online.
Radio stations have been told to play an alternative version of the song with the f-word replaced with "mother".
Can't happen here?
Readers with something approaching a memory may recall that in December 2007 there was a bit of a hue and cry when BBC Radio 1 began playing a version of "Fairytale of New York" that lost the offending word in the line "You cheap lousy faggot" (They also lost the word "slut").
Radio 1 not being desperately committed to tackling homophobia they swiftly caved in to criticism and began playing the original version once more.
It's become a bit of a cliche for gay journalists to go; "Well, I don't find it offensive..." - it became rather popular and tedious when Eminem broke big, and when Bruno was released - cause getting angry's just so passé...
I think Fagburn may even have initially joined in with some manful scoffing at this "censorship".
The most thoughtful piece written about the Fairytale debacle was Popjustice editor Peter Robinson's 'Why Radio One Were Right To Censor Fairytale Of New York'.
Read it - you might learn something.

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