Gay as a pejorative

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

“Ladies and Gentlemen, electric cars are gay,” Vaughn’s character Ronnie Valentine says. “I mean, not ‘homosexual’ gay, but ‘my parents are chaperoning the dance gay.”

-         The Dilemma

 

This preview has been getting a lot of negative press because of the use of the word ‘gay’ as a pejorative.

This is a pet peeve of mine among young people. I’ve noticed that 10-19 year olds seem to default to ‘gay’ way too much. So for me, it’s not a question of sensitivity to treatment of homosexuals as it is to the lame minds of our youth.

Ron Howard has said he will not remove this comment from the movie. I kind of think it fits the sort of comment and back peddle you typically hear from a Vince Vaughn character.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/10/ron-howard-on-the-dilemmas-gay-joke-it-stays-in-the-movie.html

So my questions:

1)       What do you do when you hear someone say “that’s gay” as a pejorative?

a.       What is a more apropos term/slang? I don’t want ‘lame’ coming back because of my time spent in the 80s…. I feel ‘lame’ is the gateway word to ‘gnarly’. Gnarly makes me want to gag myself with a spoon…like totally.

2)       Are you planning on seeing this movie? Does the ‘gay’ comment affect your decision?

3)      Is it okay to call Sponge Bob and Flapjack gay okay? I mean…come on they are gay..right?        

Comments

[xforge.livejournal.com]

I'm catastrophically tired of hearing that word used to describe something the speaker isn't pleased with. I play World of Warcraft where there are about one billion 13 year old boys who call EVERYTHING "gay." Tired tired tired of it.

I don't pay money for Vince Vaughn movies. I don't even watch them when they come on nonpay cable TV. I find the man crashingly unfunny, much as I find Will Ferrell unfunny.

[sarien.livejournal.com]

Uggh. So much truth in WoW. People using "rape" all of the time in game was also disgusting. I never had trade chat turned on when I played. :/

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

Ahh the magical world of teenage boys and video games.

When I used to play WoW you only used trade chat for trade. Wasn't their a area chat for nonsense?

[sarien.livejournal.com]

Sadly, the fail kind of overtook the entire game. Every chat area was filled with stupid. I had it turned off unless I needed to sell something in Trade.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

I keep *all* the chat channels turned off. All I can see is guild, party, raid, whisper. I even turn off Say and Yell sometimes. The senseless babble hurts my tired old brain.

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

How can you play a game like that without chat?

[xforge.livejournal.com]

I can still see what my guild is saying and what the party I'm in the raid with is saying, so it's all good.

[sarien.livejournal.com]

That's more or less how I had to play. Unfortunately, I played the AH a lot and had to have General on sometimes to sell/buy shit. :/

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Guffaw having to do trade in General because Trade is too full of kids trading dick jokes. ::sigh::