Pretty pathetic stuff, though I actually welcome the development. For of all the things that fall prey to the censorship of the ‘social justice’ mob, art is the field that gains the most strength from being subversive. Sanitised, authority approved versions of expression are (and most definitely should be) considered deeply uncool. As such, with each stultifying move to shift works of to art align with the sensibilities of unhinged leftists, will become greater and greater incentive for artists to kick back against it and produce works in active opposition to the censorship.
Woke will soon have had its day when it inevitably dawns on the next generation that to follow its dictats is to unquestionably side with dull, bootlicking artists, teachers, parents, HR managers, and all the other tedious morons that currently enjoy the unearned power to tell everyone else what’s allowed and what isn’t.
It’s entertaining that well thought out comments, intelligent comments are posted by conservatives. Insulting ones are posted by liberals. You are your own worst enemy. You accomplish absolutely nothing.
Yup, woke is ‘the man’, the establishment, the elite, the masters – punk would have stuck this language nonsense in the bin.
Penny Adrian
1 year ago
Beyonce is a joke who no one will care about in 20 years. She is a creation of her husband/producer Jay Zee, who will probably trade her in for a young starlet once Bey’s light has faded.
Also, I wouldn’t call either Beyonce or Lizzo “artists”.
The only thing either of these women care about is money, so of course they’ll change a song lyric if they think it might affect their bottom line.
Cowardice & greed is at the ugly heart of “cancel culture” and is the only engine that drives it.
Beyonce is not a “feminist” and she doesn’t give a darn about disabled people (most of whom don’t give a darn about her using the word “spaz”). Beyonce cares about the same thing all the “woke” celebrities care about: money, power, and fame.
Great comment! Some of us see what the US is about, respect the good bits and deplore the rest, but why we import so much is down to the lack of confidence by mainstream broadcasters who don’t speak for the British public as a whole. There is resistance, you just may not see it! But keep up the good work in terms of freedom and positivity, we can all do with more of that.
The issue is not that women’s contributions to culture are less valuable, but that women are generally more obliging. That’s why trans men (ie women) do not cause much of a problem, being happy to get on with their lives in their new identity, whereas trans women (ie men) are often over-assertive and confrontational.
“trans men (ie women)” thanks for the reminder. I’m getting old and have trouble remembering which is which! It would be easier if they could be described as male women or female men.
Males are males and females are females, it doesn’t matter what these deluded people call themselves or how much they have gone under the knife they will always remain the gender ie biological sex that they were born into. Nobody can change their chromosomes.
Bronwen Saunders
1 year ago
This drive to sanitize language is robbing us of one of our primary sources of humor. Many years ago, when a fellow student (a gay American) asked my (British) brother how he had spent his summer vacation, the answer he got – “flogging fags” – caused no inconsiderable alarm, which very soon gave way to mirth.
Absolutely! I think all words should be put back on the table! Context is key!
Plus there are times that humans need to vent and a stream of verbal hate is surely preferable to physical violence fuelled by hate and anger.
I remember being in the US and going to a party when I was 19. There was a little trouble. A man asked me afterwards if anything was damaged. I replied that a few pot-plants had been smashed but that was all. He looked at me incredulously saying ‘They have pot plants.’ Mystified by his response, I affirmed my statement. It wasn’t until much later I understood the nature of the miscommunication.
Lindsay S
1 year ago
I’m not sure you can argue that the word has a different cultural meaning for black people. Really it’s the same meaning, the only difference is that they’re ignorant of it. Although I suppose when you yourself gets to use a word that is considered the most offensive of offensives because it’s different when you say it then it stands to reason to see how special they are in this area (in this sentence special can be used in two ways, the original way which they shall like because it puts them on a pedestal and the new way which is similar but strongly refers to their needs).
Rose Pearce
1 year ago
I think you’re being wilfully obtuse here. While I don’t necessarily agree with artists changing lyrics to be PC (unless for a radio edit) it’s a false equivalence to compare this use of ‘spaz’ with the British vs US use of ‘fag’. The latter are two entirely different words that just happen to be spelt the same. The definition you give above for the ‘AAVE’ usage of ‘spaz’ (i.e. going crazy) clearly derives from ‘spastic’ which used to be a medical term but is now considered a slur for disabled people.
The word ‘spastic’ fell into disrepute in the mid-60’s when, for a mercifully brief period, a dance called that did the rounds. It comprised jerky, exaggerated movements and was roundly condemned for its cruel tastelessness.
Where will ‘they’ draw the line here? Perhaps there will be an evaluation of her husband’s lyrical content over the past few decades…? There seems to be a fair amount of celebration around violence, rampant misogyny and the blood stained narcotics trade in there! Tee hee hee
Kirsten Walstedt
1 year ago
Since I don’t enjoy the music of anyone mentioned in this article, my comment will have to be about the principle. On the principle I agree with you completely, and I have no interest at all in Apologetic Art in any form; music, painting, theater, literature, cinema, etc. Once I have seen an individual or an institution give in to identity politics, I scratch them off my list as tainted and compromised.
When the American Library Association, awarders of the Caldecott and Newberry Awards, removed Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from the award that was created in her honor, I decided I no longer trusted their authority on excellence in children’s literature. Any books they recommended since then are suspect as far as I am concerned.
Other institutions like Princeton, Yale, and Harvard have also discredited their own academic integrity with their capture by the woke brigade.
Music, books, shows, movies, comic acts that are edited after the fact to appease critics have betrayed themselves and rendered their artistic value suspect.
There needs to be more underground art now than there ever has been.
Ps. I had never heard that the word ‘spaz’ came from AAVE. Is there a citation for that? We talked about ‘spazzing out’ when I was in fifth grade in 1980, and I had no idea where it came from. I also remember that Kim Carnes sang in 1981 (in Bette Davis Eyes), “All the guys think she’s a spaz.”
Your comments are so refreshing! (Apologies for replying to another one, but it’s just like breathing in pure mountain air.)
That’s exactly what we need. People to stand up and have the confidence to say NO, we simply won’t accept those received opinions, because we have our own; formed from life experience and the ability to think through the consequences of acquiescence.
Kat L
1 year ago
none of those incidents written about so fawningly here were admirable and just demonstrates that our culture started the downward spiral in the 60’s. i’m enjoying my popcorn as they start to feast on their own.
I greatly enjoyed Frank Zappa when I met him over a cup of tea at Twinings opposite the Royal Courts of Justice during a legal battle he was having over obscenity: a most erudite, actually modest and interesting fellow….
prescient… how exactly? the culture now basically celebrates degeneracy, vulgarity and violence. if you believe he contributed to the betterment of it …what can i say. he did his part to make society ugly.
Downward spiral from 60s?
Depends how you look at it. 70s and early 80s were pop-culturally vibrant, with nary a hint of PC vapours anywhere.
This is all very tame stuff. If you want lyrics to trouble the thought police, Google these songs from the 1970s to give you an idea:
Stiff Little Fingers: White Noise
Ian Dury: Plaistow Patricia
Frank Zappa: Bobby Brown goes down
Lou Reed: Street Hassle
The Fall: The Classical
Beyoncé and the modern lot are dull-witted bourgeois nonentities compared to the edgy troublemakers I grew up listening to in the 70s and early 80s.
putting warning labels on albums to warn parents against obscene content is not censorship. i grew up in the 70’s and was a huge fan of a lot of the music at the time at least up to 83: there was a lot of it that wasn’t vulgar and explicit but later it became so. they were just trying to put on the brakes. after having children i see the benefit of it now.
Last edited 1 year ago by Kat L
Katharine Eyre
1 year ago
What Beyoncé has just demonstrated is that she is not an artist (as I have previously thought – even though I don’t much like her music) but a mere supplier of music who thinks that the customer always knows best.
I think Beyoncé’ dilemma is along the lines of what is worse? Being ignorant or a hypocrite? A high moral standing is difficult to uphold for mere humans as we’re fallible, this realisation could be dawning on the mouthpieces of this movement called woke.
I think she is largely the ultimate product of hype, rather like Madonna before her.
David Pogge
1 year ago
We need to care a little less about hurting people’s feelings and care a little more about our rights being curtailed by anyone who can find any reason – no matter how tortured – for being offended. Offense is in the eye of the beholder and is therefore a problem for the beholder, not for the offender.
polidori redux
1 year ago
I have never (knowingly) listened to Beyoncé’s music.
Am I missing anything?
Apparently, we are the only two who have not. I can’t think of a more tortuous thing to do, outside of actually being tortured in a gulag, for example, than to expose my ears to this utterly offensive and degrading noise.
There are browser settings and plugins to help with this.
Steve Elliott
1 year ago
Some years ago an American politician used the word Ni**ardly meaning ungenerous. I think he was hounded out of office. I’ve pre-censored that word, by the way.
That’s really strange, they are two completely unrelated words on fron Latin meaning “black” the other, according to my Oxford dictionary, is probably Old Norse meaning “stingy” – how can you confuse the two words?
Here in Ireland we used ‘spastic’ or ‘spa’ as a playground insult when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, but it fell by the wayside somewhere in my teens, around the same time I stopped using ‘gay’ as a pejorative term. I was surprised to discover the use of ‘spaz’ by adults when I started training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and was introduced to the concept of the spazzy white belt (admittedly a term imported from America, and not used much over here). I absolutely don’t buy the AAVE excuse. Use of the term is by no means exclusive to black people, and – more importantly – if you’re not aware of the meaning of the words you say then that’s your own fault. All the same, while I don’t really approve of the use of spaz, I can’t get on board with this mock outrage from Australia and I’m even more shocked at the spineless response from the musicians and labels who changed the lyrics. I don’t imagine that they were ignorant to the origins of ‘spaz’ so if they thought it was alright to release in the first place then they shouldn’t let a bit of pushback change their minds. As the author says, it sets a dangerous precedent and the people who will suffer are the non-millionaire artists who can’t absorb a cancellation attempt in the same way as Lizzo or Beyonce can.
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago
The PC police are prepared to decide what is the meaning of words in other languages too. The English FA decided that they knew better than a Uruguayan (Edinson Cavani) what the word ‘negrito’ meant in Uruguayan Spanish.
Lord Rochester
1 year ago
Smack My b***h Up is by The Prodigy, and so British. Sorry to nitpick.
John K
1 year ago
Context and timing are important with words that are acceptable, even normal, in one era but become taboo in another (and vice versa).
In 1981 Ian Dury released a song entitled Spasticus Autisticus as a protest at what he considered the patronising nature of the “International Year of Disabled Persons”.
And The Spastics Society only changed its name to Scope in the 1990s.
But there is often a double standard at play in these controversies, as others have noted.
The power is at least for now with the professionally outraged and the bullying trans lobby, but Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Kirsten Walstedt
1 year ago
Also noting that disability activists find the following words unsupportable and wish us to cease using them; crazy, dumb, lame, blind/deaf in a metaphorical sense, moron, lunatic, loony, idiot (and likely more.) I can’t even imagine writers or lyricists eliminating ‘crazy’ from their repertoire. It would knock out a lot of songs!
When more than 2 people complain to a crayon manufacturer about using the Spanish word for black on a crayon, we have reached the Mendoza line.
JP Martin
1 year ago
I’m reminded of the PhD student whose research established that Beyoncé fans had, on average, lower IQs. S/he was onto something!
Alan Girling
1 year ago
I got a short story of mine published about 15 years ago called, ‘Spazzes, Gimps and Fatsos’. That’s three armies that might come after me, I suppose.
Last edited 1 year ago by Alan Girling
Darwin K Godwin
1 year ago
Renaissance? I think her genre is closer to neo-cabaret grindhouse.
Ballantrae
1 year ago
Get a life, Kat.
Jane Eyre
1 year ago
Probably going to get some abuse for this but I believe the origins of the word in both American and British English are the same and so yes it is offensive in all English. I’m not sure what you mean when you say “unique cultural context”. Just because you’re not aware of the origins doesn’t give you a free pass.
There are other problems with this album, like Beyonce’s prolific sampling. She’s done nothing illegal, but morally it seems questionable to sample so much without acknowledgement.
Rose Pearce
1 year ago
If you want to be offended by song lyrics though, try Metallica’s So What, or Avenged Sevenfold’s A Little Piece of Heaven. Words in songs are mostly just words.
cheryl smith
1 year ago
Spazzing out means to lack control. Nothing more, nothing less. This whole article is a waste and no, I couldn’t read all of it.
N T
1 year ago
No comment on the text, but that photo is amazing.
I also don’t believe that “Spaz” is an Americanism. Doctors coin terms for medical use (in this case Spastic) and children steal it and modify it for use in the playground (Spaz, Spaka etc). They (children) have done the same with most if not all medical terms for people with mental and physical disabilities for decades and the medical establishment keep having to come up with new terms because of this. Ultimately, children are (unsurprisingly) the masters of creative cruelty and not giving a f***.
Yes. Back in the early 80s, I remember when Blue Peter introduced a man with cerebral palsy called Joey Deacon to children, to educate them about the condition and how people cope with it.
Within a week or so at my primary school, ‘Joey’ was a derogatory term.
Kids are awesome! They can turn anything into an insult. Unfortunately it does mean that any and every word for physical and mental illness will be utilised in this endeavour and the PC brigade are waging a futile war. All power to the children, I say!
Jeez we used to make up playground jokes about the famines in Africa; American astronauts being blown up in space; suspected paedos – which I couldn’t repeat. I admired the sheer genius of those school friends who thought up the jokes, typically within a day of the relevant news item.
Pretty pathetic stuff, though I actually welcome the development. For of all the things that fall prey to the censorship of the ‘social justice’ mob, art is the field that gains the most strength from being subversive. Sanitised, authority approved versions of expression are (and most definitely should be) considered deeply uncool. As such, with each stultifying move to shift works of to art align with the sensibilities of unhinged leftists, will become greater and greater incentive for artists to kick back against it and produce works in active opposition to the censorship.
Woke will soon have had its day when it inevitably dawns on the next generation that to follow its dictats is to unquestionably side with dull, bootlicking artists, teachers, parents, HR managers, and all the other tedious morons that currently enjoy the unearned power to tell everyone else what’s allowed and what isn’t.
I hope so. Unfortunately, we are living in an age where the most easily offended are afforded the highest levels of respect.
Indeed…with Donald J. Trump being exhibit numero uno. The heart of a viper and the skin of a Kleenex.
TDS is a painful condition. I believe there’s a suppository that might help.
It’s entertaining that well thought out comments, intelligent comments are posted by conservatives. Insulting ones are posted by liberals. You are your own worst enemy. You accomplish absolutely nothing.
Though I disagree completely with Keating it was a damn witty insult.
Yup, woke is ‘the man’, the establishment, the elite, the masters – punk would have stuck this language nonsense in the bin.
Beyonce is a joke who no one will care about in 20 years. She is a creation of her husband/producer Jay Zee, who will probably trade her in for a young starlet once Bey’s light has faded.
Also, I wouldn’t call either Beyonce or Lizzo “artists”.
The only thing either of these women care about is money, so of course they’ll change a song lyric if they think it might affect their bottom line.
Cowardice & greed is at the ugly heart of “cancel culture” and is the only engine that drives it.
Beyonce is not a “feminist” and she doesn’t give a darn about disabled people (most of whom don’t give a darn about her using the word “spaz”). Beyonce cares about the same thing all the “woke” celebrities care about: money, power, and fame.
In fairness she was rich and famous long before Jay Zed turned up
No her father is/was unusually well placed to rocket assist her early career.
“She is a creation of her husband/producer Jay Zee”
Jay Zed if you please Penny. This is England.
Is it Z as in Russian army insignia?
I rather think it may be. But Zed, William. Not Zee. Zed.
.. but so devastatingly gorgeous….
Who cares about her but, I dunno know, 16 year old girls?
Tolkein was right. America and its consequences have been a disaster for British culture.
They have, and all of us who love the UK keep wishing you would stop adopting it. Someone has to hold the line. Resist us, please!
Great comment! Some of us see what the US is about, respect the good bits and deplore the rest, but why we import so much is down to the lack of confidence by mainstream broadcasters who don’t speak for the British public as a whole. There is resistance, you just may not see it! But keep up the good work in terms of freedom and positivity, we can all do with more of that.
Please may have your 1st Amendment?
The 1st only works if you have the 2nd to back it up. We call the 2nd a right but actually it is an obligation. Freedom isn’t free.
Well said
The issue is not that women’s contributions to culture are less valuable, but that women are generally more obliging. That’s why trans men (ie women) do not cause much of a problem, being happy to get on with their lives in their new identity, whereas trans women (ie men) are often over-assertive and confrontational.
“trans men (ie women)” thanks for the reminder. I’m getting old and have trouble remembering which is which! It would be easier if they could be described as male women or female men.
Males are males and females are females, it doesn’t matter what these deluded people call themselves or how much they have gone under the knife they will always remain the gender ie biological sex that they were born into. Nobody can change their chromosomes.
This drive to sanitize language is robbing us of one of our primary sources of humor. Many years ago, when a fellow student (a gay American) asked my (British) brother how he had spent his summer vacation, the answer he got – “flogging fags” – caused no inconsiderable alarm, which very soon gave way to mirth.
Absolutely! I think all words should be put back on the table! Context is key!
Plus there are times that humans need to vent and a stream of verbal hate is surely preferable to physical violence fuelled by hate and anger.
Yes, I’ve now had years of mischievous humour from ambiguous use of my name.
I remember being in the US and going to a party when I was 19. There was a little trouble. A man asked me afterwards if anything was damaged. I replied that a few pot-plants had been smashed but that was all. He looked at me incredulously saying ‘They have pot plants.’ Mystified by his response, I affirmed my statement. It wasn’t until much later I understood the nature of the miscommunication.
I’m not sure you can argue that the word has a different cultural meaning for black people. Really it’s the same meaning, the only difference is that they’re ignorant of it. Although I suppose when you yourself gets to use a word that is considered the most offensive of offensives because it’s different when you say it then it stands to reason to see how special they are in this area (in this sentence special can be used in two ways, the original way which they shall like because it puts them on a pedestal and the new way which is similar but strongly refers to their needs).
I think you’re being wilfully obtuse here. While I don’t necessarily agree with artists changing lyrics to be PC (unless for a radio edit) it’s a false equivalence to compare this use of ‘spaz’ with the British vs US use of ‘fag’. The latter are two entirely different words that just happen to be spelt the same. The definition you give above for the ‘AAVE’ usage of ‘spaz’ (i.e. going crazy) clearly derives from ‘spastic’ which used to be a medical term but is now considered a slur for disabled people.
The word ‘spastic’ fell into disrepute in the mid-60’s when, for a mercifully brief period, a dance called that did the rounds. It comprised jerky, exaggerated movements and was roundly condemned for its cruel tastelessness.
Ian Dury’s ‘spasticus autisticus’ no doubt needs re-recording. Just about every word will have to be cut
And widely laughed at in the USA when Trump emulated it to impersonate a disabled journalist.
Trump made ableism more popular…
Where will ‘they’ draw the line here? Perhaps there will be an evaluation of her husband’s lyrical content over the past few decades…? There seems to be a fair amount of celebration around violence, rampant misogyny and the blood stained narcotics trade in there! Tee hee hee
Since I don’t enjoy the music of anyone mentioned in this article, my comment will have to be about the principle. On the principle I agree with you completely, and I have no interest at all in Apologetic Art in any form; music, painting, theater, literature, cinema, etc. Once I have seen an individual or an institution give in to identity politics, I scratch them off my list as tainted and compromised.
When the American Library Association, awarders of the Caldecott and Newberry Awards, removed Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from the award that was created in her honor, I decided I no longer trusted their authority on excellence in children’s literature. Any books they recommended since then are suspect as far as I am concerned.
Other institutions like Princeton, Yale, and Harvard have also discredited their own academic integrity with their capture by the woke brigade.
Music, books, shows, movies, comic acts that are edited after the fact to appease critics have betrayed themselves and rendered their artistic value suspect.
There needs to be more underground art now than there ever has been.
Ps. I had never heard that the word ‘spaz’ came from AAVE. Is there a citation for that? We talked about ‘spazzing out’ when I was in fifth grade in 1980, and I had no idea where it came from. I also remember that Kim Carnes sang in 1981 (in Bette Davis Eyes), “All the guys think she’s a spaz.”
Your comments are so refreshing! (Apologies for replying to another one, but it’s just like breathing in pure mountain air.)
That’s exactly what we need. People to stand up and have the confidence to say NO, we simply won’t accept those received opinions, because we have our own; formed from life experience and the ability to think through the consequences of acquiescence.
none of those incidents written about so fawningly here were admirable and just demonstrates that our culture started the downward spiral in the 60’s. i’m enjoying my popcorn as they start to feast on their own.
Sorry, Zappa’s intervention was not only admirable but prescient as well.
I greatly enjoyed Frank Zappa when I met him over a cup of tea at Twinings opposite the Royal Courts of Justice during a legal battle he was having over obscenity: a most erudite, actually modest and interesting fellow….
Did he complain that his balls felt like a pair of maracas?
prescient… how exactly? the culture now basically celebrates degeneracy, vulgarity and violence. if you believe he contributed to the betterment of it …what can i say. he did his part to make society ugly.
Downward spiral from 60s?
Depends how you look at it. 70s and early 80s were pop-culturally vibrant, with nary a hint of PC vapours anywhere.
This is all very tame stuff. If you want lyrics to trouble the thought police, Google these songs from the 1970s to give you an idea:
Stiff Little Fingers: White Noise
Ian Dury: Plaistow Patricia
Frank Zappa: Bobby Brown goes down
Lou Reed: Street Hassle
The Fall: The Classical
Beyoncé and the modern lot are dull-witted bourgeois nonentities compared to the edgy troublemakers I grew up listening to in the 70s and early 80s.
Wholly agree. I’m currently watching a docu-series on music from the early 1970s – a time before it all became sadly commercialized.
You have omitted the divine Kate.
Doubtless God could have created a more wonderful creature, but doubtless god never did.
Agreed!
putting warning labels on albums to warn parents against obscene content is not censorship. i grew up in the 70’s and was a huge fan of a lot of the music at the time at least up to 83: there was a lot of it that wasn’t vulgar and explicit but later it became so. they were just trying to put on the brakes. after having children i see the benefit of it now.
What Beyoncé has just demonstrated is that she is not an artist (as I have previously thought – even though I don’t much like her music) but a mere supplier of music who thinks that the customer always knows best.
I think Beyoncé’ dilemma is along the lines of what is worse? Being ignorant or a hypocrite? A high moral standing is difficult to uphold for mere humans as we’re fallible, this realisation could be dawning on the mouthpieces of this movement called woke.
I think she is largely the ultimate product of hype, rather like Madonna before her.
We need to care a little less about hurting people’s feelings and care a little more about our rights being curtailed by anyone who can find any reason – no matter how tortured – for being offended. Offense is in the eye of the beholder and is therefore a problem for the beholder, not for the offender.
I have never (knowingly) listened to Beyoncé’s music.
Am I missing anything?
Apparently, we are the only two who have not. I can’t think of a more tortuous thing to do, outside of actually being tortured in a gulag, for example, than to expose my ears to this utterly offensive and degrading noise.
Not so. I can’t recall having had the dubious pleasure of being subjected to her noise, either.
You describe it so well Warren; are you sure you haven’t heard it?
Make that 3.
You have been spared
Why does anyone even think about a talentless person who appears in porn videos under the heading of “music’?
Some may agree with that, but there’s no need to shout.
I need bold print for my macular degeneration-sorry!
I need bold print for my macular degeneration -sorry!
There are browser settings and plugins to help with this.
Some years ago an American politician used the word Ni**ardly meaning ungenerous. I think he was hounded out of office. I’ve pre-censored that word, by the way.
That’s really strange, they are two completely unrelated words on fron Latin meaning “black” the other, according to my Oxford dictionary, is probably Old Norse meaning “stingy” – how can you confuse the two words?
Don’t underestimate the stunning ignorance of the outraged woke warriors.
Allow me to fill in the gaps: gg
I found it. It was David Howard an aide to the mayor of Washington DC in 1999 who used the word.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly#:~:text=On%20January%2015%2C%201999%2C%20David,slur%20and%20lodged%20a%20complaint.
What, niggardly?
Here in Ireland we used ‘spastic’ or ‘spa’ as a playground insult when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, but it fell by the wayside somewhere in my teens, around the same time I stopped using ‘gay’ as a pejorative term. I was surprised to discover the use of ‘spaz’ by adults when I started training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and was introduced to the concept of the spazzy white belt (admittedly a term imported from America, and not used much over here). I absolutely don’t buy the AAVE excuse. Use of the term is by no means exclusive to black people, and – more importantly – if you’re not aware of the meaning of the words you say then that’s your own fault. All the same, while I don’t really approve of the use of spaz, I can’t get on board with this mock outrage from Australia and I’m even more shocked at the spineless response from the musicians and labels who changed the lyrics. I don’t imagine that they were ignorant to the origins of ‘spaz’ so if they thought it was alright to release in the first place then they shouldn’t let a bit of pushback change their minds. As the author says, it sets a dangerous precedent and the people who will suffer are the non-millionaire artists who can’t absorb a cancellation attempt in the same way as Lizzo or Beyonce can.
The PC police are prepared to decide what is the meaning of words in other languages too. The English FA decided that they knew better than a Uruguayan (Edinson Cavani) what the word ‘negrito’ meant in Uruguayan Spanish.
Smack My b***h Up is by The Prodigy, and so British. Sorry to nitpick.
Context and timing are important with words that are acceptable, even normal, in one era but become taboo in another (and vice versa).
In 1981 Ian Dury released a song entitled Spasticus Autisticus as a protest at what he considered the patronising nature of the “International Year of Disabled Persons”.
And The Spastics Society only changed its name to Scope in the 1990s.
But there is often a double standard at play in these controversies, as others have noted.
The power is at least for now with the professionally outraged and the bullying trans lobby, but Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Also noting that disability activists find the following words unsupportable and wish us to cease using them; crazy, dumb, lame, blind/deaf in a metaphorical sense, moron, lunatic, loony, idiot (and likely more.) I can’t even imagine writers or lyricists eliminating ‘crazy’ from their repertoire. It would knock out a lot of songs!
Time for Queen Bey to re-record Crazy in Love?
When more than 2 people complain to a crayon manufacturer about using the Spanish word for black on a crayon, we have reached the Mendoza line.
I’m reminded of the PhD student whose research established that Beyoncé fans had, on average, lower IQs. S/he was onto something!
I got a short story of mine published about 15 years ago called, ‘Spazzes, Gimps and Fatsos’. That’s three armies that might come after me, I suppose.
Renaissance? I think her genre is closer to neo-cabaret grindhouse.
Get a life, Kat.
Probably going to get some abuse for this but I believe the origins of the word in both American and British English are the same and so yes it is offensive in all English. I’m not sure what you mean when you say “unique cultural context”. Just because you’re not aware of the origins doesn’t give you a free pass.
There are other problems with this album, like Beyonce’s prolific sampling. She’s done nothing illegal, but morally it seems questionable to sample so much without acknowledgement.
If you want to be offended by song lyrics though, try Metallica’s So What, or Avenged Sevenfold’s A Little Piece of Heaven. Words in songs are mostly just words.
Spazzing out means to lack control. Nothing more, nothing less. This whole article is a waste and no, I couldn’t read all of it.
No comment on the text, but that photo is amazing.
Pray tell why you are amazed by it.
The ‘non American’ English language has been slowly colonised by American English for decades.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable that the line is drawn here. It’s a horrible word.
“The ‘non American’ English Language” don’t you mean The English Language?
Yes, Ms. Higgins
I also don’t believe that “Spaz” is an Americanism. Doctors coin terms for medical use (in this case Spastic) and children steal it and modify it for use in the playground (Spaz, Spaka etc). They (children) have done the same with most if not all medical terms for people with mental and physical disabilities for decades and the medical establishment keep having to come up with new terms because of this. Ultimately, children are (unsurprisingly) the masters of creative cruelty and not giving a f***.
Yes. Back in the early 80s, I remember when Blue Peter introduced a man with cerebral palsy called Joey Deacon to children, to educate them about the condition and how people cope with it.
Within a week or so at my primary school, ‘Joey’ was a derogatory term.
Kids are awesome! They can turn anything into an insult. Unfortunately it does mean that any and every word for physical and mental illness will be utilised in this endeavour and the PC brigade are waging a futile war. All power to the children, I say!
Jeez we used to make up playground jokes about the famines in Africa; American astronauts being blown up in space; suspected paedos – which I couldn’t repeat. I admired the sheer genius of those school friends who thought up the jokes, typically within a day of the relevant news item.
Children should be seen and NOT heard!
You’re clearly not a fan of children, maybe you’re not fortunate enough to have any.