fairytale new york homophobia disguised christmas cheer

[Ontheboardwalk]

This is my Christmas song, Christmas starts when I hear this song. Kirsty MacColl sounds fabulous.

It’s all over the newspapers again about the outrage.

Shane MacGowan has explained a million times what the word faggot means in his life and this song. There’s no harm in the song

AIBU that outrage at this word finishes and everyone should all sing along together to a great tune

and excellent point about the word slut.

Apologies on Taggart ... I'd posted before RTFT

Pathetic right wingers with too much time on their hands are at it again, manufacturing outrage that barely exists.

Shane explained last week that those swearwords were showing the turn in the relationship and its falling apart.
It's a bloody good song, I love it.

Ok this is insane.
I love this song.
I think it's the only Christmas song I do like because I'm a grinch and I hate all of that twee shit.
Now I'm adopted and when I met my paternal birth family in Ireland back in the late 90's , young and old were using the word faggot.
I said hey you can't just say that ! Having been brought up in the UK and the US this word is extremely offensive in those cultures.
I had my arse handed to me swiftly and I was told that it didn't mean the same thing.
It was the same as calling someone a fool or idiot.
I did research it and it's true,
I now live an hour away from Liverpool in a small town with lots of older Liverpudlians as residents and they also use it to mean the same thing.
Up here the swear words are very Irish.
Gobshite , feck etc being used more than anything and yes I've heard fagot more than once with the Irish meaning.
I'd never use this word but this song must be 30 years old now surely ?
We can't erase history by having gobshites like Ronan fucking Keeting make "clean" versions ( yes it's happened and it's offensive to my bloody ears)
The writers of this song are Irish , they use Irish slang and swear words in their music . It's a miserable, real life story of a woman standing up for herself in a dysfunctional relationship .
And of dreams not always turning out how you expect them .
It's reality for some people !
All of these sensitive people getting upset , just don't listen to it but stop censoring the rest of us !

The word faggot is banned in my son’s school, there have been exclusions when it was used.My gay ds has been called it several times and has caused him a huge amount of upset for which he’s getting counselling. He is hugely resilient and certainly not deserving of the term snowflake.

Frankly if such a term is banned in schools it shouldn’t be played in public places. Shane McGowan’s explanation was simply not good enough. If it was a racist term we wouldn’t be subjecting the general public to it. Hearing it in the public arena normalises it which isn’t ok.

It is highly offensive.

Yes, would everyone just stop censoring!

Who gives a fuck if young gay people who are potentially a bit worried about coming out have to hear a slur that, despite meaning something thirty years ago, means something different now? On the radio? Repeatedly? At Christmas?

Who DOESN’T hear the word Faggot (on national radio, at Christmas) and immediately think of meat or idiots?

Fuck anyone who doesn’t want their children to hear slurs relating to gay people! HE’S TALKING ABOUT MEAT ROLLS SNOWFLAKES! OR POTENTIALLY IDIOTS! MEANINGS OF WORDS DONT CHANGE AND SUDDENLY BECOME UNACCEPTABLE!

Absolutely nobody, in 2019, hears the word faggot and thinks it’s a gay slur. Nobody. Not a single person. Absolutely nobody thinks that Faggot being an acceptable, mainstream word at Christmas is a bit off-colour in 2019.

Absolutely NOBODY would tell their children off for using the word Faggot. Nobody. In our house we REGULARLY use the word faggot for ALL KINDS of things.

*Listening to it the other night on Magic they used the lyrics mentioned below... first time I’ve ever heard that version broadcast on the radio

“On a Top of the Pops performance in 1991, singer Kirsty Macoll changed the line to: “You scumbag, you maggot, you’re cheap and you’re haggard”*

Thanks!! I wondered where these words came from. I was convinced it was still Kirsty MacColl singing them.

Shane McGowan’s explanation was simply not good enough.
What? It's the truth. I assume you can understand the concept of writing dialogue for fictional characters; and that those characters might say, think and do unpleasant things?

@Sl1pkn0t Awww I'm sorry your son has had that- It's tiring seeing poster after poster justifying the use of a particularly unpleasant hostile homophobic slur. Fine thirty years ago when you visited Ireland you were told that its just a wee fecking term of endearment. Like gobshite. Well I guarantee you know ones had the shit kicked out off them by a gang of homophobes shouting gobshite....

Frames of reference move on. There's posters on here who remind me of those blue rinse ladies who frothed in the Daily Mail for years about the queers stealing the word gay.

For sure I love the song, I loved Enid Blyton, and Huck Finn and It aint Half Hot mum. It doesnt mean I need to make excuses for them now

Love this song at Christmas.
People need to get a grip there is much worse words in songs/raps! Just the snowflakes out in force.

Irish here, faggot is old fashioned word for a cheeky, naughty or bold person. I was often called it by the Mammy.

This thread appears on MN every year!

Snowflake- something complex, unique and beautiful.

People who don't think that fag or faggot is a pretty foul term of abuse need to give their heads a wobble. Of course there's loads of other examples of violent, sexist or racist lyrics- but we don't hear them on a repeated loop for two months of the year in every shop. And we don't have drunks shouting the word in everyone's faces at every works party.

Google the Westboro Baptist church or the murder of Matthew Shepherd if you arent able to grasp the context of the word in modern terms.

Irish here, faggot is old fashioned word for a cheeky, naughty or bold person. I was often called it by the Mammy

And gay is happy and a dyke is a damn and queer means strange. When I was a kid we had some very unsavory expressions for corner shops and chinese takeaways and black dolls. Doesn't mean we should keep using them....

Google the Westboro Baptist church or the murder of Matthew Shepherd if you arent able to grasp the context of the word in modern terms.

Google the difference between American and Irish slang.

I love this song and don't care about the words, whats next lets ban bing crosbys white Christmas because it might offend people who are not white,

Google the difference between American and Irish slang

Oh come on! 99.9% of the English speaking world- including younger Irish people would take faggot to be a derogatory homophobic term of abuse.

.

Oh are we starting on fag as well now?

Fag means cigarette.

Until approximately 5 minutes ago we were all laughing at how the question 'can I bum a fag?' induced confusion in Americans. Two cultures divided by the same language and all that.

When exactly did the memo come round insisting we all cowtow to American cultural imperialism? I must have missed that.

Fag = cigarette. I have never, ever heard it used in any other context in my country.

"I honestly cannot see the obsession with straight people needing to be allowed to say faggot in 'Fairytale of New York'? Is it a power thing? If you feel oppressed not being allowed to say it, imagine how it feels being on the receiving end of it,"

This kind of sums up me on this. I'll leave it now. When someone rolls out the "what next, banning white Christmas" line and you know Katie Hopkins has joined the debate its time to leave things to the naive and the apologists and the just pain ignorant.

Sorry, I was trying to make a point there but I’ve taken it too far. I’ve reported my post.

In conclusion, faggot is an unacceptable word in 2019 and to justify its use is both ignorant and pathetic.

Just saw on the local news that there is a Scottish version riding up the iTunes chart, same tune with different lyrics Fairytale of Stornoway

It's not really OK, though, is, it, to say that it's fine to ignore a homophobic slur because the music industry is also awful about women? It doesn't have to be an either or - it's perfectly possible to accept one group's feelings whilst also pushing for change on behalf of your own group confused

I never said this made it "ok". I am saying that the outcry about this ONE song is not proportional to the HUNDREDS of mysogynistic songs that advocate violence against women and reinforce slurs that women who enjoy sex are "sluts and bitches". Why are people just ignoring those songs yet every single year this song gets wheeled out? THAT is my point. There is an elephant in the room and noone is willing to address it. Its mysogynistic hypocrisy at its finest.

And by the way- there is no alternative meaning to "slut" is there? That word has always meant something horrid and negative about women- it has never had a different meaning.

Slut has meant a woman not good at cleaning, as well. Still negative, I grant you, but in a different way to the sexual one.

When I was a kid we had some very unsavory expressions for corner shops and chinese takeaways and black dolls.
That’s not at all the same as the use of faggot in Ireland.