Samantha Bee Apologizes for Use of the "C" word...

[Forty Two]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/sam ... 08708.html

O.k., so Samantha Bee calls Ivanka a feckless cunt, as she's criticizing Ivanka for having the temerity to tweet out a picture of her and her kid (as if that's unusual for a mother to do in this day and age).

Regardless, this is the age of 24-7 anti-Trump rhetoric, and Samantha Bee's show is just one outraged hyperbolic and sarcastic comment after another, directed at one Trump or another. That is, of course, her right as a comedian.

Here, though, she's getting called to the carpet for using a word that women own. In regard to Roseanne Barr getting fired, she compared a black woman to an ape from the Planet of the Apes. Can't do that without a lot of people getting pissed off and threatening boycotss. So, even though George Bush was called "the chimp," and Trump is repeatedly compared to an orangutan, and white people are often compared to monkeys and apes and such, the historical context of the use of such comparisons in regard to black people is such that it's not o.k. for whites to do it, except if directed at another white. Then it's fine.

Also, black people can call other black people monkeys and such. https://www.mrctv.org/blog/liberal-writ ... rch-monkey

And, there's a reason for that - black people can call each other niggers and monkeys, white people can't - because the slur is interpreted by a lot of people as much more serious and insulting when directed at blacks than whites. That's it. It's got a different reaction when it's whites doing it. A double standard, sure. But that's the reality, I think we can all agree on that.

But, why doesn't Samantha Bee get the same license to use the word cunt. She's a white woman who called a white woman a cunt. O.k. It's not like a man called her a cunt or something, so what's the big deal? Many female pundits were outraged over Bee's use of that word, and CNN's female staff were all over it. She's damaging all women by using that word, was the argument, and it's way over the line for even a woman to call another woman a cunt. Exasperated reports went round about how the entire writing staff approved the scripted lines, and the pundits were astounded that nobody would think it was inappropriate. That would be like pundits getting upset over a black person using the word nigger or calling someone a monkey.

What might be the difference?

I suspect it's perhaps the (perhaps uniquely American) visceral hatred of the word "cunt." That's "the c word." It's the word you NEVER call a woman. Never ever ever ever ever! You never say the word. You never - or hardly ever - allude to the word - it's the worst of all the dirty words. Women hate it. American women tend to hate the word cunt more than any other word. Not all, of course -- just talking a cultural trend.

It's different in Oz and the UK - people bandy the word around in humorous fashion all the time. It was big 40-50 years ago with Monty Python's flying circus and whatnot. British comedy loves the word. But in the US, it's verboten. It's so verboten that even members of the group who claim to be offended and injured by the word are not allowed to use it.

In that sense, the word cunt is actually worse than nigger. Cunt, in American culture, may well be the single worst and least permissible word in the language.

[Strontium Dog]

My advice is to stop looking for logic in American public discourse.

[Forty Two]

I agree, although I don't think that's uniquely American.

If someone thinks the fat, fried fish eating, beer swilling chavs in Britain or French beaufs, ploucs and payzous are among some higher order of being, I think one would be quite mistaken....

[laklak]

I have no idea who she is, nor do I particularly care.

[pErvinalia]

She's a big fat cunt.

[laklak]

Sometimes a big, fat cunt is exactly what the doctor ordered.

[pErvinalia]

Her show is on TV here. I find her really annoying. I've only ever watched half an episode.

[Rum]

I remember Billy the Bee. And a fine bee he was too.

[mistermack]

I used to rent a place to a young lady French teacher. (from France)

I asked her once, what is a really really bad swearword in French.

She thought for a second, and then said, "the worst thing you could say to a French woman is "tu scentes les moules" (or something close). And then she said, panicking, "but you must never ever say it !!!"

It literally means "you smell of mussels".

Of course, by that evening, we weren't just saying it, we were singing it. I had put it to music, to the tune of "Chanson D'amour".

[Forty Two]

LOL, that's like "you smell like the bay at low tide..."

[laklak]

You smell like the toilet seat on a shrimp boat.

[pErvinalia]

Lak, you'd probably be aware of the Cape Colors and their inventive insults. The one that comes most easily to mind is (in English) - Your mother's pussy is full of worms..

[laklak]

Jou ma se poes es vol vorms, IIRC, or something close. They'd get it.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, that sounds like it. There's other one about shitting in someone's mouth and the like. And apparently they trot these out like we say fuck. It's a swear word, but not that bad.

[Rum]

Odd how the language changes. 'Fuck' was a real taboo word when I was a kind. It was pretty unusual and shocking to here it - like 'cunt' was until relatively recently. The thought of hearing it on TV or the cinema was unthinkable.

I wonder how kids today step over that verbal boundary..perhaps they can't any more!