just my opinion, but you're over thinking it
many people use words without thought, it's lazy abuse which should be corrected, especially when a public figure, but its not an intentional slight on a particular group.
Also words can be abstract. You can call someone a cunt in the same way you call them a shit. It's not specifically descriptive of a vagina or a stool sample, it's just a word, not deliberately negative toward women.
I'm not making excuses for Gervais, just my own interpretation of cunt as a swear. I personally love fannies so it would be silly to use them as an insult.
Sorry to post and run, I'm not ignoring any replies, just going offline now
Creator : @IamHappyToast
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HappyToast Groat froth, Tue 16 Sep 2014, 23:03,
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I think you're actually agreeing that Gervais was/is wrong
just that the intention, the mens rea, is absent.
I would say that Gervais's intention is feminist, anti-homophobe, anti-racist, and anti-disabilist. That his intention is based on the evidence of linguistics and embedded in a method of emancipatory action that was most prominently used by feminists and the gay rights movement.
He cannot thus be criticised specifically on what he says, but how successful he is in changing and escaping the oppressive relations that these words initially operated in. This is how we criticise those feminists and gay activists that sought to play with language, not by saying that they were essentially mysogynous (spelling?) and homophobic but that their theory of action, their praxis, was wrong.
(, Tue 16 Sep 2014, 23:21, Share, Reply)
yes and no
I can see it from both sides. We should have swears that can be said without offending other people by accident. But equally we should have some responsibility for things said in public.
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HappyToast Groat froth, Wed 17 Sep 2014, 11:14,
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