Let's talk about Vice Magazine

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well i am guilty of using the term 'retard' affectionately but i am a bad sample choice

I use it too, out of habit. I guess it's offensive, but this country doesn't really have a long and rich tradition of Retard Persecution, so it's not quite as bad as any of the other loaded words.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Monday, 14 October 2002 18:24 (twenty-three years ago)

simon you're claiming "n-a" is race-neutral, right? clearly the vice dudes don't do it that way. & i don't "misread" it every time I hear it but I still want to hear you explain *for you* (becuz I don't think there's any broad common agreement here, at least not an explicit one) what possitive qualities "n-a" connotes and also if you think it is race neutral.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 14 October 2002 18:25 (twenty-three years ago)

jbr maybe you should stay away from jokes that dont use your beloved < / sarcasm > tag, im out of this bullshit thread

It's not like you ever pick up on when I'm being sarcastic, but whatev.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Monday, 14 October 2002 18:28 (twenty-three years ago)

I use it too, out of habit. I guess it's offensive, but this country doesn't really have a long and rich tradition of Retard Persecution, so it's not quite as bad as any of the other loaded words.

or is it that it's more easily co-opted because they're not able to defend themselves?

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 14 October 2002 18:34 (twenty-three years ago)

or is it that it's more easily co-opted because they're not able to defend themselves?

That's true too -- although there are varying degrees of retardation. Some "retards" are normal, functional people; some of them have fairly decent cognitive skills and might very well understand what "retard" means. But there isn't much they can do to stop the epithet from being used.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Monday, 14 October 2002 18:40 (twenty-three years ago)

It's weird cos 'retard'/'spastic' etc are much less acceptable in the uk I think. Im still a bit shocked when I see US people using them so much.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 14 October 2002 18:44 (twenty-three years ago)

tom it's undergone this weird renaissance in the last 3-4 years where it's become completely acceptable again. i'll admit that i was guilty of using it absent-mindedly until being (rightfully) chastised by a friend whose close relative had down's syndrome.

jbr, if we accept that this word is commonly used b/c the ramifications are far less severe than if we were to use, for example, the n word with similar abandon, i think we could probably draw some ugly conclusions about society in general...

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 14 October 2002 18:48 (twenty-three years ago)

But there isn't much they can do to stop the epithet from being used.

Apparantly they should get their arty friends to publish articles in a magazine that make reference to their retard friends.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 14 October 2002 18:49 (twenty-three years ago)

"kickin it with all my retards"

i have heard white guys called nigga by black guys and by other white guys HOWEVER it's not "race-neutral" and never could be, i mean look at the word! in this case it's like "you're an honorary black dude for the time being and what's more, i like ya"

BUT simon "nigga" can also be negative, it's not like kids switch pronunciations when they're chasing after the dude who just swiped their book-bag

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 14 October 2002 18:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Sometimes I wonder why I don't find "retard" more offensive on a gut level when people use it to refer to non-retards who are just acting dumb. I should. My half-brother is retarded and I used to get teased about that a lot when I was a kid -- so for a long time I've lived with the idea that people have a strange sort of scorn for the mentally handicapped, and maybe I've just come to accept it.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Monday, 14 October 2002 18:58 (twenty-three years ago)

why is everyone i like most on ilx expressing the dumbest fucking opinions on this thread?

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 18:59 (twenty-three years ago)

(haha because i've possibly overestimated the intelligence of these people?)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Ain't nothing wrong with disagreement.

Vice makes me laugh, which is more than most things do these days.

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Hank Kingsley to the Wu-Tang Clan: "My favourite is 'Shame On A Nigga'". Is Hank part of the great reclamation project?

I 'love' a white guy living in Japan telling black guys in New York that they're wrong to object to these white guys using the word 'nigger' and trying to act like the black men are being patronising! Hilarious irony!

My best gay friend likes and uses the word faggot, but the wrong person uses it the wrong way, in the wrong tone, he's liable to break them in half.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:04 (twenty-three years ago)

what cogent argument, geeta.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:05 (twenty-three years ago)

they do not agree with jess = they are dumb obv

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Ok, I'm gonna run away from this thread now.

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:06 (twenty-three years ago)

jess goddamn it now everyone on this thread either thinks you don't like them or that you think their opinions are very dumb. way to alienate everyone in one fell stroke.

(actually I just posted that because I wonder where I fall)

[also I tried to call you a "f-g" as a joke right here and I couldn't do it, not evern doubly or triply ironically or whatever the hell it would be at this point].

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:07 (twenty-three years ago)

"it is funny" = it is not an argument which effectively refutes its more noxious, questionable qualities with me, no.

sterl, if you have to ask you'll never know, etc etc.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:08 (twenty-three years ago)

so much of this discussion reminds me of riot grrrl imagery -- where they attempted to establish a 'look' for themselves placing traditional female imagery and once-derogatory slogans into the context of punk rock clothing started off as sly commentary, but were soon co-opted by companies looking to make a buck off 'princess' and 'i stole your boyfriend' t-shirts for 11-year-olds. (see also: the wholesale erasure-of-SLUT-from-bare-midriff that made gwen stefani so initially successful.)

so wouldn't that sort of cycle be eventually repeated if the arguments momus espouses hold true -- and wouldn't the underlying message of these mass-marketed uses of these words, then, also mutate into an affirmation of already-existing prejuidices that are held by the majority of americans, for the simple purpose of making as many dollars as possible?

― maura (maura), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:26 (twenty-three years ago)

maura stop being so fucking queer.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:28 (twenty-three years ago)

I dunno, I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who ran a college humor magazine for three years that had some parallels with Vice. Granted, it was less glossy, and it had more bad jokes about Nazis, but I was damn proud of it because at least we worked really hard at it. When you start continually falling into the trap of "Huh huh that's gay" or whatever, I would blame them more for a desperate lack of originality than for tastelessness or malice. Writing good tasteless jokes isn't easy.

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:30 (twenty-three years ago)

i had a dream the other night that i was watching mtv with someone and there was this old hole video on (it was "miss world" i think, but that doesnt't really matter since the song was completely different.) so c. love was gyrating around and she had these huge breasts and kept flashing her vagina (it was shaved), to which i exclaimed "my god!" repeatedly, more shocked/horrified than excited. i said to my viewing companion: "it's hard to wonder now how anyone ever fell for this as some sort of feminist statement."

i don't know how this fits with maura's statement but i don't want the dream lost forever. (her coochie is still burned into my memory.)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Also, datapointwise, let me note that I have never had a black person argue strongly with me when I asked them not to use the word 'round me, while I have had numerous heated arguments with people who aren't black about the word.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Point taken Maura, but who says that a "I stole your boyfriend" shirt bought at the mall doesn't have the same (or completely difft from whatever the corporation was intending) meaning to an 11-yr-old girl that the original homemade "sly commentary" shirt did for the 'older' 'wiser' riot grrl? I mean, the 11-yr-old-girl might still look at the shirt she bought at the mall as sly commentary. Maybe doubly sly because she's co-opting the "corporate shirt" for herself and her own belief system. She's created her own meaning for it. She's still expressing her individuality in a way that isn't any less authentic, I think, than the original idea was. I don't think she's disempowered herself because she paid $11.99 to MonolithicBigBusinessInc for the shirt.

Uh anyway, back to Vice...I don't think that made any sense.

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:53 (twenty-three years ago)

it might have something to do more with the fact that she's 11 and she's also inheriting any number of other recieved stereotypes in tandem with that shirt from her surroundings.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:55 (twenty-three years ago)

I was just grilled in an email for coming off as self-righteous with my last post, so perhaps I should clarify that I was only speaking for myself.

― Andy K (Andy K), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:55 (twenty-three years ago)

I dunno, I know some pretty smart 11-year-olds.

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:59 (twenty-three years ago)

geeta, if you're honestly equating the ability of an 11 to distinguish between multiple and shifting layers of accumulated cultural meaning, along with irony and sarcasm, then, well..uh, no.

also, as maura just brought up in conversation with me, it's equating purchase with a creative act which is one of the things that's made american culture so fucking vacuous to begin with.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:02 (twenty-three years ago)

first off, the equation of buying with consuming in terms of creativity (which is probably what's made american culture so vacuous that it finds the ironic uses of epithets 'edgy' in the first place) is not one that i would make.

second, wouldn't you argue though that the original sentiment and the mass-marketed version of it have two very different public connotations? this is important, because the provocations that these word-images would have on their viewers were essential to their being scrawled in the first place.

also, a hypothetical: if a girl bought this mass-marketed shirt and wore it to school unadorned, and then ran into 1 or 3 or 5 people wearing that shirt in the same way, since it is, after all, mass-marketed, how would her 'empowering' wearing of the shirt come across? so much of the way messages are looked at is rooted in context -- would this 'more empowered' 11-year-old then change the rest of the shirt's context (including, perhaps, the shirt itself) to make herself and her intentions stand out?

― maura (maura), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:05 (twenty-three years ago)

equating purchase with a creative act = the whole point of beatdigging!

(spoken in a non-normative tone of voice)

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:06 (twenty-three years ago)

haha beat digging = buying t-shirt with ironic slogan from the 1970s in thrift store.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:07 (twenty-three years ago)

There will almost always be a difference between how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you. The meaning of the shirt to the girl wearing it is different from what it means to people seeing it. Maybe a 17-year-old girl thinks she's making an ironic statement by wearing bondage gear, or maybe she just thinks that a leather collar and chains make her look cute. I still don't believe she's being manipulated by layers of societal forces that she doesn't understand. In whatever way, she's asserting her individuality and applying her own meaning onto the object, regardless of how others might view that.

I also read way too many Japanese fashion magazines.

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Creativity and Individuality are all too often confused concepts, I think.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:15 (twenty-three years ago)

BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT THE OBJECT SUDDENLY LOSES ITS RESONANCE WITH A WIDER GROUP THAT MIGHT WELL BE DIFFERENT FROM HER INTENDED USE.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:16 (twenty-three years ago)

but isn't the argument we are having here all about outside perceptions, what happens when ironically intended messages get unleashed on an audience that might not appreciate the irony as much?

― maura (maura), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:18 (twenty-three years ago)

"no sound is innocent"

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Girl wearing 'Princess' shirt she bought at the mall meets 3 other girls in sixth grade wearing the same shirt => they start talking => they start angry punk band => they take over the universe

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:19 (twenty-three years ago)

these threads always get horribly sidetracked by bad analogies

― boxcubed (boxcubed), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:21 (twenty-three years ago)

what planet do you come from geeta?

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:21 (twenty-three years ago)

qx-17 nebula obv

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:23 (twenty-three years ago)

(not for nothing but i think my analogy's pretty much on point)

― maura (maura), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:24 (twenty-three years ago)

(as do i)

(unless bc meant my beat digger analogy which i also thought was on point)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:25 (twenty-three years ago)

(it was MY analogy, mainly)

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:27 (twenty-three years ago)

(i meant the t-shirt thing.)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:28 (twenty-three years ago)

probably what's made american culture so vacuous that it finds the ironic uses of epithets 'edgy' in the first place

but Vice started in Canada!

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:29 (twenty-three years ago)

what, like that sort of thing isn't omnipresent south of the border?

― maura (maura), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Right. Vice started in Canada. "american culture" like the man said.

haha Dave Q to thread!

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:33 (twenty-three years ago)

they speak english = they are american.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:33 (twenty-three years ago)

In general, I agree with a lot of what Maura and Jess are saying. On the "individual expression" argument, I firmly agree with Geeta. Individula expression matters to the individual, not society at large.

To relate this back to Vice, it's perfectly fine for them to ironically fling epithets back and forth under the guise of changing the world but they should be cognizant of the fact that the majority of the people who wander across them aren't going to buy their interpretation and be prepared to deal with the consequences of it (ie, my family beating your ass).

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 14 October 2002 20:40 (twenty-three years ago)

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