LoveGalore said:

jaawwnn said:

Depends who is singing it and when they're singing it doesn't it? I can forgive Prince this but I wouldn't e.g. play it while DJ-ing, and if someone wanted to tell me about how Prince changed how people saw sexuality in pop music, or "queered the 1980s mainstream" or something, I might bring up this song as an example of the kinds of words he casually reached for.

I realize I should've qualified that with the singer being not what he was singing about. Seems it's much easier for folks to forgive slurs that demonize gays and women but every other one is a cardinal sin.

Right yeah, you're probably onto something there. Do you have a specific example in mind here? I'm not one to cancel people for anything less than Jeffrey Epstein behaviour but I know many others take a much harder line.

TheBigBang said:

I'll never understand this current need to go back in time and pick apart songs that were written over three decades ago using today's social morays. Also, understand that in "a song about a girl named Blanche and a dude named Stanley," that Prince isn't actually talking as Prince.

In 1987 you were a jerk if you called people "fag" just like today. It's not like we are talking about the 1400s or something. The social more's weren't that different.

lustmealways said:

as a flamingly gay male i can say with 110 percent accuracy that prince was decidedly not bisexual

Prince dated my old boyfriend's ex in the late 70s. So, I don't know about that.

JudasLChrist said:

Prince dated my old boyfriend's ex in the late 70s. So, I don't know about that.

i started doing yoga and it made my knees sound like a cement mixer

this is unrelated to prince or your old boyfriend, i just felt the need to share. loose as a goose.

South Park redefined the meaning of 'fag' to refer to annoying Harley riders, so the point is moot - unless you're an annoying Harley rider.

[Edited 2/5/21 11:50am]

RJOrion said:

its hilarious that people try to say " i know 100% that Prince wasnt gay or bisexual..." yall dont know ... never talked to the man, never slept with the man, never ate with the man, never lived with the man and some of yall have never even seen him outside of a picture or tv screen...but SOMEHOW yall know where he kept his dick... hilarious. the only person qualified to speak on Princes sexuality is/was Prince...and he for whatever reason made his OWN preferences a source of Controversy and debate and ambiguity... 100% straight men dont do that...and dont just write it off as him doing it to sell records or for shock value...P was dressing strange and getting called names like "sissy" and "punk" BEFORE the record deals [Edited 2/5/21 5:36am]

I'm usually with you but come on man. Prince said himself a lot of that shit was acting and looking for attention. And you're right, we never slept with the man but there's way more proof he was extremely heterosexual than evidence that he was bisexual. I mean it ain't my life so it ain't really important and I wouldn't care otherwise but listen....there's no real reason to assume he was anything other than straight. Also, he was dressing pretty normal pre-record deal. Idk what pictures you've seen lol but uh....yeah

vainandy said:

lustmealways said:

as a flamingly gay male i can say with 110 percent accuracy that prince was decidedly not bisexual

I agree. I don't think he was bisexual. Most bisexuals I have been around are way more masculine than actual straight men. I think he was fully gay.

...no

LoveGalore said:

jaawwnn said:

Depends who is singing it and when they're singing it doesn't it? I can forgive Prince this but I wouldn't e.g. play it while DJ-ing, and if someone wanted to tell me about how Prince changed how people saw sexuality in pop music, or "queered the 1980s mainstream" or something, I might bring up this song as an example of the kinds of words he casually reached for.

I realize I should've qualified that with the singer being not what he was singing about. Seems it's much easier for folks to forgive slurs that demonize gays and women but every other one is a cardinal sin.

It was the character Stanley Kowalski talking!

No different than certain characters from a Scorsese, Spike Lee or Tarantino movie...who use racist, homophobic and bigoted language.

jdcxc said:

LoveGalore said:

jaawwnn said: I realize I should've qualified that with the singer being not what he was singing about. Seems it's much easier for folks to forgive slurs that demonize gays and women but every other one is a cardinal sin.

It was the character Stanley Kowalski talking!

No different than certain characters from a Scorsese, Spike Lee or Tarantino movie...who use racist, homophobic and bigoted language.

And no different than Marshall Mathers rapping as "Slim Shady."

Or O'Shea Jackson rapping as Ice Cube. Psst... In case you didn't know, he wasn't really a gangbanger.

TheBigBang said:

dodger said:

TheBigBang said:

And no different than Marshall Mathers rapping as "Slim Shady."

Or O'Shea Jackson rapping as Ice Cube. Psst... In case you didn't know, he wasn't really a gangbanger.

Or when Morris called him a 'long haired faggot' in Purple Rain...

Yessss. Prince even has the character in the song say, "I am Stanley" multiple times, so as to not be any confusion that this is his own voice.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Cerebus said:

Y'all smh I swear

It's 2021. The world was a different place ten years ago, twenty years ago, FORTY years ago. Lawd. You can go back and pick apart the lyrics of literally thousands of songs from artists who got more woke as time went on and societal views changed.

I was only 16 but I guess that's no excuse

My sister was 32 lovely and loose

You're down with incest? You are aware that didn't happen, right? Prince told stories, he created characters. Aristic license people. It's a thing. Prince wrote about an abundance of topics and used a plethora of words that he would never go back to after his conversion. For that matter he changed the way he wrote lyrics numerous times in his career, even if he was largely writing about the same topics. We're talking about the man that is the main cause for the Parental Advisoy stickers being splapped on albums, who then decided he was never going to curse again. Ya know?

Also, consider the number of times Prince was called fag, or gay, or accused or being such. Whether he was or not, as was rightly pointed out in this thread, is not the point and it's never anything I cared about. But Prince absolutely took his real life experiences and twisted them into something unrecognizeable as being about himself.

In short, don't read too much into every damn lyric from his catalog. Some of them are just a *cough* sign of the times.

youre acting like 1987 was the 1920s. this was in the decade of AIDS. you think someone like prince wouldnt have been aware that fag might not have been a cool term to throw around. then again, this is a guy who didnt want to sing MJ's bad as a duet because it had the line 'your butt is mine'.

i dont think saying fag is really baiting censors how head or darling nikki were. those were challenging the status quo. saying fag is more or less going along with the status quo. that doesnt really make prince some brave artist pushing the boundaries. it just places him in the same group as any number of bigots.

its funny how when its a line that might be seen as questionable, ppl resort to the defence that 'its just a character/story' but when its something like IIWYG or breakdown or june or sacrifice of victor, people start to go to town on how true to life it is. funny, that.

Honey, in 1987, I was an award-winning journalist. I covered the AIDS epidemic in real time. Do you REALLY think no one used the word f** in 1987? Please. It was very common. And the stigma of being a gay man was probably worse in the black community than anywhere else. That word got thrown around a lot - in the gay community, in the black community - everywhere.

Genesia said:

Genesia said:

dodger said:

Genesia said:

Honey, in 1987, I was an award-winning journalist. I covered the AIDS epidemic in real time. Do you REALLY think no one used the word f** in 1987? Please. It was very common. And the stigma of being a gay man was probably worse in the black community than anywhere else. That word got thrown around a lot - in the gay community, in the black community - everywhere.

I read that in the voice of Clair Huxtable. Big fan from across the pond here

I had a gay friend who made me a mixtape called "Dance F** Dance" in 1989. I know whence of I speak.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Ah yes, 'some of my best friends are gay' You sound like you might still be stuck in an earlier time.

I am not defending the use of the word. And, yes - some of my best friends are gay.

I am disputing your contention that attitudes toward its use in 1987 were the same as they are now. They weren't. And if you were there in any meaningful way, you would know that.

the tic tac toe thread was funnier

lustmealways said:

I think it's interesting how some people praise transgressive or offensive art as "being challenging", but aren't open to having their own personal views on slurs challenged as the times change around them. Or when the more problematic aspects of a lyric are written off as "storytelling" or "being in character" and not just a reflection of the artist's faults.

some of y'all will die on the hill that a song like "Extraloveable" is an essential piece of art comparable to classic works that depict sexual assault, when it's just a ultra-horny pop song where Prince's personal desires are more important to him (and to y'all, apparently) than mutual consent or a woman's autonomy. The kind of people who drone on about cancel culture are never gonna give a shit about respecting others, though

Genesia said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Ah yes, 'some of my best friends are gay' You sound like you might still be stuck in an earlier time.

I am not defending the use of the word. And, yes - some of my best friends are gay.

I am disputing your contention that attitudes toward its use in 1987 were the same as they are now. They weren't. And if you were there in any meaningful way, you would know that.

it sounds like you were there, but you didnt really understand it in any meaningful way.

gays can call each other fags if they want.

heteros arent meant to.

those are the rules im afraid.

do some reading, do some learning.

cos right now, you sound like the corniest kind of complacent liberal.

i'll help you out. here's a story about a gay murder in the 90s (yknow, that glorious time when you could go round calling gay guys fags and it was blissfully normal) you might benefit from reading:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45968606

heres a statement from the murderer:

From the jailhouse after his arrest, McKinney reportedly wrote to another inmate's wife: "Being a verry [sic] drunk homofobick [sic] I flipped out and began to pistol whip the fag with my gun, ready at hand."

and one from the sheriff:

Step forward, Sheriff O'Malley.

"Prior to this investigation I was pretty homophobic," the mustachioed law-giver admits. "Um, I was mean spirited towards the gay population.

"I would be the first person that would tell a joke about gay Americans and, uh, the word fag rolled off my tongue very easily.

"And when I got involved in the investigation, I was forced to interact with Matthew's friends, many of which were gay and lesbian.

[Edited 2/5/21 14:06pm]

[Edited 2/5/21 14:09pm]

TrivialPursuit said:

He said, in the early 80s, that saying he was bisexual was "the biggest mistake I ever made," (mainly because of the "puritanical" attitude in the U.S.), and that he was a "closet heterosexual." Ziggy declared himself gay a decade before, but David Bowie was hetero.

If anything, Bowie played with sexuality and androgyny 100x more than Prince ever did, all while fucking women and having kids with them. Apparently, it confused more people than he anticipated.

Bowie had sex with men.

Prince did not. As far as we know.

Bowie was actually living a queer lifestyle, and immersed in queer culture. He was kissing men on camera, jokingly refering to himself as a transvestite, etc. He said he was Gay.

Prince did none of that.

Whether Bowie leaned hetero, or only considered Ziggy a character, and was only adopting identities as characters really doesn't change the above.

These aren't subtle differences.

[Edited 2/5/21 14:35pm]

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Cerebus said:

Y'all smh I swear

It's 2021. The world was a different place ten years ago, twenty years ago, FORTY years ago. Lawd. You can go back and pick apart the lyrics of literally thousands of songs from artists who got more woke as time went on and societal views changed.

I was only 16 but I guess that's no excuse

My sister was 32 lovely and loose

You're down with incest? You are aware that didn't happen, right? Prince told stories, he created characters. Aristic license people. It's a thing. Prince wrote about an abundance of topics and used a plethora of words that he would never go back to after his conversion. For that matter he changed the way he wrote lyrics numerous times in his career, even if he was largely writing about the same topics. We're talking about the man that is the main cause for the Parental Advisoy stickers being splapped on albums, who then decided he was never going to curse again. Ya know?

Also, consider the number of times Prince was called fag, or gay, or accused or being such. Whether he was or not, as was rightly pointed out in this thread, is not the point and it's never anything I cared about. But Prince absolutely took his real life experiences and twisted them into something unrecognizeable as being about himself.

In short, don't read too much into every damn lyric from his catalog. Some of them are just a *cough* sign of the times.

youre acting like 1987 was the 1920s. this was in the decade of AIDS. you think someone like prince wouldnt have been aware that fag might not have been a cool term to throw around. then again, this is a guy who didnt want to sing MJ's bad as a duet because it had the line 'your butt is mine'.

i dont think saying fag is really baiting censors how head or darling nikki were. those were challenging the status quo. saying fag is more or less going along with the status quo. that doesnt really make prince some brave artist pushing the boundaries. it just places him in the same group as any number of bigots.

its funny how when its a line that might be seen as questionable, ppl resort to the defence that 'its just a character/story' but when its something like IIWYG or breakdown or june or sacrifice of victor, people start to go to town on how true to life it is. funny, that.

Warning: Harsh language. It is not intended to insult or inflame. If we can't discuss we will never progress.

The civil rights movement was 70 years ago

Black lives matter started in 2013

Known white supremicists, both individuals and orginizations, were just part of an armed insurrection on our capital, in 2021

Feminism started with the women's suffrage movements in the 19th century

Third wave feminism started in the 1990s, Fourth wave in the last decade

The fight for same-sex marriage started in the 70s, was legal in one state in 2004, all 50 states by 2015 (but only because the Supreme Court forced their hands)

LG became LGB, then LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQIA and their fight for equal rights and equal representation is happening right now, on the daily

In the 90s social-justic warrior was a compliment, in the last 10 years it's become an insult

Snowflake, similarly, the last ten years

In a country that was built on immigration, it's now one of the biggest fears of many Americans

I could go on and on and on, if you don't get the point I'm making I'm not sure what else to say. Was 1987 a long time ago in relation to the 1920s? No. Was it a vastly different time than we're living in now? Yes, it absolutely was. But also, far less has changed than a lot of you seem to think. Looking at the past through the shiny, happy glasses of what you believe NOW doesn't work. This is the main problem with how U.S. history has been taught in schools since forever, but in particular post WWII.

I find it odd that with all the things Prince wrote about in songs or said as a person that you would think he'd just instantly stop using a word like fag overnight during a decade when its use was extremely prevalent. Yes, the words fag and faggot were used EXTENSIVELY in the 80s as well as a majority of the 90s. Even by those who may have been aware that it wasn't a "cool" word to use. Even by those we would now consider woke.

We are living in a time when new words appear, or their meanings change, at a rate that is nearly impossible to keep up with. An era where new ideals and movements based around them happen over night. People find something they believe in, something the identify with, and grasp hold of it as if it's a shining light of eternal truth and rightfullness. Since we are living in the internet age doing so can give you immediate validation because you WILL find people who agree with you no matter what particular point of view you are espousing. Great, use your freedoms, find your happy. But don't get it twisted, what you believe now doesn't change the past, recent or ancient. Revisionist history is bullshit.

Taking extreme offense to those words is a relatively new social construct. And truthfully, I assure you, they're still used regularly among certain groups of people and much more often in particular parts of the country. So is nigger/nigga and if you think otherwise you really are not paying attention to what is happening right now. The biggest new white country music artist in decades was just caught drunkenly yelling the word on video. Entire generations of all colors have now grown up with hip-hop culture using those words constantly. Why is no one offended by them using nigger/nigga, but fag isn't OK? And yes, they do still use that word, as well. Picking and choosing what offends us selectively, particularly in hindshight, is also bullshit.

Cancel culture only works if it's used as a way to learn and grow. Using it to make the things we disapprove of go away does nothing to solve our problems or advance our society as a whole. It only serves to push them further into the shadows where they fester and grow angry without anyone paying attentioon. We're witnessing this right now, in real time.

I'm going to say again, don't read too much into every damn lyric from Prince's catalog. More importantly, remove your current belief system when doing so. Context matters.

I'm sure I did a shit job of explaing here. The conversation requires a book and this is a three page pamphlet. But I'm out of time and energy, so this is all I've got.

Genesia said:

Good golly, I missed you.

Samesies When I started seeing your posts I got the big feels. You know it's been twenty years since the beginning of the NPGMC? smh *mind blown*

sulls said:

South Park redefined the meaning of 'fag' to refer to annoying Harley riders, so the point is moot - unless you're an annoying Harley rider.

[Edited 2/5/21 11:50am]

i thought it was the F.ilm A.ctors G.uild?

JudasLChrist said:

TheBigBang said:

I'll never understand this current need to go back in time and pick apart songs that were written over three decades ago using today's social morays. Also, understand that in "a song about a girl named Blanche and a dude named Stanley," that Prince isn't actually talking as Prince.

In 1987 you were a jerk if you called people "fag" just like today. It's not like we are talking about the 1400s or something. The social more's weren't that different.

Yes, they were. They were vastly different. AIDS was a "gay" disease perpetrated upon the world by "fags". That wasn't even a minority point of view at the beginning. Those words were used CONSTANTLY in the 80s. Constantly. It doesn't matter if it made you a "jerk", their use was commonplace in many circles.

[Edited 2/5/21 15:09pm]

.... -_- I'ma have to walk away from this one, methinks

Cerebus said:

Warning: Harsh language. It is not intended to insult or inflame. If we can't discuss we will never progress.

The civil rights movement was 70 years ago

Black lives matter started in 2013

Known white supremicists, both individuals and orginizations, were just part of an armed insurrection on our capital, in 2021

Feminism started with the women's suffrage movements in the 19th century

Third wave feminism started in the 1990s, Fourth wave in the last decade

The fight for same-sex marriage started in the 70s, was legal in one state in 2004, all 50 states by 2015 (but only because the Supreme Court forced their hands)

LG became LGB, then LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQIA and their fight for equal rights and equal representation is happening right now, on the daily

In the 90s social-justic warrior was a compliment, in the last 10 years it's become an insult

Snowflake, similarly, the last ten years

In a country that was built on immigration, it's now one of the biggest fears of many Americans

I could go on and on and on, if you don't get the point I'm making I'm not sure what else to say. Was 1987 a long time ago in relation to the 1920s? No. Was it a vastly different time than we're living in now? Yes, it absolutely was. But also, far less has changed than a lot of you seem to think. Looking at the past through the shiny, happy glasses of what you believe NOW doesn't work. This is the main problem with how U.S. history has been taught in schools since forever, but in particular post WWII.

I find it odd that with all the things Prince wrote about in songs or said as a person that you would think he'd just instantly stop using a word like fag overnight during a decade when its use was extremely prevalent. Yes, the words fag and faggot were used EXTENSIVELY in the 80s as well as a majority of the 90s. Even by those who may have been aware that it wasn't a "cool" word to use. Even by those we would now consider woke.

We are living in a time when new words appear, or their meanings change, at a rate that is nearly impossible to keep up with. An era where new ideals and movements based around them happen over night. People find something they believe in, something the identify with, and grasp hold of it as if it's a shining light of eternal truth and rightfullness. Since we are living in the internet age doing so can give you immediate validation because you WILL find people who agree with you no matter what particular point of view you are espousing. Great, use your freedoms, find your happy. But don't get it twisted, what you believe now doesn't change the past, recent or ancient. Revisionist history is bullshit.

Taking extreme offense to those words is a relatively new social construct. And truthfully, I assure you, they're still used regularly among certain groups of people and much more often in particular parts of the country. So is nigger/nigga and if you think otherwise you really are not paying attention to what is happening right now. The biggest new white country music artist in decades was just caught drunkenly yelling the word on video. Entire generations of all colors have now grown up with hip-hop culture using those words constantly. Why is no one offended by them using nigger/nigga, but fag isn't OK? And yes, they do still use that word, as well. Picking and choosing what offends us selectively, particularly in hindshight, is also bullshit.

Cancel culture only works if it's used as a way to learn and grow. Using it to make the things we disapprove of go away does nothing to solve our problems or advance our society as a whole. It only serves to push them further into the shadows where they fester and grow angry without anyone paying attentioon. We're witnessing this right now, in real time.

I'm going to say again, don't read too much into every damn lyric from Prince's catalog. More importantly, remove your current belief system when doing so. Context matters.

I'm sure I did a shit job of explaing here. The conversation requires a book and this is a three page pamphlet. But I'm out of time and energy, so this is all I've got.

I hope everyone read and understood this^

Cerebus said: