There’s been a hell of a lot of discussion this week about Ricky Gervais and his use of the word “mong” on Twitter (mong being a shortened version of “mongoloid”, an archaic term for Down’s Syndrome).
I wont explain the whole thing, James Ward does it all here.
Gervais’s defence of his use of the word is that meanings change. Of course, this is true. But this is something that happens over time. Gervais can’t really force it. You can’t simply decide, by yourself, that a word that many people find offensive is not offensive and then get defensive when people point out you’ve been offensive. Which is what Gervais has done, variously blaming people who are jealous of his success (what, in the old days, we used to call “playa haters”) and the “humourless PC brigade” (I’ve always maintained that invoking the PC brigade is on a level with saying “I’m entitled to an opinion” as a tacit admission that one has lost the argument).
A problem with Gervais’s use of the word is he clearly does believe it is transgressive, and therefore funny. So his defence — that the usage doesn’t have transgressive aspects, as the meaning has changed, doesn’t add up.
And worst of all, it’s just not funny. Gervais has confused offensive (rarely in itself funny) with transgressive (a vital element of pretty much all humour).
None of this is to say that Gervais cannot use whatever the hell words he likes.
Here, as a lesson in transgressive, is Joan Rivers making Anne Frank jokes (fast forward to three minutes):
A Turkish man could face two years in prison for comments made about Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan on his Facebook page. A public prosecutor in Ankara is calling for the man’s imprisonment based on insulting Erdogan, along with some of his cabinet members and ministers from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The man is being charge under Article 301 of Turkey’s Criminal Code.
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights reports that Jaleela Al Salman, vice president of the Bahrain Teachers Association was arrested on 18 October from her home without a warrant. On 25 September, a military court sentenced Al Salman to three years in prison, on charges of “inciting hatred towards the regime”, “calling for a teachers strike”, as well as “attempting to overthrow the ruling system by force.” Al Salman was initially detained from 29 March until 21 August after going on hunger strike, and has been vocal about the current state of human rights in Bahrain during the past few weeks. Her trial for appeal will take place on 1 December.
The security guards of a Peruvian congressman have been involved in attack on two journalists. Carlos Chávez Galdós and Leucario Madera Guardaluna, from TV stations Compañía de TV Cuzqueña and Canal 47 de Cuzco, were attacked outside a nightclub in Cuzco, southern Peru, after they suprised Congressman Rubén Coa Aguilar while he was drunk. According to the journalists, the Congressman’s bodyguards and nightclub security personnel attacked them and took their video cameras, after Coa Aguilar asked his security to hit the reporters, take their equipment and delete their videos.
