Holiday Ramblings #2 - The Squozen One

Over the past 6 weeks, I have addictively watched and listened to well over 100 hours of mindless conversation between renowned Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl ‘round-headed buffoon’ Pilkington. The group’s unrivalled chemistry on their multiple productions has delivered great moments, but due to the fact that they spent their first few years of togetherness on XFM Radio, they were limited in the language they could use as indicated by the frequently uttered, “Can we say that?”, often followed up by, “I don’t think so.”

This got me thinking about the way in which people are offended by language I don’t consider offensive. In the show, there are countless instances which could easily be considered offensive (generally not malicious) towards groups such as disabled people, homosexuals, and the Chinese without any kind of swearing and often without any remark of, “Can we say that?” This fascinates me in that Ricky Gervais and those above him see little wrong with direct offenses towards certain groups, passing it simply as funny (and it is), yet it is offensive to utter the F-word without directing it at anyone in dissent (such as after dropping a brick on your foot). What is it about certain words that offend people without any malicious intent? If I slipped the S-word into an anecdote in replacement of ‘stuff’, why would it offend anyone? Could they actually provide a valid answer regarding why they’re offended?

I Googled why this group of words is considered offensive, and most people agreed that we created the offensiveness because the words themselves don’t have a whole lot behind them, but rather offense is subjective. In this case, why do radio stations decide what their audience finds offensive? Arghhh this interest of mine is evoking more questions than it’s answering. I’m baffled.

I believe that any language goes. This comes back to what I consider to be the primary topic of our studies: Language and Identity. The worst thing someone can do is feel restricted or feel like they can’t be him or herself, and I know for a fact that the way I speak or the way I speak is a huge part of my identity. This has been the most all-over-the-place blog post that I’ve conjured up, but it’s at times like the end of the holidays where you lack the ability to construct a structural idea, and sometimes it’s nice to reveal the ramblings of a madman.