Disco Ball bless Jane Fonda for saying “cunt” on TV.
Ah, I love moments like this. Grown adults scrambling around, getting completely offended over something that’s got no logical reason to offend you. If you’ve seen the play, you know the piece she’s talking about, and the whole point of it is to make the audience face up to the irrational fear caused by the sound of the word and realize how silly they’re being.
Something so simple and yet so hard for so many people to understand: A word’s meaning derives from its context. So many people want so badly for the sound of words to have this magical power, like there’s something inherent about the sound [kuhnt] that should give offense. Do we blanch to hear someone say “country”, even though that sound is in there? No. It’s hard for me to respect taboos about words.
Calling someone a cunt is pretty offensive, but again, that’s based on context. This was about the least offensive use of the word imaginable. I can’t help but think that the fact that irrationality so easily wins this round is just a symptom of a greater sickness of our society (maybe all societies, to be fair)—this epidemic of having rules that are inexplicable but must be followed, leading people to base their morality more on T-crossing and I-dotting rather than actually developing a philosophy that makes sense. Which then leads people to think rules are less about right and wrong than about getting caught or not. If you think about it, a lot of social problems can be traced back to this conundrum.
67 Responses to “Jane Fonda offends by saying something inoffensive”
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Gosh, I don’t know why Jane Fonda didn’t censor herself and bowdlerize it to “hooha.” Because heaven forbid a woman who’s talking about vaginas use a word that some women use for that.
My mom’s best friend, a woman I’ve known for 36 years, was telling me that after chemotherapy, her cunt was as smooth as a baby’s. It’s just a word.
Now, I’d be pissed off if someone called me a cunt as an insult, but just using the word as an anatomical noun, sans profane or hostile intent? I’m OK with that.
“Obviously Jane apologizes, and so do we.”
I hope like hell Jane was actually in her dressing room, going, “Oh, for Chrissake’s, it’s just a word! Fine, tell them I apologize, but I’m not doing it on camera.”
“We would do nothing to offend our audience?”
Really? Ann Coulter has been on how many times?
cunt cunt cunt cuntyrama - heh I’m so offensive!
“Really? Ann Coulter has been on how many times?”
“…I’d like to talk about (some Democrat running for office), but it turns out if you use the word ‘cunt’, you have to go to rehab…”
I wonder if Little Nasty Annie will still be around when she’s Jane Fonda’s age…
Dear Meridith,
Your show offended this member of the audience so much that I quit watching the Today Show over 2 years ago.
The vacuous and vapid tripe that passes for ‘news’ makes the breakfast that I try so hard to eat in a hurry to rush out to my 2 jobs that I have to work (while you suffer on rumored tens of millions a year) rise back in my throat.
Ann Curry is worse than a talking dog and Al Roker is a swaggering joke. Slick back Door-Matt Lauer has taken so many radical right wing stands that I nearly choked on the cereal I was eating. His ‘cute’ snarky bits sicken me. I’m done. I’m over done.
I di have to admit that I’d liked to be in the meeting where someone decided to cover ‘the Vagina Monologues’ but you folks dropped the ball by tip toeing around the ‘V’ word.
Grow up. Call it what it is. Call you for what you are: vapid craven cowards. I have better use for my time in the morning and by skipping the Today Show I have a happier attitude when I leave the house and enjoy keeping my breakfast down.
Although I do have to say that I personally do not use the ‘c’ word.
I watched the O’Reilly Factor (Not of my own free will, I have to write a paper for class about him and the media) tonight and he was just freaking out about it. You’d think she had just cursed out the host or something. And then he went on about how twelve year olds who were watching the interview would see how Merideth Viera didn’t get upset and would then draw the conclusion (God forbid!) that the word cunt was ok, since Merideth Viera is such a big role model to twelve year old girls.
Am I the only person who finds that idea kind of stupid? Cause wow… I don’t know that many twelve year old girls who even know who Jane Fonda or Merideth Viera are.
My first reaction was ‘Cheeses!’.
When I watched the clip it was even funnier. It was just an off-hand recounting of being offered a role in ‘The Vagina Monologues’. The particular piece was called ‘Cunt’. She wasn’t calling anybody names.
It’s a damned shame that 40 years after George Carlin did ‘7 Words You Can’t Say on Television’ that the only thing that has changed is you won’t be arrested. Fined millions, but not arrested.
Hopefully she can get a Bono exemption.
Thing is, NBC is a public licensee using the publicly-owned airwaves, and Miss Fonda used one of the “seven dirty words” an FCC licensee cannot legally broadcast. Is she going to pay NBC’s FCC fine?
Amanda wrote:
No logical reason to whom? Perhaps some parents might not want their four-year-old children to hear that particular word in their homes.
“Miss Fonda” ? Seriously?
Evidence that the only people who take this seriously are pea-brained children in adult bodies at #9. Sad, deeply sad. If you can’t talk to a 4-year-old, that’s your problem. What 4-year-old watches “The Today Show” anyway?
Too bad she didn’t say “falafel”, huh?
Heaven forbid kids hear a synonym for “vagina”…during a segment on the Vagina Monologues.
I think if your comfortable with them picking up “vagina”, you can at least talk to them about “cunt”.
your = you’re. Whoops.
Oh, I had a personal experience with that…
Jesse over at The News Group Blog, during his spirited defense of his rather excreable post calling Obama supporters cultish, cited Digby’s temporary removal of comments as something he should do since he was getting so toasted in his comments.
I posted in the thread Digby removed comments because people were calling her a cunt. Not the same thing as vigorous disagreement, and rather like Jesse calling people at an Obama rally cult-like and similar to Bush supporters.
You can guess what happened. Nicely edited out.
Of course, like Dana says, the mere presence of the word triggers those porn filters and all hell could break through at work, so we gotta not have ‘em around.
Not that cunt was ever a word that I used, not ever having been misogynistic like that…Bitch, on the other hand…
cunt cunt cunt, goddammit.
Now that that’s out of the way, this is like the Grey’s Anatomy non-debacle. When we can’t even use words in their *denotative* meaning, why do we even bother having them? What parent doesn’t want to have their kid hear “cunt” after hearing “vagina”? I don’t use either word frequently, but then, i’m not a doctor or cast in a play called Vagina.
A not very publicized study came out within the last year or two that showed that (prepare yourselves for a big shock) children are not actually harmed by words, even “bad” ones. They need to learn context, but the word itself is not going to damage the poor four year old’s brain just by being spoken.
There’s nothing at all wrong with that word, and Jane Fonda used it in the least inflammatory way possible.
I know a lot of people who think that calling someone a cunt is just about the worst possible insult, and I have to wonder why. It’s rude and immature, yes, and of course I’d never use it as an insult myself, but I’ve heard people compare it to a racial slur, and I think that’s ridiculous. It’s no different than calling a guy a prick, which is also rude and immature, but no one ever compares that to a racial slur.
I don’t usually watch these shows, but I was packing up my hotel room in SFO when she dropped the c-bomb.
Good thing I have a cold or I prolly would have disturbed some folk chanting CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! CUNT!
Gee, why couldn’t she just call it her cu-jo-jo …
This happens all the time with discussions of the Vagina Monologues. Some media outlet will be busily showing how enlightened they are, then someone will complain, and said media outlet will apologize profusely, thus undercutting the entire purpose of the play while simultaneously proving the Ensler’s point.
I love Jane Fonda.
My 8 year old daughter has heard the word cunt, she has watched “Little Miss Sunshine,” she knows about but hasn’t seen pornography, she knows that there are very bad and very good people in the world and a lot more as well. She doesn’t watch violent movies and she knows her parents think violence and war and injustice are wrong. She knows we love her and that words that some people get upset about are just things you don’t say around those people. They are words. We help her process or not process what is out there as appropriate and inappropriate. She knows what cunt means and why it is often/usually offensive, but that has to do with how people say it and the context.
I am far more offended when I hear the current administration’s officials on the radio. They are far more repugnant than the name of a great part of a great show.
And I am sick of jerks telling me what my kid should and shouldn’t hear and see. I can decide that, and I think my kid has a much healthier relationship with all the foolish kid sex talk (yes it starts young) because she knows what it is about.
A not very publicized study came out within the last year or two that showed that (prepare yourselves for a big shock) children are not actually harmed by words, even “bad” ones.
“Vote Republican.”
Several children waiting for our flight heard the gate agent repeatedly page Mr. Peter Zipperstain. (a mispronounciation of Zipperstein)
I’m going to sue! For the children, of course!
I am reminded of this anecdote about Alfred Korzybski.
Calling someone a cunt is pretty offensive
Why is that? If it’s just a bunch of sounds, why should they be anymore offensive than calling someone an alternate name for male genitalia?
Jane Fonda is too sassy to apologize for this.
Well, it’s not like calling someone a dick (or an asshole, for that matter) is exactly a compliment.
I can’t wait for what Colbert does with this remark!
In the fabulous words of Alix Olson:
Cunt Country
I’ve decided to start
Cunt Cuntry!
Write our own Cunstitution
Let our liberated clit bells ring out:
The Cunts are coming: It’s the Cunt Revolution!
I’d cut through my panties, I’d shake my pube hair loose,
I’d sign my Jane HanCunt in cursive with Cunt juice.
I’d declare the Independence of Clitoris to Shining Clitoris,
Proclaim the Emancipation of all Cunts–
and tell Dicks this:
You’re being drafted for the Big Solution:
Stand Erect, Be Proud,
You’re part of the Cunt Revolution!
Defending our slick, silky, vaginal turf
For all cunted creatures, created or by birth.
And they’d wear buttons with fists raised, that say:
Patriarchy! I survived! Now this Dick’s fighting the Good Fight for
Vaginal Pride!
And kids in school would learn the Her-story
Of the Boston Tea-ch Party,
When Cunt-Liberators tossed Cunt-Traitors into the sea,
Finally felt what it meant to be free.
And they’d learn how color complicated the win,
How White Cunted Creatures had to sacrifice Privilege,
Re-focus Vision for a Real Revolution to happen.
And kids would have weekly field trips
To the Museum of Un-Natural His-Story
With display glass jars of rapist dicks in all their shriveled glory.
And Behind velvet rope, ancient relics of the past, like:
Female Guilt, Circumcision knives, Certificates turning whole people into Wives.
And there’d be torture chamber exhibits
with tall, skinny heels
Inviting little girls to:
Try this, and see how this feels—
Cunted Creatures wore these to work or to anywhere formal:
This Pain was called Sexy. This process was called Normal!
And there’d be old collections of posters like:
Keep Abortion Legal- with a plaque:
Not much is known. But these come from an era when
Insecure Ruling Dickheads thought of
Bodies as something to own.
We’d pledge allegiance to P-Flag
With stars like you– and crooked stripes!
We’d carry passports made from a giant Cunt Mold
In all pubic colors: Gray, Auburn, Ebony, Gold.
We’d ban all commercials of:
Are you not so fresh?
Is your vag repulsive? Do you stink like fish?
And instead, we’d conduct a Cunt Taste-Testing Session,
Get used to the smells of Blood, Yeast, and the Ocean.
And Hothead Paison would lead Alison Bechdel’s Dykes:
Watch out for the Cunt Cuntry Army on Bikes!
There’d be an Esteemed Office called “National Astrologist”
And Cunt Commander in Chief would be… a Gynecologist.
And Michael Moore would be Vice-Pres…
Cause the Cunt Cuntry Court of Legality says:
Possessing a Cunt matters less than possessing
the Cunt Mentality.
And daughters would laugh at old-fashioned terms like
Virgin and Bitch and Whore
As they checked out the newest inventory of vibrators Sold at the corner store.
Because daughters would be freer and dykes would be Freer and dicks would be freer
If we stood up and sang:
My Cunt tis of Thee
My Cunt tis of Thee
Because Cunt is the latin root of Kin and Country
But see, somehow some of our countrymen forgot they had
Sisters, decided to treat us as unwelcome visitors,
Made it hard to have a cunt in this country.
Made it hard to have a cunt in this country.
So, we are starting Cunt Cuntry.
Not out of rebellion,
Or unexamined sisterhood,
Or some sort of Seventies Separatist Revival.
We are starting Cunt Land
For that which it will stand:
One Nation
Under Survival.
(Apologies for the length, but I thought it was worth it)
I’ve never been able to get very upset about being called a cunt. It just doesn’t bother me that much. (Although of course I see the misogynistic attitudes inherent in its use as an insult and all that.) And I rather like the word itself. It’s the only slang term I know for the vagina that can be traced back, etymologically, at least to Rome while keeping its meaning. The vulgar Latin term for that portion of the female anatomy was cunnus (source: The Latin Sexual Vocabulary by J.N. Adams). I have also encountered the suggestion that it comes from the same Indoeuropean root as yoni, which is nice. Contrast vagina, Latin for a sheath for a sword, a denotation I dislike. Vulva is better, with a Latin meaning of womb, which is at least a portion of female anatomy. Pussy? Thank you, I have three cats, and none of them are permanently attached to me. And all the others I can think off which are still in use are worse.
I’ll stick with cunt, thanks.
Oh, and the monologue is excellent.
This just in: “The Vagina Monologues” is about vaginas.
Shocking!
Do we blanch to hear someone say “country”, even though that sound is in there?
good thing she didn’t say “ha-penis”
Do we blanch to hear someone say “country”, even though that sound is in there?
good thing she didn’t say “ha-penis”
Do we blanch to hear someone say “country”, even though that sound is in there?
good thing she didn’t say “ha-penis”
Do we blanch to hear someone say “country”, even though that sound is in there?
good thing she didn’t say “ha-penis”
Do we blanch to hear someone say “country”, even though that sound is in there?
good thing she didn’t say “ha-ppenis”
I am so glad I came here and saw this post. I saw this on TMZ earlier today (hey, I’m clinically depressed, I don’t change the channel unless it’s the 700 Club), and they were freaking the fuck out! It was like she killed and ate a jew-baby on tv or something! Obviously none of the assholes has ever read or watched the vagina monologues.
Do we blanch to hear someone say “country”, even though that sound is in there?
good thing she didn’t say “ha-ppenis”
Someone should warn the people of Scunthorpe that they give perpetual offence.
/old joke
I believe that long ago Chaucer used the word “cunt” without any problem.
Here is a video that plays on the word as well as some others. Asylum Street Spankers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmsOIjzQ1V8
You may have already reported on this book, “The Cunt Coloring Book”.
http://petulantrumble.blogspot.com/2007/07/cunt-coloring-book.html
In many old English and Irish towns, the street for prostitution was often called Gropecunt Lane or Gropecunte Lande.
Dwin,
O’Reilly was upset that 12-year-olds might see that on the Today Show? Seriously?
Does O’Reilly not know that children go to school, and the Today Show is on while said children are in school?
Oh, wait. Maybe his viewership is tilted toward the homeschool crowd. I guess I just answered my own question.
I would love to read more about what you have to say on this. It somehow struck a cord and now I’m really interested.
Jesus Fucking Christ!! What the fuck is wrong with people?? Cunt is just a fucking word!
Amanda and pinky, you made my day. Thanks!
Oh, moderation again… phooey.
Can I say the obvious?
A lot of the people who have dragged out Ye Olde Fainting Couch for this are fainting because Jane Fonda was on TV at all.
Well, that woman at the end of that video clip lied. I’m offended by them apologizing, so they did something pretty offensive to me.
Most 12-year-old girls have already heard that word from other girls and boys who use the feminine as perjorative, just like O’Reilly.
They just haven’t heard it with any positive connotation, which is what scares these jerks. They want their 12 year olds to be so innocent of their anatomy that they won’t know/understand when they are being raped.
And of course unless you know that “cunt” is one of those horrible evil words that may never pollute the airwaves, how are you going to know what the “word you can’t say on television” was, for which Today is apologizing? Maybe it was saying “woman” without a sneering intonation.
(There’s a similar case in print from Seattle, where the local paper refused to run an ad for the Vagina Monologues because — gasp — the artwork bore a resemblance to female genitalia. Commenters at the local weekly show just how deeply the terror of the cunt goes.)
Jane Fonda + verboten word = Fodder for right wingnuts to fulminate self righteously.
Obviously, who gets offended is subjective, but the context here hardly merits the outrage. You’re right, Amanda, there are a lot of ayatollahs out there policing our use of words without much sense of context, compassion or common sense.
As I said on Feministe yesterday, what was she supposed to do, gesture wordlessly towards her crotch every time the naughty words “vagina” or “cunt” came along?
Whether you’re offended at being called a cunt isn’t even relevant, because she wasn’t using the word that way. I would be offended if someone called a woman a “cunt” on national television, but she didn’t. She was using the word in a perfectly acceptable context.
Don’t like your kids using it? If they start saying it and they’re too young to understand - redirect them. (This is why my friend’s son now says “snickerdoodles!” when he gets frustrated.) They don’t know what a “bad” word is unless you react. Old enough to understand? Explain why you don’t use that particular word and what you would prefer.
Exactly mnenosyne, I’m just not sure how she could have told this story otherwise. It is the proper title for something. The piece is called “Cunt”. Referring to it as anything else would have been a) wrong and b) probably misusing Ensler’s intellectual property rights.
Jane Fonda is my fucking hero. “Coming Home” is one of the best movies evah!
damn, sorry about the multiple posts, didn’t realise moderation was on
re: calling a woman a cunt
It’s no different than calling a guy a prick, which is also rude and immature
Not really. I’d say calling a guy a prick is no different than calling a white person a honky–which, yeah, I’m going to say is not a big deal, even if it’s not very nice.
In other words, insulting someone based on an intrinsic traits when those traits carry institutional privilege is really fucking different from insulting them based on traits that are the target of institutional oppression.
Which is not to say I think it’s wrong for a woman to use the word “cunt” when discussing the word “cunt.”
So, yeah, the scrabbling about after this is silly. If they didn’t want people to use words for vagina on the segment, they probably shouldn’t have been talking about The Vagina Monlogues.
Almost exactly the same thing happened once on British daytime TV, down to it being the same monologue. It passed pretty much entirely without comment — well, the context where I saw it was a ‘history of censorship’ show, but it seems to have gotten in there through the belated realisation that, oh yeah, she did say “cunt”.
John Lydon said ‘cunt’ (ok, ‘oh, you fucking cunts’) live on TV here a year or two ago:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/feb/04/realitytv.broadcasting
Fewer than 100 complaints flooded in.
Exactly, TR. This is like someone complaining about a documentary on freud’s theory of the phallus where someone mentions that the penis is something referred to as a prick.
Hey Gdad:
For the record: Not all homeschoolers are fundies or even theists.
Most homeschoolers I know would have used it as a science lesson - anatomy 101
or,
Language arts - use/referenve
or,
art - Georgia O’Keefe
or
foregin language - Latin
or
political science - Vietnam protestors
Real homeschoolers, who see edcuation as braodening the mind , would appreciate the opportunity to teach - its only the fundies - who see education as indoctrination who would freak.
Please - do not generalize!!!!
The difference between calling a woman a cunt and a man a prick seems to me that men don’t freeze in terror at “prick” wondering if they are about to be raped or beaten. Rather much like a black person faced with the hostile use of the “n word”, a woman hearing such hate directed at herself has good reason to wonder if violence is coming.
And people call men cunts too, not just women (Americans prefer “pussies,” but it’s the same thing). Nobody calls women pricks, because it’s women and their bodies who are the source of contempt and disgust, not men. Obviously, the insults are not analogous.
Isn’t this the same show that concealed the cover of the book “She Comes First” when the author was promoting it on the air a few years back? It had a suggestive picture of a papaya–cut in half. They didn’t say the title to that one either!! Break it down–how could it possibly offend? She - Comes - First. Why even bother giving the airtime if they’re going to take a faux-shame stance?