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By Sarah • 11 years ago

Call me anything but that, maybe?


A SYTYCB entry

It’s almost inevitable every time you turn on the radio:

Hey I just met you

And this is crazy

But here’s my number

So call me maybe?

No, it’s not the catchy beat or the simplistic lyrics.  It’s the use of the ableist term “crazy.”

Now, growing up in the 90’s, I was constantly surrounded by music full of ableist terms. NSync’s “I Drive Myself Crazy,” Britney Spears’ “Crazy,” K-C and Jojo’s “Crazy,” Evan and Jaron’s “Crazy for This Girl,” the Backstreet Boys’ “It’s Gotta Be You” (with the classic nonsensical opening, “Baby/It’s the way you bang bang/Kinda get me go crazy/Never wanna stop”), and so on and so on. Even worse, there’s a pop cultural motif of co-opting the term “blind” to refer to someone who doesn’t “see” (e.g. realize) that the singer of the song loves them.

With all these songs on the radio, it’s no wonder that many typically progressive people push back strongly against accusations of ableism. To call out someone on the use of the terms “crazy,” “insane,” “blind” (in a non-literal sense), “idiot,” “moron,” “nutcase,” “lame,” and so on. It’s these suggestions of bias that will most often get you accused of being “overly PC” or “oversensitive.”

By Sarah • 11 years ago

Funny is a feminist issue

A SYTYCB entry

This week, the world lost one of its great funny women— nay, funny people— Phyllis Diller. Ms. Diller had been a showbusiness staple from the early 1950’s onwards, and is credited as the woman who broke through the comedy glass ceiling.  Onstage, she portrayed an eccentric housewife, and was known for her self-deprecating humor and outlandish fashion.

Despite the fact that Diller’s presence in comedy predates most of the famous names in comedy today by a good twenty years, the argument still comes up on a fairly regular basis that women are “not funny.”  A look back at some of the great comediennes of all time proves this wrong on example alone.  Diller, Lucille Ball, Joan Rivers, Ellen Degeneres, Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy ...

A SYTYCB entry

This week, the world lost one of its great funny women— nay, funny people— Phyllis Diller. Ms. Diller had been a showbusiness staple from the early 1950’s onwards, and is credited as the woman who broke through ...