I remember hearing a commentator talk about language on NPR when my mother was driving me home from swim practice. This was years ago; I was maybe 12.The commentator was one of those language gurus, sticklers, like the late William Safire (might have even been the late William Safire), and he was ranting about the abuse of the word just, saying that people use it incorrectly, overuse it, and place it in inappropriate independent situations as they do with the word like.
I don’t recall if it was winter or summer or raining.I remember it was in the evening and we were swinging around Thorpe Park, the local park where they held little league practice, and where they flooded a hockey rink and one of the baseball fields in the winter for ice skaters, and where you went to play a game of tennis as long as you didn’t mind the saggy nets and courts cracked with wild grass.
As we passed the northern most baseball field, the NPR commentator hit his finale to the rant, which played on the Nike motto. “And so,” he said, “I say to the youth of America, don’t just do it; do it.”
Obama just signing in a just do it shirt.
I’m by no one’s judgment a “word freak” or a “grammar Nazi” (based on recent polls); I won’t correct people (aloud) when they confuse “lie” and “lay;” it infuriates me when people correct verbal infractions such as “I could care less” with the snarky remark “It’s couldn’t,” mostly because I could care less; and it makes me sigh only lightly when someone says, “Her house is a little further down the road.”
Nevertheless, I enjoy words – hanging out with them, saying them every couple of hours (unless it’s the weekend), admiring them from afar – and enjoy how the meanings of words are altered over time and how if you know a word to its core, you can use it for very interesting, clever effect.
In addition to the salient NPR memory, two instances have recently encouraged my thinking about words’ usage and etymology in this new year (and that makes me happy and I’d like to share both with you around now).
The first happened on Twitter, when this website posted the following Tweet: “Define CYNICAL: When you've taken to texting girls from high school (with no greeting or prelude), ‘Hey! In town... You still married??’”
That caused a follower on Twitter (if you’re not following ED on Twitter, by the way, do: www.twitter.com/eleventhdraft) to angrily respond: “@eleventhdraftThat's not the definition of 'cynical.' You obviously need me to create reading lists for you again.”
And that follower was right.Technically, texting a girl to ask if she is still married is not really the definition of “cynical,” although it does play on the belief of self-interest and lack of faith in marriage and harkens to perhaps the most popular usage of the word in the last five years: Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan talking on MSNBC when they thought their mikes were off (how many times have we fallen for that one, Murphy says, “The greatness of McCain is no cynicism…and [choosing Sarah Palin as a running mate] is cynical.”
The other wordy instance that caused me consternation, to say the least, was reading a short story by David Foster Wallace called “Another Pioneer” in which a sentence might read something like this:
While lissome females could cultivate deciduous fruits and certain warriors of etiolated parlor were formidable, the tribe’s dependence on the boy caused a stasis rendering otiose the convention of a quorum (pace the elders’ efforts to do so) that could possibly quell the rebarbative susurration of that had begun to spread through…
…And so on.Sadly, I don’t have the story in front of me from which to pull directly.Point is, Foster’s ironclad control of words and his ability to stretch a sentence to the end of its breath make his stories worth the work, even for those of us too cynical to… forget it; I don’t know how to use that word. But I hope to learn in 2011...
Much like Justin Timberlake is now an actor, Steve Martin is now a banjo player, or Sarah Palin is now a responsible mother, the Gap clothing store is now a retirement fund company.
All it takes is a change of image. Justin grew his hair, Steve put on glasses, SP quit her job and started a Political Action Committee. The Gap changed their logo from something categorically clothier, to something that looks like it comes at the end of a TV commercial where a married couple stands over a tornado-ravaged home and the father, hugging his young (second) wife and one of his children says, "Don’t worry, we invested with The Gap."
Usually that would mean they’d be living in this season’s flannel under the 405/Santa Monica overpass. Now, apparently, it means AIG out, GAP in.
What some call "the Internet" or "the Blogosphere" has been "a buzz" in the past couple days following a logo change on www.gap.com and an article addressing the logo on Adage. The article suggests, "Across the internet detractors have been picking apart the new look, with the most common sentiment being that it looks like something a child created using a clip-art gallery."
Or that a designer created after dreaming of MSN, SAP and Principal Financial Group all week long. Just like their hoodies, the Gap logos are a) rip-offs of designer originals and b) created by 8-year-olds in Taiwanese sweatshops.
Following the backlash to the new logo, the Gap backtracked a bit (or did they?):
On their Facebook page, the company posted: "Thanks for everyone's input on the new logo! We've had the same logo for 20+ years, and this is just one of the things we're changing. We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we're thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding! So much so we're asking you to share your designs. We love our version, but we'd like to ... see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project."
Brilliant. I’m all over this. Just a few short pen strokes and I’ve come up with three new options for the newer and improveder Gap logo. Take your pick you cheap bastards.
There’s this kid on this water bottle. He’s drinking water from a hose. That’s not the first thing you notice when you pick up the bottle near the cashier at the Whole Foods on the corner of Fairfax and Santa Monica because you’re too far into line to ask the peevish hippie waiting behind you with, ironically, an armload of bath salts to save your place in order that you might run to the water aisle and pick up a bottle of whatever cheaper brand – then again, it’s Whole Foods.
The first thing you notice is that the kid is black. Not necessarily African-American, in fact, you know he’s not African-American. You know, purportedly, he lives either in Central America, South America or Sub-Saharan Africa. You know this because you’ve see dozens of sectarian advertisements for kids just like him throughout your life. (Can we get a success story, by the way? Thanks to your donations, Nabil survived childhood in Botswana and went on to revolutionize the use of foreign aid in his country, helping the once struggling, dependant African nation form a functional, sustainable, economy. Something like that? Anything? Anything other than "Send More Mosquito Nets"?)
After that, you notice that the kid is part of notice for a "charitable" (heavy quotations) program run by the water company, in this case, Volvic. On the company’s website, the "DRINK 1, GIVE 10" campaign is described in the following language and capital letters (kids on the website, definitely Central/South American):
EACH TIME YOU BUY A LITER OF VOLVIC NATURAL SPRING WATER IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA BETWEEN AUGUST 1ST AND OCTOBER 31ST 2010, VOLVIC DONATES FIVE CENTS TO THE RAINFOREST FOUNDATION TO SUPPORT 10 PROJECTS THAT HELP PROTECT RAINFORESTS IN CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA.
Looking at the kid on the bottle, you think that the campaign helps bring water to those in need – in Sudan, in Haiti in Guatemala, in wherever. And you’d think that if you bought one of these bottles, you would give 10 kids drinking water for half a day, or some other arbitrary amount of time.
The name of the campaign is completely misleading. No water is going to anyone. Buying this one bottle is not giving 10 of anything. Buying this one bottle – mind you, you bought it because you didn’t want to get out of line at a Whole Foods in West Hollywood – will cause a nickel to go to another charity to support indigenous people living on their own land.
Fair enough: Saving rainforest vegetation and natural habitat is inarguably a cause worth looking into. However, it has nothing to do with "drinking 1 and giving 10." Plus, look how much water the kid on the damn bottle is wasting; we could "drink 1, give 400" if he would just use a cup and a straw.
After your anger with the boy and the photographer subsides, you consider that this "Drink 1, Give 10" campaign must have roots elsewhere, in something having something to do with drinking water in deprived nations. Turns out that’s true. Since 2005, around $3.6 million has been raised to support UNICEF programs that provided clean drinking water to kids in Ethiopia, Niger and Mali.
Now that sounds worthwhile. But in the smaller print at the bottom of the page, it gets confusing once again:
"For each liter of Volvic bottled water purchased in the U.S. and Canada in 2008 and 2009, Volvic donated over $500,000 to support UNICEF programs that provided at least 10 liters of clean water to children in Africa, including building wells."
First of all, this program isn’t doing so well. Over three and a half million dollars from 2005-2007 and only half a million in 2008 and 2009. That’s going from raising $1.2 million a year to $250,000 a year. (That's right; it's called math, people.) That’s an 80 percent decrease in donations to UNICEF.
Looked at from another angle: For each liter purchased in two years, Volvic donated half a million bucks. For each liter. I'm not ready to invest in that business plan.
Either the basic syntax of the statement is off or something in Volvic's accounting books has gone askew.
Also, that sentence in the small print makes no sense. Did the 10 liters of clean water go to every child in Africa? Three children in Africa? And over what period of time? The idea sounds all flowery and substantial, but, it turns into absolutely nothing, or worse: it turns into exploitation.
There’s no grand political point to this column. You just wanted to make sure that everyone knew you slaked your thirst with your purchases from Whole Foods; despite popular belief based on the bottles in your recycling container, you did not help one child, let alone 10, anywhere. Thanks, Volvic.
Rare is the occasion that I write something personal. However, things have been stressful enough recently to cause me to dream in angst. That angst crescendoed over the week and peaked (hopefully) last night. The following are brief summaries of dreams for the week:
MONDAY: At my old job, new boss shows up; I scream at him for following me everywhere.
TUESDAY: At new job, but around a pool at a swim meet; guest performing, microphones don’t work; I yell at a boss from three jobs ago and at the musical director, whom I've never before seen.
WEDNESDAY: At old job, making out with old boss' girlfriend who also works at old job; old boss walks in; I scream at him for not paying attention to what I put on his desk.
THURSDAY: At Walgreens with George H. W. Bush; he is telling me about his grandfather making money in the steel business; I yell at him for taking too long to decide what to buy.
We’re having lunch at the conference table on the third floor. A copy of USA Today is splayed upon the table with newly nominated Supreme Court candidate, Elena Kagan pictured on the right-hand column. Eyeing the photo, between bites of skewered chicken, my co-worker asks, "So how do you think Mike Myers will do on the Supreme Court?"
He (co-worker, not Myers) almost immediately added that one could "insert unattractive male actor name here" and repeat throughout the day. Turns out to be true upon reading the comments on the CNN blog announcing Kagan’s impending nomination where, on May 9th, 2010 at 11:30 pm ET, ‘happenings’ wrote: "I thought it was Nathan Lane for a second."
John Travolta. Kevin James. Meatloaf. Yup: they all work.
And… let the outrage begin. If she were a man, there is no way people would be commenting on how she looks, what she wears, her pearl necklace, her thinning hair, and so on!, screams the petulant left.
The right will only keep jabbing as they have been jabbed for so long, reflected in the frustration of "tee," who added to the CNN blog on Obama’s Supreme Court pick: "I am so sick of Obama he needs to go away he wants to be a dictator and an ass"
Well put, tee. (Although, it was George W. Bush who wanted to be the dictator.)
It seems, in general, the right that puts more stock in looks, for one reason or another. While the left will take Kagan similarly to Michael who wrote at 11:25pm last night, "I'm proud of Obama for nominating the first gay women to the high court. Even if she's only out amongst close friends, it's time gay americans had somone who will take into account their issues," the right will add Kagan’s face to this list:
Unlike "Michele" or "Bachmann," let’s just hope the keepers of the list can spell "Elena Kagan correctly.
A war-tattered copy of TheAtlantic magazine from October of 2008 lies slowly dying on the shelf. Times are tough. Farther down the shelf are the living: pamphlets detailing how to collect unemployment insurance, what to do if your claim is denied, what to do if your claim runs out, how to appeal a denial or an expiration. Times are indeed tough.
This is what we do with our Fridays mornings off. We drive down to Inglewood, to the unemployment office near the airport to argue for a thousand dollars that we should have received last December.
We arrive late, as wholly appropriate when arriving to an unemployment office; we duck the imaginary picketers who throw empty cans and invective at us; if we were less lazy, on time just a bit more often, we’d have a job and wouldn’t need to take their tax money. Lord knows where the State of California is going to come up with a thousand dollars, they chant.
It’s a clunky chant.
The low-talking black man who looks like Gordon from Sesame Street, which is to say that he wears sweaters, hands us our file through the security slot and tells us to review it. We briefly glance at the file, memorize a few times, dates, tuck those away for the next hour and shortly return the file to Gordon.
Over the last 75 years, the name Gordon has gone from the 70th most popular name in America to the 946th most popular name in America. We consider telling the Gordon through the window; we realize, in this tough day and age, he’s probably not named Gordon. It was Gordons that got us through the last depression. It will be Gordons that get us through this one as well.
A man dressed in what has to be described as a tragic ensemble talks loudly on an equally tragic mobile phone. He’s loud enough that we can’t hear the looped video that explains what will happen at our unemployment hearing. Loafers, baggy white socks, short jeans, Target-brand button down, off-black sports coat: the man should have just finished reading the weather in Billings, Montana. Instead, he’s been waiting for hours for a case that had been postponed days ago. He calls his employer to say so.
He seems to have brought along a ringer, an Unemployment Insurance expert, who stalks the UI waiting area guarded by prints of Elizabeth Horowitz pastels and watercolors. The ringer stumbles, but adroitly, with a cane from UI window to worker, asking if they have a copy of a certain UI book by a certain UI expert. He promises one judge that he will bring her a copy the next time.
His copy is signed.
"…or you can leave a message on my cell phone, but I’m driving, can’t pick up the phone to answer." We are wandering the room and catch the beautiful end to a message left by a gentleman of seventy-some years for a friend or family member or co-worker who was, in all evidence, until this moment, completely oblivious to the laws of California and would have been confused to the point of suicide had they called this gentleman back in a short while and he’d not picked up. Now they know that he’s driving. Can’t pick up the phone to answer.
Our name is mercifully called. Judge Benjamin Sterlin presiding. He walks us to a room where the hearing will begin. We frown because he’s not wearing a robe. Maybe it’s on underneath.
"They have you working on Good Friday."
"Too many unemployment claims," he replies without irony. "There are a few government holidays left, but…"
We sit at two tables connected in the shape of a T, the top of which is formed by Judge Sterlin’s desk. This will be recorded. He swears us in and asks us why we didn’t send our UI claim in on time. We can’t remember when we sent it in (thank you Alberto Gonzalez, Scooter Libby; may we not end up with you). Why we didn’t pick up the call from a UI employee. We were at work at 2:22pm in the afternoon (thank you Gordon). If we looked for work. Everyone is always looking for work; that’s more of a broadly philosophical question than we expected in this situation, but our answers seem to satisfy Judge Sterlin. He will make his decision later today.
We’re never going to see that thousand bucks.
Sulkily, we return to Gordon who validates our parking. The October 2008 Atlantic remains un-resuscitated on the shelf. John McCain on the cover: "Why War is his Answer: Inside the Mind of John McCain." We walk out of the waiting area, thick to the point of saturation with questions that John McCain smugly answers from the tattered cover of an old magazine.
Last week, a billboard was slapped up along Interstate-35 near Wyoming, Minnesota. It read:
A valid enough question. And one that went without a response until yesterday, when a group called The United States of America pasted a decidedly clear reply on the opposite side of the freeway:
In a statement, America said they would have replied sooner, but the billboard company is run by a guy named Michael "Heck of a Job Brownie" Brown who just couldn’t seem to get things together very quickly.
I’m sitting in the waiting room of the Emergency Room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Why I’m here doesn’t quite overlap how I came to be here.
I came to be here by asking the woman at North Tower reception where Urgent Care was. In Minnesota, the Urgent Care facilities are located within large hospitals, such as Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park. As I would come to find out, not so in Los Angeles. When I asked if there was an Urgent Care department in the complex, the woman at reception (who should, let’s be clear, know what Urgent Care is if she works for a hospital, regardless of whether or not the hospital she works at has an Urgent Care facility) told me, “The Emergency Room has a ‘Fast Track.’ Just right there next door,” she pointed.
Of course, Urgent Care, as we will find, is less urgent than an emergency. But, then again, it seems an emergency these days is an issue that has been downgraded from “a crisis situation that must be dealt with immediately” to “a situation in which people wait in a harshly lit room for their names to be called three times before they are admitted to deal with their issue.”
I walked next door to the Emergency Room, which, quite ironically, had the orderly, laconic mood of jury registration rather than the expected chaotic necessity of, well, an emergency room. I was directed to the registration window.
There was a reason I was looking for Urgent Care above the Emergency Room. Twenty-five reasons, in fact. My Cigna insurance, you see, charges a $25 co-pay for a visit to Urgent Care and $50 for a visit to the Emergency Room.
When I asked the kind woman at registration if there was an Urgent Care department in the Cedars-Sinai wonderland, she leaned over to the nurse next to her to check. “There’s one on Wilshire,” the nurse said, “but you have to be a Cedars-Sinai member.”
I questioned if this was really an emergency. I went outside to think about it. I text my father to see if he thought it was an emergency (remember, I had yet to realize the new definition of the word emergency; I’d have been better-off asking if this was a “Fast Track” or not). After weighing membership in the Urgent Care on Wilshire (clearly for stuntmen and people married to Star Jones), I decided: sure, whatever, I’ll stay here. I registered and was directed to the next window where I found The Nurse.
I reiterated my pecuniary predicament to The Nurse. She reiterated her Urgent Care Club to me. I asked how much she thought this would cost. She said she had no idea. $50 was certain and then the charge would be determined by the medical team’s assessment of my injury.
“Obviously they are going to have to take X-Rays,” I pointed out. “Can we get a ballpark based on that? There’s not much else they can really do.”
I was informed that the actual charge depended on which “codes” and “functions” where written on my forms by the medical team. “We’re here to take care of people. The actual charges are figured out elsewhere.” The Nurse kindly informed me.
While that “care” is unquestionably appreciated, I found it odd that I was being walked into buying a product I could neither see nor question; it was like telling a car salesman what options I wanted, driving off with a vehicle, and receiving a bill in the mail two weeks later for whatever amount the salesman felt like charging. After all, he’s there to get me from point A to point B.
I don’t think it would be to much to ask to have a sort of fast food menu posted at these (ostensible) Emergency Rooms. Appendectomy: $1,500; EKG: $2,115; X-Ray: $455. There has got to be a standard charge – and, if not, can congress talk about that for a little bit?
So, I’m sitting in the waiting room of the Emergency Room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Why I’m here is: injured rib. It might be cracked. It’s hurt since a chair attacked me five days pervious.
More and more, I’m wondering about the charge. I call my insurance hook up at Cigna. The costumer care person at Cigna cannot tell me how much an X-Ray will cost either. What she can tell me is that an ER visit is a co-pay of $50 (thank for reading my card with me) and that I have a $300 deductible per year – of which I’ve paid nothing because I’m a 30-year-old non-smoking man who exercises and doesn’t fight crime during holiday breaks.
I hang up. After a few minutes, I accept that this 3 hour adventure is going to cost me $100 per hour and I promise myself to live a bit more dangerously in the next 12 months; maybe I can squeeze a free ruptured spleen out of this shit.
After 40 pages of “East of Eden,” I’m called to the back – to get my blood pressure and temperature and patience taken. I’m asked, “On a scale of one-to-ten, what is the pain?”
This question is the nexus of the insanity of our medical community because a) obviously pain is subjective and the answer cannot possibly let a medical professional know how dire is the situation, and b) I personally have no frame a reference for this scale; I’m given no guidelines, whatsoever. The way I see it, the woman taking my BP should instead ask me, “Are you going to pass out in the next 15 minutes if I don’t give you a shot of morphine right now?” But I say the pain is a “6.” Whatever that means.
I go back to the waiting room of the Emergency Room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
After 50 more pages of “East of Eden,” I’m called to the back – to sign papers and give a woman my home address and phone number and emergency contact and mother’s maiden name (presumably so that she can crack into my back account after signing me up for “Steak of the Month Club”).
Back to the waiting room – that clearly is earning its pay – and that is, incidentally, filled with thick paranoia in the form of thin, yellow medical masks on easily eighty percent of those waiting.
Twenty more pages of “East of Eden,” which is, luckily, not only long but spectacular (as if Steinbeck writes any other way). I’m called to the doctor. I continue to read for 15 minutes. The nurse asks me how much pain I’m in. I tell her it’s not that bad and, not kidding, she says, “Okay, but on a scale of one-to-ten…” I go with a four this time.
The doctor comes, he looks at my ribs. He says it’s probably bruised, but I should have been taking analgesics for the pain; I am running the risk of taking shallow breaths, having my lungs collapse, developing pneumonia and (I suppose, but I’m adding this part, just for the record) dying.
Four X-Rays. It’s bruised. Damn chair hit me hard, but I’ll be back to fight another day.
On the way out I notice a chart on the wall. No, it’s not a fast food menu of how much Cedar-Sinai’s services cost. But it’s almost as good.
You know it’s a good day when an actress (that’s a deliberate stop short of calling her a celebrity) gives an interview about a breakup with a famous author in an effort to scratch her way into the limelight for as long as possible. And it works.
I understand the pain of a breakup, the realization that someone doesn’t want you or like you in the way that you thought they should or might. I can even understand talking publically about a breakup – I can see how that would be cathartic, like writing about it, for those of us who are not writers. What I don’t understand is publically disparaging the person with whom you used to be in a relationship.
This week, in an interview with the Daily Mail, Salman Rushdie’s ex-girlfriend, Pia Glenn, derided the man whom she also called a "genius" and with whom she claimed she once had a relationship that was a "meeting of the minds" – as if Friday night at the Rushdie residence was Orgy Night, regularly attended by Henry Kissinger, Meg Whitman, and an AWOL (but prompt) Aung San Suu Kyi.
Today, Glenn told the New York Post that Rushdie was still hung-up over the now pregnant Padma Lakshmi. Glenn said, Rushdie "would talk about Padma day and night. He felt hurt and betrayed by her. He would talk about her so much I'd ask him to stop."
A or B? You decide.
Then Rushdie broke up with Glenn over email, propting her to label him a "coward." Yes, sure, a cowardly move to be accurate. But considering the man spent years hiding from Muslims that wanted to kill him, and considering the entire courtship with Glenn was over email, what do you expect? Phone calls from London are like a buck-eighty these days.
Glenn is more than upset. "Its clear that he's not interested in friendship now, which calls into question why he was interested in me in the first place. If I had thought he only wanted me for sex, I would have gotten out immediately," she told the Post.
She’s so upset, she went so far as to condone prostitution: "If he just wanted sex, then he should have gone out and paid a prostitute. If he wanted a woman who was arm candy, there are plenty of them around."
Hate to break it to Glenn, but she is what is around.
Used to be that if you wanted to get even with Salman Rushdie, all you had to do was tell Ayatollah Ali Khamenei where he was (since the man who placed the fatwa on Rushdie, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, died four months after the threat was made). Now you have to hook up with a British tabloid and say that he was an awkward kisser who Googles himself incessantly and is still in love with a beautiful woman impregnated by a mystery man. How far lovers’ quarrels have fallen…
In order to be a good storyteller (not eve great) you must have a drum-like memory. Truman Capote had that. John Steinbeck did, too. Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is noticeably lacking capacity for memory in his new book, "The Governor."
It seems that this is an ongoing theme with politicians from Alberto Gonzalez to Scooter Libby and now to Rod Blagojevich: I don’t exactly recall. Blagojevich writes that very excuse (or something similar) a number of times throughout the book that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. I looked at the cover a number of times to make sure I didn’t accidently have an uncorrected copy. Blagojevich calls Dick Durbin Dick "Druban" once – and twice in a row he calls Barack Obama’s formed campaign manager David Plough, instead of David Plouffe.
Man, I hope I have an uncorrected copy.
However, even with corrections, the book reads, at times, like your Aunt Millie not getting to the fucking point and, at other times, like your dad driving you and your 7-year-old sister through Candyland at top-speed while he screams, repeatedly "You guys have got to see this!" before pulling over to the shoulder of the road and abruptly taking a catnap.
There is nothing new in this book, but I have no idea why we should expect anything new from Rod Blagojevich unless it comes in the form of YouTube.
The poster ad at the La Cienega bus stop read: “That’s so ‘gamer guy who has more videogames than friends.’”Beneath the large, yellow block letters that partially obscured the face of 10-year-old African American kid were more letters that more clearly explained the point of the ad: “Think that’s mean? How do you think ‘that’s so gay’ sounds? Hurtful. So knock it off.”
In theory, the advertisement (or public service announcement) makes a necessary point: don’t use pejorative words, titles or phrases that could be hurtful to others.In practice, it fails leagues from its goal.
The advertisement was created and posted by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.GLSEN “is the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students.”The organization is hugely important; it is imperative that children know from an early age, not necessarily that it is not acceptable to use derogatory terms – but, more fundamentally, that it is really fucking cool to be gay or lesbian or Jewish or whatever.If they understand that, they will understand that using derogatory language makes no sense.
The first problem with this ad is the 10-year-old black kid.As the ad is by GLSEN, its target audience is junior high students.There is no way to know that unless you research the GLSEN organization.Is that kid supposed to be a gamer?It looks like they stole background art from a No Child Left Behind poster.Maybe go with a. acne-ridden college-aged white guy, sitting alone on a couch, crazily grasping an XBOX controller, if you’re trying to make your point.
Secondly, the phrase, “That’s so ‘gamer guy who has more videogames than friends,’” is a terrible example.Do I think that’s mean?No.“That’s so Hair Plugs” or “That’s so Fat Redneck Prick” or “That’s so Spencer Pratt” – those are mean.
Gamers are never going to see the ad because they never come out of their oily basements long enough to do anything other than answer the door for the pizza guy or ask their moms to go to the drug store for a fresh box of Kleenex because they used last carton she bought to jerk-off to a fuzzy cartoon version of an adolescent Natalie Portman dancing that they drew and animated themselves.Now, that’s mean.
The ad was placed at a bus stop.Maybe junior high kids ride public transportation in
Los Angeles .But what’s more likely is...no they don’t.I’m guessing the majority are on yellow school busses or in the passenger seats of their parents’ cars.Even if they do ride public transportation, not one of the kids who needs to see the sign will; it is at the corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica Boulevard.Right in the middle of Boystown.It doesn’t get any gayer than that – and I’m not using that in the pejorative because, unless you place the ad above the urinal in the men’s room at The Abbey, it is quite impossible to find a location with a higher percentage of gay men anywhere in
Los Angeles.
Maybe Silverlake.
Placing the anti-gay-pejorative poster at the corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica is like placing a “That’s so Black” billboard over Crenshaw Boulevard in Inglewood, or pasting a “That’s so Karaoke” poster on construction scaffolding in Koreatown, or hanging a “That’s so Raven” banner from the balcony of Raven-Symoné’s bedroom.
The message is important, but the delivery is sadly ineffective.Even this television PSA with Hilary Duff falls short of its intentions.
How the fuck does Hilary Duff know that she meant the shirt was “bad”?If anything the girl “wearing a skirt as a top” is “so not gay.”A gay guy would never be that ridiculously unfashionable. Plus, the situation is absurd.I mean…I get the point, but the message is obfuscated by the attempt at humor.
As a consolation, I’ve created a new bus stop ad for GLSEN.I really think it drives home the point: don’t say stupid shit.
.jpg "http://www.eleventhdraft.com/fck_files/Image/5316959019_f1fdb53b26_b(1).jpg")
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.jpg "http://eleventhdraft.com/fck_files/Image/RepDemWomen(1).jpg")
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