I'm a Gen X parent and I am so so proud of my kids' acceptance of others in the world. Pronouns, all of it. I've told them what it was like when I was a kid and they look at me like I'm from the Stone Age. Let's never go back.
Great piece. We've had similar experiences in our family, especially with the Murphy stand-up movies, which we completely forgot were so homophobic. I like that you point to the arc from the 80s to the more enlightened 90s. I wonder if some of the homophobic jokes were a sort of Hollywood collective consciousness processing of the acknowledgement of openly gay people in the culture generally?
I probably heard that f-word a hundred times per day back in high school in the 80's. It was so common that it lost meaning.
That being said, if statues of Bill and Ted existed, would they face toppling in a few decades from now? The change in social norms over just 30 years provides some frame of reference to how people of the present can't predict how their legacies will be perceived in the future.
Political correctness/wokeness or whatever it is called has to reach an endpoint soon. Speech will lose meaning if it is completely sanitized and opinions will become meaningless, they can't offend anyone who has every walked the Earth.
Despite their offensiveness to modern tastes, 80's Teen Comedies are close to my favorite movie genre. The humor is genuine, probably because it wasn't passed through any lens of social acceptability.
while I wholeheartedly agree we genXers used plenty of slurs, I'm not sure we connected it as actual insults to real people. 'that's gay' was short for that's lame and we used that expression in front of, or even to, a gay classmate (ok, people didn't announce their sexuality back then, but you knew). and we used ethnic slurs just as casually. in my highschool yearbook, the caption under two best buddies - one brown and one white - was "spick and span" (!) I was shocked and appalled when I saw that in my 40s, but back then, it was just the water we swam in.
don't forget we also watched Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer (now considered a horrific depiction of bullying) without critical thought. in fact, one could argue we didn't 'see' the bullying because it was a pretty accurate portrait of how kids were with each other. everything and everyone is a product of their time.
Great piece! I had forgotten about Kurt Cobain's anti-homophobic stance. I also think that some of the gender-bending performers in the 1980s (Boy George, David Bowie) might have helped turn the homophobic tide in popular culture--of course, they were from the UK, where maybe homophobia wasn't quite so rampant to start with.
Great column - important to acknowledge and call this out. My peers and I often talk about this. How rampant it was to use “gay” as a generic insult and make jokes at the expense of LGBTQ people. Unfortunately, kids use “gay” as an insult almost as much now, it seems - even as they are accepting and tolerant of different sexual orientations and gender identities.
Do they? I have not noticed it in my kids -- it surprises me if it has come back as an insult, given the current cultural norms around this stuff. Maybe they're just being retro?
I was quite surprised too, but have seen it to be quite prevalent amongst boys at the high school level. Not as common as during our childhoods, but still... it's out there, from what I see.
I'm a Gen X parent and I am so so proud of my kids' acceptance of others in the world. Pronouns, all of it. I've told them what it was like when I was a kid and they look at me like I'm from the Stone Age. Let's never go back.
Great piece. We've had similar experiences in our family, especially with the Murphy stand-up movies, which we completely forgot were so homophobic. I like that you point to the arc from the 80s to the more enlightened 90s. I wonder if some of the homophobic jokes were a sort of Hollywood collective consciousness processing of the acknowledgement of openly gay people in the culture generally?
Amen.
I probably heard that f-word a hundred times per day back in high school in the 80's. It was so common that it lost meaning.
That being said, if statues of Bill and Ted existed, would they face toppling in a few decades from now? The change in social norms over just 30 years provides some frame of reference to how people of the present can't predict how their legacies will be perceived in the future.
Political correctness/wokeness or whatever it is called has to reach an endpoint soon. Speech will lose meaning if it is completely sanitized and opinions will become meaningless, they can't offend anyone who has every walked the Earth.
Despite their offensiveness to modern tastes, 80's Teen Comedies are close to my favorite movie genre. The humor is genuine, probably because it wasn't passed through any lens of social acceptability.
while I wholeheartedly agree we genXers used plenty of slurs, I'm not sure we connected it as actual insults to real people. 'that's gay' was short for that's lame and we used that expression in front of, or even to, a gay classmate (ok, people didn't announce their sexuality back then, but you knew). and we used ethnic slurs just as casually. in my highschool yearbook, the caption under two best buddies - one brown and one white - was "spick and span" (!) I was shocked and appalled when I saw that in my 40s, but back then, it was just the water we swam in.
don't forget we also watched Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer (now considered a horrific depiction of bullying) without critical thought. in fact, one could argue we didn't 'see' the bullying because it was a pretty accurate portrait of how kids were with each other. everything and everyone is a product of their time.
Still going strong in the mid-90s!
https://youtu.be/jbygQq93ULM?si=LnrJHgZ7NAd08l1m
Kurt 💔
Great piece! I had forgotten about Kurt Cobain's anti-homophobic stance. I also think that some of the gender-bending performers in the 1980s (Boy George, David Bowie) might have helped turn the homophobic tide in popular culture--of course, they were from the UK, where maybe homophobia wasn't quite so rampant to start with.
I think that's a big part of it. 1980s UK music had a lot more openly gay elements -- Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Culture Club, The Smiths, etc.
Great column - important to acknowledge and call this out. My peers and I often talk about this. How rampant it was to use “gay” as a generic insult and make jokes at the expense of LGBTQ people. Unfortunately, kids use “gay” as an insult almost as much now, it seems - even as they are accepting and tolerant of different sexual orientations and gender identities.
Do they? I have not noticed it in my kids -- it surprises me if it has come back as an insult, given the current cultural norms around this stuff. Maybe they're just being retro?
I was quite surprised too, but have seen it to be quite prevalent amongst boys at the high school level. Not as common as during our childhoods, but still... it's out there, from what I see.