I know that many people don’t believe that many people are just flat-out, batshit insane. That is not a good working assumption and it happens on the Left, Right, Top, Down and every other contortion that you can imagine. I just got a warning from Chronos for insulting Forrest Gumps’ intellectual abilities. That is basically the whole point of the Academy Award winning movie. If you want to see PC culture gone bad, here is an example.
Originally Posted by Chronos
Dear Shagnasty,
You have received a warning at Straight Dope Message Board.
Reason:
Hate speech
I think that it’s pretty clear that the word “retard” in this context counts as an offensive slur, in the same category as ethnic slurs. “Retarded person” would have worked just as well, and not been offensive.
Previously by me:
What I am saying is that the book(s) and the movie aren’t that closely related. I have read the books and seen the movie dozens of times. At least in the movie, she died of AIDS complications. That is made abundantly clear without being blatantly stated. It really doesn’t matter what the book says because the screenwriters completely rewrote the entire story to be a montage of late 20th century history as seen through a retards eyes.
Warnings serve as a reminder to you of the forum’s rules, which you are expected to understand and follow.
All the best,
Later…
I am sorry Chronos and I will take the warning if needed but I still don’t see the justification based on forum rules. I have been here over 17 years and never received a warning because I obey the rules. I can’t see how discussing a fictional character would justify a warning.
Can you point me to which specific rule I broke? Forrest Gump is one of my favorite movies that I have seen dozens of times. The whole point of the movie is viewing American history through an idiot’s life. It won an Academy Award for it. I can’t see how changing the terminology in a subtle way makes anything different. That is just PC culture gone bad. It doesn’t change the fact that Forrest had a very serious mental deficiency no matter what you call it but still turned out to be a great person. I take it as an inspirational story more than anything.
I never insulted any real person so please explain the reasoning.
A link to the thread would help. But your reasoning does not seem correct to me. Do you think it would be acceptable to refer to a fictional black character as “the nigger in that movie”?
If “retard” is deemed an unacceptable offensive slur, it doesn’t matter how you use it, just that you use it. (Whether “retard” is now deemed so offensive might be a matter of opinion, I don’t know.)
Yes in the case of Huckleberry Finn. No for most other stories. It is all about context. The whole point of Forrest Gump was that he was mentally disabled (retarded) but still managed to stumble across just about everything. It is hardly unfair to call him retarded because that is most of the point of the whole story. It doesn’t mean that I would call anyone else that. We are talking about a fictional character here. It is like getting a warning for criticizing Bugs Bunny.
I have a challenge for you. I used the generic term “retard” for a fictional person. I was told that wasn’t acceptable. I should have use “retarded person”. What is the difference? It isn’t like I am going to use either of those terms for someone that I know in real life. I would just call them by their name and help them the best that I can. However, there isn’t much that I can do for someone that never existed.
Punch down to who…fictional characters? That would be really cool if I could do that but things don’t work that way. I treat all the disabled people I know in real life with the utmost respect but that is kind of hard to do when they don’t exist.
I don’t have a bone in the fight over the warning itself, but there’s no question whatsoever that “retard” is a demeaning insult and “retarded person” is… well, less so. Even that phrase is being phased out due to the baggage associated with it. Nowadays we would say Forrest Gump had an intellectual disability.
Again, I have never called anyone that in real life. It is just a couple of books and an Academy Award winning movie. They use the term “local idiot” and “retard” in it. It has nothing to do with anything else. I don’t think it should be that controversial to use the same language that the movie uses when discussing the movie let alone get a warning for it.
Eh…I think I’m with Shagnasty on this one. I’m inclined to say calling a fictional character anything really shouldn’t be warnable unless it is part of an attempt to troll the board.
People told you in that thread that what you were doing wasn’t “insulting Forest Gump.” I’m not sure why you think that argument would go over better in the Pit.
I think I’ll just quote myself, in case this gets moved to ATMB, where it belongs.
I have to reluctantly agree. It’s one of those terms that is not quite hate speech and any other offensive slur has always been within bounds for offboard persons, fictional or real life. People who choose to use those terms should and will certainly be judged for it, but it isn’t a warnable offense based on everything I know about the rules of the boards.
That said, I think the one use might have been given a pass since it was about a fictional character and is one of those ‘not quite yet considered to be hate speech’ words, but when people complained that it was offensive to them and many others instead of just saying my bad and moving on he doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on it. In his protests adding the words nigger, whore, and others to the discussion to emphasize his point was probably not a good idea.
There’s a poster on this board whose user name has been morphed into a form of the word at issue: BigT. While I have no patience for BigT, I have less for that variant of his name.
Yes (so far as I am aware) no one was ever warned for “hate speech” directed at BigT (and my understanding is that “hate speech” even in the Pit is not permitted).
So now we have the curious case that we can direct this slur at a real-life poster with impunity, but heaven forfend we level it at a fictional character.
Uh, cite? Since when have offensive slurs in general been “within bounds” on these boards for “offboard persons, fictional or real life”?
Has it ever been okay on these boards to call, say, Obama or Jay-Z a “nigger”? Is it okay to refer to the governor of Puerto Rico as a “spic”? Can you call Jared Kushner or Woody Allen a “kike”? As far as I know, none of those persons are present on these boards. But I think if you used that kind of language to refer to them, you’d get a warning.
“Retard” is generally considered a milder slur than “nigger” or “spic” or “kike” or their ilk, but it’s still definitely in the Do Not Use category as far as I’m aware. And if it’s in the Do Not Use category according to board regulations, then it can’t be applied to anybody, present, offboard, real-life or fictional.
I think you and the OP are mixing up the concepts of a “slur” and an “insult”. We know that it’s okay to describe a public figure as a “birdbrained cumdribble”, for example, even where we’re not allowed to apply such a term directly to a fellow poster (except in the Pit). But that doesn’t mean that every insulting term is equally permissible in such a situation. The insults that are categorized as offensive slurs are not supposed to be used for anybody, whether they’re reading the post or not.
Agreed. It was an ill-considered choice and definitely not a hill worth dieing on in an argument.
But I do see it as fundamentally different from BigT’s example. If someone called the fictional character Bubba a nigger in that thread, I wouldn’t be offended for anybody - I’d think “they’re trolling.” That’d be the warnable offense IMHO. But I’m pretty sure there was no intent to troll here.
Untwist those knickers, Bricker old buddy—you seem to have forgotten that plenty of posters around here use the term “libtard” with equal impunity. For linguistic reasons I’m not privy to, the suffix “-tard” is generally treated as less outright offensive than the word “retard”.
Personally, I don’t like the suffix “-tard” either in any context, and I wouldn’t mind if the moderators decided to ban that too. But for the nonce you can rest easy in the realization that your hypocrisy meter gave you a false positive reading here.
I guess I personally don’t quite put “retard” in that same category. It comes from the same genetic line of insults as “moron” and “idiot” and has about the same impact to me. But I understand mileage may vary.
But in that case a note instead of a warning might have been more appropiate IMHO. I think a formal warning in this case in unduly harsh.
