08 Feb 2009
Acceptable homophobia on TV
The Café is RTÉ Two's yoof programming - largely inconsequential hilarity that the national public broadcaster's in-house censors don't pay any attention to.
I was accidentally watching it the other evening (just home from work, too lazy to switch to the news or Simpsons) when Aidan Power (the gingerish one who is shorter than Kathryn Thomas on the Lotto game show) referred to David Beckham as a 'ponce'. He had some startled rugby player on his sofa, so it was by way of comparison – rugby players only wince when they've got a leg off; soccer players cry if their hair is mussed, etc. – silly shit for airhead boys, but I was unaccountably offended.
Now, I realise that straight men are annoyed that lots of the indirect ways they interact with each other have been subverted by the dirty faggots and they get all annoyed that it's not PC to use the language of homophobia in their normal public intercourse (oooer, Mrs), but hey, when laddish-paid-by-a-proportion-of-homo-taxes Aidan Power calls someone a ponce on telly, I get offended.
Should homophobic language (if not intent) be acceptable? Or is it just that the words about inclusiveness, acceptance, tolerance and communitarian ideals that are written on the transparent walls of RTÉ's canteen are decorative, and the national broadcaster in fact just accurately re-presents contemporary Ireland in all of its subtle glory?