Sharon Stone does a brief zen meditation session on the set of Basic Instinct 2 while trying to uncover the elusive difference between fag and faggot.
See, it's all about Got.
No, God has absolutely nothing to do with anything. I wrote Got. Just follow me.
Exhibit A:
When Alan Arkin's heroin-addicted grandpa tells Steve Carell's wimpy, sexless gay amoeba to go get himself a "fag rag," the audience at the industry screening where I saw the weather-beaten Little Miss Sunshine pissed in their pants laughing. (You could actually smell the stench.)
Little Miss Sunshine has gone on to win the Producers Guild Award for best picture of 2006; it has won numerous critics' awards for Michael Arndt's screenplay, and it has received four Academy Award nominations, including best film and best original screenplay.
Exhibit B:
When Isaiah Washington of the ABC television show Grey's Anatomy said the word "faggot" (often printed as "f&%$!@t" because it's so darned offensive) at a press conference at this year's Golden Globes, all hell broke loose. Co-stars berated him; the media pounced on him; ABC executives considered canning him; gay and lesbian anti-defamers counseled him.
At the time, Washington wasn't calling anyone any names. He was simply denying (whether truthfully or not) that he had referred to gay co-star T. R. Knight as a "faggot" on the Grey's Anatomy set. The Outraged Ones went after Washington with spiked hammers and electric chainsaws simply because he had uttered That W*rd in public.
Exhibit C:
"I've been called a bitch — and a lot worse — for years. And you know what, so what? [Italics hers] People who think that aren't going to change their minds. And I wouldn't dream of sending them to therapy to 'rehabilitate' their feelings. How absurd. … Please, I call all my gay friends 'big fags.'"
That's actress Sharon Stone referring to the Isaiah Washington Incident, as quoted by gossip columnist Liz Smith.
Unfortunately, Stone doesn't tell us if she calls all her straight male friends "big pricks," her lesbian friends "big dykes," or her straight female friends "big cunts." It's equally unfortunate that we never learn the colorful names Sharon Stone calls her black friends, her Jewish friends, her Episcopalian friends, or her Western Samoan friends (if any).
In any case, in Smith's article — which a friend e-mailed me; I never read that sort of trash — the columnist goes on to discuss Stone's "delightfully profane 'great broad' status," including her involvement in charities for (poor) kids even while raising three (rich) kids of her own. (Now, if one — or two — turn out to be gay, will Mama Stone refer to them as "My big fag son" or "My big dyke daughter"?)
In the article, Stone also offers generous praise for the performances of her fellow players in Bobby and Alpha Dog, though there's no word on the professionalism of her Basic Instinct 2 co-stars. (For her "performance" in that film, Stone recently earned a Razzie nomination for worst actress of 2006. As to be expected, there was no Razzie mention in the piece.)
And finally, Smith reports Stone's dismay about the allegation that Rupert Everett's out-of-the-closetedness has lost him the role of James Bond. (I'm assuming Stone and Everett aren't close buds; else she'd have referred to him as "that big fag" who should've played Agent 007.)
I totally agree with you, of course. Name calling of that sort is never ok, no matter which group is being targeted.
But then again, no one has ever accused the human race of *not* being hypocritical.
I think that it's sad that Sharon Stone is often cited for her intelligence which is something that I have never seen much evidence of, ever. And as far as her "great broad" status only one B-Word comes to mind when I think of Sharon Stone. As far as "that word" goes it's something that I think is in league with the "N-Word" somehow some people feel it's a perfectly okay word to use as long as the right people are using it. Silly but a universal opinion has sadly yet to be reached. I remember all the hoopla over Jennifer Lopez using the "N-Word" in a song, only I wasn't at all shocked because the year I spent at a predominantly Latino high school I heard that word used more than I ever had before. It's just all so unfortunate, if T.R. Knight would had called Washington the "N-Word" he would have been fired.