In August 2010, I found myself embroiled in a public spat when commercial radio station More FM Tauranga refused to apologise to gay listeners over the use of the word “poofter” on air, following a Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) decision which failed to uphold a complaint from a listener.
The BSA was satisfied with the station’s excuse that the word was used in the context of meaning “wuss” and did not refer to gay men.
Johnny Williams, a heterosexual Maori man, made the original complaint. “I heard it on the way to work one day, and let it go. Then I heard it again when traveling in the car with my wife, we were both appalled,” he says. “The second time we heard it played it was actually part of an advert for the station and that was the last straw.”
When the BSA’s decision made headlines, I decided to test the depth of feeling by starting a Facebook group asking More FM to say sorry. Over 100 people joined in less than 24 hours, answering the group’s call to email station management with their feedback.
By Saturday, news of the group was front page in the Bay of Plenty Times. The group was soon over-run with young men from Tauranga posting homophobic abuse. “Ohh Winge Winge Fucking Winge…Get a real up ya hahaha…Its Adam and Eve if i am Correct!!” wrote Ryka Edge. “You fags are just looking for someone to point the finger at. Put a plug in it,” wrote Lars Papita de Vries.
On Monday, More FM’s irate breakfast hosts, the strangely bearish Vinnie and Kirt started a personal crusade to justify the remarks by replaying the audio several times and inviting listeners to phone in with a response to the remarks and the Facebook group.
“Tell them to stop being bloody weasels,” said Francie from Bell View. “They need to pull their head out of their bottoms,” said Michelle from Welcome Bay.
The station also ran an online poll on its website asking listeners whether the word “poofter” was offensive in the context used and if Vinnie – who made the original remarks – should apologise. The poll closed after several days with 80% of respondents saying there should be no apology.
I asked station manager Tim Lockhart whether the station would be conducting similar polls on racist terms such as “nigger”, and if they had a positive response, would he sanction the use of those words on air?
He ignored the question. “We stand by the use of the term [poofter] in THIS context as a colloquial term used by Vinnie to refer to himself as a wuss he was not referring to anyone’s sexuality.”
I also asked if More FM Tauranga has any gay or lesbian staff. “We wouldn’t discuss this and wouldn’t actually know as we do not discriminate and do not know the sexuality of all our staff.”
Phillip McGrath is a gay man of Maori/Pacific descent who worked for More FM Tauranga for two years in 2004 as a sports/news reporter and presenter. He says the working environment was generally positive, however “that was tempered by the requirement that all commercial broadcast operations have, and that is to not appear overtly gay or overtly anything other than middle class heterosexual and white, which as an individual is crushing.”
In breakfast host Vinnie he sensed “a semblence of homophobia that appeared to be won over by my professionalism or my work…[he] was always known as someone who would be vocal with his opinions without always considering the wider ramifications of what he had said.”
[UPDATE: Two years on, Phillip says Vinnie's attitude change has been "phenomenal and we still have a great friendship to this day", but that he left the media industry because he was tired of the constant struggle of "winning over" those with homophobic attitudes.]
So when is the use of a homophobic term acceptable on air? In 2006, the BSA included the word “faggot” in their bi-annual national survey of how acceptable the public finds the use of certain words on television and radio. In the survey of 1500 people, “faggot” was the 9th most unacceptable word, with 46% of respondents rating it unacceptable – just ahead of “retard” on 44%. “Nigger” was placed 2nd, with 66%.
Dominic Sheehan, BSA chief executive, says the survey’s list of words is updated every few years to take into account words that have been complained about. “Poofter” may be added to the next survey.
As for Tauranga, it’s business as usual. The Facebook group has continued to attract homophobic abuse, with More FM expressing regret over the abuse without acknowledging their own part in encouraging it.
“Tauranga’s not just homophobic but its tolerance for anything/anyone different is almost non-existent,” says Johnny Williams, who grew up in Tauranga and went to Tauranga Boys College. “So I know what it’s like to have anti-gay ideas drummed into you. I’m glad it’s [Tauranga] got a bad rap for these sorts of things of late.”
But if bigotry from a small town is somewhat expected, what are we to make of this – from high-rating nationwide breakfast show The Edge – in 2011?
During The Edge Morning Show, broadcast on The Edge on 9 December 2011, one of the hosts, Dom, performed a parody of the song “All I Want for Christmas”. He later read out a listener’s text message which stated, “Dom, your song was so gay I’m pretty sure I just got AIDS from listening to it.” The other hosts responded with laughter.
The “other hosts” include openly gay Mike Puru, who recently volunteered his time to front a campaign for the New Zealand AIDS Foundation’s testing services (a campaign which I produced the video for).
The Broadcasting Standards Authority also declined to uphold a complaint against the above, saying, in part:
…we acknowledge that there are a number of contextual factors which favour the host’s decision to read the text aloud and the broadcaster’s decision to air it. In particular, we recognise the radio station’s target audience and its expectations as to the type of content usually broadcast on The Edge. RadioWorks contended that the announcers were renowned for their wit and quirky senses of humour, and often engaged in light-hearted banter intended to entertain the programme’s target audience of adults aged between 15 and 39 years.
So in the broadcasting world we live in, “poofter” does not mean gay and AIDS is light-hearted banter.
Perhaps wisely in this instance, the hosts kept their mouths shut and let the station’s lawyers do the talking.
But given Mike’s genuine (I believe) desire to support HIV/AIDS causes, should we have expected more from him?
Or like Phillip McGrath, is he feeling crushed by a system that favours the middle-class, heterosexual and white?
Adapted from an article originally published in Express in August 2010.
Hi Chris, another great piece. Not sure if you’ve seen this, but clearly the AFL in Australia takes such things seriously. For making an offensive AIDS-related tweet, this player received a $5000 fine payable to an AIDS related charity, a one game suspension and has to undertake an education programme.
Here’s the link: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/blues-anger-justified-michael-jamison/story-e6frg7mf-1226411283952
A lot of countries seem to take things more seriously than New Zealand. :/ Thanks for that link, Matt. Hope you’re well.
I have two topics to discuss, first to the actual article at hand. In North Carolina, USA there is radio station, WDCG 105.1, where the morning radio host, in his 16 years at the station, has gotten suspended for multiple racial remarks however when he makes horrible jokes at the expense of the LGBT community nothing is done. He has even gone so far as to fuss about the gay pride NC Gay Pride Festival/Parade (oops Festival and Parade). He then, with station backing, hosted a Heterosexual Pride Parade. He stated it wasn’t right for gays to have a pride parade if heterosexuals were not permitted to have one too. Nothing was done about his remarks, his parade or his attitude that there is a “Gay Agenda”.
My second point is to Eric Glare, first you missed the point of the entire article and took away from the point. Secondly WTF, here in The U.S. the context of the statement which was made in the article above, “But given Mike’s genuine (I believe) desire to support HIV/AIDS causes, should we have expected more from him?”, using HIV/AIDS or stating HIV and AIDS would be correct as he is meaning HIV causes and AIDS causes though most charities in the United States of America handles both HIV and AIDS because they are related. Plus the U.S. doesn’t consider HIV and AIDS to be the same thing as your statement seems to indicate. Lastly I would like to point out how petty your entire argument about the HIV/AIDS topic is and I can easily turn the pettiness back at you for your comment “even if you are using the American definition”. Traditionally I know that because the United States is the United States of America, the rest of the word refers to its populous as Americans and the country as America however technically any member of any country found in North America, South America and Central America can be referred to as an American. Now Eric I hope you can understand that by taking one small statement out of an article and making a huge deal out of it is rather petty and actually fits in your point “This is a common problem with activism”. When you take something out of context you truly can prove any point you want to our politicians here in the U.S. do it all the time.
On a side note: Christopher as a gay man who also suffers from Bi-polar disorder I want to thank you for your blog it has inspired me and helps me remember that there are people out there that do understand.
Thanks Nick. From what I know (correct me if I’m wrong on this), it’s the FCC that regulates broadcasting in the US, but from what I see of their website there is no way the public can complain about content in the same way we can here with our Broadcasting Standards Authority.
Admittedly, in a conservative state like NC (I have close friends who’ve just moved to Charlotte, a couple, one Kiwi, one American), a strategy like the following might be more difficult, but how about the lobbying of advertisers on that guy’s show?
For several years, we had a talkback host here who consistently would spend hours denigrating gays despite every type of reasonable intervention. I was working for the New Zealand AIDS Foundation at the time: we met with the station manager, we filed official complaints, we tried to get on air for a right of reply. Nothing seemed to work, and they kept playing the “free speech” card. Eventually what seemed to work was that a lot of gay-friendly businesses began pulling their ads from the show, then – miraculously – the host was pulled aside for a little talk and there’s been no problem since.
Money talks in commercial radio.
Yes Christopher, we do have the FCC however the power of the FCC is limited. They recommend that you, the listener, attempt to reconcile the issue with the radio station. When there are a large number of complaints coming in then they may take action, however if that is the case the radio station has already taken action to avoid the fines from the FCC by suspending the DJ with pay. So they basically give him a paid vacation…..Lobbying here is a joke at times, now granted there have been talk show host that have been removed/fired (hope no one takes offense to the / ….Ok petty party of one petty party of one.), however this usually only happens when a racial slur has been made against a minority group but this doesn’t apply to all minority groups. As long as a shows ratings are up and sales are doing ok at the sponsor then nothing will be done. There are enough people in this “god forsaken” state that are anti-gay that nothing will be done. We just voted in a state constitutional amendment stating that the state will only recognize marriages between a man and a woman. The most educated areas of the state voted against the amendment however this was not even a third of the state. We are home to the Southern Baptist Convention headquarters, (not sure if you know what Southern Baptist are but lest just say they are not a pleasant christian church organization) We also were the first state to have a minister state that all homosexuals should be put into concentration camps, separate one for gay men and lesbians because we might breed, so we will die off. You have to find it on YouTube if you can it will make your head hurt from the stupidity and then there is the defense that one his followers gives, which made be feel embarrassed to be human.
Basically for change to truly come to North Carolina is for the Federal Government to make change to its policies, to which the states would have to fall in line.
Does everyone understand that this nothing to do with backslash vs and? That was Christopher’s distracting ‘misunderstanding’. It is about the meaning of the words, that these are distinctly different and should be used as such.
So you reject the Australian language guidelines that exist to counter stigma? Is there such a standard in the U.S. (I put in the full stops just for you) or in NZ and do advocates follow them? Are we Aussies petty fools obsessed with our community bases-response or are we being proactive and responsible? How is that we are on to at least our 3rd edition of these guidelines but you people don’t get one of the basic recommendations in it? I may not write well but the guidelines are very clear.
I think only half of the slur is being addressed here: that all gay men have AIDS. The other half has been ignored; that you can catch AIDS, that HIV essentially equals AIDS or everyone with HIV has/will get AIDS. It is because of these untrue slurs that we only use AIDS when we specifically refer to AIDS. It is these myths as a whole that explain that AIDS is not light-hearted banter. Consequently I believe the language usage goes to the heart of the issue of this post. I should not have to painstakingly explain this to a journalist who has worked in the HIV sector.
Christopher and Nick you have both claimed ‘and/or AIDS’ was appropriate and not a tautology in the context but you have not provided an example of AIDS that isn’t encapsulated BETTER by HIV.
This started as “I think you could help things a long..” but because you couldn’t take some old well-worked guidelines on board it has turned into a mountain-sized farce.
“I think only half of the slur is being addressed here: that all gay men have AIDS. The other half has been ignored; that you can catch AIDS, that HIV essentially equals AIDS or everyone with HIV has/will get AIDS”
The first half is irrelevant – why should it matter if all gay men *do* have AIDS… and the other half doesn’t matter to the general public, Eric, many of whom still believe you can catch HIV (or AIDS, they don’t see the difference) from a teacup. The level of ignorance is so high as to make your distinctions and guidelines into nitpicking irrelevancies.
The central issue here is whether it’s acceptable to joke about what is still a life-threatening illness in a homophobic manner on the radio, particularly when one of the bystanders is fronting a New Zealand AIDS Foundation campaign. It’s a disgusting insult to the millions who have died from AIDS-related causes. That’s where my anger comes from.
Personally, I consider this particular ‘joke’ to be on the level of humour about the Holocaust. It is unacceptable. Your contribution to this discussion has been the Holocaust equivalent of quibbling over whether we should be referring separately to victims who were gassed or shot. You’re missing the whole point, and again off topic.
There is nothing more disrespectful to those who have died than not trying to do better prevention in the future. Your response is a disgusting insult to those living with HIV and those yet to get infected. I nearly died from HIV not AIDS and I am not hearing respect from you for people with HIV or their efforts to prevent further infections.
The core issue is WHY it isn’t an acceptable joke.
“The first half is irrelevant – why should it matter if all gay men *do* have AIDS”
How insenstive can you get? It matters because it isn’t true, not remotely so anywhere in the world. It matters because it is stigmatising and demoralising – key drivers of the epidemic. That is the same as saying it doesn’t matter if people say all gay men are sluts or saying all people with bipolar are as thick as bricks or untrustworthy.
“The level of ignorance is so high as to make your distinctions and guidelines into nitpicking irrelevancies. ”
Complete cop-out. You are attacking me and the NAPWA guidelines – attacking the Australian sector – that’s contemptuous and unethical for a journalist who claims to be helping. Why can’t you leave it to the experts to work out the best? You are saying I should not have had a volunteer career in public speaking for the past eight years – it might have saved my life in my fight with bipolar but our team of speakers have completely wasted our time. The truth is most people get the idea, most 15 yr old school kids get it and I talk to thousands of people a year where the distinction between HIV and AIDS and respectful language are key topics – like 52 police recruits on last Thursday – they are expected to use HIV not AIDS unless invited to. No one is telling me they shouldn’t change because “it doesn’t matter” – except you and a few other right wingers.
Will you stop talking down AIDS prognosis in our privileged societies. AIDS is NOT a life-threatening illness in our countries if you aren’t too afraid to get tested and treated.
And now you have evoked Goodwin’s law – I think this is another case of you not being able to take constructive feedback. It is another case of you not getting stigma, not getting that you are helping to drive the epidemic. Sorry but I keep seeing this is your otherwise excellent blogs.
Honestly, Eric, I can’t see any further value in discussing this particular issue with you: with your powerful personal story and academic credentials, I find it gobsmacking that you’re attacking the messenger rather than homophobic broadcasters.
You’re fighting with me over a group of letters when there’s genuine homophobia out there in the world to be countered.
That is what it boils down to: attacking homophobia at the expense of HIV and AIDS-phobias even though they are all intimately intertwined. I would not have persisted with this line if it was a one off but you continually deal out this kind of stigma in your blogs whilst bragging about helping the cause. You’re the perpetrator on a weekly basis and that is why I read your blog.
Very strong words there, Eric. I’m seeing a lot of ad hominem attacks on my character and not a great deal of substance.
If you’d like to put together a 750-800 word piece on how we should be dealing with stigma, I’d be happy to consider publishing it as a guest blog. You can find my contact details at burningrope DOT co DOT nz.
Eric, I have to agree with Christopher and hope that you will follow his suggestion to submit a paper so he can post it as a guest blogger. As to your comments I will make one and only one rebuttal then, I dare say we will have to agree to disagree. This is a blog Eric not a term paper that I will submitting to one of my college professors, in psychology or English, for grading. As one of my favorite teachers once said “A paper can be perfect grammatically and be boring as hell, however most papers, where there are grammar issue can be the next best seller.” A good example is the U.S. author and Nobel prize winner William Faulkner (You may find spelled Falkner as he used this spelling for part of his life). This “Great American Author”, and I use this term lightly as I hate his books, wrote in train of thought which definitely has grammatical errors but people loved his books none the less. The main point is, as long as the message is getting across correctly then who cares if it is grammatically correct.
Ok there was my rebuttal and now I say that we agree to disagree.
For the fifth time, Nick, this is not about grammar or backslash. It is about the misusing AIDS when you mean HIV. It is about unnecessarily tagging HIV with AIDS to cuase stigma, hurt and propagation of the epidemic – and in your country, you use AIDS to elicit a crumb of empahty so that PLHIV can get access to healthcare and antiretrovirals (they are free here in Melbourne). Note we no longer use PLWHA.
If you don’t understand this difference then you haven’t looked at the Australian style guide and you have not thought one bit about why an Australian team put it together a decade ago. It is equivalent to using ‘gay/drag’ for every occassion when you refer to gay men.
From your own admissions, you live in an area where you are so far behind in destigmatising language much of what we lobby on must seem petty to you and you can’t be in a ligit position to commentate. Well we are not giving up our priveledge to show you the way. One day you might live in your society and enjoy what we have pioneered.
Why would I use my brain power to write on this blog for people like you who pathetically think at any time my argument was about and vs / ???
I think you could help things a long yourself by not using HIV/AIDS when you really mean HIV. We have long been in an era where the majority of people experiencing illness due to HIV do not have AIDS and the majority of people who do have AIDS are actually well and no longer have their AIDS-defining illness. This is because AIDS is forever by definition despite that all the AIDS-defining illness can be cured. Even HIV-associated dementia (HAD) is generally reversible by treatment. Using AIDS is so stigmatising and retrieves anxieties from the earlier days of the epidemic.
Hi Eric, thanks for your feedback. I note that “HIV/AIDS” appears only once in this entire article. I’m very aware of the difference between the two, perhaps I should have used “and”, because I was actually referring to both in this sentence.
I find it a little ironic that you feel I am being stigmatising because of a (perhaps) misplaced use of a backslash when there are gay men laughing at AIDS jokes on the radio. What’s your response to that?
Firstly, HIV/AIDS and ‘HIV and AIDS’ are the same thing in this context, so it isn’t about grammar. Secondly, what was it that you added by using ‘and AIDS’ that was not already completely encapsulated by ‘HIV’?
It is a tautology and it is like organising a bear’s picnic but referring to bears/ginger bears. To justify using a stigmatising and widely misunderstood term such as AIDS you need to be referring to something in common with the desperate conditions that make up AIDS – within an AIDS diagnosis there are only two things that are in common to people: HIV and immunodeficiency at some point in time. Immunodeficiency is more common in the absence of AIDS so I cannot see any example in Western countries where the tag AIDS is required (even if you are using the American definition). Nor can I think of an equivalent health example where we persist with such a stigma loaded tautology. I find people, healthcare workers included, use AIDS because they erroneously think it means ‘ill people with HIV’. Try using cancer/terminal cancer and see what reception it gets.
I don’t know about NZ but the Aussie guidelines have long been not to use AIDS unless you are specifically referring to AIDS. The name of some our organisations are the last remnants of this, eg People Living with HIV/AIDS Victoria, but several have changed. See: http://napwa.org.au/papers/2009/napwa-language-and-style-guide
This is a common problem with activism – because people’s intentions are noble they think they could not possibly be contributing to stigma. I guess your complaint wasn’t going to go far with the BSA but it seems an opportunity to education the hosts beyond not making jokes might have been missed – does your Mike Puru know that most people with AIDS are well?
Eric, I didn’t make the complaint. You clearly haven’t read the blog post, and are using this as an opportunity to grandstand over an issue that has nothing to do with the topic being discussed here; namely homophobia on the radio. Keep on topic, please, out of courtesy to other readers.
Firstly, HIV/AIDS and ‘HIV and AIDS’ are the same thing in this context, so it isn’t about grammar. Secondly, what was it that you added by using ‘and AIDS’ that was not already completely encapsulated by ‘HIV’?
It is a tautology and it is like organising a bear’s picnic but referring to bears/ginger bears. To justify using a stigmatising and widely misunderstood term such as AIDS you need to be referring to something in common with the desperate conditions that make up AIDS – within an AIDS diagnosis there are only two things that are in common to people: HIV and immunodeficiency at some point in time. Immunodeficiency is more common in the absence of AIDS so I cannot see any example in Western countries where the tag AIDS is required (even if you are using the American definition). Nor can I think of an equivalent health example where we persist with such a stigma loaded tautology. I find people, healthcare workers included, use AIDS because they erroneously think it means ‘ill people with HIV’. Try using cancer/terminal cancer and see what reception it gets.
I don’t know about NZ but the Aussie guidelines have long been not to use AIDS unless you are specifically referring to AIDS. The name of some our organisations are the last remnants of this, eg People Living with HIV/AIDS Victoria, but several have changed. Goodle NAPWA language and style guide.
This is a common problem with activism – because people’s intentions are noble they think they could not possibly be contributing to stigma. I guess your complaint wasn’t going to go far with the BSA but it seems an opportunity to education the hosts beyond not making jokes might have been missed.