Thread: John Ahlers anti-gay comment

Originally Posted by Blueline

Queer may be used a homophobic term, but that certainly isn't it's only meaning and smear the queer has always been a game played by kids where the fastest, strongest kid was usually the queer...so I really don't get how that could be held in a homophobic light as usually homophobes are degrading gay people, not making them out to be the fastest, strongest in the group?

try framing the game this way: the "queer" is the target that everyone else attacks and beats up.

i played the game as a kid, too, and i knew what it meant. the "queer" was not the hero you make him out to be. the "queer" had to run for his life because 10 other kids were trying to pound him.

I suspect we could take a poll of 100 random guys who played the game as kids, and very, very few, if any, of them would say that being the "queer" was a position of honor. and i would wager that a vast majority of them would acknowledge that "queer" was meant to impart homosexuality in the teasing way that kids will call one another "***."

i think your argument is specious. and i expect that no amount of reason will change your mind now that you're invested in the position you've staked out for yourself.

I do remember in middle school kids calling it Smear the Queer and actually meaning "homosexual" by the term. One kid would have the ball, and the others would try to knock the **** out of him.


Anyways, I'm not really sure that's the definition had in mind when they titled the game that. If so, Ahlers really should've used a better choice of words.

it would be great to know how our various posters are. I think the change in generations may have changed connotations as well.

as far as being the queer - as soon as the ball was given up, someone would instantly grab it and start running. if you could stay up the longest, you were studly.

I think it was pretty moronic for him to say that, given the extreme sensitivity to such things these days. I can fully understand how some would find it offensive. I'm quite sure he's been reprimanded and perhaps a public apology is on order. Trying to get the guy fired is quite lame considering the obvious anti-Duck bias from posters here. Getting the ACLU and GLAAD involved is complete overkill and a waste of their resources IMO.

Stupid for him to say it, no doubt, but I'm not gonna grab a pitchfork and demand he gets strung up.

Originally Posted by eyesk8r

Sorry but I have to agree with RR here. When I was in middle school in the early 90s we used to play "smear the queer" all the time, when the school staff realized what we were calling it the demanded we either change what we called, or didn't play anymore either way if we continued calling it as we were, we'd be suspended. So called it jungle ball.

It's funny you sat stop being so sensitive, but yet we have all these actvists talking about the new Miley Cirus (or as i like to call it circus) video. We now live in a society where what happens on TV dictates the lives of our youth, where who Paris Hilton ****ed is now News worthy, and how much coke Lindsey Lohan sniffs is on our front pages.

It has nothing to with being too sensitive, it has to do with right and wrong, and people have been told for so long that they're just being sensitive, when in fact people most notably teens are being hurt by peoples words to the point that they prefer death. To me that screams, something is wrong.

What's next, are we going to defend saying the word gay, back in the 50's gay meant happy. My point, using phrases like that may not hurt you or I, but it may hurt someone else.
Posted via Mobile Device

Racist!
/sarcasm

Originally Posted by gokingsgo25

It's actually Chris Pronger's face..LOL
Posted via Mobile Device

What difference does that make? How can you get all up in arms about what Ahlers said when you have that for your avatar?

Originally Posted by BeerMan

I say let's call GLAAD organizations and have them hold protests at the Ponda.

Not gonna happen. That would entail people actually GOING to the Pond for a hockey game.

Originally Posted by 4/10/82

try framing the game this way: the "queer" is the target that everyone else attacks and beats up.

i played the game as a kid, too, and i knew what it meant. the "queer" was not the hero you make him out to be. the "queer" had to run for his life because 10 other kids were trying to pound him.

I suspect we could take a poll of 100 random guys who played the game as kids, and very, very few, if any, of them would say that being the "queer" was a position of honor. and i would wager that a vast majority of them would acknowledge that "queer" was meant to impart homosexuality in the teasing way that kids will call one another "***."

i think your argument is specious. and i expect that no amount of reason will change your mind now that you're invested in the position you've staked out for yourself.

Maybe you played the game differently than we did because every person that was the "queer" did so on thier own, it wasn't forced upon them. You grabbed the ball because you felt you could outrun, outmanuever and outlast the others. The ball wasn't forced upon the gay kid or anything and subsequently mugged. It took balls to be the queer knowing all the other kids were indeed gonna try and pound you.

So yea I did see it as a person of honor because it took guts to do something that had heavy consequences (for a kid) and you knew full well that eventually the same thing that happened to the guy before you could/would happen to you.

If the queer in your game was really the victim you make him out to be, how did you get anyone to play? Or has the PC world simply taken one thing and twisted it into something else altogether?

Originally Posted by santiclaws

So, if the game was called "Spike the Kike" and the kids used the word innocently, without having any idea what it meant, there's no problem with using the name of the game now? Brick the Spic? Dink the Chink? Slap the Jap? Bag the ***? All perfectly OK?

I'm hardly the PC type, but this sets my "wrong" buzzer off. Language is a very, very powerfu means of expression. While there is validity to the argument that how a word is used is important, certain words carry a very recognizable inherent message. Any word is simply a collection of letters arranged in a certain way, but every society recognizes that certain collections carry a strong message.

If the game were created today, you would have a very strong point here, but it wasn't. The game has been played by kids longer than queer became a common negative name for gay people.

Funny though as now many gay and lesbian orgs are pushing for the word queer to be used rather than gay, but would still be a negative if used as that definition for this game, but it isn't.

Queer is used as a verb here, not a noun. And I think that makes all the difference in the world.

Should he have said it during a broadcast, probably not, was he being descriminative when doing so, probably not.