The Wily Filipino

More on Language.

Grrr. My weblog has somehow ended up on some Google-harvesting site (you can probably see it on the list of referrers on the right -- some site I won't link to called Jokemata.com) for "filipino joke racist." What's worse, about three people have actually clicked it, looking for stuff. Granted, it may have been some academic looking for stuff to teach about in her class. =)

Well, people looking for jokes to tell behind their Filipino co-workers' or classmates' backs will be disappointed. Fuck off. (Although I guess you have every right to say them behind someone's back, as long as that's all you do.)*

Speaking of "fuck," America's lawmakers are busy protecting the nation from it -- and more besides. Here is the full text of H.R. 3687, introduced last December by Representatives Doug Ose (R-Calif.) and Lamar Smith (R-Texas):

108th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 3687

To amend section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, to provide for the punishment of certain profane broadcasts, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

December 8, 2003

Mr. OSE (for himself and Mr. SMITH of Texas) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

A BILL

To amend section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, to provide for the punishment of certain profane broadcasts, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--

(1) by inserting '(a)' before 'Whoever'; and

(2) by adding at the end the following:

'(b) As used in this section, the term 'profane', used with respect to language, includes the words 'shit', 'piss', 'fuck', 'cunt', 'asshole', and the phrases 'cock sucker', 'mother fucker', and 'ass hole', compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms).'.

END

I love the way Ose and Smith try to encompass all the possible grammatical forms, though I've frankly never seen the word "ass hole" split up like that.

Their proposed amendment was in response to the FCC's ruling last October (and I'm taking this from the FCC's memorandum) concerning "the 'Golden Globe Awards' program, during which the performer Bono uttered the phrase 'this is really, really, fucking brilliant,' or 'this is fucking great.'"

As a threshold matter, the material aired during the “Golden Globe Awards” program does not describe or depict sexual and excretory activities and organs. The word “fucking” may be crude and offensive, but, in the context presented here, did not describe sexual or excretory organs or activities. Rather, the performer used the word “fucking” as an adjective or expletive to emphasize an exclamation.

I think I'd have to agree with the FCC chair, Michael Powell (no, not that Michael Powell), on this one. (He asked his fellow commissioners to overturn the October decision.) Just about the rarest use of the word "fuck" in R-rated movies is in reference to the sexual act**; even folks who say "Fuck me!" mean it as an expression of disbelief, and not as an imperative. Otherwise, "fuck" is used more as an adjective ("fucking cool") or an adverb ("I am fucking getting wasted tonight") or a disparaging noun ("that racist fuck") -- and if used as a verb at all, it's used as a synonym for incompetence ("He fucked things up") or being in a bad situation ("I'm totally fucked"). (Speaking of Filipinos, Tagalog has all these infixes, and English doesn't -- except for words like "fanfuckingtastic," as popularized in the Oscar-winning tearjerker Terms of Endearment.)

And now that I've pushed my First Amendment rights to the polite limit: this is all just quibbling with semantics -- for a more serious look at language, see Buzzflash's excellent interview with linguist George Lakoff. (I bet the Students for Academic Freedom are all over him -- yet another politically outspoken linguistics professor!)

*Though as Wittman Ah Sing says in Maxine Hong Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey:

All my life, I've heard pieces of jokes... that they quit telling when I walk in. They're trying to drive me pre-psychotic. I'm already getting paranoid. I'm wishing for a cloak of invisibility. I want to hear the jokes they tell at the parties that I'm not invited to. Americans celebrate business and holidays with orgies of race jokes.

**Although one of the most memorable uses of the word in recent film history was as the final word of Stanley Kubrick's final movie, and that was meant sexually. Posted by the wily filipino at January 15, 2004 12:22 AM