At my work we have the television turned on to Channel 10 mostly for background. Just before closing, I was watching the evening news about the national headline story of Jane Fonda saying the word ‘cunt’ on the Today Show. Her saying it wasn’t nearly as entertaining as watching Meredith Veira backtrack and make excuses for NBC, the Today Show, and Jane Fonda.
However, the funniest thing was watching the evening local anchor, Ron Hoon, tap dance about the content of the Fonda story. He referenced the Vagina Monologues about a dozen times without once saying the word ‘vagina’! It was almost like he was playing one of those word guessing games. After the segment was finished, both anchors must have realized how asinine doing a story about Fonda and the Vagina Monologues was without actually saying the word ‘vagina’ that they both made lighthearted comments about the difficulty of such a feat.
I am not 100% sure how it relates to WST 100. It seems like it ought to somehow. Even so, it’s definitely a commentary about the extent of the right wing mentality that pervades our culture and affects our media.
i think its very relevant! for jane to say cunt in the context of the vagina monologues is illustrative of the feminist strategy to reclaim terms that have been used to oppress women. the v.m. really speaks to a different tactic which is to speak up! and originally regarded the ‘shame’ of speaking about our ‘parts’ ‘down there’ which is the rhetoric most often put upon young folks who are maturing. seems that folks are really not quite up to the task to use, even a clinical term (vagina) in the evening news… which is amazing given the verbiage used to ramp up the recent controversy about the prostitution ring!!!