Faggot
[1][2] In American youth culture around the turn of the 21st century, its meaning extended as a broader reaching insult more related to masculinity and group power structure.
[3] The usage of fag and faggot has spread from the United States to varying extents elsewhere in the English-speaking world (especially the UK) through mass culture, including film, music, and the internet.
The first recorded use of faggot as a pejorative term for gay men was in the 1914 A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang, while the shortened form fag first appeared in 1923 in The Hobo by Nels Anderson.
[13] Originally confined to the United States,[6] the use of the words fag and faggot as slurs for gay men has spread elsewhere in the English-speaking world, but the extent to which they are used in this sense has varied outside the context of imported US popular culture.
[14] Use of fag and faggot as the term for an effeminate man has become understood as an Americanism in British English, primarily due to entertainment media use in films and television series imported from the United States.
When Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews was overheard supposedly using the word in a bad-tempered informal exchange with a straight colleague in the House of Commons lobby in November 2005, it was considered to be homophobic abuse.
[17][18] In a 2018 study completed by the Anti-Defamation League surveying Generation Z from Grade 6 and up, youth perspectives on the phrase "that's so gay" and homophobic slurs highlight concerns over its use as a synonym for "stupid," which respondents viewed as offensive and insensitive.
Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet, based on Vito Russo's book of the same name, notes the use of fag and faggot throughout Hollywood film history.
[23] Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta's 1977 cult book The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions inspired a musical by composer Philip Venables and director Ted Huffman reinterprets world history from a queer perspective.
[25] A description of Pamela Moore's 1956 novel Chocolates for Breakfast in the Warner Books 1982 culture guide The Catalog of Cool reads: "Her fifteen-year-old heroine first balls a fag actor in H'wood, then makes it with some hermetic, filthy rich, hotel-bound Italian count.
The Dire Straits 1985 song "Money for Nothing" makes notable use of the slur faggot,[30] although the lines containing it are often excised for radio play, and in live performances by singer/songwriter Mark Knopfler.
[32][33] In 1989, Sebastian Bach, lead singer of the band Skid Row, created a controversy when he wore a T-shirt with the parody slogan "AIDS: Kills Fags Dead".
The song is about Matthew Shepard, a gay man from Wyoming whose 1998 murder brought national and international attention to hate crime legislation at both the state and federal level.
Officials from the dictionary, including Emmanuel Lewis, visit the town and agree that the meaning of the word should no longer insult homosexuals but instead be used to describe loud motorcycle riders who ruin others' nice times.
[51] In 2009, Erin Davies' car, displaying a Pride flag, was defaced with homophobic slurs resulting in a 58-day tour across the U.S. and Canada, keeping the graffiti as a conversation starter about LGBTQ+ experiences with intolerance.
