Here's a little ditty I wrote for one of my subjects last year...I found it and remembered it was one of the stories I'd written and actually LIKED! So I thought it was high time I brought it out of the wood work. Have a read....
“That’s soooooo Gay”
“I’d rather be a paedophile than a lesbian,” the Year 11 student exclaims, twirling her straightened brown hair between her fingers as her fellow brat pack members nod at each other in agreement, patting their queen bee on the back.
It’s a normal school day. The bell has just rung and kids are dodging each other as they scurry off to class, lacing up scuffed black shoes and straightening ties. A new couple, who just announced they are ‘going out,’ attempt to fulfil their dare of pashing for exactly one minute before their homeroom teachers escort them to class. Ja’mie and the ‘hottest girls in Year 11’ are discussing their latest plan- to ban lesbians from their school formal- and Jonah and the Year 8 ‘Poly crew’ have spent the morning inscribing the words ‘all Year 7’s are homos’ on their rival’s lockers.
If you haven’t already guessed, that was an episode rundown of ‘Summer Heights High,’ the mockumentary-style comedy which, after great success in Oz, was played in the U.K and U.S comedy channels for 2008. It’s not surprising these markets jumped on the ‘Summer Heights’ bandwagon, says Danielle Bargh, as she peers over her psychology text book to catch a glimpse of Ja’mie telling her friends that the visual impact of her bringing a lesbian to the formal will be way better than their friend who’s going with ‘the wheel chair guy.’
“Watching the show is like being presented with a banquet of politically incorrect statements, each of them as hilariously offensive as the next,” Danielle says.
Through Ja’mie, Jonah and the ego-driven drama teacher Mr G, Chris Lilley, the show’s writer, director and actor, told The Age he aims to “reflect society’s prejudice and the language which teens use.”
And, yes, the one series show does mirror adolescent and contemporary culture.
Twenty-two-year-old Steph Lovell says, “Everyone knows these people from school, like Ja’ime and her group, they were the girls at my school- that was me at school!”
Even in the coffee shop at QUT’s seemingly respectable Kelvin Grove campus, you can expect to hear phrases such as ‘Asian’s can’t drive,’ ‘stop being a retard,’ ‘you’re such a poof,’ and ‘yo, nigga’ – all said with the same amount of thought and consideration one would employ when asking for a cappuccino. But what really stands out is the relentless use of colloquialisms and derogatory language associated with homosexuality.
‘That’s so gay,’ is one of the many throw away statements which adolescents have created as a way of removing themselves from the traditions of their family in order to become part of a peer group and establish a clear sense of identity, says Dr Michael Bambling, a lecturer at QUT’s school of psychology.
“Most adolescents adopt the culture of their peers. They have their own language and nothing thrills them more than to be seen as controversial, so they choose words which are different compared to those used in traditional society,” he says.
Curled up on the couch, 20-year-old Josh Bourne explains that even though he is gay, he does not find the word ‘gay’ or ‘homo’ offensive at all.
“I use these words all the time; they are part of my vernacular,” he says.
As a dedicated ‘Summer Heights High’ fan, Josh breaks out in a machine gun burst of laughter when reminded of the scene where Jonah, the mischievous Tongan schoolboy, gets in trouble for drawing male anatomy, on a younger boy’s school bag after calling him ‘gay’ and a ‘wranga.’
Colloquialisms such as ‘gay,’ like most words in the English language, have been reinscribed a number of times, and the ever-changing meanings of the word are layered on top of one another, says Dr Catherine Doherty, a lecturer in Social Linguistics at QUT.
“My father says, ‘gay used to be such a nice word, a happy word, you used to be able to say gay and be happy about it.’ My generation used gay as a positive affirmation of homosexuality. My children’s generation have reinscribed it to mean ‘not cool’,” she says.
Gay doesn’t mean what it used to, Josh agrees. “It’s not really offensive anymore because words are constantly changing their meaning; this has to do with the fluidity of language.”
But how much can one say before over stepping the illusive line?
Firstly, it’s important to understand the context of the show, says Marc Ruppenstein, a med student from Canada who is now studying in Brisbane and recently became acquainted with the quirky Australian vernacular through the ‘Summer Heights High’ DVD’s.
“The show is funny because it’s making fun of the people who are ignorant and stupid enough to actually take the racist and politically incorrect statements seriously. It also pokes fun at the people who say racist things in the first place and believe they’re true,” he says.
In this sense, the show is an ethnographic study, says Dr Doherty, because it examines the roles, values and identities portrayed in schools and the different type of language kids are using.
“The show is like a tongue-in-cheek social comment - it makes us laugh but it also makes us cringe,” Dr Doherty laughs and retreats to the back of her chair, looking like she’s just sucked on a lemon.
‘Summer Heights’ is purely a comedy skit, to serve the purpose of entertaining humour-hungry minds, but if you do take offence to it, Josh says, “You’ve got to realise that to a lot of people it is just a comedy, a light-hearted laugh.”
Jodie Mc Lachlan also interprets homosexual colloquialisms with this blasé attitude as although Jodie is a lesbian herself she exclaims, “I love lesbian jokes, I think they’re hilarious.”
Twiddling her drum stick between her fingers Jodie explains how it doesn’t bother her and her girlfriend when they get called ‘dykes,’ yet when people use the words in a hostile manner and say something like ‘f---ing dyke,’ that’s when she will get fired up.
The controversial quotes and situations depicted in ‘Summer Heights High’ are accepted because they are presented in a satirical sense, Jodie says. But it’s important not to take these quotes out of a comedic spectrum, or into a group which doesn’t share the same understanding of colloquial language.
Similarly, Josh says that everyday speech, such as that depicted on the show, only becomes offensive when it is used out of context, when people use the lines to take a stab at homosexuals, for example.
“Basically, it’s when people say ‘he’s a poof, they’re poof’s’ and actually mean what they say or are trying to incite some sort of reaction but then cover it by saying, ‘oh but Jonah says it.’ They think this qualifies what they have just said and makes it ok or something,” Josh says.
Dr Doherty says that when people take the language and identity of their group into another context, it can cause problems because the language may not be appropriate for that context.
“In order for individuals to comprehend what is offensive and what isn’t, it all boils down to understanding what language is acceptable in certain situations,” she says.
So next time you’re having tea with your Grandma and someone irritates you, instead of exclaiming ‘they’re so gay,’ think of something more appropriate for the social situation. You could always just do like Jonah does and vent your frustration with a ‘puck you,’ but make sure you follow his teachings and clarify that it’s with a ‘p’.
