Matt Gaymon

[touchingcloth]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58053709

Actor Matt Damon says he only recently stopped using the homophobic "f-slur for a homosexual" after his daughter explained it was unacceptable.

Damon told The Sunday Times she had written him "a very long, beautiful treatise on how that word is dangerous", after he used it in a joke.

He said the derogatory term for gay men "was commonly used when I was a kid, with a different application".

"She left the table," the star recalled about the family disagreement.

"I said, 'Come on, that's a joke! I say it in the movie Stuck on You!'

"She went to her room and wrote a very long, beautiful treatise on how that word is dangerous. I said, 'I retire the f-slur!' I understood."

Wonderful news that 50 year old Matt Damon has had this timely realisation. I wonder what application the word had when he was a kid? Bundles of wood, balls of meat, knitting of lace...

[kalowski]

I wonder if it is ultimately derived from the Latin word fascis which means a bundle of sticks, and from which we get the word fascist?

[touchingcloth]

I wonder if it is ultimately derived from the Latin word fascis which means a bundle of sticks, and from which we get the word fascist?

I wondered the same when I started the thread. Wiktionary suggests it might derive from a diminuitive of fascis - facus.

[Neomod]

Could be the connection to the bundle of sticks used to burn heretics alive according to the OED. All those puritans that went over to the states brought it with them it seems.

[Butchers Blind]

We used to have them for tea on a Wednesday.

[Paul Calf]

You can get them hot, covered in gravy and mushy peas at Nottingham's Victoria Centre.

[Blue Jam]

tbf he's not that bright, he didn't come across well on that Team America

[Captain Z]

What's wrong with saying fascist?

[touchingcloth]

tbf he's not that bright, he didn't come across well on that Team America

He was an absolute liability when he went to Mars.

[kalowski]

What's wrong with saying fascist?

[idunnosomename]

Mattdamon is the worst Digimon

[An tSaoi]

I've mentioned this a few times when Fairytale of New York is doing the rounds; in Ireland it used to mean a lazy, useless, miserable or contemptible person, not specifically a gay man. There's a very slim chance that this old version made its way to Irish America where Damon comes from, but even if that were the case, the new meaning is too infamous, so there's no excuse. He's been using a homophobic slang all his life. Still, better late than never.

[JamesTC]

Loved him in that Pertwee Doctor Who story.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

She went to her room and wrote it down? Why didn't she just tell him face to face? I bet she tweeted it to him.

[Shit Good Nose]

tbf he's not that bright, he didn't come across well on that Team America

You have to wonder.  What on earth made him think it was a good idea to go public like that now?!?!?!

[JamesTC]

You have to wonder.  What on earth made him think it was a good idea to go public like that now?!?!?!

He said it in the movie Stuck on You.

[Shit Good Nose]

He said it in the movie Stuck on You.

Yeah yeah, I know that (I watched it the other week in fact [that Bob Evans, he banged 'em didn't he!]), and I'm pretty sure he said it in at least one of the Kevin Smith films as well.  What I mean is what made him think it was a good idea to report this publicly, basically saying he's only just now realised it's a rum term?  Even if you ignore the particular sensitivity of the last couple of years, "fag" (the American meaning as opposed to British meaning) has been a no-go for at least ten years.

[JamesTC]

Yeah yeah, I know that (I watched it the other week in fact [that Bob Evans, he banged 'em didn't he!]), and I'm pretty sure he said it in at least one of the Kevin Smith films as well.  What I mean is what made him think it was a good idea to report this publicly, basically saying he's only just now realised it's a rum term?  Even if you ignore the particular sensitivity of the last couple of years, "fag" (the American meaning as opposed to British meaning) has been a no-go for at least ten years.

Doesn't everybody else use Stuck on You as a bible in social acceptance?

[Shit Good Nose]

No idea, I'm not much of a Farrelly brothers fan (absolutely nothing to do with cancelling or anything like that, just never found their films very funny, even the "classics" There's Something About Mary and Kingpin), Stuck On You just happens to be one I don't mind.

[bgmnts]

What exactly is the history of that word? Is it like poof here? You'd never have used the term poof to have anything to do with being gay it's just being effeminate or weak. Or is it the association with being gay and being weak and gay? No idea.
As far as I'm concerned a fag is a cigarette and a faggot is a sort of meatball.

[touchingcloth]

No idea.

Quite.

[popcorn]

I don't sneer at stories like these (though I think it's kind of eye-rolling that they become news stories at all). Human being learns lesson, becomes slightly nicer human being, the end. What's to scoff at? Good thing none of us non-celebs are getting anything wrong ever innit.

[Icehaven]

What exactly is the history of that word? Is it like poof here? You'd never have used the term poof to have anything to do with being gay it's just being effeminate or weak. Or is it the association with being gay and being weak and gay? No idea.
As far as I'm concerned a fag is a cigarette and a faggot is a sort of meatball.

Dunno but Ratso uses it to insult an obviously gay man in Midnight Cowboy, which was made in 1969.

[Shit Good Nose]

What exactly is the history of that word? Is it like poof here? You'd never have used the term poof to have anything to do with being gay it's just being effeminate or weak. Or is it the association with being gay and being weak and gay? No idea.
As far as I'm concerned a fag is a cigarette and a faggot is a sort of meatball.

Both fag and faggot can be taken as a very serious homophobic slur in certain situations [in America] (a work colleague of mine, who heads our work and local community LGBT+ group, has been to events in America and some of her counterparts over there genuinely consider it to be as bad as the n-word).

I agree that it's A GOOD THING a lesson has been learnt, and also roll my eyes whenever these pop us as headline news, but given current sensitivities I still have to wonder about how he thought the way he put it out there (and how he worded it) would be fine.  There are already hundreds, if not thousands of people on Twitter basically saying "fuck him" (google "Matt Damon twitter" and take your pick from pretty much any one of the results on the first page alone).  I mean at the most extreme end of the scale he's potentially cancelled himself if people want to run with it.

[Chollis]

this was by far the most used insult between lads throughout my teenage school years (2003-2008). i didn't really clock that it was a homophobic slur until later

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Shame on you and your friends for using a dreadful Americanism to insult each other with. Bet you called each other assholes too.

[pancreas]

I don't sneer at stories like these (though I think it's kind of eye-rolling that they become news stories at all). Human being learns lesson, becomes slightly nicer human being, the end. What's to scoff at? Good thing none of us non-celebs are getting anything wrong ever innit.

Even so. He was 50, not 28, the age at which you might have an excuse for all sorts of things.

[Brundle-Fly]

In the Damon Twitter pile on I noticed the usual ' what you would expect from a rich white CIS man' comments. I never understand what is added to the conversation here when the person's transgression has nothing to do with race, gender or entitlement.

[gilbertharding]

His specific entitlement is relevant in that he (probably - I don't know) will probably have been quite sheltered from anyone who might have put him right earlier. So, yeah - it's not that he's white, straight, cis, middle class, middle aged etc etc - but that he's been a film star for at least 20 years.

[Brundle-Fly]

His specific entitlement is relevant in that he (probably - I don't know) will probably have been quite sheltered from anyone who might have put him right earlier. So, yeah - it's not that he's white, straight, cis, middle class, middle aged etc etc - but that he's been a film star for at least 20 years.

I never thought of it like that. They're often big kids these movie stars with no grasp of real-life off the red carpet.