The “F” Word and the Media's Double-Standard for Gay Slurs

Here's a hypothetical: if while on the set of their hit television series Grey's Anatomy, Patrick Dempsey, with his hands around the throat of a co-star, had said in reference to Isaiah Washington “I'm not your little n***** like Isaiah,” would there be an uproar in the mainstream media? Would it be a “hard news” item?

It's pretty safe to assume that the answer to both questions is a resounding yes. And few, outside of white supremacist groups, would argue the case should be otherwise.

But it was reportedly Washington with his hands around Dempsey's throat, quite possibly outing a fellow actor by dint of his saying, “I'm not your little faggot…,”. It was that bastion of the fourth estate, The National Enquirer, that broke the story. When the mainstream media picked up the news, it simply reported a generic albeit somewhat physical confrontation between the two actors. The issue wasn't Washington's use of the word “faggot”, but the shocking notion someone tried to strangle Doctor McDreamy.

To be fair, the somewhat more mainstream New York Daily News followed up on The Enquirer's story. The rest of the mainstream media did not. Mainstream columnists did not denounce Washington's homophobia or wonder if his career would be damaged by his use of a hateful slur.

Meanwhile, Grey's Anatomy actor T. R. Knight, reportedly the subject of Washington's slur, became the topic of discussion in the gay blogosphere as the identity of the “little faggot” was debated. Indeed, TR Knight has since come out to People Magazine, quite likely in reaction to the controversy. Here's another hypothetical: a double standard exists in mainstream journalism, regarding the seriousness and newsworthiness of racial slurs as opposed to sexual-orientation slurs.

When actor/director Mel Gibson let loose a drunken anti-Semitic tirade during a DUI arrest, it was front-page news. For weeks. Speculation abounded his career was over. He was denounced by fellow actors, politicians, and religious leaders. Never mind that Gibson had previously made a number of very homophobic comments about gay men.

When Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen called sports columnist Jay Mariotti a “f***ing fag” during a press conference earlier this year, the issue seized on by the mainstream press was not Guillen's homophobia, but the ongoing feud between Guillen and the heterosexual Mariotti. In fact, if not for the almost lone coverage in the Chicago sports pages of the slur by columnist Greg Couch, Guillen's subsequent fining and sanctioning by Major League Baseball may not even have happened, let alone have been more widely covered than the actual incident itself.