Many of you probably already heard about what Obama said to Kanye. But for anyone who doesn't, here's what happened. Before an interview with CNBC, Obama was commenting on the debacle between Kanye West and Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards. Kanye West walked onto the stage during Taylor's acceptance speech and said that Beyonce should have won the award instead of Taylor. So before his interview, Obama commented on Kanye's behavior and called him a jackass. Obama's conversation was off-the-record although what he said was recorded.
At TMZ.com, a sound clip and also a video recording of Obama can be viewed. People can also comment on the clips. I read some of the comments and interestingly, many people wrote things like: "Yeah Obama!" and "Way to tell it like it is!". So overall the commenters seemed to support what Obama said. I thought more people would comment on the fact that he used a bad word to describe Kanye. Having never heard any president use a swear before, it both shocked me and led me to view Obama in a different light. Sometimes people might forget that the President of the United States is still a man entitled to his own personal opinions. I know I tend to forget the president probably has opinions on popular media events too. He uses the same vocabulary as many other men, just not usually in public. However, others might believe that Obama is setting a bad example by using that kind of language.
Any thoughts?
I sort of get what you're saying here, but at the same time, is the word jackass a really big deal? What's really important about our president?
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite quotes is, "It's the Suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness" (Lenny Bruce). I'm not 100% in agreement with all of the implications that could be juiced from this quote (people saying all sorts of things without any regards for appropriate guidelines for different types of dialogue), but to some extent I do agree with what it's trying to say. The more you silence something and tell someone they can't say it, the more power it has over you, even if it shouldn't really matter much.
I think a rather down-to-earth soundbyte that was never meant to be on the record isn't exactly setting a bad example, I think it's just unlucky, and the only reason we care is because stuff like this excites us. When I heard Obama said Kanye was a jackass I definitely thought it was very amusing. I would agree with you 100% if he were at a press conference and he used the word jackass, or any other bad language when there are many intelligent alternatives he is capable of using. But at the end of the day I don't think it matters at all that Obama used a "bad" word. I've heard worse language on the daytime radio, from my parents, or in a school classroom, from teachers, and it didn't dissolve my ideas of what is and isn't appropriate language use.
Obama's a normal person when he's not speaking in front of the country as president, and he was in normal person mode when he said jackass. In all honesty, there are a lot of things I don't ever see or hear a president do that I would not like to bear witness to, just normal human things. But even if these things were to be caught on camera or microphone and shown everywhere, they'd still be normal human functions. It might be embarrassing for a famous person to be caught on tape at a time when they're "most human" because we have such high expectations for famous people, but it wouldn't really lower my opinion of them. Personally, I think that would be holding them to an unrealistic standard to judge them in that way.
I definitely agree with you. If he used the word in a official speech/public message, it would be a huge deal. But, like I said in my blog post, in casual conversation he probably uses the same vocabulary as any ordinary man, which includes the word jackass. Also I really enjoyed reading and thinking about that quote by Lenny Bruce that you wrote about.
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