![]() ![]() ![]() As Forrest Wickman pointed out in 2013 (when yet another C-word scandal was rippling through the news), the vagina synonym featured in medieval surgery manuals. ![]() When it emerged, in the thirteenth century, “cunt” was a literal and uncontroversial word for lady parts. So, for that matter, does “Trump.” (“Trump That Bitch” was a popular chant and T-shirt slogan at Trump rallies during the 2016 Presidential race, but “Trump That Cunt” would have had the advantage of internal rhyme.) The term is combustive, hardened by centuries of misogyny, like prehistoric plant matter condensed into fossil fuel. There is, of course, the monosyllabic, Anglo-Saxon bluntness of it, a grunt clamped between consonants. And yet here we are, and the fact remains: there is no sexist insult that can rival “cunt” for coarseness and provocation, “inappropriateness” and “inexcusability.” Why? (The President himself has since tweeted about “the horrible language” on Bee’s “low ratings show.”) She should not have apologized, and TBS should not have followed suit, and maybe none of us should ever have been born. Mistakes were made-by the Trumps, of course, and by Bee, for naïvely imagining that this narrative would not orient itself around her word choice the moment she let the “C” flag fly. “Samantha Bee has taken the right action in apologizing for the vile and inappropriate language she used about Ivanka Trump last night,” the network said. I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it.” TBS echoed her contrition. “I would like to sincerely apologize to Ivanka Trump and to my viewers for using an expletive on my show to describe her last night,” she wrote. The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, pronounced Bee’s language “vile and vicious,” adding that the “disgusting comments and show are not fit for broadcast, and executives at Time Warner and TBS must demonstrate that such explicit profanity about female members of this Administration will not be condoned on its network.” (This injunction, arriving from a government spokesperson, raised the spectre of censorship.) Spurious comparisons to Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett were drawn. The “Full Frontal” advertisers State Farm and Autotrader pulled out. On Wednesday night, as outrage continued to crest, the comedian Samantha Bee censured the President’s daughter on her TBS show, “ Full Frontal.” “You know, Ivanka, that’s a beautiful photo of you and your child,” Bee said, “but let me just say, one mother to another: do something about your dad’s immigration practices, you feckless cunt!”Ĭonservative pundits-Megyn Kelly, Liz Wheeler-lost their heads. Last Sunday, Ivanka Trump, an adviser to the President, posted on Instagram an image of herself cuddling her young son, even as reports of families torn apart by the Trump Administration’s immigration policies flew around the Internet. ![]()
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