A hit song is no longer getting airtime in Canada, after the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council deemed it as unfit for public broadcast. Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” was pulled off the airwaves after a Newfoundland woman complained about the song having the homosexual slur “faggot.”
Many people felt the lyrics were a shot at the performance style of Motley Crue and other glam-rockers of the 1980s.
“The singer in ‘Money for Nothing’ is a real ignoramus, hard hat mentality – somebody who sees everything in financial terms,” explained Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler in a 1985 Rolling Stone interview. “I mean, this guy was grudging a respect for rock stars.”
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council is an industry based organization that self-regulates radio and TV in Canada. When a Canadian makes a written complaint, the council becomes involved. It consists of people from the industry and the general public.
“A listener to OZ-FM in Newfoundland took offense to the lyrical content,” said Media Communications Professor Peter Maurin.“OZ-FM argued that it was their policy to play classic rock in their original forms. The complainant responded by saying that OZ-FM did edit out ‘questionable’ material from other songs; why didn’t they play the edited version of ‘Money For Nothing’?”
The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission rarely gets involved in decisions like this, but they have asked the CBSC to reconsider their call. The Commission has received over 250 letters in opposition to the ban.
What comes into question in all this is the word’s meaning. What were the intended purpose of the lyrics at that time?
“Apart from the fact that there are stupid gay people as well as stupid other people, it suggests that maybe you can’t let [lyrics] have so many meanings – you have to be direct,” said Knopfler.
“It’s an interesting question of meaning; why would OZ-FM censor some words referring to a person’s race, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity and not others?” contemplated Maurin. “It’s a slippery slope.”
Conversations between the CRTC and the CBSC are still ongoing.