Controversy For Nothing

The banned Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing" doesn't mock homosexuals – it mocks homophobes, not that the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council noticed.

A poll in last Thursday’s Globe and Mail asked readers, “Do you think the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council was right to censor the gay slur in Dire Straits’s ‘Money for Nothing’?” The most popular response from more than 10,000 voters? A simple (and simplistic) yes. Forty per cent of those responding said, “Profanity and slurs should be banned from the airwaves.” The next most popular response? A simple (and simplistic) no. Thirty per cent said, “Radio stations should be free to play whatever they want.” The least popular response? “No. The word was used in context”.

It’s an interesting example, in what is arguably the most literary newspaper in the country, of our collective preference for black-and-white answers and our corresponding reluctance to embrace context and subtlety.

Released in 1985 on Dire Straits’s Brothers in Arms album, “Money for Nothing” mocked the reactionary sentiments of young louts working in an appliance store. When Mark Knopfler sang, “That little faggot got his own jet airplane/That little faggot he’s a millionaire,” he wasn’t expressing anti-gay sentiments. Quite the contrary – he was mocking the young louts and, in many senses, celebrating the success of the “little faggot” with his own jet airplane. The openly gay Elton John loved the song and performed it live with Dire Straits back in 1986 at London’s Wembley Stadium – clearly he didn’t view the lyrics as the embodiment of a threatening homophobia.

Surprisingly, the Broadcast Standards Council did not pass any judgment on the lyrics expressing the sexist and racist sentiments emanating from the same young louts. “Your chicks for free” is their explicit endorsement of women who provide sexual services to rock stars, without any need for commitment or economic support. “Bangin’ on the bongos like a chimpanzee” is their not-so-subtle racism.

It’s not the first time that the lyrics of “Money for Nothing” have been questioned. The issue erupted back in 1985 when the song first became an international hit. Interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine at the time, Knopfler expressed some ambivalence about “whether it’s a good idea to write songs that aren’t in the first person, to take on other characters.”

The trouble is that “Money for Nothing” is just a little too subtle – too subtle, at the least, for the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.