Bill Maher Trends After Attacking Democrats For Redefining Words
Bill Maher is trending right now after calling out Democrats for what he saw as the redefining of words to fit some new narratives.
This article is more than 2 years old
Bill Maher has been on a tear of late, going somewhat against his own personal brand’s grain in recent episodes. In a takedown discussing the misappropriation of words in our culture, Maher gave an extended monologue on Real Time with Bill Maher in which he explained how the redefinition of certain words in our now-common vernacular has been a massive misstep for Democrats in particular. This follows some other harsh words by Maher recently that have the host and comedian possibly reeducating or maybe redefining his core viewer base.
In the monologue, Bill Maher discusses how a few choice words have been redefined by folks, Democrats especially. He works to explain how the misuse of certain words is actually a fairly dangerous practice, one that needs to stop as soon as possible. Maher gives out the words, “Hate, victim, hero, shame, violence, survivor, phobic, and white supremacy” as those that have been mishandled and misused recently. Check out the video which is worth watching in its entirety.
Bill Maher goes point-by-point during his talk, which is obviously comedic in bent but does seek to clarify some of how things have gotten off track in our current media and social landscape. He says that it isn’t simply hate speech if one disagrees with the message. And there is no violent act if physical damage isn’t present, or in his words, “leaves a mark”. And on the topic of white supremacy, Maher mentions statistics among major media outlets on just how much of an increase we saw in the term’s usage over the last couple of years.
And keeping with the talk of the day, Bill Maher does mention Dave Chappelle and the reaction to his most recent comedy special on Netflix, The Closer. In talking about the special and the public reaction to this, he mentions how one Netflix employee had referred to Chappelle as dog-whistling about transgender rights. Maher rightly says that dog-whistling refers to subtle, coded messages meant to only be understood by certain groups. And in with that being the case, Dave Chappelle has rarely ever coded any message.
Look, Bill Maher is a comedian and host first. He gets paid to say things that will stir up both laughs and shares. The best way to often accomplish that is to get folks riled up one way or another. That part shouldn’t be lost on people. But in this case, what he’s saying is correct. Misappropriating, or reappropriating words to fit into a new context confuses the original definition of the word or phrase. It actually then undermines when someone wants to use the word in its originally-intended context. More people should take note of this when deciding how they want to explain or define an action, occurrence, or feeling.
It will be interesting to see how folks respond to this latest commentary by Bill Maher. At times, he’s been a lightning rod of controversy for his takes on certain subjects. But other times he’s been a moderate voice of reason. This latest speech was more of the latter, a somewhat more granular look at how words are being misused and taken out of context.
