Music

People are offended Fucked Up appeared on the front page of the Globe and Mail

by Mark Teo

Fucked Up are never one to shy away from ambitious ideas. So, when the Globe and Mail approached the band—along with other Arts and Crafts acts, as well as the Canadian Opera Company—to create a composition about 2014’s most important events, the band obliged; they, after all, aren’t strangers to sociopolitical commentary and operatic compositions. The only problem? Working with the Globe and Mail means being covered by a national newspaper—and when their name appeared in newsprint, on the front page of the paper no less, they were met with an uproar.

Not because their music was provocative. Not because they were abrasive. But because it meant the word “fuck” appeared in print.

Still, despite the fact that the word appeared in the top left-hand corner of the page—alongside the other names who took part in the project, like Broken Social Scene, Zeus, and Tamara Williamson—it took plenty of people by surprise. And some took to Twitter to express their shock.

Others decried the “potty mouth” revolution.

The Globe and Mail, for their part, issued a statement explaining why they chose to use the band’s name above the fold.

While the newspaper’s style guide doesn’t permit the use of profanity unless it’s explicitly permitted by editor in chief; when it’s permitted, according to the guide, profanity is “spelled out in full.” Besides, the style guide doesn’t account for the fact that they never expected profanity—like the word “fuck”—to be part of a proper band’s name.

Arts editor Jared Bland expanded on their decision to run Fucked Up band’s name uncensored. ” [T]he name in question belongs to a group of artists, and it is not necessarily the job of art to comfort or assuage; it is often its role to discomfit, as in the case of these particular musicians and their chosen moniker,” he writes. “Second, not to print, or to print an redacted version of the group’s name, would be, in this context, disrespectful to them; they are our partners in this project, and it seems to me that if we believe in them and their art enough to commission original music from them, then we owe it to them to respect their artistic decisions, one of which is their name.”

But, as the Globe notes, plenty of readers were still upset to see the word “fuck” in print.

“I was disappointed to be greeted with a curse on the front page. Needless to say my children will not be reading the front page,” wrote one Helen Lovejoy impersonator. “I encourage my children to find better words from our vast language to express themselves.”

“SHOCKED TO SEE THE WORD F#####UP ON THE FRONT PAGE OF A WORLD CLASS NEWSPAPER. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF. WHAT DO WE TELL CHILDREN ABOUT LANGUAGE THAT IS APPROPRIATE.!!!” wrote another.

Other—who artists like Run the Jewels might call fuccbois—offered suggestions, like censoring the word “fuck.”

“We were very dismayed and disgusted to see your repeated use of the F word not only in the Arts section but also at the top left section of the front page of this weekend’s Globe and Mail. We are long time subscribers and faithful readers, but we cannot continue to receive or read a newspaper that descends into the gutter in this fashion. We don’t care if it is a band’s name, contrived to shock, the correct thing to do would have been to put “‘F—–‘ if necessary.”

Fucked Up, meanwhile, congratulated the paper for using their actual name—rightfully so, because let’s be honest: Who, exactly, is offended by the name Fucked Up? And more importantly, why are they offended by the band’s name?

Regardless, the Globe and Mail, Arts and Crafts, and the Canadian Opera Company produced an excellent year-end compilation. Listen to it below.