Harmless Dire Straits Song No Longer Offensive

A cumbersome regulatory body decrees that we can once again listen to a 26-year-old pop song without society collapsing.

Whew! For a good eight months of this year, Dire Straits' 1985 classic “Money For Nothing” was basically forbidden from being aired on Canadian radio due to a complaint over the song's use of the word “faggot.” But thanks to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council's review of their initial decision, the blue-collar, slice-of-life song about low-wage movers “Money For Nothing” can once again be aired unedited without recourse. The CBSC, the independent watchdog for 700-or-so radio and television stations, ruled back in January that the use of “faggot” (admittedly a pretty terrible word) broke their codes of conduct, and told its member stations that they should only play versions with the offending slur edited out. This move, as you may remember, led to much laughter and criticism directed toward the CBSC, which prompted the CRTC to tell the CBSC to review its decision. The second time around, the broadcast panel ruled that, while the term is still offensive, it's used in a satirical context, which anyone with half a brain would have realized if they had read the lyrics.