Dick Cavett defends the term ‘faggot’ to Ian McKellan

To Cavett: "I'm not as Nancy as you are!"

Faggot was originally used to describe women who made meager amounts of money for bundling sticks together. Men who, also, did this were slurred as being *like women*.

I have long believed that Dick Cavett is a self-loathing closet case and his longtime marriage to Carrie Nye was one of convenience. I have no evidence of this, just a feeling I have, and I wonder if anyone else feels this way?

R2 I think most people know nowadays that a faggot is UK slang for a cigarette because a faggot is a term for thin sticks that often are used for kindling fires. (And once upon a time, gay men were burned along with those sticks.)

I recently learned that the term faggot is also etymologically related to both fascism and to a bundle of sticks seen on US money and many monuments through the root word ‘fasces,’ which means ‘bundle’ and usually referred to sticks that were bundled together.

Here, you can see a bundle of sticks with an axe blade coming out of the top. Once upon a time, weapons were reinforced this way because by bundling a lot of thin sticks, an axe handle was made much stronger. This relates to the idea of “out of many, one,” and is a visual representation of the strength of the United States.

Fasces is also the root word of fascism, and fascist countries also used the axe-wrapped-in-sticks image. It was used by Mussolini as a reference to the axe-and-sticks symbol that was used by the ancient Romans as a sign of domination.

R3 He was before my time, but I have watched his interview with Katharine Hepburn on YouTube several times and I find it riveting. He does set off my gaydar. But as my mother would say, “We always knew you were gay...but there was always a slight chance you were just an intellectual. Sometimes you can’t tell them apart.”

Dick Cavett is and always will be SUCH a prissy queen. Can't abide him. With his quick wit and Society Lady voice....Spare me.

r3, I'm pretty certain I would like your mother.

Damn,. My response to r3 was meant for r5.

Thanks, R8. Everyone who met my mom loved her immediately but she always thought everyone hated her because she kind of had an edge. I miss her every day. She was really my best friend in this world.

I generally like Cavett, I watched the beginning of an interview he had with Richard Pryor about writing humor and it got embarrassing really quickly.

He doubles down like an idiot. Sir Ian was very kind.

Very different time, R11!

there's little question in my mind as to whether or not Dick C is gay or not.

Reporters always ask questions THEY want to know the answer to.

Carrie Nye's voice was at least an octane lower than Dick Cavett's, for whatever that's worth.

Octave. ^^^

The word 'fag' is as R4 pointed out. is sometimes used in some countries to describe a cigarette.

However, the words 'fag' or 'faggot' used to describe a person (gay or not) is as offensive as using the 'N' word. Of course in our 'woke' new world nobody much in the straight community kicks up a stink when it's so casually used to put or describe members of the gay community down.

Having said that I feel I have the right to refer to myself as a 'fag' or a 'faggot' but I object strongly to anybody using those words to describe myself or anybody else.

Dick needs a dick up his ass (if he hasn’t already).

Just say what Freddie Mercury said, "I can have many male and some female and animal partners....no homo though" and laugh at the world.

I don't understand why he was such a popular interviewer. He's the worst I've ever seen.

Coincidently, my husband and I were talking about the Spanish equivalent insult, "maricon". He was relating a story to me. When he finished, I said, "You know, we used to hear that word in the streets on the regular, but not anymore. Straight guys had to learn that "faggot" was harmful. They all know it. Now, the Spanish straight guys know that maricon is an insult, for the most part. Latin culture has more flexible boundaries in the nickname department. I credit Dr. Polo (Caso Cerrado) and other TV personalities for educating Latin America.

1992 and Ian comes out. We've come a long way baby. Dick spoke for all SWM Greek Active/French Passive, for whom faggot was just a word. It didn't mean anything. 1976-79, When I was in high shool (with Liza), my FAVORITE teacher called us faggots every day. You faggots work on problem a, and you faggots on problem b. There were NO open students/staff of over 3,000 people.

I brought a faggot of herbs.

R21 oh, that was just Jeffrey on his way back from the garden market!

He has brought so many faggots of herbs home lately I don’t know what to do with them.

It’s just a phase!

Thanks for posting, OP, that was great interview. I have so much more admiration for Sir Ian now.

Did Cavett think he was joking about being gay? His awkward fumbling made it seem so.

R23 Sure. Yeah, I posted it because the conversation is so striking. I like McKellen a lot, and I liked Cavett a lot in that Hepburn interview, so I was kind of excited to see this on YouTube. (Also, when I did a study abroad at Cambridge, the dorm room I stayed in had a plaque over it that said Sir Ian McKellen had stayed there in college, and as silly as it is, that has always made me pay attention when I see his name since then.)

I was alarmed watching the video. It gives me a lot of mixed feelings. A friend of mine describes ‘accidental racism’ a lot—when white people are so oblivious that they are saying racist things, they will even insist that they are not to a black person’s face as they are being told they are offended. And here we have McKellen say he is offended by the word faggot, with Cavett responding by calling him a faggot and a Nancy boy, and McKellen saying, that offends me, and Cavett laughing it off—because (in today’s terms) he has the societal privilege to do that and therefore no reason to be self-aware.

For one thing, it was of its time. McKellen already was not young, and so he came from another era and so he wasn’t that taken aback. Yet he stood his ground and said nope—don’t use that word. (Notably, that is what activists are saying now about various words like ‘tranny’ that others think are funny like Cavett thought faggot and Nancy boy were funny.)

Another facet that gets to me: 1992 was a while ago but it was not THAT long ago. I was a high school freshman in 1992. That was smack in the middle of a hellish period of my life, from seventh grade through 12th grade, when my peers were calling me “faggot” and smacking me around in plain view of adults at school and on school buses and no adult ever intervened in any way. So watching this video makes me realize they thought they were being funny and some might have even thought they were being harmlessly so. But if they saw this interview in 1992, their behaviors would have been reinforced by Cavett’s. They might have even started calling me Nancy Boy. We have come a long way in a short time.

1992, when this aired, notably is five years before Ellen DeGeneres came out. Ian McKellen should get more credit.

Remember when he was a panelist on "What's My Line," and no one, not the panel, not the guest nor John Daly knew who he was.

R20 That "Torches of Freedom", supposedly "feminist march" on Fifth Avenue defending the rights for women to smoke cigarettes (??) was organised by legendary publicist Edward Bernays in 1929 for the American Tobacco Company, taking advantage of the Easter Parade. The women were carefully selected, and hired to participate in the march. It was an advertising stunt, to sell cigarettes.

R3 - I thought Cavett was rumored to have had an affair with Christopher Porterfield, with whom he wrote his autobiography Cavett.

Is Ian a bottom?

When I look at him nowadays all I see is Gus the Theater cat.

r24, I was thinking along the same lines.

"Here is where that word comes from, here is what it says about x people, and this is why I hate it."

There is no simpler way to state it, but unless you have that history, where the language affects you directly, you can choose to be blithe and use it repeatedly, seemingly in jest, all while the person across from sits stone-faced.

It's why we need to actively listen to others. We can't control people's thoughts, and I balk at some of the present-day attempts at controlling language, but we must be open to really listening with defenses down and hearts open. (MARY!!! - I know.)

I always found Dick hot. He had a nervous breakdown which required ECT treatments.

[quote]"...when I did a study abroad at Cambridge, the dorm room I stayed in had a plaque over it that said Sir Ian McKellen had stayed there in college, and as silly as it is, that has always made me pay attention when I see his name since then."

No, sir. Not silly at all. And thank you, r24, for your very insightful, topical, and probably somewhat painful, post. (I, too, remember verbal and physical abuse from classmates, and one teacher in particular. We've come such a very long way since then, but we still aren't there yet.) I agree that Sir Ian does not get the credit he is due.

“I always found Dick hot.”

You might be gay.

r27, I vaguely remember hearing something about this, but I really don't know anything about it. Their writing partnership would certainly have provided excellent cover, though my gut tells me that Carrie Nye was probably aware and approving of any gay affairs he may have had.

It's also a dish.

R32 The funny thing is that when I did the study abroad in 2000, I think being gay/homophobia may have worked in my favor. Every other guy on the trip was put in a group dorm room of four or six people, with one shared bathroom. I got a solo, single room to myself at St. Catharine’s. All the profs were with the majority of the students in the other building and only a few girls were in the area I was. They said it was a random draw but I suspect it was not.

It was an incredible experience. The room was spare except for a gigantic poster warning about meningitis, and there was a creepy statue embedded in the wall of a building facing my window. But the room had daily housekeeping service—someone came in while I was in class and changed the sheets, made the bed, replaced the towels in the bathroom and set out a frickin’ tea service every day.

[quote]...we must be open to really listening with defenses down and hearts open.

"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply."

And so it goes, r30.

To refer to Sir Ian in 1992 as a faggot and Nancy Boy was way over the line in terms of ignorance and insensitivity. No excuse for this stupidity. 1992 FFS.

r36, Except for the daily tea service, it sounds almost like a monk's cell. i'm picturing a narrow single bed with coarse cotton bedding and a sad, limp pillow.

But to have studied abroad! How lucky you were. I can't remember if it was Twain or Mencken who said something along the lines of travel being fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

R39 It wasn’t far off from a monastery! As it should have been. Internet was dial-up then, and the computer lab was a long walk from the dorms. But I had to read a huge amount every single day and so the lack of distractions were a blessing. If I needed a distraction, I wandered around the beauuuuuutiful town, watched punts drifting by, etc.

And yes, it changed my life. I had never been far from the DC area, certainly never out of the country, and had only flown once and had never flown alone before. I didn’t know a single person who went before leaving. It was a big growing experience for me, and I was having a personal crisis of sorts and having to adapt in so many ways to new stimuli got me out of my head immediately.

[quote]No excuse for this stupidity.

r38, I've said something along these lines before in another thread, that everyone has a right to be stupid, but Cavett abused the privilege in that interview. In addition to always suspecting him of being a self-loathing closet case, I also always found him to be too clever by half in almost all of his interviews that I saw. And yet he was/is highly regarded as an interviewer. Go figure.

I admire your bravery, r40. And it paid off, didn't it?

Dick Cavett slept with Janis Joplin

R43 She called him ‘Nancy Boy’ throughout the entire awkward ordeal, and he wouldn’t stop interrupting her.

R27, I began reading Cavett's book--I've always enjoyed his interviews when I've seen reruns--but the book was so incredibly off-putting. I usually enjoy most any celebrity memoir I pick out...the only other ones I can think of that I've started and haven't finished reading were Phyllis Diller's (her humour didn't translate to the page), Shelley Winters' (too much far-fetched, made up gossip), and Cavett's. What I did read of Cavett's, I recall a story about him being a pre-teen and a man exposing himself to him in a public restroom. This actually may have been a recurring event, if I'm recalling correctly from the book. And also the numerous stories of his bipolar breakdowns, which were harrowing enough to put me off from reading much further. The fact that he put the story about the man exposing himself speaks volumes about how much that impacted him, though. It might account for some of his self hatred, if he's gay.

Who is this Nancy you speak of?

r46, Bless you! Nancy was much loved part of my childhood and your post brought back many fond memories.

Did the ECT treatments help him?

I had them 8 years ago. I can say they neither helped nor hurt me. I didn't like the being put under part. I had anesthesia paralysis the first time which was unpleasant.

R48, I believe they did help him. I still have his book and should make myself finish reading it.

How could anyone not finish one of Shelley Winters' autobiographies? They are non-stop craziness, packed with hilarious non-sequiturs and endless dish.

The audiobooks are really supreme. There's one point where Shelley has had a turbulent fight with her husband, and then she insanely caps the scene with, "And then I made a mental note to buy a new television." It's movie star absurdism at its finest.

Dick Cavett says faggot because it makes people think he's NOT a faggot. I'll go with a nelly queen, just like I did BEFORE his lame interview with dyke Hepburn.

I didn’t know Alec Baldwin was lashing out at people in public and calling them faggot even back then. Glad Ian called him out.

r51, I read it differently. It's sort of like a white suburban college kid saying "Ma nigga!" (watch Atlanta) - an ill-fated, wrongheaded attempt to include himself in an in-group when the in-group absolutely will not recognize him as such. He presses the issue even when he should be backing off, imposing when he should be listening and learning.

I don't dislike Dick Cavett at all, but the dynamic he's engaging in is not uncommon, and Ian McKellan did very well maintaining his composure while very clearly and calmly explaining his point.

I couldn't watch. Dick Cavett is embarrassing himself here. Visible homosexuality in others seems to be his blind spot. That's really too bad, because otherwise he'd be my favourite talk-show host from that period, hands down. 1992 wasn't his time, though. Not by 20 years.

And then there's Alec Baldwin. A very talented performer, by all accounts bisexual, who then calls others faggot. You'd think he'd be smarter than that, but apparently not.

Not sure this has been mentioned upthread, but first Dick Cavett calls the driver (in his story) a goon! And Ian McKellen comments: "Is that a word you can use?" Cavett continues undeterred. So really I think he's just digging his own grave here. Sir Ian tries to help him, but to no avail.

Eldersisters have whispered for years that Dick C is horse-hung!

He gets quite hostile and off-putting on Twitter sometimes. Had no idea he was bipolar, which could explain it.

Dick Cavett needs to be cancelled now! Let’s go to his house or grave and picket now, in masks and appropriate social distancing distances of course.

I’m grateful to Cavett for the interviews he did with Golden Age stars and directors, but I wish he had been a better interviewer. I felt the same way about Charlie Rose who was one of the few people left on television who might devote an hour to talking to an architect or a conductor or a literary critic or a neuroscientist, but it was always painful to watch because Rose would ask a 3 minute multiple choice question or wouldn’t stop interrupting with some idiotic comment to try to show how clever he was.

R60 Not to mention playing footsie with the attractive young women under the table.

Cavett seems to be an effeminate pocket straight. Presentism seems to be coloring his language use on his old talk show,

R62 In the video posted at OP, you can’t blame ‘presentism.’

Ian McKellen came out as gay. He sat down with Cavett and said plainly that he resents Alec Baldwin for calling gay men faggots. That’s a clear message to Cavett not to use the word.

Cavett responds by using the word.

McKellen says no, don’t use that word. It refers to people like me in a way that hurts us.

Cavett responds by laughing, using the word again, laughing, and then using another epithet.

And McKellen says AGAIN not to use the word.

The only ‘presentism’ on display is that in that present moment, McKellen told Cavett to respect him and Cavett blithely disrespected him, thinking he was being funny.

[quote]Dick Cavett needs to be cancelled now!

He’s 83. I think letting nature run it’s course will take care of that.

In a similar vein, he challenged Eddie Murhpy about the word "nigger" (or, niggggeeeeaaaah" as he says in this clip), and Murphy seemed taken aback, almost hurt by it.

In this cringey interview you can tell Dick is not comfortable at all talking with a black person. Eddie handles it gracefully but you can tell it stung him and he seems wary of what Dick will say next.

I was watching Mary Berry demonstrate to Judith Chalmers how to make a French casserole last night (ThamesTV, 1977) and she took particular delight in telling Judy that she was adding a 'faggot' of herbs. I couldn't help but feel a sad little flutter in my stomach when she said that.

Lucille Ball outed him when she appeared on his show.

Lucille Ball: "You were queer for Eddie Cantor."

Dick Cavett: "You did you say?!"

Lucy hates him. I trust Lucy.