This is a pretty interesting story about an MSNBC Washington correspondent who's been suspended for saying on air that the Clintons were "pimping out" their daughter Chelsea in Hillary's battle to win the Democratic nomination.
Others may feel it's a terribly sexist and offensive thing to suggest about Chelsea Clinton, but to me, I don't get what the big deal is. The verb "to pimp" or "to pimp out" is common slang, it's totally in the vernacular, there's even a highly rated TV show called "Pimp My Ride" -- the word has utterly lost any sting it used to have. As so often happens with language, "to pimp" has evolved to mean something really quite innocuous.
Urban Dictionary even describes the term this way, meaning it really bears very little resemblance to anything prostitute-related:
Pimp out: A term used to describe massive modification of something to make it standout and look attractive.
The term is derived from the way pimps modify their cars with various colors, lights and other hardware.
Drummer to Pianist: "Damn, your keyboard is totally pimped out! What's all that LED lights and glowing buttons!"
Geek: "I've pimped my computer out - Now it has a transparent side and florescent lamps inside it."
The suspension is already causing people to accuse MSNBC of caving to pressure from the Clintons. If so, apparently the Clintons are both 70-year-old church ladies who haven't paid any attention to pop culture in the past 20 years.
I know the subtext here -- the Clintons are always accused, usually unfairly so, of being insanely manipulative and ambitious in their bid for the nomination, and perhaps they just got fed up and felt it wasn't fair to Chelsea and so complained. But on the face of it, this seems like fair comment to me from someone who used a modern-day bit of slang to describe Chelsea's often well-timed and well-planned appearances on the campaign trail.
UPDATE: Thanks to a commenter who sent us a link to this very funny photoshopped picture:
7 comments:
I agree that they are making too big a deal out of this. Its not like they are actually "pimping her out" in the more literal sense or are they?
Check out this
to see what I mean.
Henry?
get your 'pimped out.' shirts, hats, buttons, mugs, stickers, magnets, mousepads, and more at pimpedout.dirtyword.net
Um, you missed the point. There are two definitions. One is the more current, friendly, bling-related one you mentioned.
The other means to profit by the exploitation of another. That's bad taste, bad judgment, and I'm surprised the newsie was only suspended.
Either way, big over-reaction. Many would argue even using the old definition that the Clintons are using their daughter for political gain. It's fair comment.
In fact, the guy didn't even say they WERE pimping out Chelsea. He wondered allowed IF they were pimping out Chelsea.
And if journalists aren't allowed to practice fair comment, we're all in trouble.
Um.
Oops, he wondered ALOUD!
The photos in the post was like,uhhm, just too different, what if all mens suits are like that, "Yellow"?..it's going to be so funny.
Post a Comment