GAYLETTER

Following the maelstrom of controversy surrounding the word ‘tranny’ in the LGBTQI community in recent months, it may seem like something of a publicity stunt to release a music video embracing one of the more divisive terms of endearment in the queer lexicon: ‘cunt’. But then, you don’t know Andy Butler. The New York based DJ behind eclectic disco and house project Hercules and Love Affair embraced the term whole-heartedly for ‘My Offence’, the latest single from this year’s The Feast of the Broken Heart LP. Enlisting GAYLETTER fave Matt Lambert to helm the direction, the six month-long process undertaken by Butler involved filmed interviews with various NYC performance artists who subvert profanity and gender in their work, asking each of them what the word ‘cunt’ means to them. ‘I spoke to some of the people who appear in the video for over an hour,’ Lambert says of the filming. ‘Each of them had a different answer and different relationship to the word ‘cunt’ as well as the appropriation and reclamation of profane language as a means of pushing culture forward. Language, especially when dealing with issues surrounding identity, defines people’s realities whether they choose to embrace or ignore language.’

Including Kalup Linzy, Honey Dijon, Juliana Huxtable, Cakes Da Killa, Contessa Stuto, Black Cracker, Bailey Stiles, Dwayne Pierre and many more, the video itself reads as something of a modern riff on Paris Is Burning-style talking heads: we bounce from Juliana to Honey to Kalup and back again, each of them explaining a little bit about how and why ‘cunt’ has transformed into such a prevailing term of empowerment for so many queer boys and girls. ‘It’s a power word, it’s a magical word, it’s also a New York City word,’ as RobotMoon Juice explains. ‘In short a fierce display of femininity.’

Watch the video for ‘My Offence’ below: