NYT: It’s a Homophobic Slur. What’s It Doing in So Much Theater?

[MezzA101]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 8:40am

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/theater/faggot-word-gay-theater.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5U8.cvV2.ux_U3Gj2LMaJ&smid=nytcore-android-share

[quizking101]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 8:51am

I really appreciate you sharing these articles. It’s become part of my daily reading ritual

[Lot666]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 10:52am

Thank you for sharing this as a gift article!

[John Adams]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 11:58am

A quote from the article:

"Maybe I’m overreacting. Jeremy O. Harris, the 'Slave Play' author and a producer of 'Prince Faggot,' suggested I stop pearl-clutching over a word. Sometimes theater tests.

Besides, he added, “'Prince Gay’ would mean nothing.'”

I don't find much (if any) difference between the use of the "N" word or the "F" word. There's already been much said and written re: the reasons the former is used, that would also apply as response to the author's current question. 

I don't find any instance in the article where the author offers their own opinion about the subject, beyond providing anecdotes of how the word has been personally hurtful to them in the past.

They even seem to insinuate a resignation to the topic's banality when they write, "In the queer bubble that is New York, these shows have drawn little ballyhoo. Concerned about potential backlash, Playwrights Horizons contacted a board member who specializes in crisis communications to develop a contingency plan. It was never needed."

I agree with Jeremy O. Harris' initial advice to the author. If there is a unique or "new" POV to their article, I'm not finding it in their words.

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 12:01pm

For the record, I saw Angry F*gs the other weekend in Chicago, and it was revolting. Maybe the most inadvertently homophobic play I've ever seen.

[KJisgroovy]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 12:58pm

It's interesting to me because as a young person the idea of a "controversial title" was a little silly. Who gets upset about a word? BUT. With the popularity of Prince F----t I found that word all over the media I frequent and repeatedly in my inbox. Again, it's just a word and it doesn't bother me much... but having to confront that word over and over again alongside notifications from Redfin and NYTimes Cooking emails was really something. 

The actual use of the word is harmless to me but now that I'm old, I realize using a word like that in the title means folks have to interrogate their relationship to the word wherever it is advertised, including in the inbox of every former patron.

[joevitus]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 2:25pm

"We want art to be challenging, thought-provoking and maybe transgressive--but not when it upsets us!"

Look if people who aren't gay write a show called Prince Faggot, there'd be a problem. I'm pretty sure if a Black author wrote a show with the "N" word in the title, we wouldn't be marching to the castle with pitchforks and torches. A white author doing this for a white audience would of course create a different--and completely unacceptable--inference. Same here. But even more, geez, can people please be adults and not immediately go  into a fetal position beause they encoutered a word?

I say this as a gay man who has had the word hurled at him enough times (most of it in high school) to know how painful it can be. I don't even care for it when gays use the term for each other. I think it isn't a nice word. And yet I still think we have to allow artists to address controverisal subjects and use controversial words, and I get how it can be used for comic or dramatic emphasis. The issue should always be "how is this word (any word) being used in this specific context." 

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 2:27pm

I actually think Price F*ggot deserves a better title, but hey, it gets people talking I guess.

 

I personally hate slurs and don't like when anyone uses them.

[Kad]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 2:31pm

In my very queer social circle, the word has been pretty much reclaimed and used, if not casually then at least with some regularity. 

But I also know of folks who bristle at the use of "queer," which has had a much longer history of reclaimed use, dating at least back to 70s. Everyone's comfort levels are different. 

Updated On: 12/1/25 at 02:31 PM

[Idiot]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 4:18pm

Telling a playwright what words they can use is not OK.

[Kad]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 4:20pm

Idiot said: "Telling a playwright what words they can use is not OK."

Good thing nobody here is doing that, nor is the article. 

[Idiot]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 4:45pm

Kad said: "Idiot said: "Telling a playwright what words they can use is not OK."

Good thing nobody here is doing that, nor is the article."

Censorship is offered validity in comments in this thread and in the 'pearl clutching' impulse revealed by the author of the article.  Not sure how you don't see that, Kad - but admittedly, it's a topic that I'm quite invested in. 

[inception]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 4:57pm

I can think of a lot worse slurs, like

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

As if I would put them here.  I already got called a pig in another thread...though on scruff & grind etc there are lots of guys who call themselves that

 

Updated On: 12/1/25 at 04:57 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 4:59pm

Again: literally nobody here, nor in the article, is advocating for censorship. People have as much right to voice their personal distaste for a choice of words as others have the right to use those words. It is a two-way street. 

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 5:27pm

Leaving aside the fact that it is my favorite word of 2025, I find it interesting that the article didn't touch on the political moment we are in and how that may contextualize the springing up of this F word. This feels like a very dangerous moment for queer folk everywhere. All advancements over the last decade feel like they can be stripped from us, returning us to outlaw status. That feels like an important backdrop to the proliferation of titles with the word f*ggot in them.  

[Synecdoche2]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 6:09pm

Prince F*ggot has been desperate for controversy since day one as a marketing tactic. I'm glad that nobody has taken the bait — this bland and noncommittal article is all that Harris and his band of pseudo-provocateurs deserve.

[John Adams]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 7:03pm

Kad said: "But I also know of folks who bristle at the use of 'queer,'"

...and that would definitely be me. I even recoil a bit when Carrie Pipperidge uses it to describe Julie Jordon.

I think it's interesting that (so far) no one has used the "F" word in their responses. It's like we all know that asterisks, or a single letter in quotation marks are sufficient to conjure the reference.

Piepenburg suggests that "productions use the word to shock, provoke, reclaim it for gay men". For myself, I don't have any desire to "reclaim" the word. I find that notion to be extremely repulsive, as I never "claimed" the word as a descriptor of myself to begin with - never ever, not once.

That leaves "shock" and "provoke". Two equally demeaning options in regards to content. 

I agree with joevitus' post: "[...] I still think we have to allow artists to address controverisal subjects and use controversial words, and I get how it can be used for comic or dramatic emphasis. The issue should always be 'how is this word (any word) being used in this specific context.'" For me, that's the sensible POV.

[Kad]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 7:15pm

I wasn't using it under the assumption it would be automatically censored. 

[joevitus]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 9:22pm

Kad said: "Again: literally nobody here, nor in the article, is advocating for censorship. People have as much right to voice their personal distaste for a choice of words as others have the right to use those words. It is a two-way street."

People voice personal distaste on their social media accounts. If the NYT publishes an article, there's a desire to do more than share an opinion--even on the Op/Ed page. The direct goal may not be censorship, but it is a way of framing and therefore attempting some control over the discourse. 

[kdogg36]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 9:23pm

TotallyEffed said: "I actually think Price F*ggot deserves a better title, but hey, it gets people talking I guess."

I haven't seen the play (I wish I had the opportunity), and I'm not clutching any pearls, but I can tell you this: the main thing I know about Prince George at this point is that there's an off-Broadway play about his imagined future with a horrendous slur in its title. I think he'll be fine, but if I were his parent, I'd be pretty mad about this.

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 9:34pm

kdogg36 said: "TotallyEffed said: "I actually think Price F*ggot deserves a better title, but hey, it gets people talking I guess."

I haven't seen the play (I wish I had the opportunity), and I'm not clutching any pearls, but I can tell you this: the main thing I know about Prince George at this point is that there's an off-Broadway play about his imagined futurewith a horrendous slur in its title. I think he'll be fine, but if I were his parent, I'd be pretty mad about this."


Careful, the vultures on this board don’t tolerate this opinion very well at all.

[kdogg36]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 9:34pm

Kad said: "In my very queer social circle, the word has been pretty much reclaimed and used, if not casually then at least with some regularity.

But I also know of folks who bristle at the use of "queer," which has had a much longer history of reclaimed use, dating at least back to 70s. Everyone's comfort levels are different."

Maybe it's a generational thing (I'm a bit older), but I've come fully to terms with the use of the word "queer" as an alternative to some long, awkward intialism that can never embrace the full diversity of our people. "Faggot," though is basically like the n-word in its hateful, hostile linguistic force.

 

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 12/1/25 at 11:11pm

inception said: "I can think of a lot worse slurs, like

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

As if I would put them here. I already got called a pig inanother thread...though on scruff & grind etc there are lots of guys who call themselves that

"

There are places for the comments you made. This isn't one of them. That doesn't make you a victim of a slur.

[RUkiddingme]

Posted: 12/2/25 at 1:29am

kdogg36 said: "I haven't seen the play (I wish I had the opportunity), and I'm not clutching any pearls, but I can tell you this: the main thing I know about Prince George at this point is that there's an off-Broadway play about his imagined futurewith a horrendous slur in its title. I think he'll be fine, but if I were his parent, I'd be pretty mad about this."

As a parent, why would you be mad?

If the play was about Prince George growing up and going to medical school and graduating with honors, would you be mad because the real Prince George wants to be a fireman?

I have seen the show and it's not about any real Prince George - it's about a fictitious Prince named George.

 

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 12/2/25 at 1:41am

And so it begins.