by Drew Oetzel
My son Jackson (currently 17 years old) and I are always clowning on slang terms. I tell him something that was au courant when I was a teen and he laughs and translates it into current teen speak and then I laugh. Whenever I learn some new thing “kids today” are saying I try to use it around him in the most uncool way possible - both to bug him and make him laugh. “Um, no dad. Just don’t. You can’t say that at your age” are words I love to hear!!
A few months ago Jackson and I were up to our usual banter. Not sure what we were talking about but at one point I said: “Ohhhhhh you tryin ta throw some shade huh?”
He stops and does his “No dad, you can’t say that. Old people can’t say that.” Only this time I was shocked. I thought to myself “throwing shade” belongs to the us, the gays!! I’ve been saying that since before he was born. Nothing to be done in this case so I just went full drag queen on his ass. Snapped my fingers twice and said: “Oh no you didn’t! I was saying that before you were born - way back in 1990! Where did YOU get that term from?!?”
Him: “All the girls at my school say it. They got it from RuPaul . . .”
UGH! Full disclosure, I’ve never seen an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race but I certainly was steeped in drag culture starting with the 1990 film Paris Is Burning about drag contests in New York City. (The subculture depicted in the film famously inspired Madonna’s song Vogue at the time.) One drag queen even explains “throwing shade” in the film. Slang from that movie made its way into main stream gay culture throughout the 90s. We’ve been “reading” each other and “throwing shade” since before Bill Clinton played the sax on MTV. The thought that mean girls in high school are now quoting the ultimate mean faux-girls made me shudder. I didn’t like it - at all. Camp culture belongs to us! The gays! How dare these ostensibly straight teens Columbus it from us?!?!
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