Normal

I was talking with Sarah, my web czar, about one of the most popular items in the QlownTown store, the "Find the normal guy" poster. It's a full-color version of the teal-and-aqua background that appears on the QT website. There is one person in the whole thing who isn't a clown--he is clearly an "average" person with no makeup or silly clothes. The object, as the title suggests, is to find that person, a la "Where's Waldo?", in the midst of a coven of clowns. (An embarrassment of clowns? A buffoonery? This may be fodder for a future blog...)

Now, Sarah writes a lot in her blog about labels, expectations, assumptions. As soon as I said "normal" I realized that it might seem like one of those labels people apply that is, at best, a judgment. I explained that within the context of QlownTown, "normal" was not so much a subjective label as a way to differentiate one from a clown. Sarah didn't seem to be concerned anyway, but it did strike me that I had used the word normal without thinking about its implications.

I try to avoid using the word normal unless I'm sure that it applies to an irrefutable truth. For instance, a round orange is normal; a square orange would not be normal. I've seen some that are grown in boxes so they're square, and they look pretty cool, but I wouldn't consider them normal. As used on the poster, "normal" is arguably a bad thing---he certainly doesn't fit in. And it's also a satirical or irreverent use of the word. If you accept that you're in QlownTown, you should realize that the normally non-normal is normal, and the word normal becomes something else.

The potential for someone to mistake the word on the poster as a judgment is part of the adventure that is political correctness. And despite the fact that yes, there are times when being PC can go over the line, it's generally a good idea to try to be super-aware of what a word or phrase will mean to others. A friend once said, "Political correctness is just common sense." So is that statement. If "Redskins" was originally a pejorative term for American Indians, they certainly have the right now to be offended by the name of the Washington football team. How one resolves that issue after decades of established usage is not a simple issue, but being annoyed by the hassle of dealing with it doesn't make it a non-issue.

We take small steps. Our local high school football team is the Tomahawks. They used to do a chopping hatchet move and chant "woo-woo-woo-woo" in pseudo-Indian, and that's a easy thing to get rid of. (I haven't been to a game in several years, but I hope and assume that the "war chant" has been dropped.) They're usually referred to as the 'Hawks, and maybe someday the name will be officially changed.

But back to normal. I bet no one has looked at that and said, "Who is he to judge who's normal?". This preemptive essay on the use may be stirring up something that no one ever thought about. My urge to address it once I thought about it, however, was the same reaction most sensitve people would have.
It's normal.