Katie Beswick’s Slags on Stage: Class, Sex, Art and Desire in British Culture, published last year, “offers a personal and cultural history of the word ‘slag’,” the British slang equivalent of ‘slut’. (In fact, ‘slag’ is arguably an even stronger pejorative than ‘slut’, as it implies both promiscuity and worthlessness.)
Beswick discusses female characters in popular culture who have been deemed slags, including the notorious Viz comic strip Fat Slags, which she describes as “a simplistic, stereotypical creation of slag-as-abject.” She also briefly considers the reappropriation of ‘slag’, arguing that this is not yet possible: “We are not at the stage of reclaiming slag... or even being able to weaponise it effectively as resistance — and yet its complexities must be acknowledged in any reckoning with the term.”
Beswick discusses female characters in popular culture who have been deemed slags, including the notorious Viz comic strip Fat Slags, which she describes as “a simplistic, stereotypical creation of slag-as-abject.” She also briefly considers the reappropriation of ‘slag’, arguing that this is not yet possible: “We are not at the stage of reclaiming slag... or even being able to weaponise it effectively as resistance — and yet its complexities must be acknowledged in any reckoning with the term.”
