A Bundle of Sticks

Original DA Upload Date: June 13, 2021. This was written prior to Auggie being revealed to be genderfluid.

That song’s one of the weaker ones on Brothers in Arms, anyway.

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Though one of the most iconic songs of the 1980s, Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing” has become quite controversial in recent years, due to its use of the word ‘faggot’, a racial slur derived from the term for a bundle of sticks, also called a ‘faggot’. In olden times, faggots were used to burn several groups of people at the stake, including homosexuals. In modern times, the term has become a slur against gays, which has also been reclaimed by some members of the LGBTQIA community themselves.

In the case of “Money For Nothing”, I consider the song to be a product of its time. It’s important to note that the song was released in the 1980s, during the height of the AIDS crisis, when LGBTQIA people came under attack from right-wingers spewing misinformation about AIDS, such as that it could be transmitted from casual contact with a homosexual. As much as I like to paint the 1980s as ‘the good old days’ with Grunvale, the sad reality is that homophobia was much more accepted at that time, possibly more prevalent than it was in any other decade of the 20th century. My own interpretation of “Money For Nothing” is that it’s sung from the perspective of a worker who has homophobic views. Homophobia was wrong then, and it is wrong today. But the song’s lyrics are an unfortunate product of their time, and it’s for the best that it’s edited versions (either censoring the slur or entirely removing the verse containing it) that play on radio stations today.

I’m gonna be honest, I never thought of “Money For Nothing” as one of Dire Straits’ better songs. The music video was groundbreaking for its time, and the synthesizer build-up to and including the guitar solo early in the song is awesome, but the song is waaaaay overplayed. Not to mention that the song at full length is 8 minutes and 22 seconds, which is about twice as long as it needed to be. It’s not as egregiously shoved into every possible 80s-set piece of media as “Don’t Stop Believin'” or “Take On Me” or “Never Gonna Give You Up”, but the media often acts like “Money For Nothing” is the only song worth associating with the Dire Straits. When I can name several songs by the band that are better than it, including off of Brothers in Arms. If we’re to stick to Brothers in Arms, there’s “So Far Away”, “Walk of Life”, “Your Latest Trick”, “Why Worry”, and the title track, the latter of which even has a rotoscoped music video in the same style as the aforementioned “Take On Me”. And outside of Brothers in Arms, their self-titled debut has “Sultans of Swing”, Love Over Gold has “Industrial Disease”, and On Every Street has “Heavy Fuel”. Basically, “Money For Nothing” doesn’t even crack the top 5 best Dire Straits songs for me, and I bet it’d even fall out of the top 10 if I were to give their discography a full analysis. Not a bad song, just overrated, overly long, and incredibly overplayed. If you want to fill eight-and-a-half minutes with a Dire Straits song, just listen to “Why Worry”. It’s from the same album and one of their most underrated tracks.

Now to the piece!

I’ve already stated before that I imagine Abby Lowry to be one of the more profane characters in Grunvale. Basically the Eric Cartman of the franchise with what a disrespectful little shit she can be. Even though she’s okay with her elder brother and sister being a cross-dresser and lesbian respectively, she also will do anything to justify using profane language and slurs, like if the word appears in a song she likes or if the Tetrad says them. Well, here we see August has had enough of that, and washes his little sister’s mouth out with soap for singing along to the uncensored version of “Money For Nothing”. Knowing how profane she is, she must’ve at this point got to be quite a connoisseur of soap. I wonder if she’s been punished with Lifebuoy yet, heheh. Seeing the color of that soap bar, though, it’s probably like Bluechip or something.

Don’t worry, Abby being a disrespectful, female version of Cartman with Min Min’s hairstyle is just a phase. She eventually learns it’s never okay to say slurs in any context. Except maybe ‘polecat’, since I imagine that as being the mephitine N-word. I mean, how else would she later become friends with Gilda?

Anyhoo, that’s all for this one. Stay tuned for the other two #PrideMonth2021 artworks!

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Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).