It’s time to bury the “b—h.”
That once-controversial, now-ubiquitous term was flung around with great abandon in the premiere episode of Fox’s rap drama “Empire” last week, particularly from the mouth of Taraji P. Henson’s ex-con Cookie, who used it variously to reference her family, her enemies and the music company she funded (“I started this b—h!”).
You hear it out of the mouths of babes like Bruno Mars, the sweet-voiced singer who inexplicably uses it in “Uptown Funk!” (“B—h, say my name!”).
On “Breaking Bad,” Aaron Paul’s Jesse made the term a catchphrase to be appended to any declarative sentence.
But let’s be honest: b—h is bigger than all of that. Bitch is everywhere. Bitch is basic. I defy you to go a day without hearing it on TV, in movies, in music.
Every time I hear it, I wince.
At its core, the word is a deeply ugly one when used as a slur, a slam or even a joke (the homophobic, guy-on-guy trope of “I made you my b—h” hangs on, stubbornly). There’s “b—h slap,” there’s “quit your b—hing,” there’s “b—h, please.”
And at the root of all of them is the implication — only slightly more refined than calling someone a “p—y” — that it’s deeply lame and emasculating to be, or act, feminine.
There is no male equivalent to “b—h.” You can call someone of either gender an “a–hole,” but it doesn’t carry the same stigma.
A lot of feminist effort over the years has gone into shaping the term into a badge of honor instead of a mark of shame: To be a bitch, the new playbook says, is to take no s–t from those who would keep you down for being a woman.
But the vast majority of users of the word aren’t taking a stand for feminism: They’re taking the cheapest shortcut to assailing someone’s character.
He’s a b—h? He’s not a real man.
She’s a b—h? She’s somewhere on the spectrum between pain-in-the-butt and downright sociopath.
The latter definition was sent up in the 2012 sitcom “Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23,” which featured actress Krysten Ritter as a conniving New Yorker who’d do whatever it took to get her way.
The show managed a fair amount of subversion by virtue of its being a comedy, and became a cult favorite for its unapologetically “b—hy” lead character.
Still, it had to hide the use of the actual word in its title, and rarely if ever actually used the term in its dialogue — despite the fact that 2012 was the year the Supreme Court eased restrictions on network television language and opened up the “b—h” floodgates.
In drama, the full-on word “b—h” is going stronger than ever. From medieval fantasy like “Game of Thrones” to soaps like “Empire,” the term thrives as a lacerating put-down of one’s testicular fortitude.
And would-be playful adoptions of the word that have followed — “basic b—h,” “skinny b—h,” “it’s my birthday, b—h!” — seem a little desperate in their attempt to humanize or feminize a word that, at its core, is designed to hurt.
As network TV standards get increasingly lax (they’re throwing around the F-word late night on Comedy Central these days), it’s high time writers and performers admitted the B-word is mean, misogynist and just plain played out.
Let’s make 2015 the year “b—h” went bust.