and worked their way up to middle-class comfort for themselves and their children. One user also found a Google trend chart showing that the use of the term “gaslight” didn’t gain popularity until the 2000s.(And if you do, this bad feminist will get a few coins, via an affiliate link.)įor those of you who aren’t already familiar: Gay was born in Nebraska to Haitian parents, who had moved to the U.S. Journalist Evie Nagy chimed in, saying it wasn’t introduced into vernacular until later and that the Twitter stir Gay’s comment caused became a “ gaslighting inception.”

Twitter users claimed the term “gaslight” came from the 1944 movie. Other people on Twitter jumped to Gay’s defense, claiming the term wasn’t commonly used in the ’50s. Really just that’s the straw breaking this camels back.” It wasn’t part of the vernacular then,” Gay responded, adding in a later post, “The audacity of y’all defining gaslighting to me. It's actually used by hep cats & hotrod kids in the old Dragnet radio show! /nvKYbOp5CF- SOLIDARITY!✊🏽 December 23, 2021Īnd for a while Gay, 47, stuck to her point, even calling it “a bad screenplay, period” in another since-deleted tweet. Gaslight actually became popular as a slang term in the 1950s based on the popular movie of 1944 & the play from 1938. Just learn how to do simple Google searches. She and her friend watch the movie and she gaslight’s Mooney’s boss to get the job back,” tweeted someone else, referencing this 1956 episode of “I Love Lucy.” “There was an episode of The Lucy Show where she got Mr. “Does anyone check tweets before firing one off? Let me be the 234 person to say there was this 1944 film called Gaslight,” wrote one user. Instead, users attempted to correct her, saying the term was actually inspired by the 1944 film “Gaslight.” Author Roxane Gay sparked debate on Twitter when she complained that Lucille Ball - played by Nicole Kidman, 54 - used the term “gaslight” in Amazon’s new film “Being the Ricardos.” Kidman plays Lucille Ball in “Being the Ricardos,” a new, Amazon-made film.

How did that get through?” she wrote in a since-deleted tweet, which has since amassed more than 1,300 replies and nearly 10,000 retweets.īut many weren’t in support. “There is no way she would have said that in the 1950s. Roxane Gay sparked controversy on Twitter after criticizing Nicole Kidman’s use of the term “gaslight” when playing Lucille Ball. Gay, known for her best-selling book “ The Bad Feminist,” seemed to claim that the term wasn’t used in the 1950s when the movie was set. Has the term “gaslight” itself been gaslit?įeminist author Roxane Gay took to Twitter to complain that Lucille Ball - played by Nicole Kidman, 54 - uses the term “gaslight” in Amazon’s new film “ Being the Ricardos.”

Roxane gay feminism