Movies And Their Profanity

[Ben]

Now, we got it all over our screens, teaching modern youth that it's not okay to punch a bully in the mouth when he calls your mother a bad name, but it is okay to tell your mother to go F off because she wants you to stop smoking crack and sharing heroin needles.

Yikes! What movie was this?

On another note, you might like Pleasantville, which came out not too long ago. There was a scene where the kid punched the bully in the mouth for calling his mother a bad name.

 

[Quigley Brown]

Isn't it about time for some 'new' curse words?

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

Conan O'Brien proposed the word "Krunk."

 

[Sefton]

Modern filmakers use profanity to shake some ticket money out of the wallets of their target audience who have built an entire vocabulary around word usage that has long since lost it's shock value and has simply become tiresome. Obviously I'm not part of that audience and film is first and foremost about making money. Vulgarity sells.

 

[beaucaillou]

That's exactly the goal of the present movie industry - to DESENSITIZE the public. Just as Madonna french kissed Britney Spears on the MTV awards, she said, the more you let people see it, the more they will want it, until they will finally accept it. The same goes for cussing and taking the Lord's name in vain. The more people hear it, the more casual it'd be until it becomes really nothing. *Snip* But if you woke up those people in the graveyard who passed away 50 yrs. ago, they'd be having an existential breakdown in shock to see what this generation has become.

II have to disagree. If we were transported *back* we would be shocked to see what truly was: rampant, blatant, appaling racism and sexism, lecherousness, close-mindedness, exclusionary behaviors and community sanctioned stratification. True, along lines of profanity, perhaps we would be shocked, but I truly think it would have still been about context and relativism largely.

My Grandfather was born in 1914 and despite being a pillar in the community, a printer, a carpenter, and a father of three small girls, he swore like a sailor until his dying day, and so sis his friends. And he was living in perhaps the *most conservative* protestant town in America: Wheaton, Illinois. Thus, I don't think the amount of profanity that I'm used to is because of the media and arts' efforts to desensitize me. It's because of the industries I've worked in, my home town (Chicago), and the way I was raised. I was raised to use profanity as a manner of grammar- as a useful tool of vocabulary. Now of course there is a time and place for it, but I think it's easy for people to forget that many, many people don't bat an eye at profanity. To each his/her own! And when it is actually appropriate in the context, the only person who can really judge that is/are those who populate the context and not anyone else.

As we age as a country and as a people (as countries go we are still in our adolescent years) we are finding our taboos and testing them and yes, diffusing concepts that used to carry weight. I don't see how that is a bad thing. It means we are mentally aging as a collective population and what was once taboo will lose its shock value and we will be able to get on and start using things in their appropriate time and place, versus because we belive it has 'shock.'

 

[beaucaillou]

The swearing in Deadwood was overdone. It made me think the writers were fifteen and hadn't got past 4th grade. In the new AMC series "Madmen," it is sparse, and it works. I understand why it is used in scripts, but I still see it as the Easy Way Out for both writer and actor. To accomplish the same effect without resorting to colorful language -now THAT takes talent, skill, and a command of the language.

Context.

As far as 'Deadwood' goes, Milch said that the swearing was used to mirror the amount of actual profanity used at the time, but that the specific profanities which were used in that era and location of the US were so antiquated and odd that they had no bearing on modern viewers, so he only replaced the words themselves with modern equivalents, but retained the frequency of profanity that was employed in langauge at that time. Just FYI.

Cheers.

 

[Foofoogal]

Beaucaillou,
Your comments sort of fascinate me really. So basically you are a product of your raising. I learned this in High School Sociology. We are all a product of where we came from, our experiences etc. myself included.

diffusing concepts that used to carry weight. I don't see how that is a bad thing

I don't really pay attention to stuff until it starts affecting my quality of life for the negative.
This is why I ask how far we are willing to go. I once heard someone say we have to live our lives every day not how it will affect ourselves but our childrens children.
If you have ever been present to see a smart aleck kid cuss their parents out like they are dogs maybe possibly you could understand my concerns about our future.
Is it parents, movies, tv, all of the above?
I guess either the differences come from areas of countries or family lines or something but sometimes trying to make others understand your point of view is like trying to tell someone the sky is really blue when they see it as green. Nearly impossible if they have always been told and believed the sky was green.
I just think it is necessary that we as a people come up higher in order to survive.

 

[Dr Doran]

What does bother me is using foul language to depict or stereotype a minority. To me, those words are hurtful and hateful to people of color, or certain persuasions, and are far more foul than using words that depict excrement or bodily functions or bizarre sex acts or whatever.

Once in awhile, in the movies, a character will use racial slurs or hate words towards a minority and, if it is in line with a character, that is OK, as long as the character who uses it is not considered to be the good guy.

Although sometimes the person using the racial slur is someone of that particular race. I still don't like it, but they have the right I suppose to say it, I don't. And won't. It makes my blood boil.

karol

I respect your good intentions, Karol, but having had my ethnicity both bitterly and humorously insulted by many, many, many persons over the years, I personally do not really get blood-boily when a member of one group is called a bad name by another group, whether the insulting group is composed of a minority or a majority. Conflict between groups is as old as the hills and prehuman; dividing people up into oppressor and victim is not always accurate either, depending on the time and place. I think the great sensitivity to these words is pretty new, though. While I admire the effort to be respectful, I sometimes wonder if the lengths people go to decry someone who said something impolite, or the level of self-loathing they indulge in when they themselves say certain words, is always a good thing. (The excellent and informative book Race Experts by Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn has a lot to say about this.) I am fond of politeness but I don't think that a racial insult is necessarily to be construed as The Most Horrible Thing In The World.

I understand why it is used in scripts, but I still see it as the Easy Way Out for both writer and actor. To accomplish the same effect without resorting to colorful language -now THAT takes talent, skill, and a command of the language.

Context.

I agree with this. Scripts do not HAVE to be "naturalistic" or "realistic" in every respect. Shakespeare was not "naturalistic." No one (or only extremely affected people) spoke like that. There is a bit too much naturalism in movies I think.
Personally, I cuss too much, though. It slips in one ear and out the other when I hear it and I sincerely forgot that people are offended at all. It's good to be reminded.

 

[beaucaillou]

Beaucaillou,
Your comments sort of fascinate me really. So basically you are a product of your raising. I learned this in High School Sociology. We are all a product of where we came from, our experiences etc. myself included.

I don't really pay attention to stuff until it starts affecting my quality of life for the negative.
This is why I ask how far we are willing to go. I once heard someone say we have to live our lives every day not how it will affect ourselves but our childrens children.
If you have ever been present to see a smart aleck kid cuss their parents out like they are dogs maybe possibly you could understand my concerns about our future.
Is it parents, movies, tv, all of the above?
I guess either the differences come from areas of countries or family lines or something but sometimes trying to make others understand your point of view is like trying to tell someone the sky is really blue when they see it as green. Nearly impossible if they have always been told and believed the sky was green.
I just think it is necessary that we as a people come up higher in order to survive.

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

What I'm trying to say is that we will come up higher; this is just a stage in the 'getting there.' Kids have to test boundaries and their parents to learn what is truly taboo, what truly has weight and what really negatively effects then in consequence, and I think that is where we are as a country - testing all of that.

Political scientists currently all observe that the American Empire is receding (as did the British and Roman for example). What that means is that we will less and less have the main stage in the World play. We are sadly on it while we are arguably at our most awkward, but we won't remain there. We will continue to mature as a country and population, and a lot of these issues will no longer be issues for us in teh future. It's just what we are figuring out for ourselves now.

I can see the worry and the cause for worry, but I really feel we are at a natural state as a country in this regard.

And yes, I am a product of my geography and situations. What I was trying to say is that we all are and there is no one to say whose is more 'right' or whose is more 'wrong,' there is only what works for us on a family and individual basis, and it truly is about context and the contexts that we exist in.

 

[Dr Doran]

. What I was trying to say is that we all are and there is no one to say whose is more 'right' or whose is more 'wrong,' there is only what works for us on a family and individual basis, and it truly is about context and the contexts that we exist in.

The only problem with this is that it can slip into utter and complete relativism.

 

[beaucaillou]

The only problem with this is that it can slip into utter and complete relativism.

That's exactly the point and why I personally find frustration with the concept that something is 'wrong.'

 

[Foofoogal]

Well, wrong is not relative. I personally think in terms of black and white.
I always think I have the edge on alot of people really.
I say this because I had older parents and heard about their lives. (They passed in the 1980s.)
I come from a huge family and I can only speak on my experiences.

Now as you say we are letting the pendulum swing as a natural course to find our way in this new world I can only say what I have seen is not pretty.
I am not worried as I believe in a God in complete control but who gives people free will as stewards over ourselves and our families.
I think free will comes with an understanding of self control, responsibility and gasp sacrifice.

So back to my big family I have been privy to watch this giant experiment if as you say and the things that worked, didn't work, brought tragedy, brought pain, selfishness for moments pleasure, brought joy, brought unity, brought love, brought forgiveness. Noone lives in a vacuum and every choice one makes brings consequences, good or bad to us all.
If you plant corn you will not get green beans down the road.

Now back to the movies. [huh]

 

[beaucaillou]

Well, wrong is not relative. I personally think in terms of black and white.
I always think I have the edge on alot of people really.
I say this because I had older parents and heard about their lives. (They passed in the 1980s.)
I come from a huge family and I can only speak on my experiences.

Now as you say we are letting the pendulum swing as a natural course to find our way in this new world I can only say what I have seen is not pretty.
I am not worried as I believe in a God in complete control but who gives people free will as stewards over ourselves and our families.
I think free will comes with an understanding of self control, responsibility and gasp sacrifice.

So back to my big family I have been privy to watch this giant experiment if as you say and the things that worked, didn't work, brought tragedy, brought pain, selfishness for moments pleasure, brought joy, brought unity, brought love, brought forgiveness. Noone lives in a vacuum and every choice one makes brings consequences, good or bad to us all.
If you plant corn you will not get green beans down the road.

Now back to the movies. [huh]

I don't think I entirely understand your points, but I appreciate the further thoughts in these regards.

As far as profanity, obviously my take is very gray, as it is along most lines. I don't ever feel it's my place to judge what is right or wrong for anyone or anything, as I cannot know or pretend to know the greater purpose to anything or anyone's experience.

I do however like very much to play and flesh out the other side of any concept as I think it is important to look at every side of something, truly sit with it and let it not threaten any of my own personal beliefs before I set it back down. I simply find that doing so allows me to grow as a person. But thats' my experience and how I was raised to encounter the world.

As a writer and Enlish scholar, I simply find that profanity is a tool like any other. As a culture we are currently interested in it - like a new toy - and will come to set it back down once we are bored with it. I believe it's simply where we are in our maturation process, no more, no less.

 

[Foofoogal]

I don't ever feel it's my place to judge what is right or wrong for anyone or anything, as I cannot know or pretend to know the greater purpose to anything or anyone's experience.

For the sake of discussion which I also love.
I would love to have that freedom but it is just not in my experience realistic.

Lets just have a mock scenario.
Say you have a 20 year old daughter who doesn't understand the concept of right or wrong, black or white. Say she decides to have 3 children one right after the other but no responsibility. (you know, like on the Doctor Phil show)
At that point since you cannot just park children in the corner someone has to sacrifice to take care of said children.
So not only at that point do I or you or anyone is now faced with a judging of right or wrong for anothers actions because it is now encroaching on my space and/or my time and/or my finances etc.
This happens every day in other scenarios where others actions or lack of actions make others have to judge.
I work with the needy for lack of better word on a weekly basis that is a continual stream of those who are now put into positions they never wanted to be in because of this selfishness by others who don't take care of their own business.
I love Hollywood as they seem to always show the glory of party time and never the reality of it except of course on the 6:00 news.
At the same time if you or anyone else has lives that never experience this then I guess one cannot expect to grasp this.
I saw the mountains in Canada last year and noone could of ever explained to me the beauty if I wouldn't of seen it myself. They could of told me about it for days but experiencing it brought it to reality. BAM WOW

 

[Gilbey]

As we age as a country and as a people (as countries go we are still in our adolescent years) we are finding our taboos and testing them and yes, diffusing concepts that used to carry weight. I don't see how that is a bad thing. It means we are mentally aging as a collective population and what was once taboo will lose its shock value and we will be able to get on and start using things in their appropriate time and place, versus because we belive it has 'shock.'

You're talking more like an evolutionary process of society in stages, which in the end, will pan out in utopia. I find that hard to swallow because a society without a standard have no absolutes. There is no right or wrong therefore everything is permissible under the sun because there is no accountablity. This is the gradual process of decay in modern civilization reducing society to a bunch of uncivilized people without self control. We might think it's getting better, but we're actually like the frog in the kettle with the heat ever turned up so lightly at every stage.

 

[HadleyH]

The swearing in Deadwood was overdone.

Ugh!...it was totally and absolutely overdone! Really it was, those people went over the top with the profanity. Who can watch a program in peace and relaxed when all that is going on? ... Well, I can't anyway...

 

[Diamondback]

Ugh!...it was totally and absolutely overdone! Really it was, those people went over the top with the profanity. Who can watch a program in peace and relaxed when all that is going on? ... Well, I can't anyway...

But you're not supposed to relax, you're supposed to be cocked on the edge of your seat with a hair-trigger like a desperado's sixgun...

lol

 

[60Years2Late]

II have to disagree. If we were transported *back* we would be shocked to see what truly was: rampant, blatant, appaling racism and sexism, lecherousness, close-mindedness, exclusionary behaviors and community sanctioned stratification. True, along lines of profanity, perhaps we would be shocked, but I truly think it would have still been about context and relativism largely.

My Grandfather was born in 1914 and despite being a pillar in the community, a printer, a carpenter, and a father of three small girls, he swore like a sailor until his dying day, and so sis his friends. And he was living in perhaps the *most conservative* protestant town in America: Wheaton, Illinois. Thus, I don't think the amount of profanity that I'm used to is because of the media and arts' efforts to desensitize me. It's because of the industries I've worked in, my home town (Chicago), and the way I was raised. I was raised to use profanity as a manner of grammar- as a useful tool of vocabulary. Now of course there is a time and place for it, but I think it's easy for people to forget that many, many people don't bat an eye at profanity. To each his/her own! And when it is actually appropriate in the context, the only person who can really judge that is/are those who populate the context and not anyone else.

As we age as a country and as a people (as countries go we are still in our adolescent years) we are finding our taboos and testing them and yes, diffusing concepts that used to carry weight. I don't see how that is a bad thing. It means we are mentally aging as a collective population and what was once taboo will lose its shock value and we will be able to get on and start using things in their appropriate time and place, versus because we belive it has 'shock.'

Here, I must SINCERELY disagree, and your post actually specifically denotes just what movies have done for us. Movies are made specifically for shock. it sells. I husband cheating on his wife in the fifties, when that was frowned upon, and then (so it seems) it turns out to be quite common? That sells. Hypocracy sells. Movies take situations that ARE unlikely, and portray them as the opposite, so that you'll say "Oh my God, I never saw that coming." It's called a plot twist. Back in the day, profanity WAS NOT used in public. I do a LOT of research about history. It's my passion. I read a lot of old letters, magazines, books, census reports, personal diaries, journals. I prefer the civil war era over all of them. See, I like to compare generations. Here's how I see it.
Contrary to what modern books and movies will have you think, the period that you speak of is NOT a period of hypocracy and rampant racism. People are people are people. Just because we're born later doesn't mean we're going to have embedded in us a higher code of ethics. The only difference in time is the differences in raising and accepted behavior. Cheating on your wife back then was a lot less common than it is now. Cursing in general was a lot less common then than now, and bad behavior, well, you guessed it, was a lot less common.
Most of the stuff I've read, I've heard, the stories you'll hear if you talk to the people that lived it (I'm sure somebody on this forum did), involves a lot higher level of respect. What we view as cool now was uncool then. It wasn't "cool" to be the bad boy. It was "Cool" to be the good guy. It was "Cool" to be a badass, sure, but it was especially cooler if you did it like a gentleman. Respect ladies, respect elders, and so on and so forth were the ways of the period. It was expected that if you had a problem with somebody, you told them. You were then expected to back it up. If you didn't, you were a coward. The whole modern image, though, of being labeled as something and run out of town on a rail is not really all that based in fact. It wasn't hellish to grow up back then. It was a good time for most people. It's not like they were taking bad things, glossing them over and lying through their teeth. They lived normal lives, they did normal things, but they did it with just a little more respect for the other guy.
Just to make the point, take for example simple things like opening the door to a salesman, or answering their phone calls. Nowadays, we generally slam the door in their face or almost break the phone because we put it down so hard. And that's accepted. Back then, you didn't do that, out of respect for the salesman. You might have no intention of buying from him, but MOST people would at least listen to them talk, because the guy did go all the way your house, or take the time out of his day to call you, and as a person, he deserves at least the courtesy. What you're calling hypocracy is actually just courtesy. When they talk all eloquently in public, or do gentlemanly things for people, but they've got skeletons in their closet, what bad is that? You expect that just because they did do something wrong they should do it all the time? NO. That's wrong, and that's the modern generation in you coming out. You've got to think, here. Stop taking what you see in movies and applying it as fact. Do you ever talk to elderly people? Listen to how they talk, and think about it. Sure, they cuss. It happens. But generally, they didn't cuss in public. Generally, they didn't cuss in front of ladies or children. Unless of course they just got so heated about the subject that the word was called for. Them talking is a lot like our written word, honestly. At least all the old people I know.
One of my Aunt's friends was expelled from school when he called my father an S.O.B. My father beat the snot out of him, and he didn't get so much as a slap on the wrist, because when the principle asked him why he did it, he told him so. To this day, my father rarely curses. My grandfather has said FOUR cuss words that I can remember. *Snip* - you disprove your own point. We don't use that language here. - ed. He said the fourth when he shot my father with a nail gun by accident. On the same token, he drank, smoked, and was in the Army in WWII. My father was a Navy Corpsman in Viet Nam, and served three years with the Marine Corps' Fox 2/7 as their field medic. They do cuss, yes. I know for a fact they do. I've heard my father cuss, albeit rarely because I'm his son and he restrains from it, but I have heard it. There are certainly some words in his vocabulary that I'm not sure I even have learned yet. But the point is not that they do, but WHEN they do it.

By the way, vulgarity in Deadwood IS far overdone. Like I said, I research the 1850's-1890's as a pastime. Call it my passion. When somebody says they changed it because the effect would be lost today, he's only reinforcing what I'm saying. The guy researched letters in writing the script, for purposes of character development. That's the same thing I do. If he saw the same vulgarities I did, it would be something along the lines of "Dear Billy, I witnessed a dastardly murder today. This bluebelly scum from Ohio or some place nearabouts to there some old coot between the eyes, on accounts of a rumor about him messing with his wife. I don't think it's right, Billy." Now that's not the same vernacular, but it's to illustrate what a "profanity" would be considered. Bluebelly in reference to a yankee, *SNIP AGAIN* The phrases were definitely there, but the context was entirely different. And when somebody says "Well, old Joe cussed up a storm" Old Joe, though he might very well have said a string of four letter words that would make a sailor blush, is much more apt to have said things that today would seem harmless, even childish.

Oh. And about our "country" coming of age. We don't use "american" language. We use the ENGLISH language, which has been around for quite some time. Profanity is not testing its waters. That had settled long ago. You want somebody to blame for the rise in profanity being used, blame the media. I know that's a horse that's beat dead, but I can't help but tell the truth. Movies are there to SELL. Not to make a point, or because some actor and director and producer got together and tried to do some big crusade to give you a better look at history, or gangs, or war. It's because they thought hte idea would make money, and they're going to do it in the way that will make the most money. It's that simple. And cussing sells, because it DOES have shock value. Heck, how many of us have thought about a movie since we started talking about this subject? Obviously the theory worked.

There isn't always a deeper meaning. Remember that. Sometimes, things are just what they seem. Stop trying to dig and justify. If it's wrong, it's wrong. I'm not saying it's a bad thing that movies change history to sell a story. I'm just saying it teaches bad morals to our kids when they glorify drug dealers and gang members and murderers. I'd much rather a kid follow the gangster that did right in the end than the guy who never ever once stood up for what he believed in, but cursed up a storm and talked enough crap that he won the verbal "Fight" with somebody in the end of the movie.

 

[HadleyH]

you're supposed to be cocked on the edge of your seat with a hair-trigger like a desperado's sixgun...

lol

... but I don't wan't to be cocked on the edge of my seat like that! i want to be relaxed when i watch a movie, anyway, that's not my sort of movie . 20s and 30s movies i like much better!

 

[CharlieH.]

...20s and 30s movies i like much better!

This reminds me... wasn't there a certain degree of swearing in some pre-code films?