Foul language isn’t used to develop character, punctuate emotions, or move the plot along. It’s dropped in to remind viewers that they’re privileged to be watching cable TV.
At the climactic end of a turbulent screen marriage, the hero, Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), tells Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) he’s through. Finished. How will she survive? she asks plaintively. What will she do?
“Frankly, my dear,” he snarls, “I don’t give a damn.”
He said “damn.” Clark Gable! In Gone With the Wind, back there in 1939, defying the Production Code and the much-feared Legion of Decency that, together, had established unshakable “moral” standards for film studios. You couldn’t say “damn” on screen without special dispensation, and you could only say “hell” if you meant Satan’s lair.
So Gable’s farewell to Scarlett was memorable on at least two counts, and because it represented the only piece of profanity in the nearly four-hour movie, it had momentous reverberating power.
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Cut to the 1960s, when the code was loosened to the point of absurdity. Having sex and talking dirty somehow became acceptable film fare. Along came cable TV, and it seemed that if your script didn’t include at least one expletive every 30 seconds, the material was considered worthless or unfit. This meant a whole generation of lazy writers could now pepper their dialog with four-letter words, or the longer equivalents, as substitutes for thoughtful communicative language.
I was reminded of this when I acquired DVDs containing the first season of HBO’s hit series The Wire. I watched five episodes in a kind of marathon and found myself mesmerized—no, not by the action, only by the words.
Understand, please, I went to a public high school, I served in the military, I live in New York, I hear street language all the time—everywhere. I still found The Wire ear-popping. It professed to be presenting some form of hyperrealism, exposing a world where seemingly everyone—street kids, drug pushers, crime bosses, men, women, politicians, police—all had potty mouths with every line they had to speak.
Blue language was not inserted to develop character, punctuate emotions, or move the plot along. It was dropped in to remind viewers that they were privileged to be watching cable—especially premium cable—TV, which had unparalleled license to talk dirty.
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Season one, episode four of The Wire contains a sequence in which a police detective and his partner enter a crime scene in a desperate search for a particular piece of evidence. As they poke and prod, their mounting fury and frustration are expressed this way:
“Fuck!”
“Motherfucker.”
“Aw fuck. Aw fuck.”
“Hmmm … fuck. The fuck?!”
“Mother of fuck.”
“Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.”
“Fuckin’ A.”
On and on they go. The scene lasts about three minutes; no other words are spoken.
♦◊♦
Was this a joke? Hardly. It was a serious situation. Was it a stunt? Maybe. Did it make the moment seem more tense, more suspenseful, more dramatic? No way. To me it suggested that the two detectives were still mentally in some junior-high-school restroom, pissing and venting.
Another scene showed a junior officer reporting to his superior. What he said—and what no junior officer would ever say to his superior, in any police precinct anywhere, under any circumstance—was: “This motherfucker really fucked us. That fuck!”
No, frankly, I wasn’t shocked by any of this; I just grew weary of it. Watching those episodes of The Wire, I felt I was being doused with slops for no good reason—just for the sake of letting foul language spew forth. I guess I was cheered by the fact that “cocksucker” was used only once—and aptly—in referring to a drug king who enjoyed having sex with men.
I respond warmly to tautly written scripts that move along swiftly and pull me into the action, but when every character in the drama spouts filth, my head begins to reel and I have the urge to change the channel—or, in this case, stop the DVD.
Does anyone else feel that cable TV throws too much fucking shit at the motherfuckers who watch it?
♦◊♦
Don’t agree? For another take on the merits of cursing, check out “Requiem for an F-Bomb.”
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—Photo dhammza/Flickr
About Mervyn Kaufman
I’ve only watched the first season of The Wire. I keep meaning to watch more.
I find it weird that you say you’re used to foul language, and you find The Wire to be too full of it even for you. Because honestly, I never noticed; the foulness or otherwise was not the thing I noticed while watching that show. Possibly because I don’t consider ‘profanity’ to be foul, at all.. it’s just punctuation. Hell, my generation (I’m 21), at least the ones in this part of the world, are likely to use ‘fuck’ the same way people use ‘um’.. just filler while you think about what you’re gonna say next. I sure do. I try to watch my mouth around older people or kids, but only so I don’t get bitched at, not because I think those words are actually wrong in any way.
You may be ‘used’ to foul language, but the fact that you still call it ‘filth’ and ‘foul language’ means you aren’t really as desensitized as you might think.
you say this statement:
“Blue language was not inserted to develop character, punctuate emotions, or move the plot along. It was dropped in to remind viewers that they were privileged to be watching cable—especially premium cable—TV, which had unparalleled license to talk dirty.”
but then you don’t explain yourself. how is it dropped in to remind viewers that they are watching cable? It’s not as clear to me. This article is silly.
Dear Thorn: Even when I use the words, I know they are expletives. I guess that means I’m not really desensitized…except that I use such words, and accept such words, when they’re said or shouted in the heat of emotion. Rage. Frustration. Pain. But in “The Wire,” I find the use of these words somewhat self-conscious…and, as I wrote, part of a need to fill some sort of quota rather than to advance the plot or aid character development. BTW, I’ve become fairly addicted to “The Wire,” despite my objections to its language smears. I can see why it’s been so fucking popular!
This article is terrible.
First of all, The Wire was the best show on television. Hands down. For five seasons it blew everything else away. And my favorite scene is the “Fuck Scene.” For three minutes they analyze a crime scene saying nothing but the F-word, and they piece it all together. It was brilliant.
Foul language — when used correctly — can absolutely benefit a movie. Case in point, try watching any movie with an abundance of swears in it on regular TV. It’s horrible. What would the Sopranos have been without swearing? And when it comes to The Wire, they used ex-cons FROM BALTIMORE to play the parts of the thugs. Those people weren’t acting, that’s how they said it was where they grew up. So the swearing helps lend credence to story.
Also, I spend large portions of my day around cops and can readily attest the swearing is commonplace. So all of this, added up, absolutely advances the story and the credibility of the show. It’s not for the faint of heart, but that’s why it’s rated R and for adults.
So my question is, what’s the fucking problem?
Fuck.
Plus, the show was co-created by an ex-Baltimore cop and an ex-Baltimore journalist who roamed those streets and PDs for a story literally for years, plus features a number of real life Baltimore cop actors.
The reason for the fucks, shits and so-forths? Accuracy. The show features a ton of characters based directly on real folks, even real exchanges. So when you say you can’t see someone talking to their superiors like that, maybe your conjecture is less reliable than people who, between them, spent decades in that exact police department.
And your ‘fuck scene isn’t humor because it’s a serious situation’ comment? Please. How could anyone assume a serious situation and comedy are mutually exclusive, especially in fiction? Last time I checked, it was a bunch of crucified fellows singing “always look on the bright side of life!” Later in the series, the cops put a note reading “Tater killed me” in a corpses’ hand for the explicit purpose of having a laugh at the expense of a young rookie. This isn’t some reverent moment for these characters. It’s work. It’s work they’re only doing because they’ve been harangued into by a superior.
“Does anyone else feel that cable TV throws too much fucking shit at the motherfuckers who watch it?”
Fuck, no! Bring more of that shit on!
Sorry, but people swear. Period. If you don’t believe me, do as the late great Redd Foxx suggested: have somebody slam a car door on your hand. You’ll be saying words you never imagined you’d say.
I’m gonna continue because this article pisses me off. This is basically a wussified call for censorship, despite the denials of those making this type of argument. Yes, some shows are going to always have worse writing than others. But to me, the language is one of the least worries. I’ve seen shows on the Disney Channel, for instance, that have no business being on the air, because the quality was so poor for various other reasons. Lousy TV has no language boundary.
Which leads to another point. If you own any TVs made in the last few years or you own a cable box, chances are you’ll be able to block out unwanted channels. USE IT and stop contributing to calls for censorship that waste our time and eventually waste the time of lawmakers in DC when guys like you make concerted organized efforts to have Washington “do something (!)” about how bad TV is.
As my hippie mama taught me, “Fuck NO!”
The point of this article is not to cry for censorship. The point of this article is to clarify that a lot of television shows are using foul language just to use foul language. Any good writer knows that just about everything written must have a point. If you’re throwing in foul language just to throw it in, it loses its intended effect, which is often to characterize a character or punctuate emotion. The writer is saying that an overuse of foul language does not achieve either of these effects.
Good, god. Take a literature class in college so you can properly analyze a piece of writing to actually understand what its’ saying.
Agreed.
Many stand up comics depend on foul language to get laughs. That just demonstrates a lack of talent and lazy writing. The most brilliant comics, however don’t have to use foul language to get laughs. It’s the difference between an expert in their field and an average schmo.
Just as there’s a difference between gratuitous violence and meaningful violence that enhances and advances a storyline, the same is true with foul language. That said, I think there’s too much gratuitous violence and cursing in our culture period.
I think you pretty much just explained why I detest Jim Norton but love Chris Rock, both who are arguably “dirty comics.”
You’re shitty writer.
Don’t blame the words for the fault of poor quality, mass consumption screenplays. Our forms of entertainment and communication should reflect the society they claim to serve. If that means inserting four-letter epitaths into “street” characters, the script sounds canned “I’m gonna pop a cap in his butt”.
Explicitives are a part of the English language and should be used approrately for emphasis, not just another form of verbal diareria. Convince 9/10 Americans to actually use a vocaburary beyond a hundred words and then you wouldn’t need to use the same ones or pick on a few perceived to be crude.
It’s only the intention when saying the word that matters.
Profanity has always been a part of common human language. Just because a group of people appointing themselves “guardians of our moral sanctity” had the poor sense to try to control how we perceived language does not mean they were right or people who used profanity were wrong.
Today, the language we hear on television is the same language we hear in the rest of the world. People cuss; that’s a fact of life. You mention “The Wire” as an example of the misuse of profanity in television writing? Where do you live and who do you associate with on a regular basis, that gives you the right to make that statement, Mervyn?
That is how people talk in the urban communities that are represented by that show. Profanity on a show like “The Wire” isn’t gratuitous swearing for ratings; it’s verisimilitude meant to represent the truth of the show’s setting. “The Wire’s” regular use of profanity is the same as Mark Twain using the word “nigger” in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn;” that is how the characters in the story spoke and for it to be a valid representation of the story’s environment, the characters have to use that language.
Finally, you mention this being a “problem” with cable TV? It isn’t; cable TV was meant to be a subscriber network where the customer had the choice to watch what they want as they want it. “The Wire” is a program created on HBO- a channel that is subscription-only and is lauded for its realism and stark storytelling. When cable TV first made its appearance to American viewers, it was meant to offer customers programming options that were not originally available on broadcast networks because of the FCC regulations. The soft core pornography, as well as the movie channels that featured uncut films from straight from the theaters was meant to give viewers more choice.
Back when cable TV came out, nobody knew that subscriber-based programming would become so large and so many American homes would buy into it. And with the recent changeover where nearly everyone has the option for relatively inexpensive subscriber content, the American public has spoken as usual with their wallets rather than their voices. And guess what, Mervyn; America wants the gratuitous profanity, sex, and violence in their homes; and are willing to pay top dollar for it.
I’m sorry Mervyn, but your article is just another example of individual people trying to use false attribution of their personal morality as an representative of everyone’s viewpoint in order to impress their own ideas and viewpoints upon us all. Your morality is not my morality; your ethics do not represent mine. I pay for DirecTV, Netflix, and gladly because I’m an American and it’s my choice whether my TV utters the word “motherfucker” or “gosh-darn;” my motherfucking choice and my gosh-darn dollars.
Just because real life creates it, does not mean entertainment should mimic it. The average person’s life is nothing like what you see on television, but yet television is not mimicking the average person’s life, so why mimic the average person’s language?
Tell me, would you find your life, mimicked on television, to be as interesting as a show like Dexter or The Wire? Probably not. I know I wouldn’t. If my life were mimicked on television, all people would be seeing me doing is writing, watching television, playing video games, or shooting the breeze with my friends. Now while this is a good time to me, it’s by no means entertainment.
Entertainment is not meant to mimic real life. Entertainment is meant to entertain. This is what you have to understand.
Now while you’re saying America buys it because they want all this, the writer of this article clearly not only looks for entertainment value in television shows, but also artistic value, and the average American just wants to be entertained. The writer of this article is clearly arguing that an overdose of foul language is completely killing what any television show is trying to convey with its plot or characters, and this writer is also not your average American for wanting these things.
The best shows and movies I have ever seen are ones that achieve a balance with everything and create purpose for everything, which is what any good art should do. Only time will tell what the classics are and why, and televisions shows and movies with needless anything likely won’t make the list.
“Entertainment is not meant to mimic real life. Entertainment is meant to entertain. This is what you have to understand.”
No…what you have to understand is that there are different types of entertainment and your choice does not have to be my choice. In addition, going back to “The Wire,” the story is set in a backdrop of an urban environment. Again, I bring up the concept of “verisimilitude;” which in the context of modern urban drama, has to include the use of profanity. You remove the profanity, and then what’s next; you remove the rampant drug use that is also core to the story? Then we might as well get rid of the violence that is involved with the plot, right? And then there’s that repulsive “Omar Little” character; nobody wants to see a gay criminal, right? Then what do we have left? “The Wire” is a story about the the dark, seedy, truth that thrives in the heart of a major urban population center (Baltimore, MD to be exact).
The “Realist” school of fiction in the late 1800s to early 1900s reflected a similar mimicry of real life in its stories. Verisimilitude was the watchword of the realist authors, like Twain (yes, I know that Mark Twain is not a realist, but because of the way he wrote his stories, he in fact could be called the father of the movement), London, Dreiser, and Crane. Their stories wallowed in as much reality as they could put into their stories. If they were writing today, you would read all kinds of modern profanity simply because they understood that to tell a story within a given environment, you had to immerse your audience into that environment.
The artistic license of realism grants the artist the right to get into the guts of his tale and tell it as it is; regardless of the sensibilities of those who are reading it. Critics attacked Dreiser’s “Sister Carrie” when it was first released because of the imagery it portrayed of a woman who was willing to use men to elevate her position in life. Now, this book is considered one of the seminal works of American literature and rightfully so.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion about a given work; if you say that a given piece of work is bad or doesn’t appeal to you, that’s cool. Art touches different people in different ways and some art can come off to some people as “a bad touch.” But to declare that all art has to mimic your values, smacks of a level of pretentious hubris that is unfortunately more common in American society than I would like to see. This is about freedom of choice; if “The Wire” and similar shows are too much for you, then make sure that your cable box only receives “ABC Family” and “The Disney Channel” variants.
While you do not have to like the same things that I like, you do not have the right to condemn my tastes because they don’t fit yours. But then again, you and the article author probably are one of those people who are currently arguing in favor of the “new and improved” edited version of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” You know; the one with the “n-word” edited out of it because somebody felt that it’s use was gratuitous, excessive, and contributed nothing to the story, right?
I am chastened. After being called, in effect, an intractable censor, a stupid know-nothing, a stuffy old fart and, worst of all, “a shitty writer” for submitting this piece in the first place, I have turned a corner.
Looking back on that climactic moment in the relationship between the two central characters in 1939’s “Gone With the Wind,” I have decided that, if the film were remade today for cable TV, the two lines uttered when Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) is walking out on Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) would sound significantly different.
Instead of “Rhett…Rhett…Rhett…Rhett. Where shall I go? What shall I do?” Scarlett might be expected to snarl, “Shithead…Cocksucker…Asshole….Prick. Whose gonna pound it into me? Who’s gonna eat me out?”
And instead of Rhett’s stern-faced farewell (which the American Film Institute calls the No. 1 movie line of all time), “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” he might be forgiven for saying,
“Frankly, you cunt, I don’t give a flying fuck.”
Now that should certainly satisfy today’s more liberal, worldly and consistently demanding audiences, don’t you think?
No, it wouldn’t be satisfying because it wouldn’t be realistic. Real people of that position and character during the Civil War did not actually speak that way. However, certain people in this day and age do actually speak in that manner. Or do you somehow think that cable television is making that sort of language more acceptable or prevalent in society?
Mervyn, now you’re just being snippy in your receipt of the critiques of your article.
Show some grace, sir….
And for the record, while I don’t agree with your viewpoint, I do accept that your viewpoint is valid as it represents how you feel.
Again, the phrase we are looking for is verisimilitude. People in the Antebellum South did not use such language; in fact, profanity in that period was frowned upon as the Southern plantation owners of that period tried to some degree to mirror the values of the medieval period, as so demonstrated by Sir Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe.” If you read Charles Chesnutt’s “The House Behind the Cedars,” you will see that the Southern gentlemen and ladies often staged many “pageants” that simulated the concepts of “courtly grace and dignity.” Rena Walden or Rowena Warrick as she renamed herself was named “the queen of love and beauty,” as typified in “Ivanhoe.”
But enough of the literary history lesson; I have a tendency to ramble on such subjects.
My point in responding to you here is to tell you that you had every right to write what you wrote because you believed in it. If I can convince you to my way of thinking, then let it be because you found value in my words. If you don’t agree with me, then that’s fine too, but know while I may not agree with you, I value the effort made in writing your article.
Nothing gets my blood up like a spirited debate.
In many aspect, I agree with Mervyn. If the language used on the script is done so in order to convey the character’s personalities and do so effectively, then yes with proper taste the show is enjoyable. But if the show is peppered all over with profanities for no understandable reasons, then as you put it, it’s done so that the audience may feel that “HBO” is indeed not just TV. Interesting how many replies on this article tend to favor the profanities on the media. I’m afraid I must disagree. Artwork should have its merit, uncontrolled form of blind profanity is certainly not an expression of art.
Well said, Sean. I agree.
I’m reminded of arguments about how feminist Joss Whedon’s work is – in Buffy, for example, there was a lot of use of terms like “bitch” and “slut.” On the one hand, these are things teenage boys and girls say. On the other, they kind of feel weird in the particular work.