For generations, parents and authority figures have warned of the perils of swearing.
Just a few decades ago, swearing was strictly forbidden in polite company, mass media, and politics.
Why? Every swear word has a “safe” alternative that means the same thing. You can’t say “fuck” on TV but you can say “make love,” “hook up,” “get busy” or any number of other euphemisms. How does that make sense? If the concept is okay, why is one word allowed and another banned? Is it the particular combination of the letters F, U, C, and K that’s so offensive?
With the rise of the Internet, lines have blurred between private conversation and public discourse. Swearing is how people talk. A few shits have snuck into TV and radio. Gary V. swears. The Onion swears. It’s far more common than it used to be.
Barak Obama, and then Donald Trump, broke through and swore within politics, the final arena where swearing was considered off-limits.
It seems like swearing is okay now. The main distinction between blue and clean nowadays is the topic of sex. If you do raunchy sexual material, you’re working blue.
There’s another level of profanity beyond sex and traditional swearing. It’s a set of words that are even more forbidden than George Carlin’s seven dirty words. These even more dangerous words are slurs that malign minority communities.
These words also have “safe” alternatives, but we’ve decided certain ones simply cannot be uttered.
One of those words is retard. It was the acceptable term for the developmentally disabled not long ago, but now it’s one of the forbidden words.
A comedian and frequent guest of the Writers Room alerted me to this Doug Stanhope bit that beautifully dismantles the political correctness behind the word:
The pendulum of political correctness has swung to the left. In this climate, we all have to make our own decision about which words we want to use.
Regardless of whether we work clean or blue, the more important distinction should be, how do we treat people? Do we treat them respectfully, or do we not?
If the former, if our hearts are in the right place, if we comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, we can use any words we want. It’s not the arrangement of the letters that’s offensive, it’s the context and intention behind them.
If the latter, if we’re punching down and calling people names, we can also use any words we want. We still have freedom of speech. But if you go this route, be prepared for the backlash, the angry comments, and the banishment from social media. And good luck trying to succeed when you’re purposefully limiting your audience.
I like the flexibility of the word f**K, which in one sentence can be used as all parts of speech - noun, verb, adjective, adverb. And then you can insert the word into others, i.e. unf**king believable, or make up entirely new words. F**kedy, f**k, is a repeated phrase in the movie Four Wedding and a Funeral. I once made a New Year's Resolution to use the word more in creative and entertaining ways and made up my own word f**ckles, but have not yet overcome my sense of propriety - note the use of the asterisks.
I’ve seen a couple of recent clips of comedians flirting with the word “retarded”. When I was a teen, it was a word used to describe your friend doing something incredibly stupid and was divorced from comparing them to those with special needs. In fact if you used it to refer to someone with special needs, then that made you the word. I can do without it. But I’m not “canceling” someone who is trying to redefine it or find a creative application for it.
I think people sometimes cannot distinguish the subject and the target of a joke which has caused some comedians to get canceled. But, as you pointed out, there are some that are targeting the marginalized and they are fine with the “woke” canceling them because now they have safe havens like The Joe Rogan Show, Ben Shapiro and Jordan Petersen.
To each their own. Ad subjective as comedy is, it makes sense to find the audience that will accept your brand whether it is punching up, down or laterally.