Oct 01 2008
Would You Like a Swear Word with That?
I’m eternally fascinated by what people see as “original” or “modern.” In theatre, an edgier area of writing (playwrights tend to be riskier, ahead of mass media publishing, television, Hollywood, etc.), defines its edginess in odd ways: instead of applauding new ideas, the assumption seems to be that the more your characters cuss and get nude, the more modern you are as a playwright.
Some film ventures in this direction (I have to use film, for most of my readers will not have read the plays I might discuss). In Good Will Hunting, the “reality” of the characters is established, primarily, through their extensive cursing. The F-bomb is dropped a hundred times in the first ten minutes (I admit I might be exaggerating), showing the world these young men live within.
Plays do the same. If we trust the world of plays, people go to work and swear at each other constantly, people speak to very young children as if they were fellow sailors, and couples can’t be romantic without turning to “porn speak” (if you’ve seen any porn, you will know exactly what I mean).
You might think I’m just a prude. Perhaps I am. But I have serious reservations with this level of edginess–and for two reasons:
1. I don’t speak that way, and I don’t know anyone who does. I really don’t. I don’t cuss at my children, I don’t swear at my husband even when we are fighting, and I don’t walk down the street or at the college where I teach and hear anyone else really doing that. I know some areas of the country DO have groups of people who do this, but I am not part of any of them.
Thus, if I were to infuse my plays with lots of swearing, I’d be creating a world I neither live nor understand. They say to “write what you know,” and I simply don’t know that world. Such a fact would be good enough reason to refrain from much swearing, but I have a better reason.
2. Cussing gets in the way of better, more vivid, more meaningful language. When the word “F%&$ing” is used to describe everything, it gets in the way of using better adverbs, and it often means the speakers don’t use good verbs or adjectives, either. Extensive cursing, in my experience, is a symptom–and cause–of language laziness (think of it as a vicious cycle). Why use several words when you can use the same word over and over and sound edgy? Why try hard to find the right words? Just use profanity, and no one will notice. Why be subtle, when you can shock?
Many playwrights would assume I’m merely green…and you might be thinking (still) that I’m just a prude ranting because “the world frightens me.” I’d prefer another interpretation, but I have to stick with my gut–and my gut says to keep the cussing to a minimum.
Besides, if my play gets picked up for a community theatre, all those swear words would be taken out anyway.
I’ll be honest. I can cuss like a sailor and frequently do. My daughter and her friends talk like that, too (and I’m not responsible for it all). Oddly, in general, my characters do not. They might cuss here and there (and, since I write fantasy/science fiction, they are generally different cursing), but it is not their normal mode. In many places, it’s not my normal mode, either.
In fact, in most. I am professional at work and in public and on paper and, most of the time, cursing is not “necessary” at home, either. That’s the thing, it can be powerful under the right circumstances, but using it in every sentence diffuses it.
If I have a character that does curse a great deal, and only one comes to mind, it’s because she’s walking in the footsteps and using the vocabulary of someone I know or myself under certain circumstances. And, even there, I try to bear in mind that a little can go a long way.
Of course, I don’t write plays and, even at my worst, many comedians and movies using cussing in a way outside even the worst of the people I know (including myself). I don’t do that and won’t.
It may be different, but I’m still writing what I know.
I don’t mean cussing is bad. But, as you say, a little goes a long way. A long, long way. Overkill makes each of the words less effective, until many readers drown them out completely.
Exactly. To quote Flanders and Swann, “If we use all those words now, what will we have left for special occasions?” The problem with cuss words being all over the place isn’t whether they’re wrong or not, it’s that they’re being devalued, and there isn’t anything you can say to truly illustrate the intense things-going-wrong of a situation to which they would formerly have been applied.