Viral Viral Videos: For a number of reasons, many movies choose to refrain from dropping any curse words that would give them anything above a PG rating. But cussing is just so much fun! So instead, many will invent fake curses that are simply hilarious.
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That video was hilarious, and I think that there is something to be said for keeping cursing out of movies, especially those that toe the line between "family" or "just for grown ups". When I was a kid my parents didn't really care about me watching things with curses in it, as long as I didn't repeat what I said. That was a nice idea but if you hear something enough it sneaks into your dialogue without you noticing. The first time I dropped the F bomb it was a complete accident and I felt horrible about it, which looking back is sort of hilarious. What is the most interesting thing about this article for me is that they insert "made up words" to take the place of the commonly known ones, and that fixes the problem. But I don't think it does, because regardless of the word you say when you're frustrated, or stub your toe, the sentiment is the same. I think as culture we put so much emphasis on the word, and the word doesn't matter why we are saying it does. So I appreciate what these films are trying to do but I think culturally the change will come from us not wanting to say bad stuff anymore, not the stuff we say.
This is an interesting approach to the language of cursing in films, a language I had never really thought of before. What this is awfully reminiscent of is the documentary, “This Film Is Not Yet Rated”. The film was an investigation into the secretive, closed-door world of the MPAA, the organization that gives movies their parental rating. In the movie, it was revealed that the organization has many outdated rules and will not reveal their system to any and is extremely biased. The rules are not very flexible and film studios will send in multiple versions until they get the rating that they are aiming for. The MPAA has a much larger sway on the final film you will see in theaters than you think, which makes complete sense of why directors and studios decide to use these fake curse words, something that I feel takes away from the movie.
This video had some good examples of writers who take an opportunity to really play with words and make something funnier than the usual curse. When writers decide to use fake curse words instead of real ones, they sort of have to go farther than just changing the word – they have to make it something ridiculous enough that half of the joke is the fact that the insult or curse probably took the character significant effort to think up, or it acts to develop the character and show how whacky they are (such as Ron Burgundy in Anchormen). Sometimes swears are swapped out with non swear words and it just falls flat. I think this happens when writers have to make the change to keep something PG, but they don’t make a believable change or make it something funny. If a character seems to be legitimately mad, and then uses a half-assed non-swear word, it kind of kills the moment.
I know the point of this was to think about screenwriting and what kinds of whimsical alternatives authors can make to actually cursing onscreen, but for whatever reason it made me think more about the pointlessness of curse words in the first place. If any nonsensical thing we say can be interpreted as an expression of anger based on our tone and body language, then what's the point of making certain words taboo in the first place? Or maybe swapping actual taboo words for made-up ones shows a level of politeness and a recognition that this is a situation inappropriate for breaking cultural taboos. Whatever the reason, I still think it's intriguing that a character cursing onscreen and a character saying a slightly different word in the exact same tone is enough to make it considered more suitable for children. However, I think that's more of a commentary on society and morals as a whole than just the movie industry itself.
While this article didn't offer too much in terms of in depth commentary about the sad fact that we have to censor our entertainment in America to a level where people literally have to avoid cursing (even though every single person who watches the film will know exactly what word the dialogue would have in there if it didn't have to meet the standards of conservative white men who are rating the movies in the first place), I feel like theres a lot to be said about forms of entertainment that have to reach a rating standard. In a way, it just comes off as a form of censorship to me that isn't representative of real dialogue. If a writer has reached a point in a sentence that would, in its most natural development, include a curse word, I feel as though that is the word that should be put in. Otherwise, you're creating something that is not only unrepresentative of real human dialogue but also just comes off as cheap and didactic.
That was a cute video, but it mostly just made me think about how ridiculous language is and how we have a list of words that are unacceptable and only for adult use. Many times in that video, characters said things like feck, fook, and fudge. Why is it that a mispronunciation of a curse word makes it okay to say in a movie, but slightly altering the word makes it rated R? Why are curse words even curse words to begin with? Why are words that show strong anger or emotion censored? It seems like in many cases, curse words are a lot more powerful. Part of that, to me at least, is due to the fact that directors are knowingly making the sacrifice of allowing certain words in their film with the risk of having a less family-friendly film rating. Still, even apart from that, curse words tend to have a lot more feeling behind them, but I guess their "inappropriate" nature is part of what makes them so powerful.
I've always wondered if this trope is written into the script or if actors just kind of make up words. I've watched bloopers of television shows, like Parks and Rec or the Office, where they keep redoing a scene because someone doing just this (inventing insults or something similar) and everyone just keeps laughing. Those are my favorite bloopers.
The first time I understood cussing was when I was like, 6, probably. I had a bunch of letters hung up on my wall to spell "CASSIDY" and for some reason my brother kept removing several of the letters and hiding them, leaving a short and simple word I had never heard behind.... When I went to tell my mom about my confusion she began laughing hysterically, as did my father. I was very angry and confused that I didn't get the joke. Once the concept had been introduced to me I avoided swearing until my middle school days, or, my "edgy" days. Since then, there has been no turning back... So it's probably good that these movies try and keep swearing away from us. But this also kind of reinforces the idea that swearing is fun (which it is) which might now be so helpful for a rebellious little kid.
Honestly, I decided to watch this video to see if they would include Firefly (which the did), and I found the whole video hilarious. It's nice to see certain TV shows and movies going out of their way to make the whole experience kid friendly. Getting a PG rating can not only open up their audience pool (which means more income), but also encourages adults to stop their cursing in front of children. I know I personally use a wide variety of curse words regularly, and paired with my lack of a filter, it's a bad recipe for being in public. This video reminded me that I should really work on limiting my cursing to situations that really call for it. Especially with a tiny baby in my life now, being a good influence is important. So hopefully the kid’s first word won’t be a curse word. Either way, I found the video really enjoyable, although they missed one. How the frack do you forget Battlestar Galactica?
This video was extremely funny! I think that it is great how when writers and actors know they are not allowed to actually cuss, they say something different while poking fun at it as well. Especially in kids movies, when the fake cursing is enough to get by the target audience, but is inventive enough to make the parents laugh. My favorite scenes from the video was the smurfs and the dog. However, some of the fake cursing is awfully close to the real thing which makes me wonder why we bother in the first place. As other commenters before me have noticed, why do we bother censoring these words? Why is it that these combinations of letters is inherently bad? Censoring these words just makes more fun for kids to say them when they find out, as their is a sense to rule breaking about saying them.
I love all these fake swears. All these PG movies going Shakespeare style in their curses. I rememeber I first heard a fake swear and was on the lookout for them when watching an ABC Family cut of "Fast Times At Ridgemont High". Instead of one character calling another a "fucking jerk", he calls him, in totally not the actors voice, a "fuzzy nerd". Even though this time it was not intended by the original movie makers, fake swears can be charming, and can also give the kids watching an alternative that their parents might find better than hearing a real swear in a movie. Kids like to repeat catchphrases and I know that after watching Spy Kids, I said "shiitake mushrooms" constantly thinking I was so cool for swearing, but not really. They're memorable quotes from the film and give it it’s own flavor and identity. I know that in Fantastic Mr. Fox, when they say cuss it was so much more charming than an actual swear.
This video was great and I was surprised to see so many of my favorite movies and shows, from The Breakfast Club to Firefly to the Holy Grail. But it also made me think about how the different standards for cursing people have. Why is saying “feck” any better than just saying “fuck”? Everyone knows what you want to say and at that point using the not-quite swear word kind of takes you out of the moment. What really does work well is when the screenwriter uses the need to work around swearing as a chance to really play with the language and create something really interesting and funny. One of the best examples of this I think is Firefly where the work about for not having this rough characters, who naturally would swear, not do so onscreen is by having all the swearing in Mandarin because they live in a world where the West and the East have merged so completely that it is a natural part of their dialect. Perhaps because I was raised by my parents to not consider swearing that big of a deal, but I think the work around for cursing only really works when it is made a part of the character or the world and not just a cop-out.
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