A few months back, a friend took me to task for my distaste for coarse language in books, plays, TV shows and movies. He said, "That's how people talk now." His point being that authors were simply being realistic.
Maybe so. My point was that coarse language bores me. That's right. Not offends as much as simply bores. Even his discussion with me about it made me secretly sigh because I've heard that "It's realistic" ad nauseam.
I've been involved in journalism and theater most of my life. Both are filled with salty people that never found a swear word that they didn't make their lifelong friend. I can remember being shocked and maybe even impressed by the vulgarity. That was 22 years ago. I've heard it, read it, seen it on stage and on the movie screen.
Remember Die Hard? Good action movie. Great story, good acting, appropriate language for the people portrayed. It was a big hit. Remember Die Hard 2? Not so good a movie. And much more bad language. The screenwriters knew the writing was weak, the plot plain stupid. They tried to punch it up. What they forgot is that a word can only shock you so many times. I got bored in DH2 and started to count the number of times they used the Fword. I lost track around 50. By that time, the word had lost its meaning. It didn't convey intensity or pain. By overuse, they had diluted its power.
When I see coarse language used extensively, I just think the writer was lazy. The writer didn't stretch, didn't attempt to find new ways of expressing his/her thoughts. Oh, there are exceptions to that. I've read several short stories, poems and novels and seen a few movies and plays where the dramatic content called for it and it worked. Most of the time it doesn't. (Another tired and over-used character in movies: the foul-mouthed kid. Stopped being funny after the first 100 times we saw it. Give it a rest.)
I think about coarse language that way I think about fart jokes. At 13 they're funny, but you're supposed to grow out of it.
I get accused of being old fashioned about this. But really I'm not. I'm just jaded. I look for writing that uses language in new and exciting ways. Where the writer has put out some effort. (I'll give you a good example of this. In his day job, my friend Erudite Redneck writes a column about a subject that is -- to me -- deadly boring. But I enjoy his columns because of the new ways he finds to present this information. His writing makes it interesting. I wish I could quote some examples so you could be impressed, but his need to keep his blog separate from his job doesn't allow.) I find coarse language to be lazy language.
Playwright and author Jean Kerr said in Penny Candy: "I do not like to hear the most explicit four-letter words spoken from the stage because I number among my acquaintance persons of such candor and quick temper that, for me, the thrill is gone."
I'm with you, Jean. The thrill is gone.
5 comments:
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Kind words, mi amigo. Many thanks. My inner fifth-grader, by the way, cracks up just seein' the words "fart jokes." ... Thesis tweaking continues. I have to kill at least 18 pages out of a 218-page thesis I have been working on since January, 2003. It's gonna hurt a little, but I will "get 'er done," as a redneck comic I'm sure you've never heard of puts it. :-)
Good point, Tech!!! My husband used to have a potty mouth, but he cleaned it up after we got married and he got involved in church. We don't want our sons to ever say those words. I know they probably will someday, but they're going to be gentlemen in my house even if it kills me. And it might!!! :)
I talked to my mom this morning and she said you guys got a lot of lightning and rain last night. We got nothing! And we need the rain in the worse way! Send some of it here, would you?
-Susan1
I have made my distaste for coarse language well known. :) My husband rarely swore around me. I can’t actually remember an instance when he did, but I know he did. It was a mark of his respect for me that he wanted to keep his language that of a gentleman. But he was no uptight, repressed man. He was lively, fun, and generous. He could dance better than any man I've ever known, and he loved to laugh. He did like a beer now and then, but I never saw him drunk. All in all, he was the essence of a gentleman. My life is poorer for his passing. We need more men like him who choose to hold a higher standard than the world around them. It's all well and good to say that certain words are realistic or even common, but it doesn't make them respectable, kind or intelligent. People may claim that intent matters behind a swear word, but what is their intent then? To sound coarse? To have people think they weren’t raised proper? People slip. I do, but I know enough to know it was a slip and enough to not try to pretend that it was anything except that.
I'm curious now. WHY are other folks opinion about the use of more...course...language affecting you so strongly? Every writing is unique, aiming to tell a different story to a different person. What may work for some folks won't work for others. Write what you believe the story needs, not what people expect it to be (which is a GREAT way to surprise them, by the by.)
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