There are a lot of things in this world that I just fucking love. A really fuck-off well-brewed beer. Worryingly expensive single malt whisky. A brilliant computer game. Awesome films. Documentaries on the making of a particularly difficult film. Books on logical fallacies and atheism. James Ellroy books. Breasts – particularly when attached to highly intelligent women (so sue me, I have a brain fetish – and not in a Zombie-like way). British comedy.
But beyond all these wonderful things, lies a deeper, and much more creative love. The kind of love traditionally reserved for soldiers & their rifles, people from Rooty Hill and their utes or first-world women and their shoe collection.
I fucking love – fucking love – profanity. And I don’t mean some twelve year old using the word ‘cunt’ because heard his father call his mother that after she got smashed on the cooking sherry one too many times. That’s just lame And I don’t mean some homeless man yelling the word “bastard” from his stinky corner near the local pub. That’s also piss-weak.
Those are the profanity equivalent of comparing a XXXX to Chimay.
No, I mean real swearing.
I mean Al Swearengen making business negotiations where the counter-offer is “go fuck yourself”, or telling somebody to get a haircut because it looks like their “mother fucked a monkey”.
I mean Bunk & McNulty investigating a crime scene in a five-minute sequence where the only word used is ‘fuck’ – and you still understand what the hell is going on.
I mean Malcolm Tucker blackmailing somebody and ending the conversation with “Fuckity-bye!”, noting with frustration that “It seems one can no longer call a spade a cunt,” or Jamie, his not-so-loyal lap-dog, going on a 30 second diatribe about how he’s going to shove somebody’s iPod up through their arse, wedge it against their prostate and squeeze the unlucky guy’s sweaty ballsack to change the track.
But what makes these guys swear so incredibly well is performance and context. They’re just straight-out experts in the art of using profanity. They can deliver the simple line “go fuck yourself” and make it work – something few people can do.
There is an art to swearing. A real, true, art – and becoming true masters at this important skill is something that is seemingly limited to the Scottish, Irish and we not-so-humble Aussies.
Let’s face is: hearing somebody talk with an Aussie accent without profanity is just plain-out wrong. And why? Because we do it so frequently. It comes naturally to us. Just listen to Question Time in our Parliament. Sure, the socially-unacceptable words like cunt and fuck are left out (mostly), but otherwise the leaders of our country spend more time using creative expletives and abusive analogies than anything else while parliament is sitting.
Compared to many cultures, casual (and even non-derogatory) use of words like bastard, bloody and bugger is not just accepted, but an important part of our common vernacular.
American TV have slots on cable where there are plenty of shows that showcase profanity (where it’s appropriate).
On British television (particularly satire), swearing in a show seems more likely than not. And yet on our television programmes and even many movies, we seem to censor ourselves more than any other.
I’m a filmmaker, and I come from a culture that swears. So why the hell can’t we express that? I’ve made two films and a web series that feature swearing very prominantly. Why? Because the characters seemed the sort to swear. If I was writing about nuns, I probably wouldn’t. And yet I’ve been told by numerous people in media that they’d love to help promote or… but for the profanity.
Well, horse-fuckit, I hate that. I really do. And I don’t plan to tone down my fucking language just because it’ll increase my chances of being shown on television here. If it means every project I do from now until I die remains an internet-only affair, then that’s just the way it’ll bloody be.
I’m an Australian.
And I swear.
