Censorship

Recently I watched three movies where the use of foul or crude language was inexcusable. Generally, the word that caused offense in these three movies was the f-bomb. I wish I could tell you that I turned off the movies instead of exposing myself to the language, but I only ended one of the movies prematurely. In that one the language bothered me and the movie bored me. A double whammy that that couldn't be forgiven or tolerated any longer. Now, I'm not going to mention which movies because I don't want the post to be about the movies. I want it to be about the language.

You see, I believe in censorship. Not government or organizational censorship, but a conscientious personal censorship. There are certain words that should not be said. We should choose not to say them. No one should force us not to say them, but as individuals we should choose to use better language. Why? Because we are part of a society and we have the desire to be considerate to those around us. Just because we have "free speech" does not mean we should feel free to say whatever we want. Words have consequences and we should consider the impact of those words on the people around us.

I have heard the argument that the use of coarse or vulgar language makes characters more realistic. Related to this is the premise that vulgar language is used in movies because movies reflect reality. The argument is flawed. Anyone who watches movies can tell they don't reflect reality. If life was like the movies the world would be a different place. This is why we have a phrase like "willing suspension of disbelief" (WSOD). Abandoning vulgar language might make characters less realistic, but application of WSOD suggests that in most cases people will be able to deal with it. So the gangster didn't drop a blue streak when he started shooting. Most people will be able to accept that. Besides, I've never associated the ability to swear as a sign of depth of character and so characters probably won't suffer for lack of four-letter words.

Another concern of mine is that movies don't reflect life, they exaggerate it. That's right! Movies exaggerate life. They take the real world and make characters more stereotypical, fights more action-packed, romances more romantic, and curse words more prolific. In this way movies can concentrate their message. The sad thing is that it doesn't end with movies exaggerating life. Life than proceeds to mimic the movies. People model their behavior on peers and popular media. As people mimic movies their languages deteriorates to reflect the model. The norm shifts. Movies exaggerate the new norm. Life mimics. The norm shifts. A cycle is created that causes the decline of everyday language. Vulgar language becomes more prevalent and acceptable.

I also believe that casually dropping vulgar language as an adjective, verb, noun or exclamation is lazy writing. A person who can't stop using vulgar language in every day speech appears illiterate (even if they graduated from Harvard). In the same way, writing inundated with four-letter words appears sophomoric. It does not take a lot of creativity to use vulgar language (ok...sometimes it does, but most people are far from creative with it's use). Cole Porter was insightful with his lyrics "Good authors, too, who once knew better words now only use four-letter words writing prose...Anything Goes." That's sad.

Some writers seem to select a vulgar word as a go to choice, inserting it randomly into sentences to give them "flavor" or "honesty". Let me tell you about "flavor". The more you are exposed to a flavor the less strength it has. The end of a lollipop is the least flavorful. Chewing gum's flavor is strongest on the first chew. A steak's flavor diminishes with each meaty bite. It's just the way the senses work. In the same way, vulgar languages loses its power the more it is used. People who are using vulgar language for flavor or honest should discourage its use. That means each individual use will have more impact. It will do the job even better. Vulgar language is more effective when it's scarce.

Because that's the thing, a lot of four-letter words (I'm thinking of one in particular) have lost meaning, because they are used indiscrimanitely to describe anything and everything. Too many connotations and a word is essentially junk. Vulgar words are falling into the literary company of words like "very", "stuff", and "things" and should be edited out in a similar fashion.

This would be a great point in the blog to drop a blue streak to make my point about impact, but I won't. Why? It would undermine the rest of my message.

The question to ask yourself is "Would removing the questionable language change the meaning of the sentence?" If not, let it go. it's not needed. If removing the language would change the meaning of the sentence then let it go, but replace it with a more descriptive word that restores the meaning. Writers might be forced to find adjectives that actually have dictionary definitions or strong nouns. They'll be on a search for Porter's "better words". It can only help their writing. A good vocabulary is essential for any writer, including the four-letter words.

And that's all I have to say on the topic. If you have a comment make sure it's profanity free. After all, the profanity laden rebuttal is obvious and immature. And it will just get deleted.