Tired of Gratuitous Profanity?  You Don't Have to Put Up with It at the Movies

        By T. Evan Schaeffer

        These days, the most common complaint about the movies probably isn’t sex or violence, but the use of profanity, especially when it’s gratuitous or unnecessary.

         Who hasn’t noticed Hollywood’s increasing reliance on profanity to add some extra oomph to its films? Walk into almost any recent “R”-rated movie--Primary Colors, The Big Lebowski, even Oscar-winners such as Good Will Hunting and L.A. Confidential--and you are confronted with an astonishing amount of dialogue that seems to have been written mostly for the entertainment of drunken sailors.

         So far, the public outcry has been restrained. But as movies become increasingly foul, a storm is brewing, especially with respect to the use of a particular four-letter word that begins with “f” and rhymes with “truck.”

         To some, this particular obscenity is one of the most versatile and colorful words in the language. (And, they’ll remind you, it’s just a word!) Yet to many others, this same word is offensive, crude and boorish, and has a corrosive quality that tends to quickly ruin what began with the purchase of a movie ticket as a perfectly good time.

         There seems to be no middle ground. What explains Hollywood’s increasing reliance on foul language in the movies?

         Not surprisingly, the experts are divided. First, there’s the breaking-down-of-taboos theories, which holds that the social restriction against the use of foul language is waning, probably because the country wants to turn its attention to “more serious” social problems.

         But in polite society, profanity is still the exception. Even in Hollywood, the epidemic of potty mouth hasn’t spread to the TV, the newspaper, or the radio. It’s obvious that the taboo against bad language--and in particular, the f-word--still has force.

         A related theory traces the spread of profanity in the movies to a new sort of generation gap, one that separates the mores of Joe High School, who’s always loved a good curse word, from those of Grandpa Jones, who walks out of Good Will Hunting following the first 30 of its 85 f-words.

         Why doesn’t Hollywood care about Grandpa Jones? Because he doesn’t see as many movies as Joe High School. As one commentator notes, Hollywood “uses the f-word as a sort of signal to attract the audience it wants: the 15-to-25-year-olds who rush out to opening weekends and put a movie on the map.”

         But if this were true, every movie would be a Scream or a Wild Things-movies directed solely at 15-to-25 year olds. In fact, there are still plenty of highbrow movies being produced that aren’t intentionally moronic, yet which still have fallen prey to the rash of course language. Examples are Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential, or Woody Allen’s latest, Deconstructing Harry.

         Next, there’s the lazy-screenwriter theory, which holds that Hollywood has been infected by an industry-wide lack of imagination. It’s a town where overpaid screenwriters find themselves unable to depict the essence of a character without leaning on the crutch of profanity.

         On the other hand, think about what those “lazy” screenwriters can do well: make movies that continue to attract paying customers. How lazy can they be?

         The fact is, though most are understandably concerned about foul language in the movies, they aren’t concerned enough to stay at home. Herein lies the solution to the riddle. While profanity may or may not attract customers, it’s not keeping any significant number away. Movie-makers are taking a gamble. By leaving the profanity in the final cut, they hope any effect will be on the plus side.

         What’s to be done, if anything? A columnist in U.S. News & World Report recently argued that any use of the f-word in a film should require an automatic NC-17 rating. Yet this solution promotes prudery at the expense of creativity. It’s not foul language that’s the problem, but foul language used gratuitously, that is, without reason or purpose.

         The answer is more simple. Those who are concerned about the recent spate of profanity in the movies should put their money where their good taste is and refuse to patronize the offending films.

         It’s a solution directed at Hollywood’s pocketbook that won’t affect “artistic” films, in which the use of profanity is more likely to be justified, and which attract smaller audiences anyway. What will be affected are the blockbusters, the largest component of Hollywood’s bottom line. It’s these films that are the prime offenders. If audiences are willing to go cold turkey on gratuitous profanity, movie-makers will be forced to clean them up.

         Think about it next time you’re standing in line for a movie ticket. Are you a discriminating movie viewer, or a drunken sailor?

         It shouldn’t be that hard to answer.

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