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Has anyone noticed the prominence of f-bombs lately? People are losing jobs over it, Academy Award winning actresses are including it in their acceptance speeches, and Donald Trump says it in the boardroom on The Apprentice. Why is this phenomenon happening? It seems like modern culture has been led to believe that saucy language equals empowerment, a belief especially prominent among women.
Perhaps this can be attributed to the film industry. The use of profanity has increased over the years, and a documentary was even released in 2005 bearing the mane of the queen of curse words about the criticism of its use in film. At the Oscars this year, Melissa Leo let it slip while accepting her award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Fighter. Because of the rule of the five-second delay, it was bleeped out for at-home audiences. She slapped her hand over her mouth immediately after, but the damage has been done. Aside from some comments about her being unprepared, the incident earned more praise than criticism; she got kudos for not being traditional Hollywood. One blogger had to say about this year’s Academy Awards “this is the young and hip Oscars!” But whatever happened to class?
Well, some industries are taking the liberal use of the f word more seriously. An employee at a social media agency that Chrysler Group was working with accidentally posed a tweet about the (bleeping) traffic in Detroit from the Chrysler account rather than his personal account. The employee was let go, as Chrysler decided to terminate its relationship with the social media group.
The f word or profanities in general tend to start with a soft sound and end with a harsh one. It is the verbal equivalent of opening a door and then slamming it. It seems like the repetition of the word has also de-vulgarized it, or at least desensitized people to it. Although most language is bleeped out, it is not hard to subconsciously replace the edited word in your head, making it easier to let slip out on your own later.
The f-bomb is a faux pas that will get most slapped on the wrist, but it seems to be becoming more and more main stream. Profanities such as the d word and the b word are no longer bleeped out on prime time television; how long will it be before TV becomes so liberal as to toss around the f word unedited?
For now, let the beeps be, but hopefully we will hear no alleged f bombs from the broadcast of the Miss America pageant or a presidential speech, because then we will know that any class, grace, or tact in society is pretty much lost through the choice of language.
I hope that day never comes! It’s bad enough that prime time television has all sorts of four letter foul words in it all the time; they don’t need to add the F-bomb to their vocabulary. I don’t see how those words can add any value to the show, movie, etc. If anything, they greatly detract from it, especially from a family perspective.
I also hate how it is becoming more and more acceptable to use profanity in today’s public like the television and mediums like that. Our younger generations are just going to grow up using them earlier and earlier, it’s a sad thing to think about it but as Americans we do it to our selves.