The current issue of Vanity Fair showcases actor Bradley Cooper and his role in American Sniper. So far, so good. But the role required that Cooper reshape his body in the form of the Navy Seal being portrayed. Or, as Cooper put it, “Can I gain 30 pounds of fucking muscle? I didn’t know if I would be able to do it or not. Thank God—luckily—my fucking body reacted fast.”
The use of the profane as an adjective hardly struck a chord. It was only when the author of the piece, after seeing a screening of the picture, closed with this: “So maybe he isn’t fucked afterall” that it was clear. Profanity is no longer pejorative, it is punctuation; it’s not shocking, it’s emphatic.
It was 65 years ago that Clark Gable uttered that famous line in “Gone with the Wind” — “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” — he signaled a re-evaluation less that ten years after the question had been asked and answered. It was the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 that sought to bring to heel the commingling of street argot and polite society. It was specific. “Pointed profanity (this includes the words, God, Lord, Jesus, Christ – unless used reverently – Hell, S.O.B., damn, Gawd), or every other profane or vulgar expression however used, is forbidden.”
Even with a waiver granted for Mr. Gable, the battle over language persisted. Many of the men who saw “Gone with the Wind” in 1939 soon found themselves overseas at war. The danger and chaos was often met with humor, as when persistent foul-ups were considered just another snafu. The acronym did little to mask the word’s meaning. One of the predominant coping mechanisms of soldiers was to read, carry and trade the comic books of the day. Originally aimed at kids and portraying the role of superheros in winning the war, “Smashing through, Captain America came face-to-face with Hitler,” they became infused with the soldiers’ more cynical eye.
When the was was over, the macabre took hold. The dialog got graphic: “You scream! You open your rotted, torn, decomposed mouth and scream!” And those in authority did just that by creating the Code of the Comics Magazine Association of America in 1954. This one spoke to the written word: “Profanity, obscenity, smut, vulgarity, or words or symbols which have acquired undesirable meanings are forbidden.” History is littered with such prohibitions.
For me, all this is preamble to the first day of seventh grade. A new school requiring a new route from home which took me through a tunnel cut under railroad tracks. Entering that acoustic tube I noticed two older guys at the other end. I couldn’t see their faces, but their voices were clear and clearly making a point with profane flourishes. Before I ever got to home room that year, I had learned a lesson about language. Overtime, the Vietnam War, Watergate, OPEC, Mark David Chapman & John Hinckley, Iran-Contra and more made it all less shocking.
The last folks manning the barricade were likely those at the FCC and the persistent pursuit of the seven dirty words. The law is still on the books, adhered to but lifeless since Georg Carlin cut its heart out in 1972.
So now a mass market magazine can be fucking emphatic. And we can rally support for a cause not just because change is demanded, but because our target sucks. Or, as one broadcast television character put it himself, “I’m Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?”
That can be answered easily. It is the level of emphasis that requires a bit more thought.
