Swearing At Swearengen
My wife and I started watching the HBO series Deadwood a few weeks ago, but we've had a hard time getting into it because of the overabundance of profanity. We're no prudes, but hearing the word "fuck" so often actually seems to interfere with our ability to follow the plot. I'm a bit of a history buff as well, and a lot of the profanity in the series seems anachronistic to me.
After seeing this post over at the Nonist [Link], which contains some interesting links about the history of Deadwood, South Dakota, I decided to do a little research on the historical accuracy of the series, and found this very informative site that not only addressed my skepticism about the veracity of the obscenities used on the show (they are indeed anachronisms), but also provides a comparison of each character in the series with their historical counterpart, if they even existed. Turns out that, far from being a true snapshot of the town's history, it's riddled with fictional, or composite characters, and plays freely with the timeline of various events and relationships, often creating them out of whole cloth in order to make some dubious point, or arouse our prurient interest.
Once again, Hollywood demonstrates that they just can't stop...[ahem]...fucking around with history.
[Link: HBOs Deadwood: Fact & Fiction]
And of course, there's a site that's actually keeping a running average of the number of times the f-bomb is dropped in each episode.
[Link: The Number of Fucks In Deadwood]
Comments
I am always very sceptical when writers use a single story device (like a cultural taboo) too often. It can become an identifiying part of the series or simply boring after some time.
Reminds me somehow when all these soft porns become 'normal' on german TV after 23:00 - at first everybody noticed them for good or bad. Now several years later everyone just tries to avoid them somehow ...
Posted by: orangeguru | July 24, 2006 3:03 AM
Yes, I agree. In the case of Deadwood, the profanity seems like a ratings gimmick. I would have less of a problem with it if they used obscenities that were common for the 1870s.
I think Euro softcore pr0n is hilariously bad. The Emmanuelle films have become cult classics.
Posted by: MrBaliHai | July 24, 2006 6:03 AM
Honestly, I don't even notice the "Fucks." Not sure why.
One of my favorite aspects of the show is actually the language, the mixture of musical and complexly crafted sentences of "proper" english shot through everywhere by the filthiness.
I imagine that in some ways, to the "average person" watching Deadwood, removing the "fucks" and "cock-suckers" might leave behind something which sounded dangerously like literature or theater and hence be ever so slightly less appealing. Course there'd still be the whores and guns.
"I would have less of a problem with it if they used obscenities that were common for the 1870s."
What were common obscenities in the 1870's I wonder?
Posted by: jmorrison | July 24, 2006 7:27 AM
I don't even notice the "Fucks." Not sure why.
Well, you are from New York...:-)
Posted by: MrBaliHai | July 24, 2006 7:56 AM
I remember the abundance of profanity being distracting while watching the first season (and I drop far, far too many f-bombs myself), but somehow, by season 2, I stopped noticing it so much.
Posted by: czeltic girl | July 24, 2006 1:34 PM
According to a note on the site you linked to, Deadwood originally was going to use profanity common for the time (1876 IIRC) but it sounded silly to our modern ears. Words like "crap" and "bitch" were extremely foul back then but not so much today.
I know that rough characters at the time were known for their swearing, so I don't think Deadwood is making it up as much as they are exaggerating for effect. The Little House books have at least one reference of Laura Ingalls being stunned by the foul language railroad men were using. Locally, a museum nearby has newspaper articles from the 1870s-1880s showing how some small towns were cracking down on the use of profanity by the working men who came through on the railroad. Fines (of up to 5 cents!!!1!) were levied against those who used profanity.
Posted by: Stacia | July 24, 2006 7:30 PM
Deadwood originally was going to use profanity common for the time (1876 IIRC) but it sounded silly to our modern ears.
Yes, and I thought that explanation was pretty odd and just a tad disingenuous on the part of the producers, considering how they don't seem terribly concerned about how extremely silly the rest of the dialogue in the show sounds to modern ears.
Posted by: MrBaliHai | July 24, 2006 8:28 PM