Foul Language

One of the "Mad Max" movies with young Mel Gibson came on TV earlier today. As a kid, my son Lans loved that series. We would rent the VHS and he would watch it six times over the weekend. I made him promise not to use the language--or there would be no more viewings. He loved watching the creative vehicles booming and screeching across the 13-inch screen of our only TV. (Lest you judge me too hasrshly, he won the Innovation Award in high school, and he has designed several construction tools.) He insisted the violence was make-believe and that I should not worry. Then the first "Beverly Hills Cop" with a young Eddie Murphy arrived, and a similar scenario occurred with the language and violence elements. For Christmas, I gave that same man-child the first and second seasons of "Deadwood." Not being HBO subscribers, none of us had seen the series. My son and I, like my father, study history. My son especially enjoys the 1800s in the story of the U.S. So, this series seemed like a good fit. Within minutes, he and I remarked about the foul language being depicted in the first episode. I indicated that I was not impressed with the writing reflected in the dialogue. Together we guessed the originators wanted to get the point across that few people were well educated and most people did not live long in that era. Sometimes the comments the characters made to one another severed their lives--sharp tongues and sharp knives do not mix well in conversations. Curious about the script, we watched the commentary. Ah-ha! The director said the script used at the beginning of the series was a sequence of events to be shown in the plot-line. The actors had to ad-lib the dialogue as each scene was filmed! I remember my dad, a college-educated military officer, saying, "Bad language is the sign of a lazy mind." In my childhood household, the worst word ever uttered was "damn," and "darn" was the preferred expletive for frustration or anger. When dad sat down to watch "Field of Dreams" with me, he arose within a couple of minutes and stormed out of the living room because he heard one cuss word--maybe the only one in the entire movie! He was not going to waste his time on such a movie that used body functions in the dialogue. I have told college composition classes that such language demonstrates an undereducated person who will not receive income-producing opportunities and promotions on the job. I asked my brother Scott, a master mechanic and parts manager, how he felt about four-letter words peppered in the truckers' vocabulary. He said, "I am not offended, but I do not use those words. I would not want a potential customer to hear me saying them." No matter how you characterize foul language, it remains unprofessional, inaccurate, and noncreative.