You have dealt with the issue ...
Question: You have dealt with the issue of swearing on cable rather extensively in the past several columns; it seems to be an issue that is touching a nerve. I wonder if it's possible to admit that, no matter how opposed to censorship one might be, there is something about certain words that causes a mental or physical reaction. The F-word in particular is hard to stomach for many otherwise liberal-minded people, even in small doses. It always angers me when I'm watching a perfectly acceptable PG-13 movie, and just because the filmmakers
can insert one F-word into the mix, they do. It's understandable that many viewers in the post-
Sopranos era would be disturbed by the trend. Even
David Chase grossly overdid it at times. But it certainly is possible to write entertaining, realistic television without these words. Look at
Arrested Development, where the "scripted" bleeps were among the funniest things on the show. I think it's a blessing that this lamented masterpiece did
not go to HBO or Showtime, where the bleeps would have been removed. It wouldn't have been the same show, and much of the audience wouldn't have continued watching because of it. I wonder if David Chase even considered that perhaps his dialogue might have shown more imagination and intelligence in trying to get around the foul language, as network writers must do. Not everybody appreciates the "realism" that isn't really real, because relatively few people actually talk that way.
Answer: I have to admit, I didn't see the discussion carrying on this long and with this much variety, but it has been a lively detour during these late summer months. I guess
Saving Grace has been good for something after all (if memory serves, Grace's potty mouth was the starting point for all of this). Excellent point about the calculated comic bleeping of
Arrested Development and how much funnier that was than if they'd been given free rein to be profane on cable. I would argue, though, that the use of profanity by David Chase on
The Sopranos and
David Milch in
Deadwood did serve a creative purpose in establishing the worldviews of these very specific characters. While it might have been self-consciously overdone at times, I don't think it was laziness, as some have charged.
