SON, maybe 7 years old: Mom, I know all the swear words.
HOLLY: What?!? No, you don’t.
SON: Yes, I do. I know the s-word, the a-word…
HOLLY: WHAT?!?! No you don’t. Where did you learn those?
SON: From you.
HOLLY: (shocked speechless, feigning disbelief) …no….
SON: Mom, I do. Like shi…
HOLLY: (interrupts) OK, ok, ok. But, you didn’t learn them from me….
SON: Yes, I did. Well, except for the f-word. I learned that one from Dad.
HOLLY: (nobly and shamelessly defending honor she knows full well isn’t there) No, you didn’t. Dad does not say the f-word.
SON: Yes, he does. He says it under his breath when he thinks we can’t hear him.
And….scene.
A FEW SCENES OVER A FEW DECADES
SCENE ONE: 1984ish
I walked in the door, fresh home from probably second or third grade, dropped my backpack on the kitchen table, and blurted out a brand new word I’d learned on the playground. I don’t remember the exact word, but I can tell you it’s spelled #*@?&!. My mom didn’t even wait a beat before dragging me upstairs (a physicality not really in character for her) to her bathroom and then scrubbing a bar of Irish Spring across my teeth. With vigor. I believe it’s the one and only time I’ve gotten my mouth washed out with soap. I was spitting little green shavings the rest of the day. My mom, never one for dramatic gestures, picked her spot well. Forty-plus years later, the taste of Irish Spring is still vivid on the tip of my tongue.
SCENE TWO: 1985-86ish
I was 9 years old when my dad took me to see the greatest movie ever made. Sorry, I meant to say The Greatest Movie Ever Made. That’s right, at 9 years old, I went to the theater with my dad to see Back To The Future. My mind was blown right out of my head—time travel, the birth of rock ‘n roll, 50s nostalgia, bullies, sci-fi, comeuppance, rebels, high school, um…incestuous storylines? AND HUEY LEWIS at the peak of his powers! I loved every minute of it. Still do, obviously, because, duh, it’s the Greatest Movie Ever Made1.
On the way home, my dad—in Dad mode and being a responsible parent and also reflecting his station as one of the local ecclesiastical leaders—mentioned that he wished the movie hadn’t had so much bad language. Still soaring from the proverbial thermals of the movie and having had an epiphany in my own mind, I decided to counter, “Yeah, sometimes it was too much….but…sometimes, the swearing made it funnier, right?” My dad, bless his Dad mode heart, maintained that, no, the scenes could have been just as funny without swears. A truly noble effort at moral parenting. But c’mon:
Would this be as funny if Doc Brown said, “DANG!” and then followed it up with, “DANG DANG!”?
It would not. No cap, as the kids say. And this is just one example from the movie2. I was at an age where Challenging Dad was not really in my playbook (to be fair, I’m not all that great at conflict all these years later). So I let it go while silently reassuring myself with a phrase that, years later, I’d find out my mom often silently reassured herself with when in conflict with my dad but wanted to keep the peace, “In my heart I know I’m right.”3
SCENE THREE: 2000-something
I’m in my mid-to-late-20s. My younger brother Scott is 21 and has just returned from serving as a missionary for our church in Oklahoma. For cultural context, and it generally means that they tried hard to be good Christians while serving as missionaries, most missionaries are SUPER WEIRD right when they get home. And by super weird I mean “innocent in some ways but ultra-self-righteous in others and also kind of oblivious to what happens in real life.” It’s not all that surprising, given that missionaries spend a hyper-concentrated couple of years being hyper-focused on the gospel-centered part of their lives. I was super weird when I got home from São Paulo Brazil in 1997. I played Ultimate Frisbee with some friends the day I returned and thought I was being totally normal only to find my friends snickering at my weirdness. You need to know that to understand Scott’s reaction, as he was still emerging from the bubble of missionarydom.
On to the story.
Trying to be the cool (edgy?) older brother, I dropped a casual swear4 into a conversation we were having. In ultra-recently-returned-missionary fashion, he winced and called me out, “DUDE!”
Trying to get Scott to lighten up and loosen up from his Oklahoma Missionary-ness, I launched into my Back To The Future-originated theory that sometimes a little good-natured swearing actually makes something funnier, which is a branch of how my cousin Mark distilled down our sense of humor: saying the wrong thing at the right time. A well-placed (tasteful?) swear can be, dare I say, comedic magic?
Just my luck, my dad happened to be walking by at just that moment and, overhearing my brilliant comedic theory proceeded to, for the second time in 20-ish years, sternly reiterate his stance that true comedy is just as funny without swears. “Swears are cheap” (which isn’t totally wrong5). I dropped the subject6.
”In my heart I know I’m right” I muttered to myself.
On the right day, I could probably be talked into contenders like (in no order):
No Country For Old Men (rewatched this with my 15 year old a few weeks ago and it HOLDS UP.)
Almost Famous
Gravity (don’t sleep on Sandy!)
Royal Tenenbaums (rewatched this with Holly in April and, surprise, IT HOLDS UP)
Unbreakable
The Princess Bride
Children of Men
Inglorious Basterds
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Peak Gondry meets Peak Carrey meets Peak Winslet as written by Peak Charlie Kaufman, all scored by Jon Brion)
High Fidelity
The Dark Knight
The Social Network (the dialogue in this movie is unbelievable)
The Incredibles
Shawshank Redemption
Rushmore
The Usual Suspects
Shaun of the Dead (for the vinyl-tossing scene alone)
Groundhog Day
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Departed
Arrival
I missed some for sure.
Like:
The look on Doc’s face as he’s about to show Marty the time machine for the first time and says,
and then follows it up with “You’re gonna see some serious s#!+" Funnier with the swear, right? Less funny if he’d said “stuff’ or “crap” or “crud” or “science” or “doo doo” or “technological prowess” or whatever.
You are free to use this line as needed. You have my permission.
So probably not the big dogs like the f-word or something. More likely damn or hell, both of which should have a pass, in my opinion, because they’re biblical! I went through a period in the early-to-mid 00’s when my go-to exclamation was “Good hell!” I still like the ring of it, to be honest. It’s a classic without being a cliche. It has character. It has catchphrase potential. And it’s miles better than that moronic phase in my mid-20s when I thought it was HILARIOUS to call people by the classic third-grade insult: butthole. Ugh. So gross. Indefensibly oof.
I’ve been to plenty of concerts where all it took was the lead singer to drop an f-bomb and the place erupted. It feels cheap when all you’ve gotta do is drop the big money explicit word and the crowd is on your side. I always look around like, “Really? That’s the bar for getting a rousing cheer?” Meanwhile the same people talk through my favorite song.
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