Foul Words Are Losing Their Punch
Twenty-seven years ago, longtime activist David Dellinger stood up in a federal courtroom and described what was going on about him in the Chicago Seven trial as “bull——.” U.S. District Court Judge Julius Hoffman gave him 6 months in prison for contempt of court for using what some newspapers gently described as a “barnyard epithet.”
Last week, Chicago Bulls bad boy Dennis Rodman stood up before perhaps 200,000 sports fans in Grant Park and millions more in the radio and television audience and blatantly drawled the dreaded “F” adjective. The sports fans gave him a wild ovation.
What the heck is going on these days, anyway?
Is nothing forbidden? When did smutty talk and dirty pictures come out from behind the garage (where they belonged and were thoroughly enjoyed) and turn up over the airwaves and bandwidths with impunity?
“Words, words, words,” said Hamlet, who today might moodily add, “And pictures, pictures, pictures.”
Almost three decades ago, Dellinger, who plans to attend this year’s Democratic National Convention and presumably will find ample reason to use the barnyard epithet again, spat out his contumacious comment in the heat of the moment.
Rodman, though short on sleep from a long night, at least had the length of the bus trip from Deerfield to contemplate his minute-long monologue.
It was planned, friends, it was planned.
When a dignitary of the stature of a Dennis Rodman blurts out an obscenity over a live microphone, the broadcast media not using a seven-second delay button must put up with it at the moment, choosing to bleep it out only during the dozens of replays. This is not a new thing.
When President Harry Truman, a salty chap, referred to people as the long form of “S.O.B.s,” the reporters who covered him chose to use the short form of “S.O.B.s.” In fact, when President John Kennedy a dozen or so years later used the same compound noun, it still came across in reports as an acronym.
Even the strait-laced President Richard Nixon gave the news media fits when he finally released the transcripts of the “Watergate Tapes,” secretly recorded in the White House Oval Office. For the first time, people could get a real look at what those “frank and open” discussions were all about, but not a complete look.
The Chicago Tribune, for instance, made journalism history by becoming the first newspaper to publish the complete transcript, a pre-computer miracle. But those who were around remember that one of the biggest topics of conversation that day was not the publishing accomplishment itself, but filling in the blanks offered by the “expletive deleted” notations in the official transcript.
Over the years, other celebrities have made public slips into commonplace language, with varying degrees of public handwringing and chagrin. Commentator Len O’Connor once flubbed the taping of his evening commentary a few times and finally threw down his script in disgust, saying, “goddamn it.”
He later told of sitting helplessly at home that night watching the beginning of his commentary, recognizing immediately that the version with his offensive outburst was mistakenly being shown. O’Connor, by that time a Chicago legend, weathered the storm.
Not all of those whose undeleted expletives become public are famous.
Indeed, it is almost an accepted theory these days that the final words of a pilot who is riding his airplane into the ground are not, “I believe that this airplane is going to crash because of a mechanical failure.” Black boxes discovered at flight crash scenes often reveal that the pilot’s final message is, “Oh, (expletive).”
Adults of a certain age spend a lot of time talking about things like these. They express shock, or at least feign it, at the utterances of the tie-dyed Rodman or the outbursts of ousted presidents. They decry the death of decency and mourn the murder of morals.
But what about the children?
Well, the truth seems to be they don’t give a rat’s butt about what Rodman says or what Nixon didn’t or what Dellinger may have said. If they want to be shocked, and that is nearly impossible these days, they can just turn on the television. Or play a CD. Or go to the movies. Or, for that matter, just go to school.
A few years ago, network sitcom characters talked about butts, now they show them. Even early prime time network shows casually use the former teen slang word, “sucks,” and it is only a matter of time before a rhyming word will show up on one of the network shows as part of the script.
Over in Cable World, such shows as “Def Comedy Jam” rely so much on the “F” word that, without it, the program would be so short HBO would have time to offer a weekly showing of “The Ten Commandments.” It is not unforeseen that someday a young lad will take his father aside and embarrass him by asking what “S.O.B.” means.
So who gets hurt, anyway, when Rodman acts like Country Joe McDonald at Woodstock?
Well, civilization probably does but, also, the trend toward anything goes is taking the fun out of smut, dirty talk and shocking behavior. If shock becomes common, it’s just not shocking anymore.
Songwriter Cole Porter, in his witty, brittle way, lamented the decline of civilization more than 50 years ago: “When writers who once knew better words now only use four-letter words writing prose … anything goes.”
The same can be said today, and it’s a damned shame.