I’d written a film (Clubbed) and found myself, after many hard years of work, finally sharing it with the world at a press junket in London. I was being interviewed by various leading newspapers and television companies, in order that we might promote the film in the cinemas. I was talking with one reporter (who I really liked, he was a nice man) who looked slightly miffed. ‘In this film,’ he asked, more for himself I suspect than the paper he was writing for, ‘in this film, do you use the C word?’
I presumed (and presumed right) that he was alluding to the word cunt, the use of which automatically gets you an 18 certificate in British cinemas.
Now my film is hard hitting (all of my films are hard hitting), it involves colourful characters making their way though a very dramatic, one might say violent narrative. It is not about flower arranging, it is not a rom-com and it definitely is not an episode of the Bill on TV. So….yes, the word cunt is not only used (and I told him this) it is used frequently. But it is not really me that is using the words (I tried to explain) it is the characters. In the universe that these folk inhabit fuck, cunt and bastard are everyday parlance. And if I don’t allow them to use their usual parlance, then their world becomes a parody, which is not what I want to write.
He said, ‘I have a friend, who is a very influential academic, very literary, who will not even watch a film if the C word is used.’
And?
‘Well…he feels that the use of such words is lazy, and gratuitous and violent. And he won’t be any part of it.’
I found this interesting, especially because I was talking to a fellow artist, and art should never be about limitation or public opinion, it should be about inclusion and expression. Individual expression.
It is about being brave and having bollocks, or (as they say in the game) ‘an individual voice.’
Two things jumped immediately to mind here; 1) The word cunt is just one of many thousands of words available for use in the English dictionary, and that word in and off its self can be neither lazy, gratuitous nor violent (intent and context are responsible here, and even then it is subjective). If you go back a hundred years the word cunt was not seen as offensive at all, in fact if you really wanted to really offend some one, you would use the word ‘cad!’ which, I think you‘ll agree is pretty tame in the vocabulary of today. And you might also be surprised to know that early Shakespeare was riddled with expletives, which have been weeded out across the years by folk fearful of (fucking) offending. And 2) when the fuck did art start getting direction from public opinion?
I told my friend that if he was really concerned about offending friends (and family and influences), then he should visit his friends (and family and influences) and make a list of the all words that they find offensive or distasteful and exclude them from his further articles and see what he is left with. That way he could be sure of not offending anyone. But, I warned, if he did follow this tact the work he produced would to longer be his own work, and what was left would be as bland as a magnolia wall.
And even a magnolia wall is going to offend some fucker.
My point it this: Are we individuals expressing our life as individuals, or are we sheep, following the fashions and flavours and fancies of the masses, for fear of being out of favour? And this is much more important that the usage of a hated word or a banned phrase, this is about the jobs we take, the partners we choose and the very life we live. Who the fuck wants to live a hand-me-down existence, walking on egg shells through an inoffensive milieu with a magnolia partner on your arm? This is not your calling, this is not what you came here to do. This kind of life is hard labour, a prison without walls. And if this is the kind of banal life you are living then your life, my friends, is not an original existence, it is a pale, self editing, cowardly, facsimile of an original existence.
Perhaps now is the time to look at your life, the one where all the fucks and cunts have been edited out by external pressures, and start filtering them back in again.
I mean, at the end of the day, what is a life without a bastard, or a wanker or a fucking cunt?
Be well.
Geoff Thompson
I’m always a bit surprised by people (especially with creative jobs or hobbies) who demand/ask for censorship. A comment like “…a very influential academic, very literary, who will not even watch a film if the C word is used.” makes it even stranger. If this person is a good academic in addition to being an influential one, surely he or she will have seen examples of good and bad use of many words/phrases/pictures etc. To say that using a certain word is lazy, is lazy in itself. All that means is that this academic won’t take the time or effort to investigate the use in the cases that he/she can avoid.
That this view exists in general regarding words like cunt, fuck etc might not be that hard to understand, since they are frequently used as a means to shock the audience and little else. That is lazy (if not done in a very creative way).
But from the receivers point of view I find it both boring and sad to exclude from the artists toolbox. Even if it only is there to shock me (which it seldom does) a harmless shock like this can be really uplifting at times.
Since I’m not a native speaker /reader/writer of the English language I must ask about the use of the word Magnolia in this post. What makes the Magnolia more bland than any other plant/tree/flower? Is it your personal expression or is it part of the common tongue so to speak. Personally I find them both beautiful, interesting and diverse. Not at all bland…
//David Gillberg, Sweden
I read a book once that gave me the explanation for the term ‘BERK’. It was used by the poor to describe somebody who used to fox hunting. The biggest of all the ‘hunts’ was called the Berkshire Hunt. The poor used to call them ‘right Berkshire Hunts’ as a way of not actually saying ‘CUNT’ and getting over heard and probably punished in some painful way.
(am not sure how true it is but it really made me laugh)
Also if you ever get the chance to find on youtube the Stephen Fry interview that he did many years ago on his paper that he had written which actaully was about the word ‘CUNT’, it fascinated him as to why it caused such fear and power and disgust over people, and he broke it down and couldnt work out why. He finished the argument off by saying that the word such as ‘CANCER’ has such more power and emotion attatched to it and that is used every day all day some times. As opposed to a part of the anatomy. Or lady parts.