Are people more concerned about swearing in public life
today than they were in the past? Or are we generally less fussed about it than
we once were? Are we, in fact, mostly blasé about swearing on the television, in
films, or when we hear it punctuating the speech of public figures? And if so,
what does this tell us about the state of society?
The answer is, as with so much in life, a bit of both. Whereas just a few decades ago, swearing on television could cause a national scandal, today it’s almost commonplace. Presenters will still apologise if an inappropriate word is uttered by one of their guests before the watershed, but it’s no longer going to make frontpage news in the papers or lead to questions in parliament. When the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) released the findings of research they commissioned in 2021, they concluded that people are more relaxed today about the presence of swearing in films than they were in the past. As the Daily Telegraph summarised the situation (showing that perhaps the newspaper industry isn’t quite as relaxed as the film industry): ‘People [seem] to be generally lenient in regards to pictures with a 15 rating even when the c-word is used’. The BBFC’s research showed that approximately sixty per cent of the people sampled felt that words like ‘f*ck’ and ‘motherf*cker’ were now a part of everyday life. And thirty per cent said that they themselves were using explicit language more than they used to five years ago.
Language with sexual or misogynistic connotations in particular was now felt to be less acceptable
Just three years later, however, the very same organisation revised their own guidelines and recategorised a number of films because they felt the climate had changed yet again, and that swearing, along with depictions of violence, were now of increasing concern to audiences. Language with sexual or misogynistic connotations in particular was now felt to be less acceptable and thus in need of stricter regulation. As BBFC president Natasha Kaplinsky explained the situation: ‘Since we last asked people across the country what they thought about our standards, society has changed, and opinions have followed’.
These shifts in permissiveness and restraint gesture towards a potential paradox at the heart of the issue – and one which parallels the paradox of offence culture which characterises society more generally. On the one hand, we’re told that people are finding offence in increasingly trivial actions and behaviours, that they’re more sensitive to perceived slights and the use of ‘harmful’ language. On the other hand, explicitly offensive language is used with abandon on various social media platforms, and being targeted by vitriolic abuse has become an occupational hazard for public figures.
We view terms which attack, demean or belittle people and communities on the basis simply of who they are as highly offensive
So what does this tell us about today’s society? Is there any particular significance to people’s current attitudes to swearing, or do sensitivities such as this ebb and flow in the same way that other societal trends do?
Taboo language can be divided into three broad categories. There are references to religious beliefs, to sex and bodily functions, and to identity characteristics. Depending on the time and the cultural context, one or another of these is felt to be more offensive than the others. At certain periods of history, for instance, language focused around religious beliefs was the ultimate taboo, whereas in other eras swear words related to sex had caused the most outrage. What we’re witnessing today is that slurs and stereotypes targeting fixed identity characteristics – race, gender, sexuality etc – are deemed to be by far the most unacceptable. The odd ‘Jesus’ or ‘bellend’ isn’t likely to cause much of a furore these days; but we view terms which attack, demean or belittle people and communities on the basis simply of who they are as highly offensive.
And in this respect, attitudes towards offensive language do very much reflect the cultural climate in which we currently live.
Film: Why do we swear?
Why do people swear? Where does it come from? How is it different across cultures? Can swear words be created? Can they have benefits to the human psyche? In our documentary film (available on our YouTube platform) comedians Adam and Theo AKA Shuffle T and Marlo go on a search through the wonderful world of profanity.
- Due to the language explored, the film is age-restricted and only available to watch on the OpenLearn YouTube platform.
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