40 years years after Lenny Bruce's nightclub career was flushed down the toilet following a series of arrests on obscenity charges;
30 years after his progeny, George Carlin, used the sanctity of college campuses to rail against the seven words he could not say on TV, it is finally safe to say that, (aside from the conundrum of the "n-word"),* language barriers in the arts and the great world beyond have all come tumbling down.
When spewed from the pens and mouths of hacks, certain words continue to offend and degrade because what was long perceived as ugly and vulgar is just that: ugly and vulgar.
But in the service of art and communication, no language that serves the purpose of extending and informing understanding between human beings can be truly obscene.
Of course, there remain those of us too timid to shout the news from every rooftop, particularly on a family forum such as this so we continue to incline toward the chicken sh*t asterisk and insist it is merely a bow to decorum.
As for the two hilarious examples of obscenities' triumph below, one can only hope that Lenny and George are enjoying a last laugh.
Al Swearengen and Mr. Wu transcend foreign language barriers while on the trail of those cocksucking dope fiends in Deadwood. (2004)
Detectives Bunk and McNulty examine the fucking crime scene on The Wire. (2003)
Remember: "To is a preposition; come is a verb". - Lenny Bruce
No comments:
Post a Comment