So here’s what’s interesting to me about Fuck. We’ve had a whole slew now of docs dealing with freedom of speech in one way or another. The Aristocrats celebrates the freest of speech with the foulest of jokes. It even turns Gilbert Gottfried into a national hero when the joke saves him from a 9/11 routine that could not have gone right. Then you have This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which celebrates free speech by indicting self-censorship in Hollywood, a.k.a the MPAA.
Here words are weapons, intentionally or no, that pass through the ratings system like guns through a metal detector. Except in this scenario the exact make and model and number of guns are negotiable, as long as you’re not actually fucking in the metal detector, which is where the metaphor loses all elasticity. Suffice it to say the other two elements in the unholy trinity of you-better-trim-that are sex and violence, and you get a lot more leeway with the latter.
And finally we have the word that combines foul language with sex, and, apparently, makes a good half of the country cringe. I think it’s the perfect reflection of the versatility of the word that a sexless “fuck” in a movie (e.g. “I don’t give a fuck.”) will get you a PG-13 whereas “I want to fuck.” will get you an R. Not that these rules have any consistency, but that’s a whole other post.
So along comes Fuck, and in a way we have a summation of the issues raised in both The Aristocrats and This Film Is Not Yet Rated (and Fuck isn’t, and probably never will be, btw). One issue is the notion of the “prudes” versus the “profaners.” Like Snakes on a Plane, the titles are pretty self-explanatory.
What’s interesting, though, is the idea of these two groups needing each other, a point brought up by this guy in the doc. Let’s say The Aristocrats comedians meet up with the outed MPAA members in Rated. Boy are they going to have a lively discussion. In a way, that’s what happens in Fuck. Anderson’s talking heads are diverse and reflect a variety of viewpoints, though you pretty much know that Ron Jeremy and Alan Keyes are not going to find much common ground.
And they don’t actually meet so much as share screen time before literally bumping each other out of frame. (Although that is a buddy cop movie if ever I saw one. “One’s fucked more women than Wilt Chamberlain, the other’s bat-shit crazy! They’re the original odd couple…on crack!” I have got to make this happen.) But I digress.
Point is, one gives the other much to say. But what if the aristocrats (let’s just call them that, though it’s kind of like calling Jennifer Garner Alias), decided one day to just stop saying the seven words. Would the MPAA just breathe this collective sigh of relief and go back to doing whatever it is they do when they’re not counting genital references in Rob Schneider films?
Or what if the prudes just up and said, “You know what? ‘Fuck’ has no effect on me anymore. In fact, I kind of like it! Fuck, fuck, fuckitty, fuck! I’m going to teach it to my kids!” Would the aristocrats celebrate, establishing Fuck Day to commemorate the moment the world united in awe of the almighty F-bomb (and confuse a few poor souls who thought Fuck Day was going to be something much, much more fun)?
I doubt it.
Here’s what I think would happen in the above two scenarios, and it’s why the above two scenarios will never happen. In Scenario A the prudes would find something else by which to be offended, be it the plethora of other things that already offend them, or something new, or even perhaps a new word (“skeet” isn’t one of the seven, is it?) Or perhaps they’d invent a new word, wait for someone to say it, then get really pissed off.
No, not that Skeet.
In Scenario B, the profaners would start using the c-word incessantly. Then they’d invent a new word, tell the prudes it was dirty, and say it as many times as possible.
Why?
Because (and here’s where I pull liberally from my ass) I think something inside the prudes needs to be offended just as much as something inside the profaners needs to offend. Call it a fundamental human drive. A Tourette Syndrome of the soul.
Dr. Georges Gilles de la Tourette.
A quick aside, skip if you like…
{It fascinates me that Tourette’s exists if only because it’s the first truly socialized disease. (And here I’m talking about the subset of verbal tics that involve swearing or generally inappropriate behavior.) That is to say one with Tourette’s feels the overwhelming urge to do or say the worst possible thing in a given situation, but for that to manifest he or she must have foreknowledge of what the worst thing to do would be, and that’s not in their genes. It’s one of the few diseases I can think of that relies heavily on socialization to “work.” How would a guy who’s lived in a cave all his life manifest this kind of Tourette’s? How would you even know he had it?
For real information on Tourette’s, and not some schmoe trying to remember what his pediatric neuropsychologist fiancée tried to explain to him once, click here.}
Ladies, guess what Ice-T will say when you cuddle.
Point is, offending or being offended satisfies something. And I think this is true regardless of intent. Ice-T talks about it in the movie. Saying “fuck” is the only way he can think of to truly express the way one feels after a serious boning session. Now, presumably at that point there are no prudes in the room, so he can’t be saying it to offend. But I don’t think it would be as satisfying if it weren’t offensive.
Knowing that there are rules about a word gives it power. Especially if they aren’t your rules.
Ultimately, I don’t know what it satisfies to offend or be offended. I do believe that these drives exist, for the most part, in fairly equal measure in most people. Even Jeanine Garofalo says in the picture that she finds the use of fuck to be gratuitous in Deadwood, and she’s not exactly on Alan Keyes Christmas card list.
To get back to my original point (y’know, just for fun), Fuck is coming out at a time when these issues are in the docu-sphere for one reason or another. Except it’s not one reason or another. Freedom of speech is the first thing to go in a time of crisis. It was the first thing to go in the first 24 hours after 9/11. You can probably remember some of the songs that were banned on the radio that week. I’m not saying it would have been a good idea to play them, but none of them were yelling fire in a crowded theater. So, I guess the question isn’t so much why with all the freedom-of-speech docs all of a sudden as it is, what took so long?
Of course, this is just one blogger’s opinion. You’ll get to hear better from the horse’s mouth when I interview the guy who actually bothered to direct the thing, Steve Anderson. Coming soon.
PS: I really meant to just write a review of the film or sum up the issues it raises, but the fact that I could go off on just one aspect of one quote in the film should let you know it’s probably worth checking out when it drops this fall. Plus you get to see some cool Bill Plympton animation.
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