It’s been over six years since the episode “PTV” aired on Fox’s crude
comedy, “Family Guy.” In this episode, the lead character, Peter
Griffin, establishes his own TV station and rallies against the
restrictions placed on him by the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) in a song entitled “The Freaking FCC.” The mood of the mid-2000s was clear: In the face of an overreaching FCC that had taken to handing out fines for violations you could measure in the tenths-of-seconds, it was the responsibility of all right-thinking people to curse as loudly and as proudly as possible.
But now, half a decade later, are our sensibilities shifting? Today Jenn Doll of the Atlantic Wire tackled the question of whether
curse words are still relevant in today’s society:
[W]hen everyone’s
doing it and nobody seems to care, you have to wonder… Are the days of
the f-bomb numbered? But if the f-word goes by the by, what do we do
with that famous old Mom-threat, ‘I’m going to wash your mouth out with
soap!’—to say nothing of the soap itself? F—.
Interestingly
enough,”Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane who made his
directorial debut this week with his film “Ted,” actually wanted to
tone down the expletives in his newest work. “Ted” tells the story of a
man named John (Mark Wahlberg) whose teddy bear, Ted (voiced by
MacFarlane), comes to life. Yet as the two age together, John tries to
live as a normal adult but the foul-mouthed Ted holds him back.
MacFarlane, who bristled against network censorship of “Family Guy,” now
seems to believe that the comedic relevance of curse words is
diminishing. In a Metro piece by Ned Ehrbar, MacFarlane explained:
The
first cut of this movie had a lot more uses of the word ‘f—,’ and we did
cut that down somewhat because we found that, even though it’s an
R-rated comedy and you can do whatever you want, it was starting to eat
into the sweetness of the story a little bit.
So are curse
words losing power? If MacFarlane’s opinion as the originator of so many
comedic moments that pushed the envelope of what is socially acceptable
is any indication, then those traditionally censured four-letter words
may quickly becoming obsolete.
