I recently read an opinion piece from Martin van Beynen boldly suggesting that women should swear less. I politely, yet violently, disagree.
Beynen admits that he’s old fashioned, so I don’t want to direct any hate his way. It would be like dropkicking someone’s stuck-in-his-ways granddad for being a little bit racist towards your Polynesian partner.
The only difference is that Beynen writes for mainstream media with an open comments section. So maybe he has it worse.
I will give Beynen credit for one thing: reading his article has had me reminiscing over my favourite moments where women have sworn with equal measures of beauty and brutality. The first memory came when I read…
“I still find women swearing profusely a shock. It demeans them and brings us all down.”
I Heart Huckabees, one of my personal favourite films, puts a whole bunch of quirky characters through a collective existential crisis. Naomi Watts plays an innocent model for the Huckabees corporation who flips out at the realisation that she has no creative power over her own identity within the corporation. Martin, one of the head honchos of Huckabees, tries to calm her down in a demeaning and douchie manner, to which she responds with one of the best swear puns in movie history.
The shock on Kevin Dunn’s face is priceless, a perfectly hilarious reaction from a man who tried to fashion her into a sweet-n-innocent poster girl. Though Watts’ character has a LOT of issues, the piercing use of “Fuckabees!” did not demean her – it demeaned the company she grew to hate.
“It’s part of male culture and therefore less grating if used in context.”
There’s a lot to love in the Oscar-nominated Wild, but the first moment to pop into my head whenever it’s mentioned is the opening scene. Part-way through an agonising and ill-prepared trek through the Pacific Crest Trail, Reese Witherspoon’s Cheryl hits a meltdown point when one of her hiking shoes falls down a cliff. As the last straw that broke the camel’s temper, Cheryl throws the other shoe away and screams “Fuck you, bitch!” followed by an angry squeal that probably had wolves running for the hills.
Beynen’s main argument for why it’s ‘less OK’ for women to swear is that swearing is a part of a thing called ‘male culture’ (along with chainsaws, red meat, and cutting red meat with chainsaws) and somehow doesn’t belong in a thing called ‘female culture’ (which I’m guessing is full with fashion magazines, Taylor Swift and cooties). I happily call bullshit on this dichotomy, which also ignores swears that you could (perhaps crudely) define as ‘feminine’.
And that takes me back to “Fuck you, bitch!” When Reese Witherspoon says it, it speaks out to a woman-on-woman tussle – with the second woman being life. Or maybe God. Or maybe the boot. I’m not sure. But if you were to put Rhys Darby in the same scenario, that speaks out to a man-on-woman tussle, where the use of ‘bitch’ becomes a lot more dicey.
“Swearing, expletives and profanities are an effective way of communicating but their power and effect can only be sustained if they are used sparingly.”
I agree with Beynen on this one, especially in regards to cinema comedy. Perhaps it’s a reflection of my taste in humour, but films that replaces jokes with an F-bombardment just feel lazy to me. It’s why I can’t stand most of Danny McBride’s films, and it’s why I can’t handle Melissa McCarthy as a cuss-cracking cop in The Heat. Thank goodness for Spy, which allows McCarthy to swear sparingly with hilarious results.
She’s the ultimate do-gooder in the film, a skilled agent with a kind heart and a noble loyalty to her friends. It makes it all the more hilarious when she takes on her undercover hard-ass persona, overcompensating that hard-ass-ness with an amateurish overload of swears – some of which don’t even make sense. But the film uses this persona sparingly, and it totally works, because McCarthy makes it work.
“I want swear words to retain their value because they perform a useful function. Swear words can be used to shock and surprise and for emphasis.”
Let’s just ignore the fact that Beynen wants to retain “shock and surprise” from swearing even though he negatively says “I still find women swearing profusely a shock.” In terms of the “shock and surprise and for emphasis” part of swearing’s awesomeness, I’m totally on his side. One of the most iconic characters of the last few years to use swearing in such a distinctive manner was Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass.
The film is already nuts with violence, showing this little girl slicing and dicing numerous bad guys, but to really get you prepared for the lunacy to come, she rocks up on the scene with the immortal line “OK, you c***s, let’s see what you can do now.” It’s used to shock. It’s used to surprise. It’s used to emphasise how aggression is a very normal part of this girl’s life. And it works. Beautifully.
These are just a few moments where women have sworn so beautifully in film. Perhaps you’re with Beynen in believing that swearing is not “ladylike”.
That’s cool. I don’t give a fuck.
And if you’re a woman reading this, I hope you give as many fucks as you want.
