REEL LIFE
A WRITER TAKES PAUSE TO CONSIDER....
Wicked Little Letters and swearing at the cinema
The first time I heard someone swear in a film was on the deck of the Enterprise. The stardate was 1994, and eight-year-old Joel was about to have his mind torpedoed by Star Trek: Generations.
My ears were no stranger to swearing, but I was a sheltered child, having been raised on a TV diet of The Next Generation (the cuddliest Trek), and strictly banned from anything above the BBFC’s recommended age rating. I was therefore shocked to hear a man I’d watched on screen my whole life utter the words ‘Oh shit’ in a Star Trek film.
This, coming from the wholesome, upstanding Lieutenant Commander Data of all people, was a shocking act of transgression, and my most vivid screen-swearing memory.
Still, my parents’ diligence couldn’t shield me from edgier things for long, and nor could they keep me from befriending The Dave, a boy my own age (now 13) who owned a VHS player and a copy of the South Park movie.
By the early 2000s, a fascination with genre cinema was born. We sought out the violent and the crude, religiously poring over Blade, Predator and the Alien films, memorising and quoting the best swears. At the same time, the home-computer revolution boomed. I was permitted an hour a day, which I would use to chat with The Dave via MSN Messenger. It was a recipe for disaster. The perfect storm of teenage boys and foul mouths was inevitable.
On this fateful day, I bade farewell to The Dave, allowing my younger brother his turn at the computer. I was halfway up the stairs to my room when I heard the speakers ping repeatedly, notifying a series of incoming messages.
To quote Mr. Data, oh shit.
I rushed back to find my 11-year-old brother at the computer; the chat wide open, displaying mine and The Dave’s log for all to see. ‘Mo-omm, what’s a [redacted]? Joel and David are talking about them on the computer,’ my brother announced, with the impish grin of someone who knows precisely what a [redacted] is.
Standing to behold, my mother’s face paled at the profanities plastered over the screen. ‘Whose mom is the biggest bitch in the whole wide world?’ she gasped, not getting the reference.
In addition to The Dave’s vile screed, my own was also visible, displaying a knack for creative swearing that hinted at a future as a literature graduate and professional writer. For now, however, it was deeply obscene, and against the agreed code of conduct.
I saw only one way out of this situation, and immediately threw The Dave under the bus. As I suspected, my mother was not computer literate enough to understand the chat layout, nor find the bigger, longer and
