Ever see a movie, TV show, magazine, or stage play that offended your moral or social sensibilities? Ever think, “This is just going too far. I’m liberal-minded enough to explore the fringes of society, but I’m a bit embarrassed by the debauchery I’m witnessing.” No? Think of yourself as one of the enlightened. Nothing bothers you. “Bring it on, Producer. Bring it on, Director. Bring it on, Actor. You can’t reveal anything I don’t already know and haven’t already read, heard, or seen. I’m not a prude, you know.”
One of the most shocking moments in movie history occurred when Rhett said to Scarlett, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Not that Clark Gable was first to say the word in a movie; he wasn’t, but in 1939, audiences weren’t accustomed to hearing cussing from movie stars. Bawdy language and scenes were not a regular ingredient in censored films shown in most theaters, though there was from the very beginning an underground of bawdy films. After Gone with the Wind, censors softened the rules of scripts as moviegoers hardened their hearts against the arrows of unspeakable speech. Maybe the atrocities of a second world war played a role in a widespread relaxation of decorum. Today, damn is a euphemism in expletive-laced tirades in books, films, cable TV, satellite radio, and, of course, the various forms of social media. In contrast, such a word would have drawn criticism from the moral watchers of centuries gone by.
Anyone familiar with ancient Greek playwrights knows that bawdiness and debauchery were part of their plays. Of course, there were complaints about what the language and actions in the plays might do to the morality of the theatre-goers. Those who were scandalized by Rhett’s use of damn would have fit into the society of their ancient like-minded counterparts. Playwrights have long pushed the envelope of propriety in the opinion of a committee of censors, and every generation seems to have had such committees.
Greek plays, however, were lost to Europeans for a long time. When drama emerged in England during the Middle Ages, it was in the form of “morality plays” like Everyman, mostly allegorical works that featured personifications of virtues. But then the Renaissance happened. With increasing “englightenment” came increasing liberty. By the end of the seventeenth century, there was a growing body of the bawdy. Scandalous!
An anonymous pamphlet published in 1704 addressed the problem of scandalous language in plays.* Not that people of the time didn’t cuss and swear. They did in everyday life. And they often used the same four-letter words that one hears today. But there was a difference in when and where they cussed. Street language hasn’t changed much; neither has the language of workplace, tavern, and arena. One can imagine that war has always been a context for profanity, also. Yet, just as the ancient Greek keepers of a moral culture objected to the language and themes of their contemporaries, there was some four hundred years ago a sense that a decorum should prevail in the arts and public pronouncements.
The anonymous author of the pamphlet on “Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage” decried the foul language in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century plays. In quoting from Sir Courtly Nice, the author includes as an example of impiety the following Rhett-like line: “Let him Plague you, Pox you, and damn you; I don't care and be damn'd.”** The pamphlet includes many other such lines from various plays of the time. In almost every cited line most modern readers might find a rather bland version of “foul” language and probably no impious meaning.
Have we been on a centuries-long movement toward iniquity? Every generation has its prophets and righteous people proclaiming judgment on those who would vary from the straight-and-narrow path of strict rules of decorum and morality. In almost every generation those who find no offense during their youth somehow find offense during their old age. Are they wiser? More prudish with age? Just experienced enough to think that what entertained them early on was trifling by comparison to the cares and events that weighed them down as they aged? Is it the swing of a moral pendulum that makes the bawdiness of youth yield to the chastity and decorum of age? And as one generation ages, does the next generation try to push the same boundaries of acceptable language and behavior? Do we all start out on impious side of a pendulum's swing?
But is there a possibility that the pendulum might stop swinging and lie either in indifference or remain forever poised on the side of debauchery? Are the members of the new tradition of social media, steeped as they are in the “impieties” of ubiquitous entertainment suspended on one extreme, the extreme of the bawdy and lewd? Has the current generation, in examining the play of life on the world stage, become so indifferent to any sense of decorum that they have adopted Rhett’s attitude? Are we on the verge rejecting any regard for either a prescribed morality or acceptable decorum? With regard to complaints by the Watchers of Morality do we say like Rhett, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”?
*It’s interesting that language is a continuously changing intellectual endeavor. Although it has a fundamental structure that conveys meaning (syntax), its grammar is subject to generational changes, and its words acquire new meanings as users coin more words to meet changing fashions and technologies (No Elizabethan would understand upload--or download—digital pics) It is also ironic that cuss words seem to persist largely unchanged through generations in contrast to the rest of a language’s rather fluid vocabulary. A seventeenth century person would have little difficulty understanding your cuss words.
**Anonymous. A Representation of the Impiety & Immorality of the English Stage, with Reasons for putting a stop thereto: and some Questions Addrest to those who frequent the Play-Houses, The Third Edition. London. J. Nutt Near Stationers-Hall, 1704.
One of the most shocking moments in movie history occurred when Rhett said to Scarlett, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Not that Clark Gable was first to say the word in a movie; he wasn’t, but in 1939, audiences weren’t accustomed to hearing cussing from movie stars. Bawdy language and scenes were not a regular ingredient in censored films shown in most theaters, though there was from the very beginning an underground of bawdy films. After Gone with the Wind, censors softened the rules of scripts as moviegoers hardened their hearts against the arrows of unspeakable speech. Maybe the atrocities of a second world war played a role in a widespread relaxation of decorum. Today, damn is a euphemism in expletive-laced tirades in books, films, cable TV, satellite radio, and, of course, the various forms of social media. In contrast, such a word would have drawn criticism from the moral watchers of centuries gone by.
Anyone familiar with ancient Greek playwrights knows that bawdiness and debauchery were part of their plays. Of course, there were complaints about what the language and actions in the plays might do to the morality of the theatre-goers. Those who were scandalized by Rhett’s use of damn would have fit into the society of their ancient like-minded counterparts. Playwrights have long pushed the envelope of propriety in the opinion of a committee of censors, and every generation seems to have had such committees.
Greek plays, however, were lost to Europeans for a long time. When drama emerged in England during the Middle Ages, it was in the form of “morality plays” like Everyman, mostly allegorical works that featured personifications of virtues. But then the Renaissance happened. With increasing “englightenment” came increasing liberty. By the end of the seventeenth century, there was a growing body of the bawdy. Scandalous!
An anonymous pamphlet published in 1704 addressed the problem of scandalous language in plays.* Not that people of the time didn’t cuss and swear. They did in everyday life. And they often used the same four-letter words that one hears today. But there was a difference in when and where they cussed. Street language hasn’t changed much; neither has the language of workplace, tavern, and arena. One can imagine that war has always been a context for profanity, also. Yet, just as the ancient Greek keepers of a moral culture objected to the language and themes of their contemporaries, there was some four hundred years ago a sense that a decorum should prevail in the arts and public pronouncements.
The anonymous author of the pamphlet on “Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage” decried the foul language in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century plays. In quoting from Sir Courtly Nice, the author includes as an example of impiety the following Rhett-like line: “Let him Plague you, Pox you, and damn you; I don't care and be damn'd.”** The pamphlet includes many other such lines from various plays of the time. In almost every cited line most modern readers might find a rather bland version of “foul” language and probably no impious meaning.
Have we been on a centuries-long movement toward iniquity? Every generation has its prophets and righteous people proclaiming judgment on those who would vary from the straight-and-narrow path of strict rules of decorum and morality. In almost every generation those who find no offense during their youth somehow find offense during their old age. Are they wiser? More prudish with age? Just experienced enough to think that what entertained them early on was trifling by comparison to the cares and events that weighed them down as they aged? Is it the swing of a moral pendulum that makes the bawdiness of youth yield to the chastity and decorum of age? And as one generation ages, does the next generation try to push the same boundaries of acceptable language and behavior? Do we all start out on impious side of a pendulum's swing?
But is there a possibility that the pendulum might stop swinging and lie either in indifference or remain forever poised on the side of debauchery? Are the members of the new tradition of social media, steeped as they are in the “impieties” of ubiquitous entertainment suspended on one extreme, the extreme of the bawdy and lewd? Has the current generation, in examining the play of life on the world stage, become so indifferent to any sense of decorum that they have adopted Rhett’s attitude? Are we on the verge rejecting any regard for either a prescribed morality or acceptable decorum? With regard to complaints by the Watchers of Morality do we say like Rhett, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”?
*It’s interesting that language is a continuously changing intellectual endeavor. Although it has a fundamental structure that conveys meaning (syntax), its grammar is subject to generational changes, and its words acquire new meanings as users coin more words to meet changing fashions and technologies (No Elizabethan would understand upload--or download—digital pics) It is also ironic that cuss words seem to persist largely unchanged through generations in contrast to the rest of a language’s rather fluid vocabulary. A seventeenth century person would have little difficulty understanding your cuss words.
**Anonymous. A Representation of the Impiety & Immorality of the English Stage, with Reasons for putting a stop thereto: and some Questions Addrest to those who frequent the Play-Houses, The Third Edition. London. J. Nutt Near Stationers-Hall, 1704.
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