The other day, I was watching Cheers, and at one point during the episode, Frasier angrily called Lilith, his wife, a slut. After seeing the interchange, I was surprised to discover that the moment had mildly shocked me—not because Frasier was angry at Lilith (she was having an affair with another man, which, given their marital trouble over the previous few seasons, was not really a shocker) but because he (and the writers) had used that specific word, "slut," to describe her. Which is weird because I can't remember the last time I've been shocked by "strong language" in a film or TV series, and yet there was the old feeling rearing its head in the middle of Cheers, of all shows, over the word "slut," of all words.
Okay, so, I realize that using a personal anecdote as evidence for broader social analysis isn't great form, academically, but I think there's something about my little Cheers moment that connects to a broader cultural issue I've been thinking about for a while now, because apparently I've got nothing better to do than to think about cuss words. The question: since it seems like all conventional swears (fuck, hell, bastard, etc.) are losing their offensive power in contemporary society, what will happen once they cease to be offensive at all? Will some new profanity rise up to take the old words' place?
I think my entirely subjective and not at all scientific Cheers experience may have given me a possible answer to that question. What I'm beginning to think is that "slut" (along with "faggot" and maybe "retard" and a few other slurs) may be among our culture's new profanities. Obviously, these words aren't new to the English lexicon, but it seems to me that in recent years, they have accumulated a taboo power among the culture at large that they've never had in the past. Take the Cheers example; Frasier's use of "slut" was greeted by uproarious studio audience laughter. When the episode aired, the word was apparently perceived as innocuous enough that it could be used to punctuate a joke on a relatively tame network comedy (it's also used to a similar effect in the slightly older, edgier film, Tootsie), but now, only twenty-two years later, I can't think of a single show that would use the word in such a lighthearted way. Maybe I'm just watching all the wrong shows, and if so, please correct me. But as of right now, the only context in which I can imagine "slut" appearing on modern-day television is one that would involve great offense to the female recipient of the word and absolutely no studio laughter.
A similar thing happens when watching old John Hughes movies, such as Sixteen Candles, and their use of "faggot." In Sixteen Candles, it's clear that neither the film nor the characters treat the word with the offensive power that it has for modern viewers. Sure, it's not a nice word, but it's also not a word that seems particularly forbidden in Hughes's world, either. Nowadays, though, I'm struggling to think of a movie from, say, the past five years that's used the word without the dramatic or ironic distance of acknowledging that a character is committing a sin by saying "faggot"—not because it's "unkind" in the way that calling someone fat is unkind but because the word itself is deemed improper because of its social connotations. "Faggot" isn't a stinging quip anymore; it's an obscenity[1].
A brief linguistic field trip that I promise relates to this post: Back when I was an undergraduate, I wrote a paper for my History of the English Language class about the history of profanity[2] and the role of movies and television in de-stigmatizing traditional profanity (yes, I'm totally committing the insufferable sin of citing my own paper—apologies... sort of). In the paper, I make the kinda obvious point that the profanity of various words is determined by whichever groups hold the moral authority within a society. "Shit" is a more offensive word than "poop," for instance, because someone in authority (probably the Norman conquerors back in medieval England, who considered French to be superior to the common Anglo-Saxon language [from which we get the word "shit"] spoken by the English peasantry) shaped culture in a way that made it more offensive.
The reverse happens, too—when a group loses authority, its power the maintain certain words' offensiveness diminishes. For example, the decreased role of Christianity as a moral authority in America has lead to religiously themed profanities being considered less offensive by society at large. The profane use of "hell," "damn," and "God," for instance, no longer holds as much power over the average American as it used to because not as many people hold views (or care about the authority of those who hold views) that would take offense at the irreverent use of their theology.
Here's the connection to Cheers (and, fair warning, I'm about to make some wild generalizations): the past decade or so has seen the beginnings of a pretty big shift in moral perception in the United States regarding identity (specifically gender and sexual identity, though disability and ethnicity have been in there, too). The values of those in moral authority—including certain film and TV makers—in our society are much more concerned with the things that positively and negatively affect one's self-conception (see: the recent body-identity controversy over Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass"). One effect of this new value of protecting identity seems to have been the intensification of objection to words that actively attack one's gender or sexual identity—Exhibit A: "slut" and "faggot." This also could explain the continued taboo of "cunt," a word that attacks gender identity and has, if anything, gained offensiveness over the years.
Previous moral authorities were concerned with things that affected either propriety (which emphasized the offensiveness of "fuck" and "shit") or religious beliefs (emphasizing "Jesus Christ," "damn," etc.), and those concerns are still around—hence the disclaimer at the beginning of this post. What's interesting to me about this new crop of profanities, though, is that it's the first wave of cuss words formed around politically progressive values. Propriety and religion are largely conservative issues, so the hundreds-of-years-old swears that our society has been using have all been indirectly based on attacking conservative values. If these identity-based slurs actually are becoming full-blown obscenities, then (I think) it's the first time in English history that profanity has attacked progressive values.
Of course, all of these ideas rely on several assumptions, the greatest of which is that I actually know what I'm talking about. Honestly, folks, I don't; I have little formal linguistic training, and my application of American-based ideas of "progressive" and "conservative" could be totally misguided. Additionally, this whole post is pretty much based on anecdotal evidence I've accumulated from existing in society and watching sitcoms, so there's a very real likelihood that I'm just plain wrong about everything. Even if I'm not entirely wrong, I'm sure there are plenty of nitpicks and technicalities to smooth out. And even then, maybe all my points are glaringly obvious and have already been talked to death while my back was turned.
That being said, thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!
Until next time!
1] Please note that I am in no way saying that twenty years ago, words like "slut" and "faggot" were okay or innocuous or that they didn't hurt people tremendously. They've always been hateful slurs. However, it only seems to be in the past decade or so that the cultural consensus surrounding these words shifted from their being just "unkind" or "mean" words to their being actual obscenities that hold significantly more offensive power than their simple denotative meanings. Again, dealing with broad cultural consensus here, not individual experiences.
2] As in my paper, I might as well mention that I realize there are technical differences in definition between the various terms we use for "bad language." Profanity, for instance, refers specifically to the irreverent use of a concept deemed important or holy—for example, shouting "Jesus Christ" when you smash your thumb with a hammer. However, for the sake of not turning this post into a semantic nightmare, I'm just going to go ahead and establish that when I say "profanity," "cursing," "swearing," "cussing," et al. words for "bad language," I'm just referring the the popular definition that includes the entire pantheon of English strong language.
