On February 13th, the Grammy awards may find themselves getting bleeped--and for good reason.
One of the songs up for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year is Cee Lo Green's upbeat "F**k You." The song was all over the airwaves last year, complete with a parody version being performed by William Shatner on George Lopez and a G-rated version done by Gwenyth Paltrow on Glee.
The latter also gets radio play and is entitled "Forget You" (as you probably guessed, most stations can't air a song entitled "F**k You," although some have been brave enough to play a third version entitled "'F' You").
Green says he dislikes the edited versions, and you can't really fault him for that. He wrote a song called "F**k You" and even bloggers like me aren't allowed to write the actual name of the song down without offending someone.
And really--why should it?
The song isn't about sex. Arguably what makes the word "f**k" shocking is the crude way it describes sexual intercourse. Yet, in Green's song, it's referring to the word's second meaning, and the fact that the word "forget" can be used interchangeably with it and still have the song make sense should tell you how harmless the actual word really is in the context of the song.
I'm hesitant to even broach this argument, because whenever I do, I find myself hounded by people from a more polite background who cite the commonality of curse words as a sign that the world is crumbling into a cesspool of immorality.
To be honest, though, I find one of the more refreshing trends of the past ten years to be the fact that we've all kind of gotten over cursing as a large social taboo.
Maybe it happened after 9/11 as part of the larger cultural shift that occurred. Maybe we finally started to realize that there are more harmful things in this world than words like "shit" and "asshole."
Suddenly you started seeing these words creep their way into television shows, and not just HBO or Showtime shows, but shows on ABC, NBC, and even (gasp) CBS.
People just kind of got over it, and I thought it was great.
After all, what's the difference between calling someone an "asshole" and calling them an idiot? What's the difference between something someone's lame argument is "bullshit" or "a pile of crap?" Everybody knows what you're talking about when you tell someone to go screw themselves. You're telling them to f**k off, and yet I still keep those asterisks in place.
Why?
Well...admittedly...the word makes me nervous.
It's the final frontier. The last obscenity we haven't been able to conquer.
Say it more than once in your movie and you still risk getting an R-rating. Say it in front of your parents and you're probably getting a lecture. And don't even think of saying it on Grey's Anatomy.
The lack of the "F" word in television and movies has always bothered me more than anything. It's one thing to say that "F" word is inappropriate in schools and offices, but what's worse than watching a war movie where all the soldiers talk like ladies at a garden party?
It's hard for me to even entertain a show about "blue collar policemen" or "blue collar firemen" who just happen to never say anything worse than "damn."
I mean, c'mon, what the hell?
(Can I say "hell?")
It seems, however, like we might be on the verge of overtaking the "F" bomb.
Not only is Green's song up for two of the most prestigious awards in the music business, but Enrique Iglesias's new single "Tonight" prominently features the "F" word on the album version of the song. (And he's using the word in its, well, let's just say its more literal meaning.)
This spring, the play Motherf**ker with the Hat written by Stephen Adly Guirgis and starring Chris Rock, will be opening on Broadway.
The "F" word is no longer just appearing in dirty books and magazines. It's going to be on a Broadway marquee for crying out loud!
So when will we get over this obsession we have with four-letter words?
Personally, I don't have a f**king clue.
One of the songs up for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year is Cee Lo Green's upbeat "F**k You." The song was all over the airwaves last year, complete with a parody version being performed by William Shatner on George Lopez and a G-rated version done by Gwenyth Paltrow on Glee.
The latter also gets radio play and is entitled "Forget You" (as you probably guessed, most stations can't air a song entitled "F**k You," although some have been brave enough to play a third version entitled "'F' You").
Green says he dislikes the edited versions, and you can't really fault him for that. He wrote a song called "F**k You" and even bloggers like me aren't allowed to write the actual name of the song down without offending someone.
And really--why should it?
The song isn't about sex. Arguably what makes the word "f**k" shocking is the crude way it describes sexual intercourse. Yet, in Green's song, it's referring to the word's second meaning, and the fact that the word "forget" can be used interchangeably with it and still have the song make sense should tell you how harmless the actual word really is in the context of the song.
I'm hesitant to even broach this argument, because whenever I do, I find myself hounded by people from a more polite background who cite the commonality of curse words as a sign that the world is crumbling into a cesspool of immorality.
To be honest, though, I find one of the more refreshing trends of the past ten years to be the fact that we've all kind of gotten over cursing as a large social taboo.
Maybe it happened after 9/11 as part of the larger cultural shift that occurred. Maybe we finally started to realize that there are more harmful things in this world than words like "shit" and "asshole."
Suddenly you started seeing these words creep their way into television shows, and not just HBO or Showtime shows, but shows on ABC, NBC, and even (gasp) CBS.
People just kind of got over it, and I thought it was great.
After all, what's the difference between calling someone an "asshole" and calling them an idiot? What's the difference between something someone's lame argument is "bullshit" or "a pile of crap?" Everybody knows what you're talking about when you tell someone to go screw themselves. You're telling them to f**k off, and yet I still keep those asterisks in place.
Why?
Well...admittedly...the word makes me nervous.
It's the final frontier. The last obscenity we haven't been able to conquer.
Say it more than once in your movie and you still risk getting an R-rating. Say it in front of your parents and you're probably getting a lecture. And don't even think of saying it on Grey's Anatomy.
The lack of the "F" word in television and movies has always bothered me more than anything. It's one thing to say that "F" word is inappropriate in schools and offices, but what's worse than watching a war movie where all the soldiers talk like ladies at a garden party?
It's hard for me to even entertain a show about "blue collar policemen" or "blue collar firemen" who just happen to never say anything worse than "damn."
I mean, c'mon, what the hell?
(Can I say "hell?")
It seems, however, like we might be on the verge of overtaking the "F" bomb.
Not only is Green's song up for two of the most prestigious awards in the music business, but Enrique Iglesias's new single "Tonight" prominently features the "F" word on the album version of the song. (And he's using the word in its, well, let's just say its more literal meaning.)
This spring, the play Motherf**ker with the Hat written by Stephen Adly Guirgis and starring Chris Rock, will be opening on Broadway.
The "F" word is no longer just appearing in dirty books and magazines. It's going to be on a Broadway marquee for crying out loud!
So when will we get over this obsession we have with four-letter words?
Personally, I don't have a f**king clue.
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