It's funny to see different reactions. Data's "Oh shit" is one that yanks me completely out of the scene, along with Picard's "Not good enough, damn it" in TNG. Clancy's use made far more sense.
Swearing in Star Trek - Steve Shives
- Thread starter Tuskin38
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On the other hand, a notoriously smug Starfleet officer who's had numerous intellectual disagreements with superiors over the decades and who flounced out of Starfleet in protest and went stomping home to his family vineyard to sulk suddenly shows up demanding a ship and crew for a personal mission and Clancy has to react the way most people would if the self-righteous if well-meaning person who likes to occasionally stir the pot shows up in their office asking for a favor.
I get why she said it. Picard's been out of Starfleet for well over a decade and shows up as a civilian to demand a ship to go flying off in. Clancy was justified to be pissed off at him.
I get why she said it. Picard's been out of Starfleet for well over a decade and shows up as a civilian to demand a ship to go flying off in. Clancy was justified to be pissed off at him.
Who knows what words will even be swear words by then? Look at us, a forum with strict rules of conduct, throwing around F-words and S-words like they're no big deal. But if anyone used a certain word from "Huckleberry Finn" that rhymes with "trigger", they'd be subjected to disciplinary action.
This is not a complaint, mind you. If you review my posts, you will find that I don't use either set of words. And I wouldn't use the "new" swearwords even if they were allowed.
My point is this: the F-word (the one that rhymes with "duck") has gone from obscene to conversational. Indeed, the dreaded "big big D" from HMS Pinafore is so normalized, even I don't bother censoring it. Contrastingly, the N-word has gone the other way.
Maybe by the 24th century, the most common swear words will be "toaster", "gridlock", and "chrysanthemum".
This is not a complaint, mind you. If you review my posts, you will find that I don't use either set of words. And I wouldn't use the "new" swearwords even if they were allowed.
My point is this: the F-word (the one that rhymes with "duck") has gone from obscene to conversational. Indeed, the dreaded "big big D" from HMS Pinafore is so normalized, even I don't bother censoring it. Contrastingly, the N-word has gone the other way.
Maybe by the 24th century, the most common swear words will be "toaster", "gridlock", and "chrysanthemum".
Swearing is part of human nature. It's not something we're going to "evolve" beyond. Even in an alleged "utopia," people are still going to spill their coffee, stub their toes, and use strong language sometimes. Because sometimes "fuck" or "shit" is the precisely the right word for the moment.
Let's be honest: the only reason we seldom heard swearing on the older shows was because of Standards & Practices. Does anybody really think that Scotty wasn't swearing blue blazes offscreen whenever the plasma injector tubes were acting up. He was an old Aberdeen pub crawler for Pete's sake, not a Sunday school teacher.
And Jim Kirk, famously, was no Boy Scout.
Let's be honest: the only reason we seldom heard swearing on the older shows was because of Standards & Practices. Does anybody really think that Scotty wasn't swearing blue blazes offscreen whenever the plasma injector tubes were acting up. He was an old Aberdeen pub crawler for Pete's sake, not a Sunday school teacher.
And Jim Kirk, famously, was no Boy Scout.
The F-word has been around since 1500-ish.
Scotty and O'Brien have both used words that would be considered profane in Scotland/UK and Ireland, just not in the US of A, so they were allowed to get away with it.
O'Brien said "bollocks" in an episode, which apparently does get scrubbed from some UK/Irish airings. He also said 'bloody' alot.
Kirk saying 'hell' in City on the Edge of Forever was apparently controversial at the time. I don't know if anyone can back that up.
Picard said Merde a couple times, which is a French curse.
O'Brien said "bollocks" in an episode, which apparently does get scrubbed from some UK/Irish airings. He also said 'bloody' alot.
Kirk saying 'hell' in City on the Edge of Forever was apparently controversial at the time. I don't know if anyone can back that up.
Picard said Merde a couple times, which is a French curse.
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And we still like to do it so there!
I like Steve Shives and normally agree with his viewpoints. This time I don't. I'm not a fan of watching people like they are today. I don't have a problem with profanity, but I prefer my Star Trek to be more mature than we've been getting.
All the recent "fucks" seem inauthentic -- especially from Admiral Clancy. Tilly's fuck was perfect and natural. And Dr. McCoy's casual profanity fits in with his disgruntled personality. But Clancy's (and many of the newer Treks' profane examples) feels forced. It feels like my kids repeating over and over again "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" just because they can and want to show off. It's not good writing; it's just immature and grating.
IMO, of course.
All the recent "fucks" seem inauthentic -- especially from Admiral Clancy. Tilly's fuck was perfect and natural. And Dr. McCoy's casual profanity fits in with his disgruntled personality. But Clancy's (and many of the newer Treks' profane examples) feels forced. It feels like my kids repeating over and over again "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" just because they can and want to show off. It's not good writing; it's just immature and grating.
IMO, of course.
But it's rarely used in both shows (only twice in Discovery), So I don't see how that compares? All instances make sense in context, they're not forced.
Well, and that's the thing-people treat it like "This isn't how people would behave" but it has been a part of human history in language for a long time. It isn't reflecting modern humanity-just humanity. I just don't find it that "modern" aside from a change in broadcast rules.And we still like to do it so there!
Thank you. That is what I'm thinking.
I keep seeing it get called immature but I work with children and how the language is used in Star Trek is completely different than how actual children swear.
In both of Clancy's scenes, she's acting like she has a pole up her ass, and she says "fuck." That's the only context we have, since we see no other scenes with her where she doesn't say the word. My point is that she's intentionally saying that word so that the audience is beaten over the head that she's a bitch and Picard is the good guy here. That's a disservice to the Clancy character. It's a different context than when Tilly swears or McCoy swears or when Data said "shit" in Generations.
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When was it used in season 3?
That's interesting to me, I was pretty much entirely on her side in that scene, swearing and all. Then again I never liked Picard (the show and the character) or TNG all that much, so maybe that contributed.
Same here. I don't have a rosy view of Picard so her attitude made perfect sense to me. I get why people don't like her, but it has nothing to do with her using a swear word.
The swear word was the icing on the dislike cake.
She was never going to be liked in that sense. The swear word was more like the cherry on top of the cake. Small, relatively insignificant, and usually ignored.
Except it’s hard to ignore when it’s rubbed in your face.
Mileage.
^^this
Degree and context are arguably the two biggest qualifiers.
TNG's worst moment of profanity also has the benefit of:
a) not being said in English
b) more important of all: not used every f-bombing week
c) As with most things rater other than TV-Y, riding a line between coming across as mature or coming across as immature. "Mature" television (or movies or books) isn't always (or even at all) about how many toilet words or body parts (non-intersecting or otherwise) that can be explicitly shown for the sake of it or because it wasn't done before, like in a number of Doctor Who New Adventure novels circa 1991, where the level of copulation thrust into episodes because the writers couldn't put it on television (and for equally void reason) quickly became so juvenile as well...
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