#&!$ the F-Word

Warning: contains liberal use of "the F word."

Now, I love the fucking "F word" as much as the next guy.  I don't say it a lot; but I do use it a lot in my writing.  More than I might've thought.  The fuck count in my first novel was pretty high. I didn't plan it that way. I used the word 114 times over the course of roughly 500 pages.  That's kind of a lot; but nowhere near as much as say, the movie The Wolf of Wall Street that uses the word 506 times.  Apparently a record.  In my second book, which features the same characters, I purposely reined in the "fucks."  I just kinda thought, fuckin' enough with the fuckin' fucks.
The word is so overused now that it's lost a lot of its power.  Certainly its power to shock,  And that's a shame.  Well, I think it's a shame.  It's a word that needs to be kept in check, I feel, particularly during conversation.  If you're dropping the F bomb all the time you sort of run out of metaphorical ammunition.  The F word coming out of the mouth of someone who almost never uses it, is really the only time it packs a punch anymore.  I mean, inveterate users of the F word only have one other choice: the "C" word.  But the "C" word is not as all purpose as the F word.  The C word really can't be used as a verb, for example.  Fuck, on the other hand, lends itself to any grammatical situation.  It's a verb, a noun, an adjective, etc.
So, I've been watching Only Murders in the Building.  I love it!  It's witty, sophisticated, whimsical, imaginative and charming.  Which is why it doesn't need to use "fuck" in the dialogue; which it does, fairly often.  I mean, it doesn't really need to use the word at all.  "Fuck" seems out of place coming out of the character's mouths.  Even the edgy, angry at the world Mabel character.  I mean, why are they using it so often?  They don't have to.  I mean, if they want the characters to swear, why not have them come up with creative, witty, whimsical variations?  Like "fuckerini" which is in the play I'm doing right now (Neil Simon).  It would be way funnier and in tune with the show's tone.  Might I suggest: Fuggaboo-boo, fudge it, fuckadelic, fuckawalladingding, fuckalicious, etc.  It could become a running joke on the show.  Come on Steve Martin you can do better than that.  I mean, you already have one of the best fuck scenes on film.  Let me rephrase that: you appear in one of the best movie scenes to feature the word "fuck."

Now see, that's great; because it's a comedic bit that points up the F word's power.  When this movie came out, the scene kind of shocked people.  Probably more because the word was coming out of wild and crazy guy Steve's mouth; a gentleman not known for his use of the word.
I remember seeing Heathers in 1989 at the movies.  I was twenty-three or so.  So, I'd certainly heard the word fuck plenty of times.  But I vividly recall being shocked by that movie's use of the F word; because here they were putting the by then prosaic swear into rather baroque exclamations coming out of the mouths of prom queens.  "Fuck me getnly with a chainsaw!" comes to mind.  See, it is only creativity which can now restore the F word's impact.

I can't stand it when I go to a movie, usually something that's "edgy" or trying too hard to be "edgy," and the F word comes flying at me every two minutes or so.  Having characters say "fuck" all the time is simply the mark of poor screenwriting.  It's lazy.  It's a fall-back attempt to make material seem hard-boiled.  British crime movies are particularly guilty of this.  A lot of crime movies are.  And two extremely talented filmmakers come to mind.  Scorsese and Tarantino.  They've set records for using "fuck."  But did they really need to?  I mean, do Italians really say "fuck" that much?  I went to a high school that was like three-quarters Italian and I don't recall an inordinate amount of "fucks" from my classmates, so to speak.  As a matter of fact, most of the Italian boys were soft-spoken and polite.  It was the Irish boys who it seemed to me were always the ones with a ready "fuck" on the tips of their tongues.
So, here's a clip somebody put together of what they feel are Hollywood's best "fuck you" moments.  Taken out of context, they quickly become monotonous.  And I think it points up my idea that the use of the word "fuck" in any artistic context, now requires more thought and creativity as to its use.  Fuckin' A, baby!

Also, I think The Best Fuck You award-winner is handily, hands-down: Mr. Al Pacino.
Thank you and..
CFR 7/11/22

Addendum: So, I just watched Season 2 Episode 4 of  Only Murders... and Nathan Lane gave an F-word laden speech to Martin Short and I have to say, it was some first class fuckery.  Keep it up OMITB!