Profanity

I've been watching South Park very recently. After running out of interesting shows to watch, I decided to pick up something that everyone I know watches but I really never cared for. It started about two months ago, when the boredom of unemployment really caught up to me.

That show is FUNNY. And each episode (usually) actually has a point. They used to be just random stories crafted to entertain for 20 or so minutes, but lately it's gotten very political and current events driven. In fact, I'd say half of my current events knowledge stems from watching that show haha. If you haven't watched the show, watch the current season and work your way back. Don't watch the first 3 seasons.

My favorite characters are definitely Kenny, Butters, and Kyle. Kenny is just super cute with his hoodie always covering his face and obscuring his speech. The fact that he's a very passive character and yet I immediately miss him in the episodes he's not in means that he is placed VERY strategically in the show. Butters is just adorable, and that song he always sings gets to me. As much as they bash his character on the show, butters is there in all my favorite episodes. Kyle is the Jewish boy of the show and I like him because his character is 90% anger and yet he makes me laugh regardless. That is a well defined character. I think out of all the characters in the show I identify with Kyle the most because he is always bashing Cartman for being racist, insensitive, and just fat. Without Kyle, Cartman would not be half as funny as he is on the show.

But the title of my post is profanity. Why? They curse on that show a LOT. I think the fact that they say the f-word uncensored in later seasons is a good indication that they push for linguistic freedom. In fact, if you've ever seen the movie, they have an entire song dedicated to the f-bomb. Yet the show is still hilarious... more hilarious than any show that has extreme censorship. I think it has to do with freedom of speech's affect on the writers. They don't believe in censorship, so the genius of their scriptwriting shines through in its true nature. They have more tools, and because of that they can cross all sorts of borders that other scriptwriters can't. You can express anger and shock ten times better with swear words.

I haven't cursed since middle school. I can't say it's been a good decision, but it was a conscious one. I made it a rule to not even use "substitutional" words such as 'freak' or 'heck'. Nothing. Looking back, I think this was a stupid decision. Sure, it saved my hide and people respect what I say... but what good is that? In the end my personality remains as evident as those censored cartoons ended up, dull and bland. Even when I'm angry, I can't express it properly and so it becomes unfamiliar territory for me to express anger through words. And yeah, I started using substitutionary words anyway. So what's the difference?

I started cursing again in my mind in mid high school. It became a habit and sometimes I would habitually think it when something terrible happened. Sometimes I would utter partial curse words and stop myself after the first two letters. But I think that the fact that we have these words is evident that our friends are invaluable to us. After all, if you were alone and had no one to talk to, could you hold in the feelings of anger, joy, or shock without saying a word? Words aren't there just to implant an message into those around us, words are there for us to express ourselves. Profanity is just a small part of those words, and if we ignore those we live in denial of our frustrations and angers... and if we live in denial long enough we may lose that part of our personality when we actually rightly need it.

We should always filter the words we say but we should never filter who we are and how we feel.