Not Big, Not Clever

‘GETTING what the Express terms ‘filth’ off the magic box is a worthy campaign.

‘I mean darnation, old boy…’

But for every Angus Deayton – a man who has kept his nose clean and is now making a return to our screens in a BBC comedy (Mail) – there are ten James Hewitts and Greg Rusedskis talking of shits and shags.

Taking just the 60 movies shown on terrestrial TV this year, the Express says that the ‘f-word’ (a quaint term given its prevalence) was uttered 1,429 times.

And that is a fuck of a lot in anyone’s book.

To complete the picture, there were 827 uses of the word ‘shit’ and 221 exclamations of ‘Jesus!’ or ‘Christ!’

This cutting-edge research is the work of a TV watchdog organisation called Mediawatch UK. And the group has been dedicated in its task.

For instance, the Express now knows that the film populated with the most swearing was Goodfellas, which has 212 uses of the ‘f-word’.

It just shades out Reservoir Dogs (197), but knocks Sleeping With The Enemy (2) into a c**ked hat.

The widest use of shit was found in the movie Bad Boys, which employed the term an impressive 62 times.

The obvious conclusion to this news is that people like watching other people swearing because swearing makes for good telly.

But Mediawatch UK director John Beyer finds something quite different, offering the sweeping statement that swearing on TV and film contributes to the use of such words in general conversation.

He duly calls for TV companies to ‘reduce the volume of swearing and profanity in television programmes’.

Which they surely will do, just as soon as they’ve found the fucking remote control.

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Posted: 16th, July 2003 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink