I Could Be Wrong
by RAY WOLBRECHT
“Aw, fuuuu..dge! But it wasn’t fudge I said. It was the word. The big one. The queen mother of all bad words.” So goes Ralphie’s narration in the movie, “The Christmas Story” of those events long ago. His dad had knocked over the hubcap which held the lug nuts that Ralphie was holding when he was changing the flat in the snow. The time period was the very late 1940s. In the next scene the “old man” tells the wife what Ralphie said and she screams in horror at the mere mention of that word. Next scene: Ralphie has a bar of Lifebuoy hanging in his mouth and mom is asking him where he learned that word. He couldn’t tell her that his dad said it all the time.
But her reaction is the key here. Where has that shock, the disapproval, the abject rejection of the use of that word in our speech, our movies, and in our schools (yes, our schools) gone?
A friend of mine about my age does substitute teaching now and then at the upper grades at Hays CISD. At times he may hear a lady (?) let loose with a stream of profanities. He asks her, “When did you start talking like that?”
In high school in San Antonio we guys would huddle together and “talk trash.” Yeah, we were no innocents. But if a female student, teacher, adult or a small child came within hearing distance, the change of language was automatic. In an instant it was purged of all impurities. But not anymore.
I believe the artists who create our TV and movie entertainment somehow are convinced that their obligation is to desensitize society to trash words and trash behavior. I saw an intriguing and informative HBO movie called, “Too Big To Fail” which was about the events that led up to the biggest economic failure of all times but was averted in the nick of time by Paulson, Giethner, Bernanke, et al. It was really a close one. But do those people in Washington who wield unfathomable power talk like that: and in front of ladies on the staff too? Or was it HBO’s doing to fulfill their agenda, using those words to emphasize tension and emotion.
I saw an excerpt from the movie, “Training Day” starring Denzel Washington who won an Oscar for his performance. I heard enough trash talk to sink an aircraft carrier. I couldn’t watch any more.
When my kids were young they wanted to watch “Friends” on TV. I said no because the innuendo was inappropriate. They countered that it wasn’t so bad. I told them that if a person came into our house talking like that, I’d throw him out. Then why would I allow a TV program to do likewise? The logic was too overwhelming even for teenagers.
One of America’s most profitable exports is entertainment, when it isn’t pirated. What kind of an impression is Hollywood making to foreigners about our beloved country?
None of my friends talk like that after they observe that I don’t join in. I don’t even have to say that I don’t approve.
Shows with drug and gang violence starring blacks and latinos using m…..f….., fecal words and slang anatomy words give other races bad impressions of them. It also makes people think the world is a cruel place. The late media scholar George Gerbner called it the “mean–world syndrome.” Where we used to play all day in the neighborhood or the woods, without cell phones, and the only rule was being home before dark, parents today fear letting their children out of their sight.
It’s rude to criticize without offering suggestions to correct what is being criticized, so here goes:
• Parents: Don’t use foul language in front of your children. The home should be a sanctuary from the harmful things of the world. If you don’t believe this then forget what you’ve read up to now. You are lost.
• Cull the TV entertainment and read to the kids or tell stories from your past. Reading and storytelling exercise the brain by forcing it to transform words and word images into mental scenes. The imagination goes on high beam. Brain wave activity goes into high gear.TV skips that step. Do outrageous stuff. Be crazy. Dress weird. Set a good example and don’t give them material junk. They’ll have more to laugh about at your funeral which should be a celebration and not a somber event.
• Write to your representatives – state and federal – and suggest that R-rated movies ought to have a PG version. That’s not hard to do. Cut out the “maldictiones” (the word used in Spanish subtitles to show that an unsavory word has been expelled) and the bedroom scenes. Remove sadistic violence. We can get the idea without all that. If the movie is good it can survive editing.
This is just a beginning to a more civil society.
That’s what I think but I could be wrong, you know.
