Ironwolf

Oh fuck. Let’s just get this out of the way. You’ll find no f-word, f*ck, f–k, @$!%, or other sanitized version used here. This is quite a change from Professor Allen Walker Read’s 1934 scholarly treatment of the word, An Obscenity Symbol—fifteen pages and eighty-two footnotes penned without once printing the word fuck anywhere in the article. I won’t even cleanse my title as Dr. Leo Stone did with his landmark piece, On the Principle Obscene Word of the English Language. And why should I? This isn’t the first time you’ve seen the word and, if you keep reading, it certainly won’t be the last.

So begins Professor Christopher M. Fairman’s authoritative yet readable and entertaining treatise on the legal implications of the word… wait for it… fuck. Fuck is probably the most important single word in the English language— it is one of the most recognized the world over, and it is certainly one of the most flexible. “Fuck persists because it is taboo, not in spite of it,” says Fairman.

The problem is that since fuck retains its taboo status, it is used as a leverage point by those who would chip away at many civil liberties starting with, but far from limited to, freedom of speech. I believe that a major role of art is and has always been to challenge our society’s taboos, helping us to discard those that no longer serve any useful purpose.

Last year I saw The Aristocrats, a wonderful documentary that defends free speech. (Trailer) The power of the titular joke is that it strives to be as outrageously offensive as possible. The joke provides a structure in which both the teller and the listener are given space to confront what offends us and why, and even to laugh at it. In this process we become less afraid of words and ideas, and thus having absolved ourselves of thoughtcrime, we become freer.

The Aristocrats even has the honor of making Wikipedia’s list of films ordered by uses of the word fuck.

So, as a strong advocate of free speech and free thought, this year I’m looking forward to seeing what looks like a great new documentary entitled… wait for it…

Steve Anderson, the filmmaker, has this to say about Freedom of Speech:

I think Freedom of Speech is often taken for granted. When incidents happen that seem to infringe upon it, however, you realize that it’s literally this living thing that you have to continue to fight for. There are some who want less Freedom of Speech. They want to impose more rules and restrictions. Freedom of Speech means exactly that: Freedom… of… Speech. I use the F-word to examine that issue. I’m not the most political person in the world. I vote. I pay attention to politics. Lenny Bruce is quoted in the film: “If you can’t say ‘Fuck’, you can’t say, ‘Fuck the Government.’” That idea makes sense to me. Not that I want to fuck the government, mind you, the government seems to work. But if our rights start to be infringed, then the government controls can start to take over. I think many of us are afraid that our freedoms might be eroded and pretty soon we’ll look around and find ourselves in not such a great country. And we want to keep this country great. The very fact I can make a film like this makes this country great.

So view the trailer here, and keep doing your part to defend free speech in our great nation!