Swear words are a fascinating aspect of language. Where do they come from? Who decided they're bad? What the fuck do they really mean?
With host Nicolas Cage, a few language experts, and a handful of entertaining guests, Netflix's History of Swear Words answers these questions and many more, focusing on six iconic swear words across six episodes. The series enlightens viewers on such words as shit, damn, and pussy, digging into the words' roots, their usage, and how they fit into modern society.
Each episode of Netflix's new, bingeable series focuses on a single word for roughly 20 minutes, starting with one of the most notorious: "Fuck." The entire first season is about two hours long, making for a great little afternoon diversion that left me feeling both a little smarter and a little lighter.
As the premise suggests, there is a ton of swearing in this series. Between Cage, the experts, and entertainers like Sarah Silverman, Open Mike Eagle, Nick Offerman, and Patti Harrison, the rate of profanity per minute is rather high. How could it not be?
At first the abundance of curses seem almost gimmicky, but each episode gets to the meat of the matter quickly enough and with enough facts that it feels more educational than anything. But there's still plenty of humor and references to iconic movie lines and song lyrics to keep it all from feeling like a language lecture.
In the first two episodes, "Fuck" and "Shit," we learn a bit about our relationship with swear words as humans, where they reside in our brains, and how using or hearing them can affect us on a primal level. One interesting experiment involving people putting a hand into a bucket of ice water showed that those who could swear were able to endure the unpleasant experience longer. It turns out throwing around words like fuck and shit can release adrenaline and give us some physical catharsis.
The next three episodes, "Bitch," "Dick," and "Pussy" weave in discourse around gendered language and how the meanings of these words change based on context, who's using them, and who or what they're directed at. The discussions are both frank and fascinating examinations of our language and society.
The final episode, "Damn," focuses on the mildest and most innocuous curse in the English lexicon but manages to be one of the more illuminating episodes, digging way back in history to outline what, exactly, curse words really are and revealing damn's full arc from a regular word into a forbidden word into a toothless word.
History of Swear Words delivers on its promise of being an entertaining and educational romp through the words that we deem bad, with discussions of N.W.A.'s "Fuck Tha Police," appearances from iconic "shiiiiiit" dropper Isaiah Whitlock Jr., and unearthing of defunct, ancient swears like "God's bones."
It's just a really solid series that's very easy to digest. As long as you don't mind hearing a shitload of swear words.
History of Swear Words is streaming now on Netflix.
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