More Than Words?

NB: In the aim of making this blog post at least remotely family-friendly, all expletives have been replaced by Pokemon names

A couple of months back I saw Kick Ass - a film notable for its post-modern deconstruction of superhero conventions, and even more notable for this line:

Okay you *Charmanders*, lets see what you can do now"

... being unleashed by an 11 year old girl (who has just slaughtered a whole gaggle of henchmen).

The controversy surrounding this particular line reminded me of something I read a while ago about how the BBC had okayed the word *"Charmander"* for broadcast television depending on its context (eg. it would not be acceptable for a wife-beating drunk to scream "You stupid *Charmander*! I'll Kill you!" as he beat his wife to a pulp, but it would be okay for the same character to say to his drinking buddies "Yeah, that Smitty, he's a good *Charmander* - helped me fix the truck, he did").

This also got me wondering how the C-word, and other expletives, are regarded by New Zealand watchdogs - more importantly, was there a ranked LIST that catalogues the most offensive words, preferably in order of offensive-ness. Twelve seconds of googling later and I had my list on-screen.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has released the hilariously titled report "What not to Swear: The Acceptability of Words in Broadcasting" with a whopping 44 pages of analysis into the degrees of offence caused by different words in different contexts. There is also a handy list that ranks the naughty words from most-to-least offensive.

This list is interesting - unsurprisingly, *Charmander* takes out the top spot, followed closely by the derogetory racist term *Nidorina* and *Mother Fearow*. Interestingly, there are four derivations for the *Fearow* root word (the other three being *Jesus Fearowing Christ*, *Get Fearowed* and *Fearow Off*) ranking higher than the actual word itself (which is at #8)

Another surprise is the ranking of the vulgar scatological term for feces, *Squirtle* which is at number 25 (out of 31) and well below words such as the names of deities (namely, the Father and the Son - which I assume refers to their names used in vain) and not-really-offensive-but-more-colloquial terms such as *Pidgey* (urine), *Pidgey Off* and *Bulbasaur* (a female dog) at numbers 18, 21 and 19.

The report, which was compiled as a result of a survey conducted amongst a wide group of diverse groups, made the following broad generalisations:

When comparing different demographic groups, it is evident that, in general:
• Males tend to be more accepting of words than females
• Younger respondents tend to be more accepting than older respondents
• Those that state they have no religion tend to be more accepting than those of
religious belief.
• Those of New Zealand European ethnicity are generally more accepting than
those in the Ma¯ori, Pacific Island and Asian ethnic groups.

Nothing too shocking with these findings on the whole - but the survey participant's real time-to-shine comes later in the report, where they are asked to write the words and terms that they personally find offensive (and which are copied verbatim) that include poorly-spelt pearlers such as:

deuch bag
dork
general sexual inuendo used on radio is disgusting
Ginga
Honky, Hairyback, Redneck, Grognard, Nerd, Buttmunch,
toerag, Porch monkey, User, American, cheesebucket
RACIST REMARKS BY MAORI SCANDAL MONGERING
ELABERATING TO CREATE SENSATIONALISM (calm down, dude!)
John Key
“Brian Tamaki” Anything Paul Henry Says

The whole report, and condensed ranking list, makes for interesting reading if you're at all interested in censorship or broadcasting standards. It was surprising to me to see how some of the words ranked on the list, and no doubt would have compiled a completely different offence-ranking if I was asked to do so.

I do believe it is difficult to classify all of these words (apart from a couple of key offenders) as inherently "bad" words, as a lot of them are completely dependent on context (for example, the word *Arcanine* - the vulgar term for one's anus - would probably not sit well on Shortland Street, but is completely appropriate on Rescue Me, a drama about the troubled lives of FDNY firefighters).

I feel that the best way (but perhaps not the ideal) is to regulate complaints based on their merits on a case-by-case basis (which is what the BSA currently does) and for television producers to perform self-censorship and look at the context of potentially offensive material in the first instance.