I’ve added another brick to my “you’re getting old” wall. I find myself getting annoyed at trivial things. Stuff I would have ignored, or laughed at just a couple of years ago really bugs me these days.
The latest thing I want to stomp my feet and scream about is all the Democrats learning to swear during their TV interviews. (Before I get pummeled from all sides, it IS Democrats: talking heads who self-identify as far-left minions on talk shows that parade the Democrat donkey). Every interview lately is packed with “Hell” and “Damn” and maybe a B.S. and S.O.B., even an F-bomb if they talk long enough.
I say “learning to swear” because delivery sounds so artificial. And they are reading off the teleprompter most of the time. The effect was supposed to be to let the public, “the common man,” know the speaker was “just one of the crowd,” but it is more “I’m trying really hard to sound tough and worldly.”
The former First Son did better in that category the other day when he let loose in that podcast (which ended up all over TV) that had to bleep every third word because of the F words. At least it was very apparent he knew what he was saying and exactly where to put every emphasis. He is definitely “one of the guys.”
I am from that “once upon a time” when no one swore in public. Cuss words were for the shop, the barnyard, the wheat field, but never in polite society and definitely not in front of the ladies. The ladies didn’t swear (except to themselves, under their breath). And if anyone slipped and said something off-color in mixed company, there was a very quick apology. You never heard a four-letter word in the movies or on TV and probably didn’t read one in a popular novel. No one thought you had to prove your “belongingness” by spouting four-letter words.
That started to change in the ‘50s, not in the name of “one of the guys” as much as to be more true to how it really was, or how the authors perceived it to be. Returning GIs had changed the demeanor of society some, and life had become less puritan, more earthy due to the young men discovering how the rest of the real world lived.
But no one started spouting four-letter words in normal conversation and movies and TV were still pretty tame. We passed around Mickey Spillaine mysteries and any Erskine Caldwell novel in high school, giggling at the sexy scenes and not really understanding the social implications. But that was five generations ago. The boomers taught us to swear. Gen X made sex respectable, or at least socially acceptable. The millennials got us computerized and Gen Z moved us into the social media influencer age. (The alphas are still learning to talk.)
Each of those revelations changed the social milieu a little. But none of them demanded nor expected society in general to all at once start cussing in every discussion and it took a few episodes for Fred and Wilma Flintstone to be seen in bed together on TV and a few more before we saw Ozzie and Harriet in the bedroom at the same time. And heaven only knows how long it took Jessica Fletcher to learn to use the computer and she only wanted to write her novels, not influence a generation.
Teenagers don’t pass around a “dirty novel” with a giggle and a wink any more. They just send along the link for a pornographic website to their chat group. And they don’t stand up in class and declaim “Go to http/… etc and see naked people doing x-rated things” just to make themselves look tough and knowing. Even teenagers understand showing off your ignorance is not the way to be one of the crowd. The Dems could take a lesson or two from them.
I know the Repubs also swear during interviews at times, but I hardly notice it because they sound authentic. Whether that is good or bad otherwise is not the question here. If it were up to me everyone would develop a vocabulary that made swearing unnecessary, but that hasn’t happened yet, and probably won’t anytime soon.
So, I’ve stomped and ranted and put one more brick in that getting-old wall. And I’ve already picked up the next one: No way can Tom Cruise play the part of Longwire in the upcoming movie. How can anyone believe anybody but Robert Taylor is Longmire? Especially not Tom Cruise. He may be able to fly a fighter jet but no way can he handle the badlands (and bad guys) of Wyoming.
What better signal that I’m old than dissing Tom Cruise?
