The Wrath of Calgon

He should have written a piece about
how pedantic Star Trek fans can be. 

I don't mean to pick on Johnathan Holmes, the writer of this Guardian article, but I'm totally going to pick on him. The article-and don't pretend you clicked on the link. I know you better than that. The article is entitled Bleep me up Scotty: why is sci-fi suddenly so sweary? and it takes issue with a perceived uptick in the instances of shall we say, more colorful metaphors in sci-fi TV and movies. Now sweary isn't a real word, but I'm going to let it go in favor of pointing out that never, not once in any Star Trek thing did anyone ever utter the phrase 'beam me up Scotty'. 

But more important is Holmes' contention that sci-fi has gotten swearier-great, now I'm doing it. More swear-filled? Whatever. Fuck it.

Aliens came out over thirty years ago, so what else you got?

Pictured: us when we sit
in front of Netflix all day.

His argument is that sci-fi, as a genre of television and movies contains more swears than it did in the past and I think that's nonsense. Yeah, sure, Ensign Tilly on Star Trek: Discovery said fuck. But I think this is more about how streaming services-which are generally free-er in terms of content-have eclipsed broadcast and cable as the way we consume content. Oh, and sorry for the phrase consume content. It's makes us sound like filter feeders.

"Quaaak quaaak quaaaak..."

-Meredith discussing the 

role in a 1978 interview

The point is that sure, Holmes is correct, Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone revival contains more instances of the word fuck than the 1950's version did, but I don't think it's just because it can, it's because the older show couldn't. Here, remember that episode Time Enough at Last? Sure you do. Burgess Meredith plays Henry Bemis, an avid reader who is constantly interrupted by people and can never have time to himself to read. Then, an H-bomb drops because the Cold War, and now he's the last man on Earth and can finally read in peace. Cool. But then his glasses break.

Pictured: the real vicim here.

And here's where I have to call bullshit on the writing. Instead of a grounded reaction to the reality of the horror around him, here's what he says:

"That's not fair. That's not fair at all. There was time now. There was-was all the time I needed. It's not fair! It's not fair!"

-Henry Bemis, last man on Earth

and apparent sociopath, I mean, 

everyone he's ever known is dead

The correct response to this should be "Fuck! Fuck fuck fuuuuuck!" But this was 1959 and nobody wanted to risk the wrath of Calgon. The issue isn't-huh? It was a laundry detergent or something in the 1950's. I'm suggesting that they wouldn't have advertised on The Twilight Zone if Burgess Meredith said fuck. What's that? Yeah, Calgon does sound like alien warlord or something. Huh, I think you're on to something. Call Jordan Peele.

"I Calgon, shall conquer the shit out of your puny fucking planet!"

-Next time on The Twilight Zone

Episode 14: The Wrath of Calgon

For all we know, qupla' is Klingon
for suck-it. Or suck them I guess. Oh,
 didn't you know? Klingons have two.

Where were we? Right, all the swears. Ok, let's say Johnathan Holmes is on to something and maybe in terms of volume there is more swearing on sci-fi. Which, there's more sci-fi as well, but whatever. I guess my bigger problem here is the underpinning assumption that a character saying fuck or shit in space is in itself a problem. Holmes tries to make the case that people in the future or from another planet would have future or alien swears or something and that's fair. But they'd probably also speak Klingon or Marain, so I don't so much mind that sci-fi is magically translated for viewers.

Why shouldn't we expect characters in sci-fi sound like real, relatable people? Like, when you're on a spaceship with Sam Neil and he's torn out his own eyes and opened a portal to hell, shazbot doesn't really cover it. People say fuck and shit sometimes. I mean, if you're going to play 'kids these days' with an entire genre of entertainment, why not go after the ramped-up violence and cruelty everyone loves so much now? I mean, has this guy seen Altered Carbon or Westworld? Because goddamn. 

"So many swears..."

-Johnathan Holmes, on these
grim times in which we live