Posted on 12/06/2012 10:26:35 AM PST by BenLurkin
Movieguide, which reviews films from a Christian perspective, says there are about 40 obscenities in the PG-13 Lincoln, including 10 uses of “goddamn.” Similarly, the Dove Foundation laments that “the language they feature in the film … does not line up with the morals and language of the time period.”
“The historical record is clear that Lincoln definitely did not tolerate profanity around him,” Barton says. “There are records of him confronting military generals if he heard about them cursing. Furthermore, the F-word used by Bilbo was virtually nonexistent in that day and it definitely would not have been used around Lincoln. If Lincoln had heard it, it is certain that he would instantly have delivered a severe rebuke.”
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
It’s also worth noting that it did not appear in any of the “thieves’ slang” dictionaries of the time.
True, as far as language goes. But I’m referring more to comportment and manner, which I personally find undercuts my acceptance of ‘buying into’ such period films. Even if the period being represented is as recent as the 1940s or 1950s. Actors nowadays tend to have that sloop-shouldered appearance, and the air of ‘detached irony’ which tend to wildly conflict with vintage eras. That just don’t jibe.
***I am convinced that there has been concerted and organized effort on the part of Hollywood to coarsen and debase our culture.***
This began in the 1960s when the hippies and anti=war traitors began to force crude language on the public. Beore this time anyone saying “F” or “S” or even worse, “m*****f*****” in front of women or in mixed company would have been taken out to the back alley and given an attitude adjustment.
And no, Cowboys did not dance and say “BULLS**T” at the same time.
>> the educated classes would be so verbose
Even something as recent as Atlas Shrugged from half a century ago. In the audiobook version read by Scott Brick,
John Galt’s speech lasts about 2 and a half hours.
Seriously.
I did see the film and enjoyed it; I can imagine maybe some profanity may have occurred when not in mixed company. Lincoln
was telling a story about a portrait of George Washington in a toilet in Britain: “there’s nothing that makes an
Englishman s-— faster that seeing him”. He is among
men in a telegraph room, I believe (or a “situation room”?)
Interesting story though one review wondered if it should have been called “Passage of the 13th Amendment”. The assassination isn’t covered other than Tad Lincoln getting the news while at a children’s performance but for those
curious about it there’s Killing Lincoln, a book by Bill
O’Reilly and Martin Dugard.
I took my lumps in a previous post. Thank you for the supplementals.
Yes. I was a teenager during those years and remember each increment as it happened.
Interesting. I read a quotation from a transcript of a civil case in which John Adams was the lawyer for the accused. The accused said, at on point, “I fu&%ed her.” I was quite surprised.
Did the ‘c’ word appear? I know that that has an even earlier recorded history than the ‘F’ word and has definitely been around for at least as long. (Although having said that, many medieval streets in England that were places were prostitutes plied their trade were called things like ‘Gropec*** Lane’, perhaps there was a time when the ‘F’ word was considered much worse than the ‘C’ word...
Remember Moochelle Obama saying we have to change our history?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4WGsU-BHAg
I am not a customer of Hollywood or socialist media.
No, but Abe was pretty agile and athletic and knew a cunning array of stunts...
What Lincoln may not have known is that George Washington was a hero to many Englishmen as well as Americans. The Whigs were cheering on the revolutionaries and their de-facto leader during the time, Charles Fox (who later became Foreign Secratary) actually dressed up in Blue in House of Commons to express his sympathies (he hated the Tories and George III with a passion).
If Lincoln did make this joke, it makes you wonder why he didn’t tolerate army officers swearing (assuming there were no women/children present). Maybe he thought that discussing war strategies was too solemn an occasion for swearing to be appropriate...
It is still in use in the Netherlands. On papers of purebred horses imported from the Netherlands, the breeder is referred to as the “fokker.”
I enjoyed “Deadwood,” about the Old West and Wild Bill and such, which had characters using contemporary swear words, and often. There was an excuse: that old-timey swears sound old-timey to us. Using our swears provide the right effect, if not historical accuracy.
This movie us different, in that though Lincoln was born a backwoodsman, it takes place in genteel society.
The “C” word (see you next tuesday)goes at least back to Middle English—check out Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale—IIRC, the use of the term “quaint honour” in Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” is a reference to virginity.
Ha! They don’t even have to hide it anymore, I guess. Unfortunately, what they are doing in the public schools is even worse.
I don't know where you got your information, but the F word meaning sexual intercourse has been in the English common language for at least 1000 years. The word is used in Chaucer's “The Canterbury Tales” (The Miller's Tale, precisely), from the 1100s and it was an ancient word then.
Perhaps what gets some people confused is that prior to the 20th century, the word was ONLY used to mean sexual intercourse; not as a utterance closer in meaning to “damn,” or a noun meaning a cheap sex partner, etc.
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