The F**k word in Star Trek
- Thread starter Newt
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Shows where they're swearing all the time just tire me out. I'm not grossed out by the words but swearing all the time cheapens them to the point where the no longer have value.
People's way of speaking is situational. You probably speak in one way when out with your mother and another way with aunts at brunch from the way you do when you're hanging out with friends at a pub or playing a sport. For a lot of people it's the same way at work: you speak one way at home with your immediate family and a different way with coworkers. It's certainly that way for me. With friends or immediate family, I'll use an occassional "damn" or "fuck". Never at work or with older relatives.
I know in the army, especially enlisted and NCO, it seems like "fuck" was every other word. I wasn't in the army, but a few people I know came back with that habit. I'm not sure about officers - I heard someplace that officers were supposed to look calm and relaxed in any situation, while swearing all the time would make them look nervous and tense, and that might upset the enlisted.
In Star Trek it breaks down the suspension of disbelief for me. First, because it seems so abnormal to be swearing at work or in company beyond close friends or family in casual situations. Second, it cheapens the swearing and makes it not effective if you ever do really need it. Kirk says "Let's get the hell out of here" once, and it shows he's overwhelmed with grief. If he was saying it twice an episode, it just becomes comical.
When they're on the bridge, consider also the need to be understood clearly. Airplane pilots are given stock wording and phrases to communicate with each other and with air traffic control. Deviation is discouraged. That reduces the chance of misunderstanding, considering static and that English is the worldwide language of aviation but is a second language for a lot of pilots. English language lessons in school probably didn't include swearing.
I don't recall ever hearing the f word on the bridge in Star Trek.
Good, and I'd hope not to. Unless perhaps it was some non-Starfleet visitor and swearing was a way of setting them apart from the crew.
Of course different TV shows should play by different rules! They have different audiences, different vibes, different universes.
People have made the argument that swearing is okay in Star Trek because people have been doing it for hundreds of years, but to me the use of language is like the use of costumes. People have been wearing shirts and ties for hundreds of years, they'll probably carry on wearing them for a long time, but you never see them in Star Trek because it's trying to create the feeling of being a different time, a different world.
I'm not saying they should never use swearing, that exchange between Nog and O'Brien from Rocks and Shoals is great, but I don't think Trek would gain anything from characters saying 'fuck' to each other regularly.
Which is not something I've ever argued for. So that straw man can be left aside now.
This is true, you have said that. When the conversation shifted to 'Why is it okay for The Expanse to do what it does and not okay for Star Trek?' I was thinking of what The Expanse does with its dialogue. Admiral Sheer Fucking Hubris wishes she could be Avasarala.
Personally I was born decades after TOS aired so I never took 'hell' as extreme profanity. Or 'bastard' either to be honest. It's always been mild TV swears from my perspective.
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For network television in 1967, though, "let's get the hell out of here" was some serious envelope pushing, at least when it came to language.
In combat, the engines get knocked out, the shields fail, the phasers get destroyed, the ship's computers die, and somehow the universal translator is so proof against failure that it's fine if the bridge crew can't communicate with each other if it ever fails?
I could see those being specifically in art class where dipped pens are still used for calligraphy or ink drawings.
On the main thread topic, I've worked for some quite well-educated and rich people who casually threw around harsh profanity.
As for words now considered to be mild such as "hell" and "damn," consider that decades ago society was more religious, and the idea of dooming someone to being burned alive for all eternity was perhaps taken less trivially than it is now.
Kor
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But that's my point: Star Trek is about humanity. At every point Trek has stuck with the standards of broadcasting at the time. TOS had some, the films had more, TNG more, TNG films more.
It's still about humanity because this is a part of humanity. It's not a swearing every other word thing; it's just a human thing. It's not a moral judgment if someone occasionally uses a swear word. It's just language.
Okay, but what about the original point raised in this thread before The Expanse was brought up? Specifically, the old "Litverse" novel continuity was held up by many in fandom as the gold standard which onscreen Star Trek should be striving to be. Some fans have even declared those novels were "more Star Trek than the Pope is Catholic." Yet those novels had more than their share of profanity, including several uses of the word fuck. Why is a Star Trek novel which features profanity acceptable but not a Star Trek show which has profanity?
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Don't know, I don't read the books! Whatever goes on in them is way off my radar.
They missed a trick not using alien swears more often. I know from reading Trek novels, "khest" is the Klingon and "frinx" in Ferengi.
I do not find the swearing in Picard or Lower Decks out of place at all. I did find when Kirk called the Klingon a Bastard way out of place. I felt it was kind of racist.
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