Earlier this week, Geek Native blogged about Banana Chan and Michael Addison’s Rebels of the Outlaw Wastes, and that’s a Kickstarter with three versions of a chaotic RPG. You can fight fascists with the regular rules, with a book with the swearing removed or one with extra.
A novel idea! And it reminded me of movies and this research by Crossword Solver.io.
The Crossword team’s opening comments on the history of swearing for entertainment are interesting, and I’ll try and paraphrase them.
When Firmin Gémier spoke the first line of Ubu Roi during the play’s premiere in 1896, the crowd was so shocked that it took 15 minutes to settle. The word itself was fake. Alfred Jarry’s riot-inducing play begins with “merdre!” — a bastardization of “merde,” which means shit. (“Merdre!” translates to “Pshitt!”) By night’s end, the crowd would be rioting.
Swearing stats
Those data crunches have crawled through feature film screenplays available online to dig up some stats.
- Joe Pesci has said “fuck” 272 times in movies – more than any other actor.
- But 241 of Pesci’s “fucks” were in just one film, Casino (1995).
- Denzel Washington has the most career “shits” (84), including 56 in Training Day (2001).
- Al Pacino has said “hell” on screen more times than any other actor (49).
- Julia Roberts is the only female actor to be in the top 25 for “shit” and “hell.”
Hopefully, that interactive table works for you. Still, if not, it’s probably a bloody JavaScript issue, and you can default to the static infographics on the crossword cheat site instead.
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