Fuck

Year: 2005

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Anderson

Review

SCREENED AT SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST FILM FESTIVAL

good documentary which examines the roots, impact, and effect the word “Fuck” has on our culture. anderson uses myriad cultural texts from the big lebowski, pulp fiction, bad santa, planes trains and automobiles, fuck the police by n.w.a., an interview with a cubs manager, and numerous quotes from the bible, philosophers and ex-presidents to paint a broad portrait of the ways in which we use and react to the word. some of the interviewees include: ice-t, kevin smith, jeanine garofalo, pat boone, miss manners, tera patrick, sam donaldson, chuck d, drew carey, alan keyes, ron jeremy, hunter s. thompson, bill maher, etc.

to me george carlin has always been my hero when it comes to our culture’s hypocrisy on this subject, but i know that a lot of his work is indebted to lenny bruce – who i just never found to be that funny. anyway, beyond carlin’s the seven deadly words routine, anderson adds some legal evidence (fcc vs. pacifica), the bono incident, the janet jackson incident, and some numbers like: number of complaints to the fcc in 2000: 40,000; 2001/04 (during bush’s reign): almost 8 million (99.9% of which were brought by a single “family values” group). anderson touches on the culture war aspect a bit, mostly through his interviewees, but generally keeps things civil. he pokes fun at some ex-presidents who have used the word: bush jr. said “fuck saddam” at some point and LBJ once said something like “pantyhose are awful because they ruin finger-fucking.”

well done, moves along nicely, and is entertaining. i thought he should have edited in pat boone’s crude joke from roger & me since boone was so anti-cursing, but you can’t win them all.

Watched in theater    Watched on TV