Why all the profanity in Deadwood?
When Deadwood was on the air, it got a lot of attention for its profanity, and as I recall, it had the reputation for using the F word more times per minute than any other TV show (and perhaps movie) at the time (and likely still holds that record).
It seems unlikely that the heavy use of profanity is an attempt at to add realism, as I don't think most of the profanity in that show was actually in use in common speech in the late 1800's when the show is set.
It also seems unlikely that it was an attempt to simply modernize the profanity of the day for a modern audience, because much of the profanity seems contrived and forced; not at all natural, even for characters of such ill repute as are common in the show.
Why did HBO and/or the producers of Deadwood use so much profanity? Has anyone who worked on the project let on?
Best Answer
According to TV critic Charlie Brooker in his glowing review on his BBC programme Screenwipe (clip, ~9m50s):
Actually the constant bad language is a deliberate stylistic choice. People in the wild west didn't really speak like that, they used cusswords like nincompoop or tarnation, which would have been shocking at the time but strike us today as impossibly tame.
But the creators decided to make the townsfolk contemporarily foul-mouthed to maintain that anarchic, underclassy feel in the present day. And it works. The people of Deadwood talk f---ing tough.
Wikipedia agrees:
From its debut, Deadwood has drawn attention for its extensive profanity. It is a deliberate anachronism on the part of the creator with a twofold intent. Milch has explained in several interviews that the characters were originally intended to use period slang and swear words. Such words, however, were based heavily on the era's deep religious roots and tended to be more blasphemous than scatological. Instead of being shockingly crude (in keeping with the tone of a frontier mining camp), the results sounded downright comical. As one commentator put it "… if you put words like 'goldarn' into the mouths of the characters on 'Deadwood', they'd all wind up sounding like Yosemite Sam."
Instead, it was decided that the show would use current profanity in order for the words to have the same impact on modern audiences as the blasphemous ones did back in the 1870s. In fact, in early episodes, the character of Mr. Wu seems to know only three words of English — the mangled name of one character ("Swedgin"), "San Francisco", and his favorite derogatory term for those whom he dislikes, "cocksucka". Wu is fond of the Cantonese derogatory term "gweilo" which he applies to the camp's white males.
The other intent in regards to the frequency of the swearing was to signal to the audience the lawlessness of the camp in much the same way that the original inhabitants used it to show that they were living outside the bounds of "civil society".
The issue of the authenticity of Deadwood's dialogue has even been alluded to in the show itself. Early in the second season, E.B. Farnum has fleeced Mr. Wolcott of $9,900, and Farnum tries to console the geologist:
EB: Some ancient Italian maxim fits our situation, whose particulars escape me.
Wolcott: Is the gist that I'm shit outta luck?
EB: Did they speak that way then?
The word "fuck" was said 43 times in the first hour of the show. It has been reported that the series had a total count of 2,980 "fucks" and an average of 1.56 utterances of "fuck" per minute of footage.
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How many times do they swear in Deadwood?
Use of profanity It has been reported that the series had a total count of 2,980 "fucks" and an average of 1.56 utterances of "fuck" per minute of footage.Is the language in Deadwood accurate?
Historians in the real-life, 21st century town of Deadwood, S.D., say the extensive use of profanity in the HBO series Deadwood is plenty accurate. The show is set in a Wild West mining town, where colorful language served as a relief valve for rising tensions.Did they use the F word in the Old West?
To counter linguistic scholars, Milch wrote a book called \u201cThe New Language of the Old West.\u201d In it he says the obscenity of the West was indeed, 'striking,' but the obscenity of mining camps was unbelievable.\u201d To be sure, the f-word and all its inglorious variants were used in the Old West.Did people swear a lot in the Wild West?
It turns out that the pedigree of swearing in the West\u2014and such swearing was once referred to with the beautiful phrase airin' the lungs\u2014is in fact quite distinguished. Profanity, slang, vernacular, and hyperbole were once woven deeply into the fabric of western life and manners.Did the people of Deadwood really swear that much?
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