The History of Swear Words - Season 1 - TV Review

Last year was a hell of a mess, yet in two weeks 2021 has been horrifying. It's been talked about so much already, but there is so much frustration and anger going around right now. I personally have had my rage fueled moments where I release to myself all of my fury at how stupid some people can be and how, in his last weeks in office, the annoying orange is trying to destroy the very country he was supposed to be taking care of. But there was still something to look to in this year, something that I could use to temporarily escape madness and just have a good time with some nice swear words: Netflix's The History of Swear Words.

The History of Swear Words is a comedy show on Netflix hosted by the legendary Nicolas Cage. In it Nick Cage, along with some other actors and experts in the field of swear words and psychology, discuss certain swear words from where they came from to major pieces of media or history that they were a part of to how they're used today. It's only six episodes long, each around 20 minutes each, so it's a pretty short series to go through. They are full of information though, along with some fun humor, giving me plenty of pleasure as I went through this short series.

Now before I go any further I need to say something: I am sorry. I am sorry that my ethnicity, white people (especially the racist kind) have ruined swear words. I mean I kind of knew this already, but not in the capacity that the show taught me. Such innocent and even affectionate words such as "pussy" and "dick" have been corrupted in so many ways and now we can't really say these words anymore without them being possibly interpreted as vile or uncouth. I am very sorry that white people have been like, "Oh no, they're saying such odd words, that's most unorthodox! From now on you, little Billy, will no longer be allowed to say such ghastly things around your family or anyone ever again. If you do you will receive a very good telling off and/ or beating for saying such rotten things." Okay, I went a little overboard with that, but I had to personify how much these people have sticks up their asses.

It never really occurred to me to look into why swear words are the way they are. Swears words have just been coming to me ever since I was eight and my brother showed my Warcraft III. Over time I've learned to control myself much better, but swear words are just a part of culture, no matter where you live. This show gave me some very interesting origins for some of the biggest swear words out there. For instance, the word "fuck" has two possible origins: First, it might have come from the Dutch; second, it was a term that came from contracts that stated that you can only have sex in housing that was certified by a government official. Swear words don't just appear and become filthy, there is a history to them becoming the words they are now.

Even with that though and the plethora of information I got out of each episode I wish the episodes were longer. Twenty minutes each is just too short and I was hoping to hear more about each swear word. For instance, on the episode about "damn" there's a section about movies using "damn" and how it became a lot more popular after its use in Gone with the Wind. I even found out the first Transformers movie from 1986 had "damn" and "shit" in it. I wanted to know more about more about swear words, but the episodes were just ended too soon. Never before have I had watched a TV show that had 20 minute episode and it just doesn't feel right. You have them around 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour, but never 20 minutes.

But even with this limited time period I felt educated by what I was showing. It wasn't just there to make me laugh, but to teach me things. I was learning, especially through history and from the viewpoints of multiple demographics. Not just the stereotypical white people, but also African Americans, Asians, male, female, straight, gay, old, young, etc from multiple careers and backgrounds. With that I was able to understand more what they were trying to tell me, along with introducing ideas I never really considered before. I was kind of missing more people, like a few from a pure Asian background (not Asian American, but actually from Asia (but maybe that's become I made some close friend with people from that part of the world)), but what we got I found to be good enough for a cast.

So how was Nicolas Cage as the host of this show? I know a lot of people have stated that Samuel L. Jackson should have been host because of his epic use of swears (especially fuck), but in the episode all about "fuck" we learn that Samuel L. Jackson is only ranked number three as the actor to use "fuck" the most times in his acting career. I'm not going to tell you who was number one, but it'll most likely surprise you a lot. Back to Cage though, he looks like he's relax and just having a great time. The first episode, the one about "fuck," he's enjoying it so much! Then there's the episode about "dick" and it starts off with a fantastic fake advert ending with Nick Cake and I was laughing so damn hard. I highly respect Cage for his very in-depth knowledge of acting, along with his ability to not type-cast himself in his career, so having the guy who did angrily said the whole English alphabet in Vampire's Kiss hosting a show about swear words feels perfect to me. I literally did cry when I saw the first trailer back at the start of December of 2020.

In the end The History of Swear Words is both hilarious and educational. With Nick Cage helming the wheel of this boat I had a great time going through history. There are not many episodes and said episodes short at only 20 minutes each, but I got a quite some informative info and comedy with them. If this show does get a season two I want to see them covering swear words from other cultures and languages, not just from American and the English language. They went with the easy stuff this first season and they got to put in more effort if this is to continue.

Tentative Score: 8/10

Definitive Score: 7.5/10

Also speaking of Nick Cage, apparently he's getting a movie soon that's basically Five Nights at Freddy's. Weird... but I'm excited.