Watch a NSFW History of Swearing in Movies
These days, it’s practically a given that a movie aimed at adults will contain multiple F-bombs, while a family film will keep things clean. But that wasn’t always the case. Film historians contend an “F” word was heard on screen as far back as 1933 in a Looney Tunes cartoon (though there’s still some debate over what the character actually said). In this video, Movie Munchies takes us through a brief history of swearing in movies, from the first use of “damn” in 1929 to the torrent unleashed in 1999’s South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut. Watch it above.
As the video explains, swearing was essentially banned from all movies between 1934 and 1968, though some notable exceptions managed to sneak through (including Clark Gable’s legendary Gone with the Wind kiss-off line, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”). When the film industry loosened up on profanity again in the late 1960s, the floodgates were opened, allowing for Jack Nicholson’s potty-mouthed rant against Ann-Margret in Carnal Knowledge (1971) and Al Pacino’s record-breaking string of F-words (over 200 in total) in Scarface (1983). Now, the desire to sell tickets to a wider audience for a PG-13 rated movie has Hollywood studios watching their language once again — but they keep pushing the envelope in R-rated films like 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street, which set a new record for F-bombs in a single picture (a whopping 506).
