What better way to start off the week on Easter Monday then blog on profanity and vulgarity with a sarcastic rhetorical question? Talk about blogger’s license! Instead of an Easter Egg Hunt, we’re going on an Expletive Hunt. However, before we start bleeping out bad words, there is one additional bad news thought I want to add on the previous sexually explicit topic.
SEXUAL CONTENT AND INNUENDO (Addendum)
One addition to my previous blog is sexting, a combination of “sex” and “texting,” I think. Downloading and texting sexually explicit material from the Internet at large, YouTube, and personal videos in class or in the workplace presents another new set of problems. If it’s out there to abuse, the technology enables evil minds to find it and disseminate it. Stop it before it starts if it’s within your power to do so.
PROFANITY
You hear expletives just about everywhere. What the “&!%#” is going on? It’s pervasive in our culture and workplace. There are no boundaries or profanity ceiling. In water-cooler jokes and conversations with students and colleagues, usually their first or second sentence or fragment will set the profanity tone for the dialogue, hopefully not the barrage of filthy, Tarantino-type language. (NOTE: Quinton Tarantino’s Motto—“No Profanity Left Behind.”)
EXAMPLES: This "blue material" appears in all forms of media. What used to be considered the language of police officers, soldiers, athletes, and stand-up comedians is now used regularly by most comedians, foulmouthed TV cops and perpetrators (Law & Order: SVU, CSI: NY, NCIS, The Closer, Reno 911!), lawyers (The Good Wife), doctors (House, Grey’s Anatomy), and school kids (South Park). Movies rated PG-13 and worse are larded with gratuitous profanity. YouTube videos run the gamut.
LEVEL OF DISCOURSE: This coarsening of media in our culture suggests that nothing is sacrosanct. However, despite the increasing frequency of profane language around us, its use in the classroom is unnecessary and inappropriate. It cannot be bleeped out of your lecture or conversation with students. Whenever it occurs, its crudity debases the level of discourse and the “discourser.”
Please consider what you say and how you say it. Your students are always listening. Be creative in your use of our language and stretch your vocabulary, and, maybe even, encourage your students to do the same. Consider the plethora of unusual words you can use to express your elation or discontent. Don’t stoop to the lowest common denominator.
Next up is vulgarity. We’re coming to the end of this series on offensive humor and media. WHEW!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
SEXUAL CONTENT AND INNUENDO
Sometimes our thoughts just travel down this road naturally. That’s what evil minds do. For many of you, these naughty trips may be more frequent than for others. They can be stimulated by the bombardment of media that permeates so much of what we see, hear, and do or over-advertised medications you may be taking. Our students are exposed to these same stimuli.
MEDIA BOMBARDMENT: This topic is the core of many stand-up routines by comedians who appear on HBO, Showtime specials, and Comedy Central. It is also the primary vehicle for many popular TV shows, such as Desperate Housewives, Private Practice, Cougar Town, Nip & Tuck, and Reno 911!, the syndicated Boston Legal and Sex and the City, a large proportion of R rated movies, and a bazillion YouTube videos.
CLASSROOM BOUNDARIES: Regardless of the gender composition of your class, sexual humor is out of bounds. Be sensitive to sexual comments and innuendo in the music and video clips you select to illustrate various types of content. It is up to you to place blocks on sexually-based material in any jokes, references, or media.
Try not to even think about it as you are lecturing. Move rapidly over anything suggestive. Students’ comments on what you say can get out of control very quickly. They take their cues from the way you handle everything in class, especially edgy issues. (Note: These guidelines do not apply in the same way to those of you who teach courses on human or rodent sexuality. You have even more problems to address.)
As the beloved Sgt. Phil Esterhaus of the classic TV series Hill Street Blues said every morning at the end of his precinct briefing of his police officers: “Let’s be careful out there!”
WORKPLACE BOUNDARIES: Read my letters: S E X U A L H A R A S S M E N T!! If adulterous, evil political, sports, and entertainment celebrities are your role models, get clinical help. Unless you want to be reprimanded, fired, sued, shot, or worse, don’t even think about it in jest with co-workers in your department—at meetings, at retreats, in training, in the elevator, at the water-cooler, in the storage closet, or in business travel or conferences. (ALERT: If you're not sure how to get in BIG trouble in these venues, watch reruns of Boston Legal.)
My next blog moves into the “locker room,” so to speak, with the use of profanity and vulgarity in the classroom and workplace. I know this is a topic near and dear to the hearts of a few of you who may see nothing wrong with that language on the job. You can dig your tongues in, but please remember that this blog material is not about you or me; it’s about your students and co-workers and the effects it can have on their learning and productivity, respectively. At least, think about it.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
WHAT IS OFFENSIVE?
Definition: It seems that we should know what is offensive when we see or hear it. We do, but it’s not that simple. Any medium that offends is based on an individual, subjective interpretation. Consider this definition:
Any word, object, or action that violates a person’s values, moral principles, or norms of behavior is offensive.
The operative word here is VIOLATION. A significant violation is what offends. The determination of that violation is very personal. You can not take a vote in your classroom and determine by a majority what is offensive to your students or not. It’s an individual, reflexive reaction. Ah, the plot thickens. Therein lies the difficulty of determining teaching material that could be offensive.
Examples: An example of violation is sexist jokes. They offend feminists because they stereotype and degrade women. Racist or ethnic humor offends people who are strongly committed to the principles of human dignity. Belching and other bodily sounds in comedies such as Shrek, The Nutty Professor, and Doctor Doolittle 2 offend many adults because such noises violate propriety; other adults and children find such behavior hilarious.
The level of attachment or commitment to principles may determine whether the medium is offensive. A violation of others, such as put-downs, does not produce as strong an attachment as a violation of oneself. Disparaging and vulgar lyrics about women in rap music and videos would constitute a personal violation to women. Lyrics, dialogue, and jokes at the expense of other people are more acceptable to performers than spewing put-downs of themselves. Why? Because they are much more committed to their own dignity and comfort than that of others.
IMPACT ON STUDENTS
When a student is offended by something we say, do, or present, he or she experiences this personal violation. What emotional effects are manifested from this offense? It can produce the following negative effects:
• Withdrawal
• Resentment
• Anger
• Tension
• Anxiety
• Turning off/tuning out
If we are offended by something we see on TV, in the movies, or at a concert and exhibit those reactions, we can turn it off or walk out. Our students have no where to go if they're offended by a YouTube clip we showed in class. They have to come back to class over and over again as they fester anger and resentment toward you. Quite possibly, you have lost those students for the semester and may not even be aware it.
My next blog will examine those responses further and suggest a few guidelines for minimizing the chances of these problems from occurring.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
