Much fuss over the cuss!

And guess what? Women seem to be at the receiving end of abuse, even when they are not directly involved. In fact, the problem is so serious that members of a popular pro-women’s group took it upon themselves to re-examine swear words by asking netizens to email them every cuss word they knew along with the details of its origin and what the word meant. And the initiative has onlygone on to establish what everybody feared — a big chunk of profanitiesare specifically aimed at women.Providing us with her take on howprofanity has become a part and parcel of daily life, marketing professionalNatasha R says, “I think people use swear words as outlets to relieveanger. But what’s frustrating is that many such words are full-fledgedassaults on the female psyche. It’s either someone’s mother orsomeone’s sister who will be at the receiving end of suchoutrage.”She goes on to add, “While people might findthese words extremely helpful in expressing their angst and getting across themessage strongly, they are only setting bad examples for those aroundthem.”Different people might have different reasons forswearing. But the problem gets compounded when women themselves resort to theusage of such words, thereby granting them a legitamacy of sorts. For instance,many women these days prefer addressing close friends as B****** or H***, whichis in fact encouraged in many cases by the peer group themselves.A public case in point is Melissa Leo’s Oscar night, F-Bomb, seen and heard uncut by millions of TV audiences across the world. When asked abouthis opinion on the colossal blunder, acclaimed author Jeffrey Archer gave hisclear thumbs-down saying, “It certainly wasn’t in good taste. Iwouldn’t have done it, not while I was being watched by a million peopleon one of the most important nights of my life.”In fact,profanity is not looked upon lightly even in the artistic domain as filmmakerswould attest to coming under the radar for the kind of language used in theirmovies. Thiagarajan Kumararaja is the director of the forthcoming film AaranyaKaandam, which was a favourite in the festival circuit and is now waiting forclearance from the censors.He says, “Profane or cuss wordshave been around since time immemorial. In films and literature, they have beenused to define the characters that inhabit the scenes. The vocabulary of thesecharacters reflects their environment. And trying to curb that is tantamount tofiddling with the creator’s vision. Sensible adults know the differencebetween right and wrong. So, a film cannot be blamed for instigating violence orpromoting unparliamentary language against men or women, for thatmatter.”