Deadwood F-Word Tally

My new guilty pleasure show, never having been much of a country-western gal, is HBO's Deadwood.

It's a tightly written, beautifully shot show revolving around the gold-prospecting culture in one of them there states where people used to prospect for gold.

As with most HBO offerings, it's engaging, sexy and entertaining. However, for some reason, the purveyors of this Western omelette feel the need to pepper it with the occasional rat turd: namely, the F word.

Now, lest you think me a terrible prude, I have fucking nothing against the fucking F word. Properly used, it can convey jest, life-threatening danger, or just a simple desire to fornicate. In this dusty jewel of a show, though, it drops from the sky to plop into every third or fourth sentence, disrupting the intricate cowboy/carpetbagger/strumpet stylings of the show's stellar cast.

Tonight I watched two 57 minute episodes, and in the first I counted approximately 75 uses of a fuck-related word. In the second episode, I got up to 35 or so. So on average, you'll hear a fuck word every 60 or so seconds. It's unsettling to hear Calamity Jane curse more than Tony Soprano, I tell you.

Heed me, HBO. Profuse use of the F word ain't needed. This dog'll hunt without so much of it.

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Postscript: Anyone else watch? If so, who's your favorite character? I'm partial to Dan Dority (played by W. Earl Brown). Just somethin' cute about him.

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Comments

Julie said…
I haven't watched the show, fuck, I should be doing that.
My mom loves it. I noticed 'wired' is like that too on hbo. I think the writers are repressed, LOL
Latigo Flint said…
(I meant to say "friggin". It was very late and my finger slipped... four times.)
V said…
Yesterday I figured out, all by myself, that it's very Shakespearean in nature, even down to the monologues off balconies, and even the talking to skulls!!! (just dawned further on me)

You have to use your whole brain to get the full import of what's happening, and it's dirty, yet elegant. AND I read somewhere that most of the writers are women.
V said…
In yet another probably unread postscript, I watched the commentary by the show's creator on episode 1 the other day, and he said that the profuse profanity is done to give the viewer a sense of the lawlessness which existed in Deadwood. Also, a good number of characters and quite a few of the events are real.
V said…
Very true, Bi. I am falling in love with each and every character for their own merits/flaws. Is that a bi thing? ;)

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