The appalling thing about someone saying “Fuck” on television is not the word itself, which has been around for centuries and is exactly the sort of thing people say when they’re excited. No, it’s the lame responses which get unnerving.
At least four Saturday Night Live cast members, for instance, have uttered “Fuck” in the show’s 35-year history: Paul Shaffer, Charles Rocket, Norm MacDonald, Jenny Slate. Sometimes it was acknowledged broadly, other times the show just moved on. Cheri Oteri said “Shit” once and there was a show-closing gag about her having to put money in the Swear Jar.
The funny thing is that the possibility that someone will swear—or giggle, or cry, or fall down—during a prepared routine is exactly the danger element that the “live” label on a TV show is pushing.
Scripted sauciness and double entendres are encouraged. The Oscars had a scripted bit about how suggestive the titles for some of the nominated films were: Like Winter’s Bone—object of the same ridicule several weeks ago on Saturday Night Live. There were continual comments by the hosts about how this year’s edition of the show was meant to be younger, hipper and edgier.
Yet when Melissa Leo happened to use “Fuck” among the thousands of other words in her very long acceptance speech, decorum trumped edginess. The hosts were duty-bound to acknowledge that a standard had been breached.
No one’s accusing Leo of deliberately downscaling the event to give it an amiable earthiness. But it’s kind of appropriate that she did, since this years Oscars show was really pushing the “casual conversations in evening wear” envelope. What ruined the moment was not her language but the lame attempt to apologize for it while still pretending to appear cutting edge.