Originally posted by Lynn S. M.:
ML, you can always go back to the story, add the word, and post it on the nfic side.
Your post reminded me of a movie in which swearing was necessary for the movie to have the proper impact. No, I'm not referring to "Gone with the Wind," but rather to "Children of a Lesser God." In the climactic scene, the Deaf female lead character tells the hearing male protagonist about how, when she was a teenager, the boys would line up to have a turn with her. The sign she used (which the male lead translated aloud for the audience's benefit) was a very graphic one which was translated as something like "repeatedly F*-ed me." As much as I dislike such terminology in either language, and as much as I usually avoid R-rated (and, nowadays, many PG-13 rated) movies in part because of their use of such language, I have to admit that that was the perfect sign/word choice. That scene was refilmed to eliminate such terminology so the movie could be shown on TV. The lead female character in the re-shoot used the sign equivalent of "make love." It was completely inappropriate in the context. She was trying to emphasize the mechanical, animalistic, nature of the encounters, and love had nothing whatsoever to do with the actions being described. The televised version's scene did not work at all, in either language. (At the time, I had been fairly fluent in ASL, so I can make that statement from first-hand (no pun intended) observation.)
Even I will agree that sometimes -- on very rare occasion -- foul language is the best choice in telling a story.
Joy,
Lynn
Sometimes ugly situations require ugly words. As MLT said, if you water it down, the story loses something.
