Great article, thank you for covering this topic! I love VidAngel and find it works well for reducing or eliminating bedroom scenes and violence. However, VidAngel sometimes makes speech breathy, halting and/or awkward sounding when the program is set to remove offensive language.
Thanks for weighing in, Michele. I wondered about the VidAngel app and if it would make dialogue stilted or if you'd miss a lot in translation (ha!). Do you set custom filters or let it do its thing naturally?
It’s been awhile since I’ve used it, so there may have been updates, but there are specific controls that you can choose. They stay set to your preferences until you alter them.
Comparing swearing now to the fifties is laughable, since that was a time for "purity" and such language was frowned upon (though done in real life). And that's my point - the addition of swearing makes movies and TV and books a bit more real. Like slang and accents and dialects, they should only be added like spices in a stew - carefully, not too much and not hardly at all, just enough to flavor the mix. But do I care? Hell, yes.
I see your point here, Mike. It would be funny if we heard a character being chased down by a maniac say something like, "Well, golly!" I like your approach of only adding cursing as one would spices to a stew.
With that said, do you ever turn off a movie or toss aside a book due to what you'd consider so much swearing that it's a distraction? Or do you find it's not that much of an issue in what you watch/read?
Well, I don't watch much TV or movies (and the stuff I watch is old, so not much cursing), and even if there was it wouldn't bother me (they're just words). That said, I did put aside a YA book I was reading (research) because there was a poop joke on almost every page. Not dirty, just inane.
I wrote a YA book about a 16 year old who wanted to be a DJ, and he did get a job at a local radio station. One of my beta readers took exception to the dammits and craps in the novel spoken by some of the older DJs (including my MC's mentor) when they were angry. She wanted me to "turn it down." I told her craps and dammits WERE down at least a couple of notches from normal radio talk, where 4-letter, 5-letter, and 6-letter combos were the norm. 😛
HA! Yes, I can imagine that was a less salty version of what's on normal radio. It's helpful to remember that beta readers, as helpful as they are, are still coming at our stories with their own lenses/history. It sounds like this particular reader was more sensitive to cursing, not that the story itself needed altering. Thanks for that example. It's always easier to see what people mean IMO, when these are provided.
I took her comments seriously as she was a former 4th-6th grade teacher (and an old classmate of mine), but...yeah, she was super-sensitive to it (didn't even like DAMMIT w/o mention of a deity).
For me, it depends on the book, movie, and show. When I watch Downton Abbey or The Gilded Age, it's fairly profanity free. Or if there is something in there, it's period correct expletives. Were I to hear the F word in there, I'd be offended and think it's out of place. However, I'm a huge fan of Band of Brothers and Only Murders in the Building, both of which has a lot of profanity. It never seems out of place in those shows and I'm not offended. When it comes to my own work, it depends on the era I'm writing in, the characters, the situation. If there is a four letter word, it has to make sense, it can't be forced, or overused. I never have seen The Wolf of Wall Street, and from your description, I never plan to. My aunts tried watching it; they watched a variety of movies, weren't easily offended - they were absolutely disgusted by it. They stopped watching it, too overwhelmed by the F word.
Yes, Veronica, that's a good point. It's important that screenwriters/historical fiction authors capture the right expletives. I don't know enough about what was said when as far as swearing goes--but I do find that even modern-day phrases work themselves into some historical fiction which is funny.
Or just very modern ideas, like a woman in the 1800s having an especially bad day and wishing for a bubble bath. I'm pretty sure unless you were very well off that wasn't an everyday occurrence for most people back then!
Great article, thank you for covering this topic! I love VidAngel and find it works well for reducing or eliminating bedroom scenes and violence. However, VidAngel sometimes makes speech breathy, halting and/or awkward sounding when the program is set to remove offensive language.
Thanks for weighing in, Michele. I wondered about the VidAngel app and if it would make dialogue stilted or if you'd miss a lot in translation (ha!). Do you set custom filters or let it do its thing naturally?
It’s been awhile since I’ve used it, so there may have been updates, but there are specific controls that you can choose. They stay set to your preferences until you alter them.
Interesting...I love it when I learn something new while researching something I thought I knew a fair amount about. :)
Comparing swearing now to the fifties is laughable, since that was a time for "purity" and such language was frowned upon (though done in real life). And that's my point - the addition of swearing makes movies and TV and books a bit more real. Like slang and accents and dialects, they should only be added like spices in a stew - carefully, not too much and not hardly at all, just enough to flavor the mix. But do I care? Hell, yes.
I see your point here, Mike. It would be funny if we heard a character being chased down by a maniac say something like, "Well, golly!" I like your approach of only adding cursing as one would spices to a stew.
With that said, do you ever turn off a movie or toss aside a book due to what you'd consider so much swearing that it's a distraction? Or do you find it's not that much of an issue in what you watch/read?
Well, I don't watch much TV or movies (and the stuff I watch is old, so not much cursing), and even if there was it wouldn't bother me (they're just words). That said, I did put aside a YA book I was reading (research) because there was a poop joke on almost every page. Not dirty, just inane.
I wrote a YA book about a 16 year old who wanted to be a DJ, and he did get a job at a local radio station. One of my beta readers took exception to the dammits and craps in the novel spoken by some of the older DJs (including my MC's mentor) when they were angry. She wanted me to "turn it down." I told her craps and dammits WERE down at least a couple of notches from normal radio talk, where 4-letter, 5-letter, and 6-letter combos were the norm. 😛
HA! Yes, I can imagine that was a less salty version of what's on normal radio. It's helpful to remember that beta readers, as helpful as they are, are still coming at our stories with their own lenses/history. It sounds like this particular reader was more sensitive to cursing, not that the story itself needed altering. Thanks for that example. It's always easier to see what people mean IMO, when these are provided.
I took her comments seriously as she was a former 4th-6th grade teacher (and an old classmate of mine), but...yeah, she was super-sensitive to it (didn't even like DAMMIT w/o mention of a deity).
For me, it depends on the book, movie, and show. When I watch Downton Abbey or The Gilded Age, it's fairly profanity free. Or if there is something in there, it's period correct expletives. Were I to hear the F word in there, I'd be offended and think it's out of place. However, I'm a huge fan of Band of Brothers and Only Murders in the Building, both of which has a lot of profanity. It never seems out of place in those shows and I'm not offended. When it comes to my own work, it depends on the era I'm writing in, the characters, the situation. If there is a four letter word, it has to make sense, it can't be forced, or overused. I never have seen The Wolf of Wall Street, and from your description, I never plan to. My aunts tried watching it; they watched a variety of movies, weren't easily offended - they were absolutely disgusted by it. They stopped watching it, too overwhelmed by the F word.
Yes, Veronica, that's a good point. It's important that screenwriters/historical fiction authors capture the right expletives. I don't know enough about what was said when as far as swearing goes--but I do find that even modern-day phrases work themselves into some historical fiction which is funny.
Or just very modern ideas, like a woman in the 1800s having an especially bad day and wishing for a bubble bath. I'm pretty sure unless you were very well off that wasn't an everyday occurrence for most people back then!