Penn & Teller: Bull! 2x6

1. Harry Houdini devoted the final part of his short

2. life to defeating what he called humbug.

3. The new release De humbug was not a funny word.

4. Humbug was not a polite thing to call a holy minister

5. who could supposedly talk to the dead.

6. It was rude and offensive, but it was the right word and a word

7. that Houdini's audience used in the street. I'm Pam.

8. This is my partner, teller. We decided to do this series.

9. We wanted to call it humbug in honor of Houdini.

10. But no, no, we were talking about it no longer reflects

11. the way people speak, and it certainly is in shock.

12. So we decided to name our series Something More modern.

13. But since tonight's show

14. is about the effect profanity is having on our society,

15. I think we should do it the old fashioned way,

16. because trying to stifle free speech, no matter what you call it, is humbug.

17. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

18. Hey, guys.

19. Have. You.

20. Do you.

21. Fuck! Shit!

22. Fuck! Fuck! Shithead!

23. Pig! Fucker! Motherfucker!

24. When you put the D in front of the. Damn it!

25. I do not use profanity and try not to use them.

26. To be honest, I don't curse. Fucking bitch!

27. Asshole! Bitch!

28. Bitch ass fuck!

29. Can I keep those on? Fuck! Shit.

30. I don't know.

31. Everybody's talking about the culture war

32. and the shocking, widespread use of profanity.

33. We are told that our values, morals and way of life are under siege

34. from Hollywood and radio shock jocks.

35. oh. Yes.

36. Is that a bum?

37. Bum bum?

38. I guess the soldiers fighting this war include a cadre of conservative idealists,

39. theological moralists, and, yep, our own government spending our own money,

40. telling us the people how we, the people should speak.

41. Hey hey, hey.

42. No proper names.

43. Motherfucker! Motherfucker!

44. Motherfucker! Motherfucker!

45. You mother fucker!

46. In the small town near Spokane.

47. We found Jenny Foster, a high school driver's

48. ed teacher and self-proclaimed concerned parent.

49. And if she has her way, profanity, common swear words will go away.

50. Her weapon.

51. This symbol which she has created and puts on everything

52. from T-shirts, hats, baby beards, even golf towels.

53. Jenny hopes her symbol will spread through America like the flu.

54. There is no shouting. There's no yelling.

55. We're just quietly protesting profanity in public places.

56. Signal and turn.

57. Fortunately for us, her quiet protest doesn't

58. prevent her from bringing her small minded humbug to national television.

59. The use of profanity degrades society.

60. English is a living language.

61. We have an opportunity for it to bring life.

62. And when we when we say ugly things,

63. then that living language becomes an agent of death.

64. Agent of.

65. Death?

66. Well, I guess she's not against hyperbolic speech.

67. No B.S..

68. To Jenny.

69. Her cliched glyph of a cow defecating is cute.

70. She won't say the title of our show, but she'll use the initials.

71. What a hypocritical prig.

72. She's not against barnyard vulgarity.

73. She just wants in her own infantile baby talk.

74. Mark and Mindy

75. is a TV show from a long time ago.

76. And Mort had the best word.

77. And it shows Bart.

78. And so if you hit your thumb with the hammer, you can say.

79. Shows Bart.

80. My father's a Mexican.

81. And so I was around Spanish a lot.

82. And, So this one word that I use

83. when I'm really angry is Santa Barca.

84. If you say Santa vodka, you can really get mad.

85. And you can really blow off some steam, and then you won't be bothering anyone.

86. No, she'll be bothering us and anybody else who's not on a silly

87. power trip.

88. I'm generally offended by crude language,

89. by language that, that is just I just don't

90. think has a place among adults who respect each other.

91. Jim Lafferty, The Traditional Values Coalition.

92. The Traditional Values Coalition is the largest church

93. based lobby group in the nation.

94. It seems to us that they believe their preferences as they interpret

95. them from the Bible, outweigh the liberties our founding fathers

96. found crucial enough to include in the Constitution.

97. They feel God is giving them the right to judge their neighbors.

98. We see it as a, as a clue that there are classes of words,

99. and the profanity is maybe the lowest

100. denomination among the classes of words.

101. And we think that people generally should seek the highest form of language

102. and the best means of communications that they can.

103. Hire for the language.

104. Oh, you mean like, unpleasant, myopic, impotent despot?

105. Take a look at this and you'll never swear again.

106. Here's a guy who teaches a class

107. in which you'll tell you how you can be just like him. Duh.

108. I'm Jim O'Connor, author of the book Cost Control

109. The Complete Book on How to Curb Your Cursing.

110. I'm just trying to make people aware that there's a very simple way

111. that they can make the world a little bit more pleasant.

112. When you get really mad and you say, oh, that's a bunch of balderdash.

113. Mr. O'Connor feels that using a quaint, antiquated word

114. like balderdash makes him Oscar Wilde.

115. He's using it wrong.

116. It means a muddler, a mass originally of alcoholic beverages.

117. But he's using it as a simple ejaculation, because I did.

118. When he believes in his unpleasant words to make the world unpleasant,

119. not unpleasant behavior.

120. And they said, well, I'm not trying to eliminate swearing.

121. I'm not trying to get people to stop swearing completely.

122. It's just controlling it.

123. If people were a little bit more mindful of their language,

124. a lot of us could contribute to a little bit more pleasant society.

125. Speaking of mindful of language, here's Ginny with her view

126. of a pleasant society filled with offensive thoughts in baby talk.

127. Code, for. Crying out loud.

128. This is a nonviolent shot.

129. The front door sort of vodka.

130. This is making a statement without getting in anybody's face.

131. Santa barca.

132. Santa barca. Santa Barca.

133. It was a Spanish eulogy.

134. Okay. Santa is a saint, of course.

135. And Barca is cow.

136. Sainte cow.

137. So she is literally saying, Holy cow in Spanish.

138. But holy cow is a derogatory

139. reference to the Hindu belief in the sacredness of cows.

140. She certainly doesn't believe in the holiness of cows, so

141. taking that Lord's name in vain is perfectly acceptable.

142. She doesn't buy the holy cow myth.

143. Therefore, if you didn't actually believe that Jesus is God

144. and most of the world doesn't.

145. If you were, for example, a Hindu shouting.

146. To Jesus Christ's.

147. Name in a situation where you or someone you know

148. somehow accidentally

149. dropped a bowling ball in your foot

150. would be, by Ginny's standards,

151. perfectly polite.

152. Fuck fuck fuck fuck me.

153. Fuck.

154. Profanity is a matter of superstition.

155. John McWhorter

156. on The Linguist, and I'm a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York.

157. The idea that there are certain sequences of sounds which,

158. if said, will make everybody very uncomfortable for reasons

159. that they can't quite explain, is a very primitive notion, and.

160. It's also arbitrary.

161. Dog is a sequence of sounds. Dog.

162. We happen to have chosen that to match that little yapping animal.

163. Well, we have no problem with that word.

164. But then if instead of dog we say

165. fuck, that's considered bad.

166. Oh, dear.

167. Listening.

168. A flea bitten, lousy little hound.

169. What I'd like to do.

170. Yeah.

171. Would you.

172. Like to take out to the the driveway, put you behind my.

173. Car and back the.

174. Car over here and just smush all.

175. Your guts over everything.

176. And the only reason I'm not doing that right now here. Is I just washed my car.

177. That's the only reason we.

178. So perhaps it is the context

179. in which words are spoken that give them the power or meaning.

180. I love you, dog.

181. I just want to let you know I really felt about dogs.

182. Well that's okay. Don't be frightened.

183. I hate your guts.

184. As soon as the camera's off, I'm going to strangle you.

185. Really? No kidding.

186. Not only is the choice of sounds considered offensive random.

187. Dog, duck dog.

188. The words which we deem profane change over time.

189. Let's say that it's 1900, and you're not supposed

190. to say things like breast of chicken.

191. And that this is actually true, particularly in 1800s of America.

192. You said white meat and dark meat, literally to avoid saying breast

193. and thigh, because that was considered a little bit louche for the period.

194. We view profanity the same way.

195. We really do all language, which is it's really our duty

196. as lexicographers to tell people the truth about language.

197. John Morse, president, publisher, Merriam-Webster dictionaries

198. the term profane really takes in two categories of words.

199. It takes.

200. In other words, we might simply call vulgar, which are offensive in some way.

201. These are words that some would argue in any context offend our values

202. about God, family, or country, and challenge authority.

203. And then also takes in the words that we would call obscene.

204. Those really are the taboo words that really, we feel when one

205. simply can't say for, for, for moral or esthetic reasons.

206. These are generally words that refer to parts of our anatomy

207. or bodily functions, including the physical acts of what

208. words that

209. offend are really a big help to writers, performers,

210. and anyone who seeks attention to make a point,

211. just decide that any sound shouldn't be made and someone will yell it

212. to add to their protest.

213. If you legislate that certain words are shocking,

214. you lock in the value of that word or the profane.

215. If you don't lock them

216. in, people that desire the effective shock will continue to seek new ways.

217. Either way, you don't have a chance.

218. People will express themselves.

219. Shit shit shit shit

220. shit. And does.

221. This war isn't just being fought at a local level with baby bibs and balderdash.

222. It's driving national public policy.

223. America's broadcasters have been accused of poisoning the airwaves

224. and corrupting children's values.

225. Free speech isn't.

226. You know, we're we're brainwashed in this country.

227. Land of the free land of the free. Land of the free.

228. And people walk around.

229. I'm free, America. Free.

230. I got news for you folks.

231. America isn't free.

232. This is man. Cows. Morning. Madhouse on the Free Speech Radio.

233. Mad cow, Chicago's number one rated morning DJ, has been a victim of this

234. righteous hysteria.

235. He's been fined $42,000

236. for using words that refer to sex, sexual organs,

237. and for playing a comedy song called Smell My Finger.

238. Now, we didn't like it.

239. We would change the station, but someone might have wanted to hear it.

240. I mean, it's a constant battle.

241. We try to figure out what is the line, what can I do?

242. What can I do?

243. And so everybody's kind of operating blindly.

244. And it's it's really an impossible environment

245. to try to do a show, to try to do anything.

246. And who's behind all this?

247. Our FCC, the Federal Communications Commission.

248. Pressured by politicians grandstanding in this land of the free.

249. Home of the brave.

250. Our politicians want to make sure that comedy disc jockeys are tasteful.

251. And they're fighting this losing battle with our money.

252. What you were doing?

253. I think some people want to regulate every aspect of our lives.

254. They want to control us. And.

255. And if they don't like it, then it's got to be stopped.

256. It's small minded people trying to

257. push their morality on.

258. On me and you and everybody.

259. And it's ridiculous. And they're not the majority.

260. They're the minority.

261. And no one has been tormented by the FCC

262. as severely as our friend Howard Stern.

263. Excuse me, honey, this is the United States of America.

264. We've got freedoms here you can't even imagine.

265. Howard is loved by his millions of listeners.

266. But in March 2004, Clear Channel, one of the companies that carries

267. his show, took him off the air in six cities to pander

268. to Congress when forced to explain their position.

269. Clear channel's president John Hogan had this to say.

270. More than anything else.

271. I'm embarrassed to be here.

272. Amidst all the apologizing and wholly kowtowing, he didn't mention

273. he wasn't giving back the fortune his company has made from Howard Show.

274. I don't think he has changed his tune, but we have changed ours.

275. Look, we're at war. We got.

276. We got an economy.

277. We just got crazy things going on,

278. and we're worried about some loudmouth on the radio might say, shit.

279. Somebody swears during a conversation with me.

280. I think that they're underestimating my intelligence

281. or underestimating my my opinion of myself.

282. I don't think it's protected speech.

283. And I think if people are somehow exposed to that against their will,

284. the government should take action to protect people.

285. Actually, Mr.

286. Lafferty, the government has provided protection

287. only for the people you find offensive.

288. The First Amendment is very clear.

289. Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.

290. I agree with the First Amendment, but I do think there are limits,

291. and some of them are limits that the Founding Fathers couldn't have foreseen.

292. No one intended for the First Amendment to protect profanity.

293. What the First Amendment says, or the lesson it teaches us, is

294. we should tolerate those things, precisely those things that offend our

295. religious values, our political values, our community values, our family values.

296. I'm Ron Collins.

297. I'm an author and a scholar at the First Amendment Center.

298. With liberty comes access.

299. I mean,

300. if you want to play it safe, you're not going to have liberty.

301. All right.

302. I mean, the safer you are with guarding those things,

303. the new value, those speech codes that you value,

304. the more you invite tyranny,

305. the more you invite suppression, the more you invite censorship.

306. Fuck!

307. Fuck this shit. I'm in. Son of a bitch!

308. Shit! Shit.

309. Fuck! Fuck!

310. Damn! Fuck the shit!

311. Fuck you! Fuck!

312. I don't know that real people talk that way.

313. I mean, if they're real people, they're not real people that I have known.

314. And I've worked as a as a reporter.

315. I've worked for several presidents of the United States and never heard

316. any of them privately or publicly use language like that.

317. Maybe when he says, you ass, he means you gone to South.

318. He surely doesn't mean the United States is the hand of Slimer the asshole.

319. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

320. Second cock sucker.

321. Cock sucker. Cock sucker. Cock sucker.

322. Cock sucker.

323. Long before Howard Stern,

324. a great comedian, helped pave the way for all of us to speak freely.

325. His name was Lenny Bruce.

326. And believe it or not, he was the last man to go to jail

327. for using words that some people thought were offensive.

328. In the latter two performances, words used as balls.

329. Cocksucker. Fuck, motherfucker. This shit is piss.

330. We used about 100 times in utter obscenity.

331. Now, Lenny Bruce wasn't just offensive.

332. He was incredibly funny.

333. At his best, he was incredibly insightful.

334. At his best.

335. And he was able to put that

336. offensiveness, that insight and that comedy all together

337. in a way that made people laugh and then made people think.

338. He was addressing social issues and the use of language itself

339. and religion and and other topics that became fodder for his comedic material.

340. I am Bob Corn Revere, a First Amendment attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine

341. in Washington, D.C., but it's really questionable whether or not

342. he was prosecuted for the profanity itself,

343. as opposed to the controversial nature of his routine.

344. Catholics and Jews and shit.

345. That's about all I remember. So

346. that's about the general tenor of the act.

347. Lenny Bruce used profanity to talk like the people around him.

348. He didn't insult people by talking on stage differently.

349. That his audience talked to each other.

350. He had the respect to say beautiful things in a style we all understood.

351. If if people had never been around those words before, they would even know

352. if they meant.

353. His use was certainly intended to shock, sometimes, to shock his audience

354. into questioning social norms, and sometimes just to shock for the fun of it.

355. He wanted us to laugh and to think about what makes us who we are.

356. He wanted us to ask what we truly value.

357. He helped us think about what freedom and liberty really mean.

358. It's not just Howard Stern that owes a lot to Lenny.

359. It's not even just entertainers like us

360. that have profited so much from Lenny's brave genius.

361. It's our whole country that owes him a debt.

362. All you really need to know

363. is that nobody knows this guy's name.

364. Those are the words that we used.

365. By the way, when Lenny Bruce went off to jail, one of the guys in the

366. audience was a young guy who, when the police asked him for his ID,

367. he refused to give his ID, said, I don't believe an ID.

368. And so they arrested that guy and put him in the paddy wagon with Lenny

369. Bruce, George Carlin, young George Carlin in the audience that night.

370. A few years later, in 1973, George Carlin's list of seven Dirty Words

371. You Can't Say on TV would cause a sensation.

372. When a New York radio station played a recording of Carlin saying those words,

373. the controversy led to an infamous showdown at the Supreme Court

374. over the FCC's indecency code.

375. The FCC has stepped in and said,

376. we don't think you can censor yourselves that you can edit yourselves.

377. So for the decency standards, we think we have to impose that

378. this board of men who was appointed by a president and established by the Congress,

379. if the First Amendment really didn't allow for them, as far as I can see.

380. Carlin and our side lost, and we're still feeling the effects

381. of that freedom hating indecency ruling today.

382. For the government to suggest that it has the power to excise

383. certain words from our vocabulary because they are too offensive

384. for public discourse, deprives that speaker of its intended meaning.

385. One thing that is important to keep in mind, particularly

386. with respect to the indecency rules, is that they are a very unique

387. anomaly in First Amendment law.

388. They apply only to broadcasting and to no other medium right.

389. The FCC only regulates

390. broadcast TV and radio stuff that you pick up with an antenna.

391. They don't regulate magazines, newspapers, the internet,

392. not cable or pay-TV like Showtime, at least not yet.

393. However, on March 11th, 2004,

394. the FCC said someday, maybe in the future

395. when they get the okay from Congress, they're going to go after cable.

396. Jefferson said

397. government big enough to

398. supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have.

399. The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

400. The rationalization for the FCC to control

401. radio and TV was the limited number of stations.

402. The argument was that there were plenty of papers

403. so you could avoid anything you didn't want to see, but radio was limited.

404. Check out your hometown today.

405. Which do you have more of radio stations or newspapers?

406. As long as we can change the station and we can.

407. There is no reason for the FCC to have any control

408. whatsoever over the content of radio and TV.

409. Remember, they're all appointed.

410. We didn't even vote for them.

411. When do the people have their say?

412. We called the FCC and asked to speak to someone,

413. anyone, about this new censorship.

414. They said no.

415. I guess all of us watching aren't important enough taxpayers to bother answering.

416. Piss piss.

417. Piss piss. And piss.

418. And then she turned.

419. Back at doublespeak class.

420. It's true James Bond does kill people.

421. But you don't swear to me.

422. There's something about the word bungle. It's a funny word.

423. I'd rather if someone said you bungled it up, I want my feelings won't be so hurt.

424. I kind of chuckle and say, yeah, I guess I made a mistake.

425. Yeah.

426. There's also words like, that's nonsense.

427. That's a lie.

428. That's an exaggeration.

429. That sounds like a fabrication.

430. Just because you feel like being angry and swearing and feel entitled to do that,

431. why should you jeopardize everybody else you know?

432. Does the individual rights have precedence over

433. society as a whole and the the welfare of the community?

434. Hello?

435. Yes, it is

436. the cornerstone of our Constitution and our society in the United States.

437. He couldn't have bundled it up that badly.

438. But to be sure, we checked his book and on pages 31 and 32

439. he says the First Amendment to the Constitution intended

440. freedom of speech to mean that citizens have a right to disagree with policies

441. of their government, but that today we seem to think that the rights

442. of the individual take precedence over the comfort of the majority.

443. This misinformed, self-centered, ignorant monkey

444. has no idea that the first man was designed specifically to protect

445. even the most heinous neo

446. Nazi speech, and the painful blather of idiotic tree huggers.

447. You don't need a law to protect popular speech.

448. No one is afraid Mickey Mouse is going to be censored.

449. Our founding fathers knew that limiting speech in any way

450. gives the government too much power.

451. Remember, it's one of the ways they shut Lenny up for his ideas,

452. and they're working on shutting Howard up.

453. And it isn't just for the language.

454. It can't.

455. I won't use the C word. I'm sorry.

456. My my wife would kill me.

457. Cunt.

458. Cunt.

459. And I'm back at driver's ed.

460. Ginni is busy pontificating about real people.

461. People in maybe New York and California,

462. in the media, in the mainstream media,

463. sometimes really don't live in the real world.

464. We we live other lives.

465. We live lives that are, maybe maybe we're soccer moms or one kid.

466. Call me the other day, a skater mom.

467. We go to church, we join the PTA.

468. We do other things.

469. And I don't use that kind of language.

470. I don't, I don't hang around people who use that kind of language.

471. Good choice.

472. Adults talking about real issues.

473. Wouldn't want your petty parochialism around anyway.

474. You just babble and baby talk.

475. Let's see who are friends are.

476. Let's follow her while she drops off one of her cute

477. anti profanity signs at her friend's hair salon.

478. I'm going to set it right here.

479. Fabulous. Everybody can see it.

480. Wonderful. Yeah.

481. Shit.

482. Oh, my gosh, why did you say that?

483. Oops.

484. Jenny wants less profanity, so we'll translate

485. what her hairdresser friend meant by her expertise.

486. Jenny, Stephanie wanted to tell you

487. that she likes your friendship and your shared community.

488. And your patronage is important to her.

489. But you need to remind you that this is her shop.

490. And here she'll talk as she pleases.

491. She wanted you to know that she finds your proselytizing wrongheaded and insulting.

492. And the easiest way for to say all that more was to swear and laugh.

493. You laughed too.

494. You were in Paris.

495. But how clear the message was in Santa Barbara would not have done the trick.

496. Today, in our culture.

497. It's embarrassing that you refuted your whole stance with one word,

498. but the English language and the American culture are wonderful things, Jenny.

499. A lot of truth is all around you.

500. Maybe you need to be quiet.

501. Stop making rules

502. and listen to your friends.

503. And so what we do is I tell the students, use

504. the person riding shotgun, and just give somebody a whole turkey.

505. That's much better than a bird.

506. And this is how you do that.

507. And so only the person riding shotgun can do that, because they have both hands.

508. And the driver has to keep two hands on the wheel.

509. I do think God cares about the language we use.

510. Otherwise he would not have said in the Ten Commandments.

511. Don't use God's name in vain.

512. A substitute that I have is when I'm dealing with my students

513. or even in my home.

514. I would say, I swear to Buddha,

515. because if you're going to profane a deity, I guess it might as well

516. not be your own. Hold the bolt once again.

517. Instead of profane your own God, you profane someone else's genie.

518. You're pompous, empty and self-righteous.

519. You're pretending your God is so important that our use of his name is obscene,

520. while those other gods are fodder for your filthy rantings.

521. Santa barca.

522. Tit tit tit. Tats.

523. Tits.

524. The First Amendment doesn't just protect the infidels.

525. Along with his degradation of society, the cultural landscape is a rich pageant,

526. including more of the so-called old family friendly entertainment

527. than there has ever been.

528. I think it's that permissiveness, that diversity,

529. that difference of opinion, that difference of perspective

530. is what makes our culture the envy of the free world.

531. Right?

532. In 2004, one of the most popular films of the box office

533. was The Passion of the Christ, a movie that any government

534. rating system would have certainly banned or altered because of anti-Semitism

535. and the depiction of graphic, gratuitous violence.

536. But people decided they wanted to see it.

537. Great.

538. And there are several

539. 24 hour religious channels on cable and significant religious program.

540. Freedom is wonderful that way.

541. Everyone has a chance to get what they want

542. if they're just willing to turn the channel.

543. The high tide lifts all boats.

544. There's entertainment for people with traditional multicultural values

545. like us, and benighted imbeciles who have no multicultural values like Jenny.

546. Much about our culture is becoming less formal.

547. I mean, people don't wear suits and ties as often as they used to.

548. We don't wear top hats as they did at the turn of the last century.

549. And along with all of those changes about our society in general,

550. we, use our language in more casual ways.

551. And yet, it's this casualness that's fueling the so-called culture war.

552. There are a number of moralists out there who want to take their concerns

553. as a parent and impose those concerns on all of society, and including on to me.

554. And I don't want those people to be my parent.

555. And there's no

556. nothing in the Constitution that says they can be your parent either.

557. When you really think about this issue, these straight

558. laced solipsistic aren't asking that we control our anger.

559. They aren't asking to change our behavior,

560. that we treat each other with more respect or patience.

561. They aren't trying to be nicer.

562. They only want you to shout something.

563. They feel appropriate when you feel like shouting.

564. They don't care about the package, just the gift wrap.

565. They don't advocate peace.

566. They don't care if you speak with hate.

567. They want only to change the exact words, as if the words.

568. What makes discourse hateful or distasteful.

569. They think the avoidance of certain words is going to signal an education.

570. Humbug.

571. It's the words you use, not the ones you don't use that show what you know.

572. It's trivial for us to hurt your feelings with the squeaky, cleanest of words.

573. It's also trivial for us to tell us we love you with the most vulgar profanity.

574. Some instances, it even adds a little bit of fun to the love.

575. Marshall McLuhan was just wrong.

576. The message is the message.

577. You know, George Carlin, seven dirty words.

578. You know.

579. And yes, I do.

580. Shit. Piss. Fuck.

581. I no, you can't say. Those are the words.

582. You can't say this.

583. We just did. Hey.

584. I'm pretty. You.