Near-Swearing On Justice League

[EJill34]

.........

 

[ArtificialIdiot]

Really? I liked Green Lantern's "Kiss my axe" line.

My favorite has to be "I have a gesture for you, but my hands are tied!" though. Although, Superman's "Go to--" was a bit of a shocker, as it was Superman!

Personally, I think it's a good thing. Cartoons shouldn't attempt to dumb down the real world and make things unrealistic imo. The Justice league act like adults, which is good for me.

 

[Devils_Advocate]

Use when appropriate

For example, I thought the "Kiss my Axe" line was appropriate for the scene. GL is getting the----------beat out of him. And he was being taunted by Hro concerning both Hawkgirl and his adequacy as a man. It would have been jarring if he had not cursed at that point.

D_A

 

[Harper]

I've never found the near-swears too annoying. It's comic-y. If there was ever a time in the DCAU that they should have been able to get away with the real deal, though, it would be "Perchance to Dream."

 

[Shadow]

I think the near-swearing makes it look more dumbed down than not doing it in the firstplace. :|

I think they should either drop it, or actually go through with it (fat chance).

 

[rmarti3926]

Hmmm...

How about the line from JLU's "Initiation" when Captian Atom said to Green Arrow that "someone gotta watch your sorry..."

Also, in the JLU Toonami preview, the short one anyway, a bad guy who got tied up by Dove tells him to "kiss my... aaaaaaahhhh!"

 

[shogunthethird]

personally I wouldn't mind if they pulled a Farscape and had the extraterrestrial JLU members curse in their homeworld's tongue (although hearing Wonder Woman shout "Frell you!" to someone would be really cool)

 

[Style]

I'm not some prude who can't stand swearing in movies or TV, it's fine and can actually be funny at times, but I was never very comfortable with Superheros swearing. I geuss this comes from the days when Superheros were the paragon of virtue, and would never do anything evil, and as an extension, anything "bad."

I know that sentiments have changed and Superheros are now portrayed as more complex, human beings, something for which I'm grateful, but it still seems a little wierd or inappropriate for a Hero to be reduced to Cussing someone out.
I guess it's just me.

 

[Lunchbox]

At the time, I was almost positive Green Lantern had actually uttered "kiss my ass." Of course, I was watching Starcrossed on DVD with several friends, and when they burst out laughing I realized something was amiss. I had to rewind to make sure.

As for my opinion of it, it's fine in moderation. If it's not a recurring theme, I'll be happy. Though hearing Superman almost curse is rather odd...seeing the paragon of virtue driven to obscenities? Unsettling, to say the least. He's a walking slice of wholesome Americana. Though in "For the Man Who Has Everything," I felt it could have been executed better—perhaps Diana should have been a little faster on the trigger, giving the illusion she had said it and it was just drowned out by the unnatural scream of the weapon.

 

[Collabo]

I think that in moderation (though I don't care for cursing/swearing/cussing) can be very funny. I mean GL's line in Starcrossed nearly made me fall out of my seat. And Wonder's Woman kiss my ::shoots gun:: Was great. GMahler raised an interesting idea. That WW did probably say it but it was drowned out by the gun. Now for one of the heroe's to blatantly say "F-You." Would be shocking and I don't think I'd care for it all that much...

 

[Simpler Simon]

Use it sparingly. If they use it too much the near-swearing becomes a gimmick and gets old.

 

[GL2k2]

I agree that it should be used every so often, but now it's become so noticeable, that it's losing it's affect. The only thing that will surprise me now is if they do some kinda innuendo like the Simpsons or Futurama has done or if they just go ahead and say it.

 

[Fone Bone]

I'm not some prude who can't stand swearing in movies or TV, it's fine and can actually be funny at times, but I was never very comfortable with Superheros swearing. I geuss this comes from the days when Superheros were the paragon of virtue, and would never do anything evil, and as an extension, anything "bad."

I know that sentiments have changed and Superheros are now portrayed as more complex, human beings, something for which I'm grateful, but it still seems a little wierd or inappropriate for a Hero to be reduced to Cussing someone out.
I guess it's just me.

It's not just you. One of the reasons I hated MTV's Spider-Man was the swearing.

Justice League has been there/done that. It's REALLY getting overdone and almost painfully campy.

I'm just glad John K. doesn't work on Justice League.

 

[Conekiller]

I doesn't bother me too much, as long as it's handled well.

I felt WW's "go to..." line was akward because there was a pause there as if she just stopped talking, which feels like a cop out. if they're gonna do stuff like that, do it in moderation (unlike the new TMNT's over use of "shell" instead of hell) and find a way to interrupt the phrase better.

 

[Master Moron]

I doesn't bother me too much, as long as it's handled well.

I felt WW's "go to..." line was akward because there was a pause there as if she just stopped talking, which feels like a cop out. if they're gonna do stuff like that, do it in moderation (unlike the new TMNT's over use of "shell" instead of hell) and find a way to interrupt the phrase better.

I agree with that. I liked the "Kiss my axe" line and think that almost swearing like that can be good in moderation, but I can't stand the way way Ninja Turtles fake swears all the time. "What the shell?" It sounds so stupid and they do it so often. Fake swears are fine on Justice League as long as they don't overdo it. Oh, and it would be really ****ing cool if they really ****ing swore on Justice League.

 

[maxnugget]

I like the fact that they do the near-swearing. I thought WW's use of it in the FTMWHE scene was great, but like others said, the timing seemed too delayed with the gun cutting her off. Although I found it interesting that the sound effect for the gun sort of sounded like "heeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllll"! And, GMahler, I also noticed her still mouthing something as she was firing the gun, and I watched a frame-by-frame and she does appear to still be talking.

I think my only concern with the swearing (as I expressed in my parody ) is that it's becoming somewhat of a cliche on the show. The best example of this was Captain Atom's use of it in "Initiation," in my opinion. The thing is, it works great for more dire situations where it seems natural that "f*** yeah, they should be cursing right now!" But in scenes like "Initiation" it was used as part of casual dialogue. That's not to say it was unrealistic -- some people (like Cap'n Atom) curses more casually. But I think if you can only get away with "almost cursing," it's better not to (gasp!) "almost casually curse" for casual dialogue, because in those situations it just draws attention to and nearly parodies the fact that the show does this whole "almost cursing" thing.

 

[Obsidian Age]

Most of the people who posted here sumed it up. Don't overdo it and I also think its sounds weird. Especially when Superman got out of his Prison in A Better World. "I don't know about you guys but I'm ready to kick some serious--" it seems like a split second of that scene was just cut out.

 

[Lunchbox]

It's not the Wilhelm scream, but it is a stock shout. Very nicely employed, though.

Regardless of whether Diana was mouthing while firing, there was still a gap. I'd expect her to finish her sentences in a timely manner.

 

[GL2k2]

Most of the people who posted here sumed it up. Don't overdo it and I also think its sounds weird. Especially when Superman got out of his Prison in A Better World. "I don't know about you guys but I'm ready to kick some serious--" it seems like a split second of that scene was just cut out.

It's Superman that I find this near-swearing the most disturbing. He's a good ol' boy and if he does it everytime, that just isn't going to make him respected. I don't remember him doing that on the series. He's was much more noble in a lot of ways and naive. I think the series really got the point down that Superman wasn't as smart as Batman. But he had qualities that Batman didn't liking pushing the envelope and near-swearing. If at all possible it might actually be interesting if the creative team approached this near-swearing in the future. Especially with Superman. Maybe he could be about to say something and Kara says "Clark I'm surprised at you." Make him blush and say, "Let me handle the cussing for now on!"

As for the gap in timing in these situations, is it visually you guys are talking about or audibly? If it's visual I wonder if there's some deleted scenes or if there's an uncut version out there. DVD's people, it has to be on the DVD's. I know Gargoyles is going to be uncut, why not JL.

 

[maxnugget]

The gap in between when one character cuts off another is something that I've always found interesting. I've spent a couple years acting for stage theatre, and making a dialogue cut-off sound realistic, I think, is a skill unto itself. For one thing, the JLU characters often deliver the dialogue as if they're expecting to never get to the next word, which, of course, is because if you're reading a line and you know you're about to get cutoff, it's often noticeable in the delivery of the line (unless you're a good enough actor to make it sound like you really were going to continue.

Although, now that I write that, I think JL/JLU's "near curses" actually sound awkward (when they sound awkward) for a different reason: The dialogue just isn't realistic. Generally speaking, in real life people don't cut you off as you're about to curse. An example:

Captain Atom: Ok, but I'm gonna be too busy to cover your sorry--
Green Arrow: Wouldn't ask you to.

Superman: I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm ready to kick some SERIOUS--
Flash: You're gonna have to wait on that.

My point is, the above are examples are simply swerving into the land of unnatural dialogue. In real life, nobody would bother cutting you off at a spot like that to make those types of comments. In fact no one would ever cut you off right before you were about to curse unless it's your mother or schoolteacher trying to stop you from swearing. And when you hear these kinds of bits of dialogue on JL, and they sound strange, it calls attention to the fact that, "yes, this dialogue sounds odd, because the only reason the character is cutting off the person who's talking is to prevent them from saying that word we're not alowed to say." And, of course, that tends to undermine the scene because you're slapping your forehead instead of watching the drama.

On the flipside though, as people have said, it HAS been used effectively, and I'd hate for b.t. or someone else to read all the debate about this and decide to stop doing it. I think in the case of the FTMWHE bit with WW saying "go to (gun fires)," its only problem is a simple misstep in execution. It had the elements to succeed: I could easily see, in a PG-13 movie, a character saying "Go to" and firing the gun as she's saying "HELL"...in fact that makes a lot more sense than would saying the full line and THEN firing your gun (it's just more natural to pull the trigger while you're saying the end of your line). I think the problem was simply a VERY slightly off timing on the line and the gun...in fact I'm tempted to just throw in the towel and say that there was nothing really wrong with that bit's execution.

Another good example of where this worked well, although again, perhaps could have been tweaked in terms of execution, is Superman's "go to hell" line in "Twilight." It, obviously, makes sense that Superman would respond that way, and actually one of the few exceptions to my rant earlier about that kind of dialogue being unrealistc is perhaps that it sort of makes sense that Brainiac would cut him off there. He's a computer, he's not making small-talk, he's finding out the answer to a question he asked Superman. Once someone says "Go to," it's easy to see they're going to say "hell" next, so Brainiac simply cut him off because he didn't need to hear the next word to know Superman's answer. Of course, this is bordering on being an excuse, and if the dialogue is jarring to viewers, it doesn't really matter that I (or someone else) can offer up an explanation for it.

Idunno, this quickly turned into one of my unfocused rants, so I'll just end by saying that I think, especially given that the "near curse" bit is teetering on the edge of cliche in the show currently, that I think the crew should exercise some caution in using it further (though I don't want them to stop using it entirely). Just make sure it makes sense to use it, that the execution is done well, with believable dialogue, and be mindful not to let this become one of those cliches that's going to drag things down wherever it rears its ugly head.