Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:24 pm
I can't access your original article, Henri, but I think Allan Shermanwould have agreed with the premise of your thread topic. He wrote, "Even if we could successfully eradicate the word [*], erase it from all literature and memory, there would be a swarm of potential dirty words waiting to take its place. The wicked little devil who dwells inside every puritan mind cannot exist without dirty words; so, when it finds itself out of dirty words, it makes up new ones out of formerly clean words. The id operates automatically, and a new obscenity is created instantaneously. You can prove this yourself."
He also commented on the Comstock Law and other similar attempts to protect adult citizens from a fate worse than death. "In 1970 a live drama opened in a small Hollywood theater. It was called An Evening of Dirty Plays. (Actually the plays weren't; the producers and authors thought they might catch a few extra theater lovers with this title.) The Times refused to print an ad for the play, contending that the word dirty is dirty. ... the Los Angeles Times offered...a compromise solution...An Evening of Clean Plays. ... Of course, it didn't sell any rickets. In America, nobody wants to see an evening of clean plays."
He also commented on the Comstock Law and other similar attempts to protect adult citizens from a fate worse than death. "In 1970 a live drama opened in a small Hollywood theater. It was called An Evening of Dirty Plays. (Actually the plays weren't; the producers and authors thought they might catch a few extra theater lovers with this title.) The Times refused to print an ad for the play, contending that the word dirty is dirty. ... the Los Angeles Times offered...a compromise solution...An Evening of Clean Plays. ... Of course, it didn't sell any rickets. In America, nobody wants to see an evening of clean plays."