Benedict Cumberbatch News

[by the sea]

I suppose everyone has seen the drunk Benedict at the GQ Awards?  Hilarious.  He was all over the place in his speech.

 

Well, sometimes he almost seems too good to be true, so it's interesting to see he can be like the rest of us.  He's so busy, maybe he felt the need to relax and got a little carried away !   

 

Debbie

[jesskayding]

Really?!??? I think the Cumberbatch is openly crass! He has one of the worst potty mouths in the business! F this, F'n that! Here an F, there an F, everywhere an F, F!!

[besleybean]

I loved the ' staying at home has become a precious commodity of late' comment in the GQ interview.

I hope that means he has his little lady tucked away there now.

[by the sea]

Really?!??? I think the Cumberbatch is openly crass! He has one of the worst potty mouths in the business! F this, F'n that! Here an F, there an F, everywhere an F, F!!

 

Oh ?  I had no idea.  I must listen more ... up to now, I've mostly been reading.  Not that it'll make much difference to me.  I live in New Brunswick and we all talk like that !   

 

Debbie

[jesskayding]

I loved the ' staying at home has become a precious commodity of late' comment in the GQ interview.

I hope that means he has his little lady tucked away there now.

 

He could be like Ludacris ( a US gangsta rapper ) & have ho's in every area/postal code.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

You think CB is bad? Robin Williams was the king of the potty mouths as far as I''m concerned. I loved the man...thought he was great but I started to watch one of his so called comedy routines and I mean really. I listened for about a minute or so and had to turn it off...talk about crass...it was down right raunchy.

 

I can listen to CB no problem.

[by the sea]

I know it's off topic, but can you tell me why the more mainstream networks in the US are still deleting three and four letter words ?  Something like jack--- can hardly be offensive at this point.  My HD PBS channel is WNED (Buffalo NY ... although I don't know why we don't get WGBH in Boston which is geographically much closer to us) and I've recorded British shows that have lost all sense because of the bleeping.  One might argue that means there's WAY too much swearing going on, but what the h--- ??  It's the way a lot of people talk.  

 

Debbie

[Arcadia]

Because some of us still do, in fact, find such language extremely offensive, I imagine. And others don't want their kids to think it's an acceptable way to talk. Reasons like that.

[Carol the Dabbler]

To me, it's more the intent behind the language -- though yeah, I wouldn't care to play certain DVDs for certain relatives.  What I find hard to take is "bad" words used in a hostile or aggressive way, and I've never heard that sort of thing in interviews with Cumberbatch or Freeman, though both are very free with the four-letter words.

 

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

I read somewhere that he already has...?

 

RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT

[jesskayding]

Yeah... I wasn't meaning that he's being malicious with his words. Just sometimes can use the F word as punctuation. Ugh yeah Robin Williams was much worse & so is that one guy from Full House, who used to host America's Funniest Home Videos, years ago. Wooooo that mans mouth is "filthy foul filthy filth filth." - Bill Cosby

 

 

Yeah I can tolerate BC, but he looooves dropping the F bomb.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I suspect that the word is so common in some circles that people don't even realize they're saying it, any more than you or I would realize how many times we'd used the word "and."

 

Such things change over time.  I remember when "crap" was not a word to be said out loud in mixed company, and now they can say it on television.

 

[besleybean]

It just means rubbish.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Nowadays, yeah.  But it used to be a rather rude word for excrement.

 

[T.o.b.y]

I know this is off-topic, but what is it with the American attitude towards swearing? On the one hand, I've never heard as many vulgar expressions as from Americans, be it in real life or on TV, and on the other, I don't know any other Western culture that gets so upset about it.

 

I like to say F*** once in a while, but more in a nice way, like "this is F***ing awesome" (and my mom would chide me for the a-word more than the f-word, I am afraid...). And I must admit that I love the expression "F***ed up". But where I live, swearing just isn't much of an issue. I don't hear a lot of expletives used, and when I do, nobody seems to give a... you know what. I can't say I was brought up to purposely avoid "bad words", but then, I didn't hear them much, either. Maybe I just live a way too sheltered life...

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I have always thought that Americans were more than a little hypocritical about things, or at least there is a double standard. Live comics can be as raunchy and foul mouthed without sensor but then on tv objectionable words are bleeped out. Are they trying to protect any young children who might be watching? Maybe but now, if parents don't want their children to hear or see all the objectionable stuff on tv, they pop in a Disney movie. It used to be that early evening tv was supposed to be geared to family viewing. But now right off the bat at like 7:00 pm they have shows like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory. Two Broke Girls and the like. There is nothing for the young viewers any more and I really don't know why the standard was allowed to slip so badly. I'm an adult with a reasonable healthy sense of humor and I don't find this stuff all that funny. Certainly not enough to even care to bother watching much American tv at all.

[by the sea]

Well, I grew up in the Navy and, as previously mentioned, I live in New Brunswick ... so 4-letter words, particularly the one starting with F, are very commonplace.  I believe it's time we started cleaning up the way we speak, although I admit to having used what we affectionately call "swear words" since I can remember talking ... although my mother insists my first word was "cookie" ... forget that MaMa DaDa stuff !   I got into the elevator at work one day with a young man and his buddy and his  conversation was an exercise in trying to use the F word as every other word in his sentences.  He managed to do this quite well and I would have been rather impressed if it hadn't been so f---in' stupid !     What is language coming to when what serves well (perhaps) as an expletive (defined as: an interjectory word or expression, frequently profane; an exclamatory oath) becomes the main course of your discourse ??  And, T.o.b.y. ... are you familiar with FUBAR ?  It gets used a lot around here.  

 

Debbie

[jesskayding]

Well yall know my stance on the subject. Orbit people orbit ( popular chewing gum for cleaning a dirty mouth) ha hah! heh heh. Hmmmmmmmm. Womp womp...

[Caya]

Must admit I'm a bit biased here. My grandpa used to be a sailor in his youth and he sure swore like one, but since I loved my grandparents dearly and he was a good man, I view certain expletives with a kind of nostalgia . This also leaves some people shocked when I give them a ride - I'm usually mild-mannered, but because grandpa drove me so often as a kid, I picked up the habit to swear up a storm when confronted with idiot drivers (read: always ).

[jesskayding]

The Cumberbatch never ceases to amaze me. Has lead us to the riveting reveal of this forums somewhat raunchy experiences & foul mouth memoirs. Shall we take a moment of reflection...

 

 

 

 

 

[by the sea]

Must admit I'm a bit biased here. My grandpa used to be a sailor in his youth and he sure swore like one, but since I loved my grandparents dearly and he was a good man, I view certain expletives with a kind of nostalgia . This also leaves some people shocked when I give them a ride - I'm usually mild-mannered, but because grandpa drove me so often as a kid, I picked up the habit to swear up a storm when confronted with idiot drivers (read: always ).

 

LOL !  I love it ... road rage as a trip down memory lane !        I'm not especially mild-mannered but I am pretty conservative ... but I learned to drive near a BIG city and road rage was part of the experience and nothing is sacred when I'm behind the wheel.  My colleagues frequently comment they're surprised I'm still alive ... amazed than another driver hasn't taken exception to my outbursts and tried to shut me up !    I whacked a car with my umbrella once while I was standing on the sidewalk ... the driver went right through my pedestrian crossing light just as I was bout to step out onto the road.  I didn't yell at him, though ... just the whack.  To paraphrase my old friend Buffy ... often cars and Debbie are un-mixy things !    BTW, I didn't know him very long, but I don't remember my granddad ever swearing.  Can't say the same for my dad !  

 

Debbie

[Arcadia]

I know this is off-topic, but what is it with the American attitude towards swearing? On the one hand, I've never heard as many vulgar expressions as from Americans, be it in real life or on TV, and on the other, I don't know any other Western culture that gets so upset about it....

I don't have a real answer, I'm afraid. At a guess, I suppose it has something to do with the deep vein of Puritanism that still (supposedly, at least) runs through the American psyche. When I was growing up, swearing was considered the height of ill manners, and among most of my friends, it still is. But, oddly enough, my two best friends can both swear like professionals, and don't see what the big deal is. So I guess that's part of it too; we're all so different from one another. But those who get upset about profanity have a louder voice, perhaps?

 

I have always thought that Americans were more than a little hypocritical about things, or at least there is a double standard. Live comics can be as raunchy and foul mouthed without sensor but then on tv objectionable words are bleeped out. Are they trying to protect any young children who might be watching? Maybe but now, if parents don't want their children to hear or see all the objectionable stuff on tv, they pop in a Disney movie. It used to be that early evening tv was supposed to be geared to family viewing. But now right off the bat at like 7:00 pm they have shows like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory. Two Broke Girls and the like. There is nothing for the young viewers any more and I really don't know why the standard was allowed to slip so badly. I'm an adult with a reasonable healthy sense of humor and I don't find this stuff all that funny. Certainly not enough to even care to bother watching much American tv at all.

Fox, you probably know all this, but for those who may not...

 

It was always my understanding that in the States, the airwaves were considered to be, in some way, public property (public in the American sense of belonging to everyone). Whereas a club where a comedian might perform is private property. On private property, in this country, people have a much wider range of "rights" to do what they want than they do on public property (you can't drink alcohol in a national park, for example, but you can drink all you want at a friend's house next door to the park.) (Assuming you're "of age", of course. )

 

So being public property, the airwaves had restrictions on what they could broadcast, and those restrictions were based on, supposedly, "common" standards and values. But if I recall correctly, when cable came along, it was determined to be "private" broadcasting; they didn't use the public airways, so they didn't have to follow the same standards. Then cable started producing hit shows which were filled with behaviors previously not seen on TV. The advertisers noticed, and pretty soon pressure was on to relax the standards on shows broadcast over the public airways. So we end up with pure raunch being shown at what was once known as the family hour, because it draws an audience, and the advertisers know that.

 

I agree there's a fair amount of hypocrisy going on, but also it's just increasingly hard these days to balance different demands from different groups of people. We the American public don't seem to agree on much anymore; one person's "protection from obscenity" is another person's "censorship". But you know, sometimes those disagreements are a good thing. I'd hate to think we all still agreed that it was "obscene" for Petula Clark to touch Harry Belafonte.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Maybe I'm not as open minded as I think I am bit while I do not believe in censorship, I would like to be able for kids to be able to turn on a tv without being bombarded with a lot of the asinine stuff that passes for acceptable portrayals of American culture and norms.

[jesskayding]

Yeah, when you share space, those who chose to be, let's say more explicit/R rated in use of language or smoke toxic things like cigarettes or like to a have a good rumble with their friends or like to engage in so much PDA that it becomes more like a soft porn... Need to understand that we share public spaces, & because they chose to be like that, should be considerate. Be in environments, where that behavior is morally acceptable.

 

Now the PDA, behind closed doors only please. A nice 10 second kiss with rubbing on the back & hand holding in public ok... But beyond that.... BLECH!!!

[Arcadia]

Maybe I'm not as open minded as I think I am bit while I do not believe in censorship, I would like to be able for kids to be able to turn on a tv without being bombarded with a lot of the asinine stuff that passes for acceptable portrayals of American culture and norms.

Yeah, when you share space, those who chose to be, let's say more explicit/R rated in use of language or smoke toxic things like cigarettes or like to a have a good rumble with their friends or like to engage in so much PDA that it becomes more like a soft porn... Need to understand that we share public spaces, & because they chose to be like that, should be considerate. Be in environments, where that behavior is morally acceptable.

 

Now the PDA, behind closed doors only please. A nice 10 second kiss with rubbing on the back & hand holding in public ok... But beyond that.... BLECH!!!

You both make a good point, and I agree, it doesn't seem quite fair that those with the highest tolerance for smut seem to set the standard for what is "acceptable."

 

I personally don't mind "adult content" being on TV so much as I mind that increasingly there is no alternative to it. I don't like having to re-watch "Toy Story" for the nth time with the kids because there's nothing else on that's suitable for them to watch. And I don't like putting each kid in their own room with their own favorite video while I watch something else. I would much rather have new "family-friendly" shows to choose from, that we could all enjoy together.

 

But apparently I'm in the minority, judging by what's on. Really, they wouldn't air the shows they do if people didn't watch them. Which is why something clever and classy like "Firefly" sinks without a trace while drudge like -- take your pick -- goes on season after season. It's what the largest number of people watch. Occasionally something different -- like Lost -- breaks through, but usually not. I don't know what can be done about it.