I had Tivo’d the first episode of the new HBO western series, Deadwood, and finally got around to watching it today. It was a little odd. This episode set up a lot of the characters and all the story stuff was fine. Lawless town, check. Hideous violence and exploitation, check. Famous wild west characters, check. What threw was the almost unbelievable amount of swearing in the dialog. Those of you who know me can vouch for the fact that I am not prude. I swear, I make jokes about fisting, etc, so it’s not like swearing itself puts me off. It just seems too over the top. I can almost see the writers at the pitch meeting: “This is the Old West like you’ve never seen it! It’s dark, it’s gritty—imagine Clint Eastwood with a potty mouth!”

The usage of the swears was very modern too. It actually made me curious. Do we know the popular cuss words of the Old West? Do we have examples of their use? Future generations will have movies to judge us from, but we have no such artifacts for the 19th century. See, if they researched what cussing on the frontier was actually like and then implemented it in the dialog, then they’d have had me. Of course, it’s no secret I like the history.

I think the second episode should record tonight, so I’m going to watch that one and see how the show unfolds. I certainly like the idea of a good, serialized western, so I hope the show pans out. Maybe I better rewrite that in a language HBO can understand.

“Tell your cocksucking scribblers to get their pens out of their asses and write some decent motherfucking stories. Those fucking whores had better be good for something or I’ll be selling their mothers for a nickel a pop until I pay off my claim. Now fuck off or I’ll be goddamned forced to satirize your limp dicks a second time.”