I was amused to hear about ongoing and in-depth research for an Ofcom report, due out this spring, into the acceptability of bad language on television.
The poor researchers have had to sit in people's front rooms holding up cue cards with rude words written on them, noting the reaction from different demographics ranging from sexuagenarian Glasgwegian ladies (pretty broadminded, it seems) to asking travellers their views about the use of the word 'pikey' - which seems to have come into wider use since the Guy Ritchie film Snatch.
It'll be interesting to see what Ofcom recommends, as the research forms part of its ongoing review of the Broadcasting Code.
Perhaps, as the recent Social Attitudes survey suggests, people are broader minded than we expect. What does offend is the deliberate use of language which abuses an individual or a group and/or their values and beliefs.
But there are hazards in deciding what offends who.
A case in point is the foul-mouthed force that was Ian Dury, brought to life again in the film Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Andy Serkis (best known as Gollum in Lord of the Rings) plays the utterly irrepressible musician who showed punk rockers how it was done. Serkis is a big fan of Dury (me too!) and fairly describes him as a poet. A rude and lewd one for sure, but he had a great sense of rhythm and of how to play with the sounds of words.
The film highlights the row over his controversial song Spasticus Autisticus, which was written in reaction to (rather than for) the Year of the Disabled in 1981. Dury was himself disabled: he had polio as a child and wore calipers on both legs. Somehow the irony of the song's lyrics was lost on the good burghers of the BBC, who promptly banned it from airplay.
When I check around, of course it did not offend disabled people at the time, and it doesn' t now. In fact it has become an anthem. There's even a Facebook campaign to get the song to Number One to mark its 30th anniversary.
What does bother the disabled community is the fact that disabled actors were not considered for the part (think Mat Fraser, for example). But do see it; Serkis is brilliant. And the young Ian is played by Wesley Nelson, who has cerebral palsy; he's interviewed here at BBC Ouch!.
The older Dury never minded his language. As journalists, we have to - but, before we tie ourselves in politically correct knots, it's worth asking the people we fear may be offended what they think.
