History of Swear Words (2021)

Title: History of Swear Words

Year: 2021

Genre:  Comedy |Documentary |

Seasons: 1 |

Runtime: 20 min/Episode

Created by: Christopher D’Elia

Starring: Nikki Glaser, London Hughes, Elvis Mitchell

6,6/10

An education in expletives: the history lesson you didn’t know you needed to be hosted by Nicolas Cage. A loud and proudly profane series that explores the origins, pop culture-usage, science and cultural impact of curse words.

REPETITIVE, UN-INFORMATIVE AND TONE-DEAF

Nicolas Cage hosts a six times 20 minutes series, covering the most common and explicit swearwords we have in the English language. Why this series is even necessary is certainly unclear. However, the series covers fuck, bitch, dick, damn, pussy and shit among the words. Every episode has a monologue done by Cage and a couple of low-key actors tries to humour the usage of this explicitness. The formula is repetitive and doesn’t really make for a binge-worthing series.

It doesn’t go deep and as expected, History of Swearwords might be entertaining for a brief moment before it gets boring. Although, it’s occasionally informative in how it was originated and with abstract animation, it clarifies backgrounds to these words. Celebrities talk about these words like it’s something new with a green screen behind them, which indicates a clear lack of creativity.

The significant part to observe is each word’s entomology, the origin of the story and the way Nicolas Cage hosts the series who pursue an energetic and transformative performance. However, the history of the words in linguistic form doesn’t cut deep and doesn’t prevail the acknowledge. As it implies, it has a comic overtone that quickly becomes political with a small amount of substance to the true history of each word. It’s a series that’s hard to been taken seriously and doesn’t shape a worthy narrative, as each of the episodes undermines a good potential. It could have been far more in-depth in its entomology and the linguistic instead of having celebrities blundering around on the screen.

Nicolas Cage is the only reason this series is worth the bare minimum of twenty minutes. He clarifies each word and gives interesting energy on how to pursue his hosting, even if it’s a difficult task to take him seriously throughout the series. In the end, the result isn’t craving for more. It’s lack of creativity, depth and constant repetitive breeds the series ultimatum to be not more than a Netflix click-bait mini-series and doesn’t need so much of the glorified recognition it occasionally gets.