| Netflix | Season Premiere Date: January 5, 2020 |
Summary:
Nicolas Cage hosts this series about the history of some English swear words.
Genre(s):
Documentary
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Season 1 Episodes
- No episode information is currently available for this season
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 6, 2021
It’s mostly an educational lark that enables comedians to riff on obscenities and allows Nicolas Cage — I know, I know, I buried the lede — to act as an overly serious, Masterpiece-style host of the proceedings who tears into his dialogue like a bread-maker attacking a rare steak. But there is also some genuinely interesting information in this light sextet of episodes.
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Jan 6, 2021
Cage is ultimately just the bait for the series, which, over the course of six 20-minute episodes, goes surprisingly deep into not only each epithet’s origins but the effects of racism and misogyny on what is or isn’t considered taboo, and what can or can’t be reclaimed. If anything, the only pity is that the series isn’t longer; the discussions are fascinating and unusually upfront, and beg a more detailed history than the brief overview can provide.
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Jan 6, 2021
What’s missing here overall isn’t seriousness, but context and a little tension. The way the comics are deployed individually, too many of the same points are stated, reiterated and unchallenged. (A roundtable setup would’ve been livelier.) An extra 10 minutes per episode might’ve led to a richer examination of the issues — the words humankind creates, then stigmatizes, then weaponizes, and then tends to use over and over to less effective advantage.
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Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021
Each episode does an admirable job speeding through all the medieval mythology, socio-political context, pop culture reflections and bizarre fun facts behind each swear word. But with only 20 minutes a pop, these chapters barely have enough time to lay out the basic facts, let alone dig in.
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The Playlist
Jan 5, 2021
‘Swear Words’ is a joyless slog. ... You’re left wanting to crawl under a blanket in horror as funny people such as Jim Jeffries, Sarah Silverman, Nick Offerman, and Nikki Glaser drop bomb after bomb. ... If the show cut the comedians completely and just focused on Cage and these [experts], the show would have been about half as long (a good thing) and could have been a really solid little web series.
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Jan 16, 2021
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Seasons & Episodes
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Season 1
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Season 1 Overview
Air Date: January 5, 2020
- No episode information is currently available for this season
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Season 1 Overview