Profanity
The musical is noted for its profanity. It has been accused of including "8,000 obscenities"—it is not known where this count originated, but the 8,000 figure is popularly quoted. This however is impossible, as 8,000 obscenities over the show's 120 minute runtime would mean that there were 66 obscenities a minute, and thus over one per second. Several publications, including the Daily Mail and The Sun, claimed a figure of "3,168 mentions of the word fuck and 297 of the word cunt". As stated in the BBC's findings, however, "the reported figure was in fact a vast exaggeration. In reality, there were 96 uses of "fuck" and nine uses of "cunt". While a substantial number, this was not necessarily unacceptable in terms of late night terrestrial television." The numbers reported were found by multiplying the number of cast members singing a profanity at the same time, i.e. the reported 297 uses of the word cunt is the result of multiplying the 33 cast members with the genuine number of uses of the word, i.e., nine times.
According to writer Stewart Lee, there are 174 swear words in all.
Read more about this topic: Jerry Springer: The Opera
Famous quotes containing the word profanity:
“Nothing, neither acceptance nor prohibition, will induce a child to stop swearing overnight. Teach your child respect for himself and others, that profanity can hurt, offend, and disgust, and you’ll be doing the best you can...And save your parental giggling over mispronounced curses for after the children’s bedtime.”
—Jean Callahan (20th century)