Nobody says that, except prospectors in old cartoons and characters in new cartoons written by women. I have in mind the work of Alison Bechdel, Linda Barry and a young woman doing a webcomic that I saw recently but whose title I forget. (Not a bad webcomic either, but my memory isn’t sharp these days.)
All right, possibly men do use “dang” in their cartoons, but I haven’t caught them at it, just three women. Three’s a trend and I’m calling this one.
Come to think of it, it’s interesting how people nowadays treat expletives. My vague sense is that the following observation applies to men and women, though Bechdel provides the only example I can think of. Here it is: Dykes to Watch Out For shows people waving dildos about and hollering in bed, but the hollering is all #?!@*!!. Which is one of those decisions that are hard to explain but make sense in practice. I haven’t seen much in the way of dildos, yet I don’t mind sex toys in Bechdel’s strip. On the other hand, I curse all the time but suspect I would be annoyed and distracted if “fuck,” “shit,” etc. kept popping up in cartoon dialogue — though not movie or tv dialogue. So, you know, go fucking figure.
While I am generally against the mindset that is pervasive in our culture that demands “bad words” be covered up or altered in some way, I have to admit that in comedies I often find that bleeping or cartoon cursing can be funnier than just regular curse words.
A particular example that comes to mind is Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen’s NEXTWAVE, in which all the curse words were replaced with little skulls. I find that hilarious.
In case anyone is coming over here from Journalista; this post is by Tom, not me.