History of Swear Words

History of Swear Words is an American documentary series hosted by Nicolas Cage. The series was released on January 5, 2021, on Netflix.^[1][2][3]

History of Swear Words
Genre	Documentary series
Written by	Joel Boyd Sara Schaefer
Presented by	Nicolas Cage
Theme music composer	Adam Blau
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producers	Brien Meagher Rhett Bachner Mike Farah Joe Farrell Beth Belew Bellamie Blackstone
Producer	Ben Stoddard
Running time	20 minutes
Production companies	B17 Entertainment Funny or Die
Original release
Network	Netflix
Release	January 5, 2021 (2021-01-05)

Premise

Hosted by Nicolas Cage, the unscripted series explores the History of Swear Words through interviews with experts in etymology, popular culture, history and entertainment, with each episode diving into the origins, usage and cultural impact of specific curse words: fuck, shit, bitch, dick, pussy and damn.^[1][3]

Cast

• Nicolas Cage as Host
• Jess Harnell as Grandpa

Entertainers

• Sarah Silverman
• Nick Offerman
• Nikki Glaser
• Patti Harrison
• Open Mike Eagle
• Joel Kim Booster
• DeRay Davis
• London Hughes
• Jim Jefferies
• Zainab Johnson
• Baron Vaughn
• Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Experts

• Benjamin K. Bergen – Professor of Cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego
• Anne H. Charity Hudley – Linguist, Professor of African-American English at the University of California, Santa Barbara
• Mireille Miller-Young – Professor of Women's studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara
• Elvis Mitchell – Film critic
• Melissa Mohr – Author of Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing
• Kory Stamper – Author of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, Lexicographer, and former editor for Merriam-Webster

Episodes

No.	Title	Original release date
1	"F**k"	January 5, 2021 (2021-01-05)
2	"Sh*t"	January 5, 2021 (2021-01-05)
3	"Bitch"	January 5, 2021 (2021-01-05)
4	"D**k"	January 5, 2021 (2021-01-05)
5	"Pu**y"	January 5, 2021 (2021-01-05)
6	"Damn"	January 5, 2021 (2021-01-05)

Production

On December 9, 2020, it was announced that Nicolas Cage would host an unscripted six-episode series about the history of swear words for Netflix.^[1][2]

The series has been produced by Bellamie Blackstone, Mike Farah, Joe Farrell, and Beth Belew for Funny or Die, with Brien Meagher and Rhett Bachner for Industrial Media's B17 Entertainment respectively. Blackstone will also serve as the series showrunner.^[3]

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 70% based on 27 reviews, with an average rating of 6.40/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Brevity may be the soul of wit, but digging a little deeper could only help History of Swear Words — a show that almost lives up to its name and host, but falls a little f-king short."^[4] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100 based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[5]

Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times gave the series three out of four stars and described it as "a cheeky, entertaining and legitimately educational look at the etymology of the most common curse words."^[6]

See also

• Seven dirty words