You’ve heard about it. We’ve talked about it. Some folks begged ABC never to air it.
But air it did. On Wednesday, Modern Family presented to the world “Little Bo Bleep,” an episode in which a cute little girl utters the infamous f-word.
The girl in question is Lily, the travel-size adopted daughter of gay couple Cam and Mitchell. She’s just been asked to be the flower girl at a wedding and, as she’s warming up her petal-throwing arm, she suddenly lets fly with the word in question. Mitchell is horrified. Cam is as well … but he also thinks it’s hilarious: He runs out of the room, giggling all the way. Over the course of the episode, Lily (played by Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) says the word several more times, eliciting reactions ranging from chuckles to guffaws.
The word, naturally, was bleeped. Lily’s mouth was pixelated. Anderson-Emmons reportedly never uttered the offending word on the set: She was directed to say “fudge” instead. And while “Little Bo Bleep” caused much hand-wringing in advance of the episode, the critical reaction Thursday morning was, essentially, What’s the big deal? Wrote Time’s James Poniewozik:
The subplot was not the most brilliant Modern Family has ever done, but it felt well-observed and honest—particularly Mitchell’s frustration with Cam (who can’t stop giggling) and the couple’s disagreement about how best as parents to discourage the f-bombs. There was nothing close to a message that all the cool kids are swearing, or that having your little flower girl bust out the f-word in public is a parent’s dream.
Which is all true. Modern Family (winnner of Emmys for Best Comedy in each of its first two years) has a history of exploring ticklish familial issues with both humor and heart. And the concept of how to deal with a child’s unexpected cursing barrage is something the show, given its history, would be inclined to tackle. Creator Steve Levitan says the episode was something that almost every parent could relate to. And while many of our Facebook readers might strenuously disagree, I see where he’s coming from. I’ve dealt with it myself.
When I was about 6 years old, I stumbled across an unfamiliar word while reading a collection of newspaper comics. Being an inquisitive child, I asked my mother what the word was. She turned pale and told me never to utter the word again. And I never have.
Later, when I was far older and my own son was about 6, we were walking through a shopping mall when he spied a South Park shirt—one that parrotted the infamous phrase, “They killed Kenny! Those b–tards!” My son, naturally, read the shirt out loud (and quite loudly)—necessitating a quick discussion of the concept of bad words.
Here’s the truth: Even if we never, ever swear, we all know the words we never, ever say … and we had to learn that somewhere. We know what the f-word is. We know it because we’ve heard it or read it. We know that it’s bad because someone along the line told us that it was bad. And that person is often Mom or Dad. That doesn’t make the subject matter necessarily appropriate for a television sitcom or edifying for its audience. But did the episode feel honest, in its own strange Modern Family way? Yes.
But here’s the deal: The show also, in its own quirky way, condones the cursing of a little child. Why? Because it sends a horribly (but realistically) mixed message. Kids, when they swear, make people laugh.
This is a tricky issue. I know there are folks out there who have laughed privately when their own child, or someone else’s child, said something a little off-color. And, to be completely honest with you, I’ve retold my son’s South Park story for friends with the idea that they might find it humorous. We often laugh at, or through, embarrassing situations. After all, it’s the embarrassment that makes it funny.
But as Mitchell intrinsically understood, laughing at Lily’s bad word would only encourage her to say it more. Which she did. Which elicited more laughter. Which, you’d think, would encourage her even more.
And so we have a full episode that delivers the same message: Little kids shouldn’t swear, it tells us. But when they do, it sure is funny!
Again, Poniewozik:
The controversy of this episode will blow over quickly, I’m sure, but the nature of it is telling. It’s not enough that the word was bleeped. It’s not enough that the child actress was not swearing to begin with. It’s inherently bad that the character seemed to swear, because simply depicting it will encourage swearing. There’s no room for situational irony; there’s no assumption that an audience can see that Lily’s swearing is shown as undesirable.
But with all due respect to Poniewozik, Lily’s swearing wasn’t shown as undesirable. In the end, Cam nudges Mitchell and says, essentially, See, it is funny! And Mitchell laughs too. It continues to inculcate the message that swearing itself is funny and thus, in the show’s ethos, a positive thing, further propogating a continuing coarseness in our culture.
Lily would’ve been mightily confused by what her fathers were telling her in this episode. “Don’t (snicker-snicker) say that!” Imagine how confusing it is for the other kids who might’ve been watching.
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