Two words: Lenny Bruce.
A big part of Bruce's introduction of profanity into his comedy material was the self-professed theory (as stated in his biography, but I can't find the quote), that through the use of constant repetiton these words will eventually lose their sting, their profane edge if you will, and thus be rendered harmlessly into the language as just "another word.". And his theory has proven to be true to a degree. We've seen this process change suck and sucks (i.e. they really suck, that sucks) from words considered too profane to ever be uttered in public or on screen, into a cutesified expression now uttered openly by most kids in the land (the gap thoroughly bridged by the use of the term by MacCauley Caulkin in Home Alone). Another example would be bullshit, which is viewed as a pretty tame expression instead of vulgar anymore, and has now crept as a colloquialism onto network TV.
>On August 3, 1966, Lenny Bruce died of a morphine overdose at age 41. Born
as Leonard Alfred Schneider in Mineola, New York, Bruce joined the Navy at
age 16, serving in WWII until 1946. After the war, he briefly studied acting
but turned to stand-up comedy, making his national debut on the Arthur
Godfrey television show. Bruce became one of the most influential comedians
in show business history, the first to lace his routines with profanity and
scatological language (he was arrested many times for obscenity and even
banned from performing in England). Bruce brutally satirized many of the
taboo topics and sacred cows in American society, building a devoted group of
fans and an equally large group of enemies. His 1965 autobiography "How to
Talk Dirty and Influence People" was a bestseller. Bruce struggled with drug
problems most of his life, finally dying of an overdose in 1966. After his
death, he became a cult hero, many fans considering him a martyr to the cause
of free speech. A critic of the American judicial system, he once said:
"In the Halls of Justice
the only justice is in the halls."<
However, I can't defend all the excessive and gratuitous flow of profanity in lyrics and some movies as "free speech"...is it really necessary for the work? That's the criteria I usally use. When you're doing a historical, period piece, I believe in historic accuracy...I mean, WWII soldiers hitting the beach at Iwo Jima didn't use "lousy" as their strongest expletive, their most vulgar language. "Platoon" and "Saving Private Ryan" finally let soldiers in battle talk the way they really spoke. But does a film like, "From Here to Eternity" need that absolute realism in language to work?...no, I don't think so. And I can't understand the hateful words that have become a part of a lot of now-mainstream pop music. But, then again, that's street poetry, and they have the right to write it and perform it. But does it have to be marketed to 8 year olds? (and, still, there has to be some kind of line...no one can say sanctioning rape, for instance, is necessary to the form, or a lyric that should be released...and questions arise if something that so directly hurts another person is even legal to endorse and/or promote). Censorship makes me shudder. But the coarsening of, and the bombarding of, our children with this stuff makes me shudder, too.
