Nicolas Cage finally makes his debut on a Netflix series after 6 years of B-movie work with History of Swear Words (2021). He is excellent as a host but is surprisingly not the best thing about this show, which is rather, the content. Each chapter expands upon a particular swear word’s origins, political usage as well as its utilization in art, literature and film. Every episode features the same guests who are divided between academics and comedians allowing for pure infotainment in a total of 6 parts clocking at 20 minutes each.
Where the show fails is when some of the guests react too extremely to the history and/or usage of particular words. There is a bit of faux feminism and pseudo-racism present in a few of the parts — but their minimal presence does not disrupt the show’s overall quality.
To end with, if you favor docu-series that are not just entertaining but also educational, then History of Swear Words might just be the next binge-watch for you.
