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THR 359 Midterm Paper
Ron Shvartsman
The Effects of Curse Words and Insults in In Bruges
One of the most striking aspects of Martin McDonagh’s 2007 film In Bruges is the varied use of
language: some characters speak through Mametian-style sentences littered with “fuck” and “cunt”, while
others seem to find the most creative ways to make an inappropriate joke at the expense of a person,
group, city, or even country. The language in this film makes itself acutely aware within the first
paragraph of dialogue of the script: as Ray recounts the setup to the story, he narrates, “Shortly thereafter
the instructions came through - ‘Get the fuck out of London, yous dumb fucks. Get to Bruges.’ I didn’t
even know where Bruges fucking was” (McDonagh pg. 3). Contrasted against the Gothic architecture of
the town and the haunting soundtrack, this remark from whoever is giving the instructions is funny - if the
boss doesn’t censor themselves, why should we expect anyone to? By examining the choices McDonagh
makes specifically in his use of expletives and rude humor, we can learn more about the world that is
presented to us, and the people that inhabit it.
In order to analyze the linguistic choices McDonagh makes in his script, it is first important to
understand the thematic device that facilitates these language choices within the world of the film - that of
Bruges as purgatory. Though this essay will not focus on this much-examined theme, I argue that it forms
the backdrop of the language of the film. McDonagh describes in the script, “a freezing fog covers [the]
otherworldly streets of Bruges… We could be in any period of the last five hundred years” (McDonagh
pg. 3). In this place outside time, tucked away in the far-away land of Belgium, our characters are stuck:
initially, Ray and Ken must stay in Bruges while they await instructions from Harry, but even the usurping
of his instructions does not allow them to escape. During their tortuous stay, Bruges acts as a place of
reflection and judgement. From having endure the doldrums of Bruges’ streets to being physically shot,
Ray is at the whim of the city. As a place of judgement, then, Bruges is a place where people have no
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more need to lie: other than Chloe’s joke about her childhood friend (McDonagh pg. 31), almost everyone
in the film is honest in their conversations. On their date, Ray and Chloe tell each other about their work:
RAY: I shoot people for money.
CHLOE: What kinds of people?
RAY: Priests, children. Y’know, the usual.
… Do I look like I shoot people?
CHLOE: No. Just children. (McDonagh 28-29)
In spectacular fashion, McDonagh uses this both for comical effect and as a tool to look into the
depths of our characters’ psyches. Ray is just barely on the edge of being uncomfortable, having only an
hour ago sadly said to Ken, “What does it matter anyway [how I look]” (McDonagh pg. 28). He’s
completely torn up over his murder of the Little Boy, and may not have mentioned it to his date were it
not for the wretched town he finds himself in. In this way, the dialogue in In Bruges acts like a series of
comical monologues spoken aloud and reacted to. Everyone is treated to an intimate degree of honesty,
yet those speaking seem to have little agency in what they reveal. McDonagh thereby instills his dialogue
with an elevated intentionality that makes an analysis of those characters’ language that much more
rewarding.
Ray’s language is the most childish of any of the main characters, a reflection of his pouty
behavior and immaturity. In the very first shots of Ray, he demonstratively shows his displeasure at the
cold, bleak sight of Bruges, whining, “Bruges is a shithole” (McDonagh pg. 3). He constantly looks for
ways to distract himself, an overgrown boy who just wants to stay home. His language choices reflect his
nature, speaking like a 13 year old who just learned a bunch of funny new words. In particular, Ray
consistently makes jokes about gay and disabled people throughout the film, and many of these jokes are
unprompted. In a bar with Ken, he smiles, “one gay beer for my gay friend, and one normal beer for me,
because I am normal” (McDonagh pg. 10). This is a great joke in Ray’s mind, just like it would be in the
mind of a pre-tween joking during middle school lunch. There is an innocence in his language, an
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impressionability that immediately reminds the audience of young children. Ironically, Ray seems less
mature than the Little Boy who he killed, whose sins included “being bad at maths” (McDonagh pg. 23).
The more offensive Ray’s jokes, the more the audience feels for him, as someone in over his head and
unable to process the horrible thing he’s done. His most outlandish remark, one which was partially
removed from the final film, is to Ken:
KEN: We will strike a balance between culture and fun.
RAY: Somehow I believe, Ken, that the balance will tip in the favour of culture. Like a big fat
fucking retarded fucking black girl on a see-saw opposite… a dwarf. I was down the park one day
when I was little and this big fat retarded black girl came up and beat the fucking shit out of me
for absolutely no reason. Completely beat the shit out of me. (McDonagh pgs. 19-20)
This comment by Ray both serves to turn the readers against him, and feel for him more. It is an
ugly thing to say, a comment that shows prejudice and hatred, and yet it also demonstrates Ray’s
helplessness. Even as a man in his mid-twenties, he is entirely fixated on the emotional state of weakness,
and perceives himself as powerless. He feels the world is against him, and the audience is led to believe
that he truly is at the mercy of his environment. McDonagh has explored such overgrown children before
in The Pillowman and The Lonesome West: no stranger to the theme of personal responsibility, he forces
the audience to assess for themselves how much blame can truly be assigned to Ray.
A further way that McDonagh uses dialogue to illustrate Ray’s character is through the things he
explains and the questions he asks. Questions illuminate both the things someone does not know and the
things that they hope to learn. When Ray asks Jimmy the Dwarf if he’d “ever think about killing [himself]
because [he’s] a midget” (McDonagh pg. 49), he’s genuinely curious - obsessed with the perception of
little people in society (whether they be children or dwarfs), he asks such a blunt question because he does
not think to dance around it. In fact, he is so proud of remembering Chloe’s advice that Jimmy prefers to
be called a dwarf that he entirely ignores how morbid his conversations with Jimmy are. “Lots of midgets
… dwarfs. Top themselves. Mm, shitloads” (McDonagh pg. 48). In total, the audience learns about Ray
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not only from what he says, but when and how he says it. His curiosity, offensive vocabulary, and
inadvertent outbursts paint a picture of a scared young man who desperately tries to reconcile his actions
with his position in the world.
Harry’s use of language is superficially similar to Ray’s, but fundamentally opposite in purpose.
Like Ray, Harry curses throughout the film, and his language draws attention to itself by virtue of its
inappropriateness. After the beginning instructions to “get to Bruges”, our next dialogue from Harry is his
message left to Ken via Marie. Interestingly, despite being a transcribed message, we hear the note read in
Harry’s voice, clueing us into his mannerisms and manipulation of language. In a single short paragraph,
he uses the word “fuck” seven times (McDonagh pg. 16): the word no longer holds weight for him,
having become ingrained in his speech over the course of many years. Instead of using cursing for humor,
he uses it to express annoyance. Harry complains, “Why aren’t you in when I fucking told you to be in?” ,
frustrated that he is wasting his time by speaking to a “fucking receptionist” (McDonagh pg. 16). We see
this annoyance express itself again when we first see Harry, as he screams at his wife, “You’re an
inanimate fucking object!” (McDonagh pg. 61). Even though he is simply repeating what his wife said, he
makes the phrase his vessel of irritation.
This irritation through language demonstrates to the audience Harry’s expectations for those
around him: he has been “the boss” for so long that it is insulting for him to be denied basic courtesies
like waiting at the hotel for his call. Having revealed to Ken that he sent Ken and Ray to Bruges as a send
off for Ray, Harry is outraged at the very prospect that his suggestion may not “be somebody’s fucking
thing” (McDonagh pg. 38). Indeed, he hilariously flies off the handle as soon as Ken even hints that Ray
isn’t enjoying himself:
HARRY: What do you mean, ‘It’s not really his thing’? What’s that supposed to mean, ‘It’s not
really his thing’? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
… It’s a fairy-tale fucking town, isn’t it? How can a fairy-tale town not be somebody’s fucking
thing? How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches and all of that
beautiful fucking fairy-tale stuff, how can that not be somebody’s fucking thing, eh?
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… How can fucking swans not fucking be somebody’s fucking thing?! How can that be?!
(McDonagh pgs. 37-38)
This sequence of responses shows how intimately cursing is tied to irritation for Harry: by the
third retort, thirty percent of the sentence is composed of the word “fucking”. We understand him to be
both proud and volatile through his language, complementing those same themes in his actions (for
instance, he expresses his pride by going to Bruges without “bringing the fellas” (McDonagh pg. 62) and
his volatility through his brutal pistol-whipping of the tower ticket-seller (McDonagh pg. 71).
However, the clearest difference in the ways Ray and Harry use their language is the intention to
use language as a weapon. While Ray offends only by accident or for a “harmless” laugh, Harry relishes
the impact of his words, and uses them for violence. When Harry is picking up a gun from Yuri, the
recently blinded Eirik complains in Harry’s viscinity, attracting his attention and inspiring a conversation.
After Eirik explains his tragic cirumstances, Harry responds,
HARRY: … really it’s all your fault for being such a poof. So why don’t you stop whingeing and
cheer the fuck up?
Eirik is about to react angrily…
YURI: Eirik? I really wouldn’t respond.
Eirik calms down.
EIRIK: I thought you wanted the guy dead.
HARRY: I do want the guy dead. I want him fucking crucified. It doesn’t change the fact that he
stitched you up like a blind little gayboy, does it? Thanks for the gun, Yuri. (McDonagh pgs.
65-66, In Bruges 1:11:25-1:12:27)
In the film we see Harry savoring the opportunity to utterly deny pity to someone who has
screwed up so monumentally, smiling as he accentuates each successive insult. For instance, the word
“poof” is exaggerated just enough to guarantee a reaction from Eirik: the intention here is to rile him up.
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If offensive words and insults are like guns, Ray is a boy who’s found a hidden handgun in the family
living room, and Harry is a sociopathic sniper: it’s no longer the loud bangs that he enjoys, but rather
seeing people get hurt. Overall, Harry’s language shows him to be like an adult version of Ray: repressed,
explosive, and vile, he is no longer a boy who feels the world’s wronged him, but a man who knows the
world’s wronged him. In his phone exchange with Ken, he reveals that his trip to Bruges when he was
seven was the “last happy holiday [he] fucking had” (McDonagh pg. 36). All his cursing and insults
reflect his deep displeasure with the world, like an angry dog shaking off fleas.
As opposed to Ray and Harry, Ken is much more reserved in his language. This is not to say he
doesn’t curse: in the very first conversation of the film, he says to Ray, “Ray, we’ve only just got off the
fucking train. Could we reserve judgement on Bruges until we’ve seen the fucking place?” (McDonagh
pg. 4). However, he moderates his language to a noticeable extent compared to the other leads.
Throughout the film, Ken does not make a single joke at the expense of black people, gay people, fat
people, or disabled people. The contrast between his language and Ray’s is obvious when both characters
advise an obese family not to go up to the tower. Ray initially starts calmly, noting, “I mean, it’s all windy
stairs. I’m not being funny”, but quickly looses patience with the Americans, blurting, “What exactly am I
trying to say? You’re a bunch of fucking elephants!” (McDonagh pg. 9). Ken then makes his own attempt,
cautioning, “Hey guys? I wouldn’t go up there. It’s really narrow and..” (McDonagh pg. 9). It seems both
men initially used the same, level-headed approach, but Ray’s advice was never meant to be level-headed.
Indeed, when he asks Jimmy if he would “top himself” to outraged reaction, he shrugs, “We’re just
chatting, aren’t we?” (McDonagh pg. 49).
More than simply not making fun of certain races/disabilities/sexual orientations, Ken is the only
character in the film to actively draw attention to certain such remarks. He leaves the drug-addled hotel
room with Ray, saying with disdain, “Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf. I think I’m going to head
home” (McDonagh pg. 51). Ray thought the whole “race war” discussion was great fun, like a game of
call and response: he tried to “come up with a hard [race]” (McDonagh pg. 50) for Jimmy to sort into his
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deranged armies, more out of curiosity than anything else. But Ken, for whom discussions of racially
motivated alliances are all too real, Jimmy is repellant, not funny.
Ken also seems to be one of the few characters who adjusts his language to fit his present
company. He actively censors himself around the hotel co-owner Marie, noticeably avoiding cursing
around her. In an apology for Harry’s message, he stumbles for an appropriate word with which to
describe his boss, waiting for Marie to supply the necessary, “Cock?” before finishing, “Yes. He’s a bit of
a cock” (McDonagh pg. 18). To Ken, language is a form of civility, and he takes it upon himself to act in a
civilized manner. This is contrasted against Harry, who also believes himself to be the paragon of civility,
complaining to Yuri, “An Uzi? I’m not from South Central Los-fucking-Angeles. I didn’t come here to
shoot twenty black ten-year-olds in a fucking drive-by. I want a normal gun for a normal person”
(McDonagh pg. 64). The difference is that Harry’s understanding of “normality” is independent from his
interactions with the real world, a platonic ideal that only he has been able to fulfill. Meanwhile Ken
reacts to the world around him, still influenced by his Catholic upbringing by “trying to lead a good life”
(McDonagh pg. 25), and helping those around him in some small way. Therefore Ken’s language choices
reflect the idea that he attempts to align with a societal idea of “leading a good life”, and thinks carefully
about the impact he has on the world - both ideas which are further explored in his actions towards trying
to save Ray.
Finally, Ken’s milder vocabulary helps make his insults to Harry in the beer garden stand out.
With an entirely straight face, Ken says, “Harry, let’s face it, and I’m not being funny and I mean you no
disrespect, but you’re a cunt. You’re a cunt now, you’ve always been a cunt, and the only thing that’s
gonna change is you’re going ot become an even bigger cunt. And maybe have some more cunt kids”
(McDonagh pg. 68). Yet again, McDonagh packs both a joke and a character moment into a single
sentence: by this point in the film, we are aware of the debt that Ken owes Harry, and all that he is
throwing away by siding with Ray. He knows that the only proper way to deal with Harry is to say all this
to him outright, and he does it in the most effective way possible, by speaking Harry’s language. This is
another example of Ken tuning his language for his audience: there is no point in dancing around the bush
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with Harry, especially with the relationship that they have. Ken is serious in saying that he means no
disrespect: he is a hitman as a way to repay his debt to Harry, and he calls him a cunt as a way to tell him
that he has to renege on that debt. Both actions are a form of civility to Ken, the equivalent of ripping off
a band-aid to minimize the pain.
Every character in In Bruges speaks in their own distinctive style, and through McDonagh’s
brilliant purgatorial setup, their language packs the maximal possible punch: the use of insults and curses
perfectly complement each character’s actions and motivations, helping to flesh out their views on the
world and on each other. By carefully studying each main character’s vocabulary, we better understand
their interpersonal relationships. Ray and Ken’s pseudo-parental relationship becomes more logical when
we hear Ray talking like a child, and Ken advising him on overcoming one’s past mistakes. Likewise, the
deterioration of Ken and Harry’s personal relationship, borne from a personal debt, is more impactful
when we see Ken curse out Harry for a straight minute in the beer garden. Finally, the linguistic
similarities between Ray and Harry complicate our view of who Ray might become if he were to survive,
and whether he is as lost in this world as his childish manner lets on.
References
McDonagh, Martin. In Bruges. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
In Bruges. Focus Features, 2008.