Foul language on Arabic television: A case study of the first Jordanian Arabic Netflix series

Abstract

This study explores the controversial use of taboo language in Jinn, the first original Jordanian Arabic supernatural Netflix series. Taboo words uttered in each episode of Season 1 of the series (length=159 minutes) were compiled, quantified and categorised according to Ljung’s (2011) thematic categorisation. The results show that 75% of the taboo words fall under ‘major themes’ (scatological (31%), religious/supernatural (20%), sexual activity (12%), sex organ (9%) and mother (3%)) and 25% fall under ‘minor themes’ (prostitution (16%) and animals (9%)) in Ljung’s (2011) thematic divisions. Furthermore, the results show that the first episode has the greatest concentration of taboo words (55%). We argue that the writers/producers intentionally condensed the majority of the taboo words under investigation into the first episode in order to attract the attention of the largest viewership possible because they were aware of how polemical the issue of uttering Jordanian Arabic taboo words on screen was. Finally, it is evident that Jordanian society is still conservative when it comes to using/hearing taboo words in Jordanian cinema and television as demonstrated by the angry reaction of Jordanians in the press, television and social media.