Wicked Little Letters is a film about a spate of poison pen letters that were sent to the community in the small coastal town of Littlehampton in the UK.
It’s wonderful.
And I’m going to argue that it works because it’s a joy of surprises.
Look at these sentences from the letters:
“You b***y f***ing old saggy sack of chicken p*ss.”
“You rank, foxy-*rse measle.”
Why are they so great?
Shock 1:
It’s a little trick for your brain. Each word is not only surprising, it’s simultaneously silly. And that gets a laugh. There’s a bit of science behind this. Quite simply, we love the dopamine hit of the unexpected.
Shock 2:
We don’t expect adults to talk like this. Swears aside, we can imagine these insults being bandied around the playground more easily than outside the butchers. There’s a childlike quality to the Wicked Little Letters plot in places too – when the women of Littlehampton (spoiler alert) cook up a vat of red cabbage to make invisible ink and catch the culprit, my inner 8-year-old is over the moon. This is the stuff of joke shop heaven and stink bombs and bangers.
Shock 3:
And of course, there’s the author of the letters. I won’t give it away. But I will say that no one suspects them initially – their pious and buttoned up persona is so powerful that no one squares it with them penning obscenities in happy looping letters and thick luscious ink. It’s a social risk to swear. And the author gambles big. (There’s a whole question about the power of personal brand and reputation here, but that’s for another day!)
Shock 4:
And then the next suckerpunch of a surprise kicks in. This is the 1920s. We don’t imagine people using language like this. Most of us have inherited some well digested and cogitated notion of that era, with flappers and prohibition (peculiarly American, now I come to think of it). (Unless, of course, you’re American.)
Shock 5:
No one’s really painted the history of housewives and blue-collar workers in a small town on the south coast of England in 1920. (At least not to me.) The twee, grey and scratty seaside seems dreary and safe. But, crack that crust, and you’re into a molten hot language bomb. And, as a regional writer, quite interested in comedy, there’s a weird glee in seeing these people, my forebears, living under the radar and chucking this smut about in filthy language buckets, not even on the outskirts (nor underskirts) of London. It feels like two fingers up to a society that was still living in the front- doorstep-washing shadows of the dour Victorians.
Shock 6:
It *is* big and clever to swear. In fact, swearing seems to be “a feature of language that an articulate speaker can use to communicate with maximum effectiveness”, according to a study by psychologists from Marist College in the US. Swearing can be a sign of someone in command of language (and enjoying it). The Bard rather liked it too, with his rump-fed runnions and his cream-faced loons, if the secret snob in you needs any further convincing. Look at this line again:
“You b***y f***ing old saggy sack of chicken p*ss.
It’s rhythmic. It’s alliterative. It paints a picture. The phonetics are tremendous fun.
It’s actually inspired.
Let’s be serious a sec…
The poison pen letters in the film upset a lot of people. Flipping heck, one of those letters even killed a person, if we’re to believe the film. And that’s food for thought, eh? And they could have had serious consequences for Rose, the Irish immigrant who was first accused of writing them.
Words matter.
I suspect, if we really examine them, there’d be racism, homophobia and other outright offensive prejudice in the letters – which no one is tolerating.
And there’s a story of sexism, chauvinism and mental health which we can’t explore here without giving the game away. But this storyline makes the ending both jubilant and profoundly moving.
What’s the (linguistic) point of this?
Take a risk with your language.
We’re not expecting you to swear like a trooper. Or offend.
But this is a film that’s in love with language. The way it looks. The way it sounds. The way it can make you feel. Its consequences. And even the title is absolutely gorgeous to say (wrapping your mouth around Wicked Little Letters is an absolute delight).
Tone of voice and language are powerful. And they can be joyous… but only when they’re surprising.
All this is to say. Be brave. Be inventive. Choose your words. And don’t write boring.
“Pop that in your stink knickers, cracker face!“ (or whatever our secret author says).
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Written by Sarah Webster, Senior Writer at Definition.