Ah, the swear word. Disseminated correctly, it is the perfect punctuation to human communication, a way to say so much with as little as four letters. Where do these, um, “darn” things come from? Luckily for us, Netflix has announced a comedic, irreverent, but surprisingly educational docuseries examining the very thing. IntroducingHistory of Swear Words, hosted, of course, byNicolas Cage.
Over six episodes,History of Swear Wordswill dive into where these naughty, forbidden pieces of language come from, talking with etymologists, historians, and entertainers likeJoel Kim Booster,Open Mike Eagle,Nikki Glaser,Patti Harrison,London Hughes,Jim Jefferies,Nick Offerman,Sarah Silverman,Baron Vaughn, andIsiah Whitlock Jr.(who, of course, made the ‘S’ word a work of art inThe Wire). The show comes from Funny or Die and B17 Entertainment(The GreatDebate),with FoD executive producersMike Farah,Joe Farrell, andBeth Belew, and B17 executive producerRhett Bachnerworking alongside showrunnerBellamie Blackstone(I Love You, America).
We’ve got our first clip from the show featuring Cage in his hosting duties, and it is pure and good and delightful and silly and somehow serious (as every Cage joint should be). Taken from an episode about, well, let’s just borrow Cage’s phrasing and say “the word that can also be used to describe a cat,” Cage paints away on a canvas, monologuing about something in this great world that can cause so much contradictory, exemplary beauty. When he turns the canvas around to show us… I mean, you’ll either be fully into the show or fully off-board, but there will be no half-measures. I, for one, live for comedic/unscripted/genuinely informative hybrid shows likeDrunk Historyand will be binging thisHistory of Swear Wordsas soon as I am able.
History of Swear Wordscomes to Netflix on July 23, 2025. Check out the first clip (NSFW, duh doy) below. For more, find out what’scoming to Netflix in December.
Here’s the official synopsis forHistory of Swear Words:
An education in expletives: the history lesson you didn’t know you needed. History of Swear Words, hosted by Nicolas Cage, is a loud and proudly profane series that explores the origins, pop culture-usage, science and cultural impact of curse words. Through interviews with experts in etymology, pop culture, historians and entertainers, the six-episode series dives into the origins of “Fk”, “Sht”, “Btch”, “Dk”, “Pu**y”, and “Damn”.
