Intentionally Awkward Title: Difference between revisions

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* A good number of [[Hentai]] fall under this, and among the worst are titles such as ''[[Bondage Queen Kate]]'', ''Boobalicious'', ''Virgin Auction'' and ''Sex Warrior Pudding''.

** Note that the above are all their titles in the English market. Well, Boobalicious' original name is (in English, mind you) ''Milk Junkies''. Not that much better, really.

** There is also a comic called ''Nipple Magician''. Because the writer thought it sounded cool and the American guys who publish it in their comics anthologies like to laugh their asses off while simultaneously getting off at the mere thought.

** The best English re-title for a hentai has to be ''The Hills Have Size''.

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* The Vin Diesel action film ''[[XXX]]'', or ''Triple X''. Rumor has it, part of the reason for the title was to try and prevent Internet filesharing for the movie -- after all, if you do a search for 'xXx movie', you're going to get a lot of results that don't have anything to do with Vin Diesel.

** It did work, but the wrong way round: The movie is quite a nuisance when searching for [[The Internet Is for Porn|what the internet is for]]...

* [[The Monkees (band)|The Monkees]]' movie ''[[Head]]'' was titled as such to signify a true "mind trip," even though the Monkees' young fans very likely hadn't yet tried drugs (one common reason as to why the film flopped). Also, so that when Bob Rafelson and [[Jack Nicholson]] produced their next film, ''[[Easy Rider]]'', it could be promoted as being "from the guys who gave you ''Head''".

* A Spanish-language [[Freaky Friday|body swapping]] film was ironically called ''Dame tu Cuerpo,'' or, in English, "Give me your body".

* [[Peter Cook]] and Dudley Moore's original title for their film ''[[Bedazzled]]'' was 'Raquel Welch' (who had a small role in the film) - so they could have a poster saying 'Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Raquel Welch'

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** Baise actually means 'kiss' in French, but over time, the word has changed to become an equivalent to the English word 'fuck'.

* Blaxploitation films ''[[Boss Nigger]]'' and ''The Legend of Nigger Charley''.

* [[John Waters]]' ''[[Pecker]]''.

{{quote|[http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/movies/98/08/06/JOHN_WATERS.html "Was there pre-production trouble with your film title?"] "I'm not ''that'' innocent ''not'' to know there's a double entendre, but it's a joke: The boy's nickname, because he picked at his food as a child. Originally, the MPAA turned down the title, and we went to court about it. My lawyers had a list of titles to show them like ''[[Shaft]]'', ''[[Free Willy]]'', ''[[In and Out]]'', and I gave a little speech saying, 'It might be vulgar, but it's not an obscene word' and 'This is a movie about someone who wants his good name back. And in this case the good name is ''Pecker''!'"}}

* ''[[Dick]]'' - a film from 1999 starring Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams, about two teen girls help bring down President [[Richard Nixon]] and get the nickname [[Mysterious Informant|Deep Throat]].

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== Literature ==

* In 2002 African American author Randall Kennedy published a book entitled ''Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word''. Watching TV commentators try to talk about it without actually saying the name was one of the fondest memories of 2002.

** Similarly, there is a book titled ''Cunt''.

* ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=QCc9WwnzFP0C The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories]''.

* ''The Book Of Feckin' Irish Slang That's Great Craic For Cute Hoors And Boosers'' and others in the same series.

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* Louise Rennison probably aimed for a mild version of this with her ''[[Georgia Nicholson]]'' books: ''Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, Knocked Out By My Nunga-Nungas, Dancing In My Nuddy-Pants...''

** Though even that's a bit too spicy for Hollywood, which has filmed the first of them as "Angus, Thongs and '''Perfect''' Snogging". Goodness knows what they'll do about the Nunga-Nungas...

** "And Then It Came Off In My Hand". Full stop. (But it's not FUNNY as Perfect Snogging! What were they thinking?)

* ''The Color of Her Panties'', one of the ''[[Xanth]]'' novels by Piers Anthony.

** They don't exist, at least at the time of the reference -- the title refers to an unanswerable question for a Wizard who can supposedly answer anything: The "Her" in the title refers to a mermaid, and Xanthian Mermaids are nudists (and for that matter ''don't have legs''). Later, when she becomes a main character, she is given a pair of panties to wear... and nothing else, resulting in men [[Distracted by the Sexy|gawping at her, stunned]] for the next few scenes.

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* Inga Muscio's well-known feminist book ''Cunt'', whose subject is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]].

* Then there's Gene Wilder's first novel, ''My French Whore''...

* Amanda Filipacci's novel, ''Nude Men''.

* Also ''Sheepshagger'' by Niall Griffiths.

* [[Kurt Vonnegut]] once wrote a story called "The Big Space Fuck", which is published in [[Harlan Ellison]]'s anthology ''[[Again, Dangerous Visions]]''.

** It's also present in Vonnegut's autobiographical hodgepodge ''Palm Sunday''. Reads much like a Kilgore Trout story.

* Abbie Hoffman's ''[[Steal This Book]]'' famously caused stores to resist stocking it out of fears that commie-loving hippies would take the bait. To be fair to the stores, the book is in fact mostly an instruction manual on civil disobedience, including sections on how to shoplift.

* ''A Man's Horn''. Yes, the [[Double Entendre]] is intentional.

* Completely unavoidable example: ''The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica''.

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** Two different covers are available for the complete season DVD collections. The ones you can order by mail are labelled "Bullshit!". The ones on store shelf displays are labelled "BS!".

* ''[[Jackass]]'' is slightly more tame by today's standards, but at the time it premiered resulted in some amusing [[Politeness Judo]] when referred to.

** Bizarrely, some people in the UK weren't sure how to pronounce it - despite 'jackass' originally meaning a kind of donkey, for which the British pronunciation is the same as the American. Seriously, "Jackarse"? *shudder*

* Childish example - the comedy ''[[Bottom]]'' was originally to be called ''Your Bottom'', so that people would ask their friends things like "Did you see ''Your Bottom'' on telly last night?"

** Even better, they were also hoping for things like "I saw [[Rik Mayall]] in ''Your Bottom'' last night."

* ''[[That's My Bush]]''. 'Nuff said. (It's a parody of sitcoms and politics featuring [[George W. Bush]] as the main character.)

* ''[[That's My Bush!]]''. 'Nuff said. (It's a parody of sitcoms and politics featuring [[George W. Bush]] as the main character.)

* The new [[William Shatner]] show, ''[[Shit My Dad Says|$#*! My Dad Says]]'' Ads encourage calling it "Bleep My Dad Says" to avoid well, you know.

** Shatner didn't understand the censorship and continued to call it by its original name though.

* Most of the episode titles of ''[[3rd Rock from the Sun]]'' are puns involving the word "Dick" (the protagonist's name). The writers apparently thought they would never be seen, and some of the ones they got away with are frankly unbelievable.

* In ''[[Parks and Recreation]]'' the library department gets revenge on people by sending them messages that they have late fines for nonexistent books with this sort of title.

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* The Master Musicians of Bukkake

* Some of the above names could have come right out of [[Jello Biafra]]'s "Names For Bands" routine which also includes "John Wayne On Acid", "Tits, Ass and Money", "The Absentee Thought Lords", and "Bono's Charred Remains." After all, [http://rateyourmusic.com/list/JohnBuckWLD/jello_biafras_new_and_improved_names_for_bands__he_writes_em_down__why_dont_you_ Why would you want to be the 350th band to call yourselves something like Bad Attitude?]

* Even a band name as comparatively tame as "Barenaked Ladies" sparked controversy in Toronto in 1991.

* Just before [[The Rolling Stones]] decided to found their own record label, they had to produce one more song for their current label to fulfill their contract. However, nobody ever said that the song had to be releasable, and so they wrote one called "Cocksucker Blues". It's pretty much about what it sounds like.

* The Artist Formerly Known As the Artist Formerly Known As Prince has written and performed a song called "Pussy Control".

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** Also note that this is not just an acronym, but also the [[Military Alphabet|Military Phonetic Code]] for the actual spelling of the F-bomb.

** The same band's album "Hooray for Boobies" was sold in some stores with an altered cover and the title shortened to simply "Hooray."

* "Too Drunk To Fuck" by The Dead Kennedys actually placed on British radio charts. Of course, the DJs had to refer to it as "the latest song by The Dead Kennedys."

* Grinderman's song "No Pussy Blues"

* The band Rainbow Butt Monkeys. They later became Finger Eleven, which really isn't much cleaner if you think about it.

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* There's a Japanese pop-rock band named Porno Graffiti. [[Gratuitous English]] at its finest.

** Not exactly. It comes from [[wikipedia:Pornograffitti|''Pornograffiti'']], an album by the (American) band Extreme; its a portmanteau!

* [[Nirvana]]'s "Rape Me" (labeled as "Waif Me") and it's B-side "Moist Vagina". Also, "Territorial Pissings" and the B-sides album ''Incesticide''.

* [[The Smashing Pumpkins]]' "Silverfuck" (labeled as "Silvercrank")

* [[Metallica]] and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra once teamed up to produce a [[Crowning Music of Awesome|somewhat splendiferous]] live album. The title was ''S&M'', as in "Symphony and Metallica". Try telling people the S&M version of this one is great. Try it!

** And of course, [[What Could Have Been|they wanted to call]] their first album ''Metal Up Your Ass'' instead of ''Kill 'Em All''.

* The name of Big Black's second album, ''Songs About Fucking''. [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]], albeit [[Squick|in the wrongest way possible]].

** Jello Biafra took advantage of this after [[The Dead Kennedys]] were put on trial for obscenity. Following their acquittal, he refused to shake the DA's hand, and then gave him a copy of ''Songs About Fucking''.

* Not actually a case now, but the names of [[Black Sabbath]] and [[Judas Priest]] got [[Moral Guardians]] in quite a stir back in the day.

* Serj Tankian's "Beethoven's Cunt", which is also a [[Non-Appearing Title]].

** In addition to his band, "The Flying Cunts of Chaos"

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* [[Cannibal Corpse]], with song names such as "Gallery of Suicides", "Meat Hook Sodomy", "Fucked With a Knife", "I Cum Blood", "Edible Autopsy", "kull Full Of Maggots", "Butchered at Birth" (also an album title), "Addicted to Vaginal Skin", "Necropedophile", "Entrails Ripped From a Virgin's Cunt, and so on in this vein.

* Cee-Lo Green's "Fuck You" made for an interesting Grammy nominations list in 2010.

* The Cows' ''Sexy Pee Story'', which has a title track as well as a song called "Shitbeard".

* Test Icicles, anyone?

* Rapper El-P has a song called "Tasmanian Pain Coaster"

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* [[Mindless Self Indulgence]].

* Mudhoney's single "You Stupid Asshole". There's also "Run Shithead Run" from the soundtrack of ''With Honors'': They titled it that way because they hoped their submission to the soundtrack would be rejected, but [[Springtime for Hitler|it wasn't]].

* A non-profane example would be The 6ths and their albums ''Wasps' Nests'' and ''Hynacinths and Thistles'' - Stephin Merritt has said he specifically chose the band's name and album titles because they would be difficult to say aloud (especially if one has a lisp).

* The Bloody Beetroots give us "Fucked from Above 1985."

* There is actually a band who record under the name "Child Pornography."

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* Japanese Torture Comedy Hour, a noise act featuring members of Agoraphobic Nosebleed.

* Richard Ramirez (yes, that's his given name) has a real name that was unintentionally awkward and a lot of bands/nicknames that ''weren't'': Priest In Shit, Black Leather Jesus, Anal Drill, Fuck Patrol, Last Rape, 12yr Old Proud Parent, Naked Girl Killed In Park, the list goes on and on...

* While the name is relatively mild compared to some, there's The Urinals, who later changed their name to the less awkward to discuss 100 Flowers.

* [[Joy Electric]] has an album called ''The Tick Tock Treasury''. As he described it at a concert on May 1, 2003:

{{quote|'''Ronnie Martin:''' I had a new record come out two weeks ago, and it's called the, uh, ''The Tick Tock Treasury''. And, uh, that is the, uh, the fourth time I've had the guts to say that title in front of people. You know. Sometimes it takes a lot, you know? You take the risks, you pay the price.}}

* The Fags. They're actually a perfectly accessible [[Power Pop]] band who happened to choose a name that pretty much guarantees them no mainstream radio play. They also played on the other, less offensive meaning of their name by calling an album ''Light 'Em Up''.

* Atlanta rapper Tity Boi, though he eventually started going by the more "family friendly" moniker 2 Chainz.

* Perhaps in mockery of these tendencies, there is a hip-hop musician who records under the name "Cusswords."

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* The website [http://ukulelehunt.com/ Uke Hunt] (say it out loud, and it's the instrument, not the [[Yaoi|other kind of uke]]). The site owner has acknowledged this and seems amused by it.

* [[The Nostalgia Critic]] videos "Top 11 Fuck Ups", "Top 11 Mindfucks", and "Holiday Clusterfuck" (Although some of the titles are [[Censored Title|censored]] on the episode page.)

* [[Felicia Day]] has coined the term "Vaginal Fantasy" as a tongue-in-cheek description of urban or historical fantasy fiction that is aimed at women and prominently involves romance and/or sex. Once a month, she'll discuss such novels with her friends in a Google+ Hangout On Air, and also post the discussion to youtube - naturally it can be awkward mentioning that you were just watching something called "Vaginal Fantasy Hangout #2".

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* There was a scheduler for Linux called the ''Brain Fuck Scheduler'' (no relation to the Brainfuck programming language) written by Con Kolivas. The name likely reflects frustration at kernel development politics that had put an end to an earlier scheduler by the same author called ''Completely Fair Scheduler''.

* The most likely explanation for the '''G'''NU '''I'''mage '''M'''anipulation '''P'''rogram.

** Ditto for '''F'''ile '''S'''ystem '''C'''onsistency Chec'''k''', the common name for the program used to fix corrupted data on UNIX systems. Not only is the name unpronounceable, but it's only one letter off from a major swear word. And if it fails to save your data, then you're [[Unusual Euphemism|fsck'ed]].

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* ''You Are Empty'' is a rather interesting name for an FPS.

* Nintendo originally named their new console [[Awesome McCoolname|"Nintendo Revolution"]] [[Production Nickname|during production]] <ref>to be fair, they also nicknamed the Gamecube "Dolphine", so it's not something unusual in them</ref>. It eventually was known to be called ''[[Wii]]''. The fact that the console went from [[Awesome McCoolname|such a cool name]] to such a weird one made people all around the world discuss ''"the stupid name"'' for months. [[No Such Thing as Bad Publicity|It's believe to be one of Nintendo's smartest move]].

** In [[Slavic Mythology]], [http://myfhology.narod.ru/gods/slavyans/viy.gif Wii] (or Viy) is a powerful demon able to see (and kill) everything with its gaze. Bet that one wasn't intentional.

*** [[Conspiracy Theorist|Betcha it was.]]

*** [[Hilarious in Hindsight|And now]] ''[[La-Mulana]]'' [[Hilarious in Hindsight|is coming out on Wiiware...]]

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* ''[[Time Fcuk]]''

* "Gay Sex!", an iPhone card game.

** Which rather notoriously rose to the top spot of [[~~Game FAQs~~]]' most-visited games list, meaning it was on the front page for all to see, and didn't show any sign of dropping, because curiosity brought new people to the page all the time. It was eventually ''removed'' from the site's otherwise comprehensive games list for...fairly self-evident reasons. [[Your Mileage May Vary|Although this is often considered a blow for both free speech and gay rights on the site.]]

** Which rather notoriously rose to the top spot of [[GameFAQs]]' most-visited games list, meaning it was on the front page for all to see, and didn't show any sign of dropping, because curiosity brought new people to the page all the time. It was eventually ''removed'' from the site's otherwise comprehensive games list for...fairly self-evident reasons. [[Your Mileage May Vary|Although this is often considered a blow for both free speech and gay rights on the site.]]

* ''[[Deus Ex]]'', especially for people who don't know how to pronounce Latin (Jew Sex? Do Sex?)

** Even the correct pronunciation, when spoken rapidly, could come out similar to "day sex."

* Its a little early to add this, but the inevitable ''[[Final Fantasy XXX]]'' will either be this trope or Square Enix will have to come up with some kind of interesting way around it.

** [[Final Fantasy Thirty]]? [[Final Fantasy 3 X]]? [[Final Fantasy Triple X]]? Pretty simple.

* [[Work Time Fun]]. The abreviation is almost always printed on the box in huge letters, while the full title is printed in smaller letters and is less noticable.

** [[Widget Series|The title is rather fitting.]]

* The X-series of games features enemy aliens named Kha'ak. Go ahead, explain that they suck to your mother. The in game computer doesn't even try to avoid the problem. You will be attacked by Kha'ak.

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* North Carolina's yearly What The Hell Con is a minor example.

* There is a village in Hungary called "Csesznek", which is the Hungarian word for "They fuck".

** Actually, it's somewhat milder, like "They screw".

** There's also "Bugyi", that means "Panties".

** And Pornóapáti, which means something like "Porn Abbotean".