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November 08, 2007
Frankly my dear, I think you are lying
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I really love polls. They are so often a load of bunk. For example, today we get the results of a poll purporting to rank the movie quotes most-used in regular conversation. Number one was the ubiquitous "I'll be back" from the Terminator movie, but number two made me gasp:
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn", Rhett Butler's closing line in the 1939 epic "Gone With The Wind", came second in the survey of 2,000 people conducted by the myfilms.com website, the UK Film Council's cinema and film finder.
Not for nothing, but I don't think I've ever heard anybody quote that line. It's a good line, but not one for every day conversation. At least not among people of my age. Was "I don't give a damn" a popular line among The Greatest Generation? Is there a whole batch of Gone With The Wind enthusiasts who quote lines like I quote Ocean's 11 or Happy Gilmore? I simply am not seeing this.
On a different level, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" is too cumbersome of an insult nowadays. If most people had the choice between that, and, say, "fuck you," I think they would prefer the latter. Actually, I bet if they made Gone With The Wind today, Rhett Butler would say "fuck you" instead of "I don't give a damn." I mean, I don't think people talked like that during the Civil War, but that never really stopped anyone.
entry no. 1001
Posted by oz115 at November 8, 2007 09:30 AM