By nature, I am a curious fellow. Often I ponder things about our society; like why does social inequality still exist, and why is Nickelback so popular? Lately I have been thinking about the incredible cultural impact movies and television have on everyday conversation. If you really think about it, quoting movies is about as prevalent as obesity at a state fair.
I have specifically started to think about this because I have noticed that there is very rarely an hour that goes by in my life when somebody doesn’t quote a movie or TV show in conversation. Just in regular conversation I will hear “The force is with you,” and “SAMSONITE … I was way off.” If I were to ballpark a percentage of quotes in conversation, I would probably say it’s roughly 37.1687 percent. It’s roughly equivalent to the amount of effort I put into my homework at college, just below half-ass.
Why do people seemingly have to quote these things in casual conversation? Because people are lazy. Instead of saying something funny, they can just pull a quote secondhand and take full credit for the laughter. I am under the impression that every time we use a line, we are plagiarizing whatever we are quoting. Essentially, we are no better than Vanilla Ice; a low blow, I know.
On the other hand, people are not limited to just quoting electronic entertainment. The only difference is when people quote from books or scripture they seem much more intelligent. How often have you heard the pretentious English major pull out a Shakespeare passage, a Christian paraphrase Jesus or even a jackass economist quote Adam Smith? It seems that it is just human nature to quote other people’s work.
Quoting is something so socially normal that none of us even think twice about it. I know that whenever I am in a new group of people, I will often try to find common ground in three ways. First, I ask them about their average Scrabble score. When that fails, I ask them which president was probably the best kisser. And when that inevitably fails, I ask them if they’ve seen any particular movie. When I found they have, I will always pull out a classic quote from it. Presto, using a classic line gains me entry into the tasty delights of social interaction.
Then again, maybe I am just finding quotes where quotes aren’t heard. If I am a connoisseur of anything, it would be movies (though canned ravioli is a close second.) My roommates and I watch roughly three to four movies a week, including one or two a week in the theater. I have an astute ear for quotes, especially if it is from “Dumb & Dumber” or “The Simpsons.”
I can only thank the sweet lord baby Jesus that quoting movies is socially acceptable. I would say that I am more creative than most, but without movies to fall back on, I would have to quote things I read. And really, there’s just so much Virginia Woolf, Herman Melville and Gary Paulsen I can quote in everyday conversation. Though, it has come in handy whenever somebody needed to know how to survive in the wilderness with only a hatchet.
Eric Meyer is a Sioux Falls native and currently lives in Minneapolis. His column “Casually Unmethodical” appears every other week.
