At the risk of stealing on of Kate the Younger’s New Year’s resolutions, I want to sneak in here and with a curmudgeonly end of year complaint about clichés.On fellow speechwriter David Meadvin’s blog, he recently complained about politicians who overuse the phrase “America’s best days are ahead,” a soul-sucked version of President’ Hoover’s “prosperity is just around the corner.”
I have to admit to some sympathy to the writers who keep dragging this war horse out and plopping it into stump speeches, especially ones for incumbents. The phrase is a neat way to brush right by the point each of these speakers needs to make, if only to avoid a Bush Sr. at the grocery scanner moment of cluelessness : “Yes, the economy stinks, you lost your job, and your Kmart closed before a rich benefactor came along to help you get that automatic foot massager out of layaway, but there is a plan: It is going to get better, just elect or re-elect me.”
So when does a tired phrase or an oft-wielded political dodge turn into cliché? I think when it has, through numbing repetition, lost so much meaning that one starts to hear it used, not just mindlessly, but senselessly.
Take my nominee for cliché of the year, 2011: “kick the can down the road,” deployed endlessly by commentators and politicians alike during the 600 or 700 crises this year during which Congress found yet another way to dodge its fiscal responsibilities.
I knew the phrase had crossed the mighty divide into cliché-dom when an earnest representative of the nation’s youth (note to youth, by the way, when you hold your secret meetings to elect your representatives, work on getting someone who sounds a little less like a self-impressed prig) said on NPR: “Congress has kicked the can down the road again, and the nation’s youth are the can.”
No -- you are not. While I have no objections to kicking the nation’s youth down the road -- if only to get through the election season without having to listen to another self-satisfied late teen talk seriously about not wasting his first vote in a presidential election -- the nation’s youth are not the can. They may one day be on the receiving end of a flying can, one stuffed with degraded Treasury bonds and worthless Fannie Mae stock, but they are not the can.
What’s your nominee for cliché of the year? Let us know here or on Facebook. And don’t wait too long lest you become distracted by America’s best days, which are, you know, right around the corner, next to that old kicked in can, filled with the nation’s youth.
Kate S.
December 31, 2011
Hundai Car Co. began running a series of ad's using middle-age, middle-class, really bad caucasian actors, that try and portray gangsta-rappa's test driving a car. There's a saying from urban America that says that by the time a hip, sub-cultural reference reaches middle-class white America, it's already 3 years out of style. It may take less time to become cliche now because of internet and mobile communications. There was a classic portrayal of this Caucasian Gangsta' Rappa' Wanna-be's cliche on a beer or fast food commecial about 3-5 years ago and went something like the meeting of Jerry, George, and Kramer bumping into their Bizzarro selves, having the opposite world's collide. This commercial was similar, in that it had 3 white males wearing excessive amounts of jewelry, pants wrapped aound their bottoms, walking like they were Big Pimpin'baseball caps askew, when they turn the corner and bump into 3 well-dressed, academic-looking, good-natured black men. The moment was suspended in amber for a nano-second, each world staring at each other in disbelief and amazement, then the bubble burst and each group moved on.
ReplyDeleteThe cliche being used by Hundai, has apparently survived from sporadic appearances from Series 1, to moderate to heavy rotation of Series 2, depending on your locale. The stereotyped behavior is such a heinous cliche, I wanted to throttle everyone involved in this wretched production and destroy the messenger with a carefully chosen brick from my basement. But, I graduated from Anger Mgt. classes and was able to sublimate (suppress) my feelings of loathing and narcissistic rage, and manage to say a silent prayer for Hunter S. Thompson's ghost to seek vengeance on this waking nightmare.
Cliches drive me up the proverbial wall, especially on Facebook, when cliche usage is sanctioned, if enough friends agree to use them.
My name is MK-ULTRA, I am a rage-a-holic and thanks for letting me share. And may a pack of ravenous wolverines rip the throats out of everyone associated with said car company and their children's children, and so on and so on.
So true- and please if you're in politics- refrain from kicking the can, down main street, targeting our blood and treasure.
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