April 8, 2012

The man who says "marvelous," Part 2, the Clint Eastwood version.



Via EDH, in the comments to "Romney, the man who says 'marvelous,'" where we are talking about the extent to which it is unmanly for a man to say "marvelous."

19 comments:

chickelit said...

Marvelous is wonderful

Ron said...

What, no Billy Crystal?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygs-4GfqPcM

And a baseball connection, too!

Automatic_Wing said...

Oh, the politically incorrect olden days when there were black criminals in the movies.

And that Tyne Daly was an adorable little sprite back then, wasn't she?

edutcher said...

Clint can complain all he wants, but there's a Hell of a lot of Rowdy Yates in Inspector Callahan.

An example of masculinity might be more something like replacing, "Make my day", with, "Pal, you're gonna look fucking marvelous splattered against the wall".

Icepick said...

Oh, the politically incorrect olden days when there were black criminals in the movies.

The chief bad guys in the movie referenced were a bunch of leftist terrorists. (White, dontchaknow?)

Icepick said...

The chief bad guys in the movie referenced were a bunch of leftist terrorists.

Think Ayers & Dorne, but more competent.

Automatic_Wing said...

The chief bad guys in the movie referenced were a bunch of leftist terrorists. (White, dontchaknow?)

interesting, but I still submit that if the movie were made today, the part of the black guy in the clip would be played by a white actor. Disagree?

Icepick said...

interesting, but I still submit that if the movie were made today, the part of the black guy in the clip would be played by a white actor. Disagree?

Yes. They'd make the part Mexican and get Danny Trejo to play the part.

Wince said...

Althouse elides the racial aspect, including the knock-out punch of the black suspect and the pan-male sexism of the black leader Mustafa, in the scenes where Dirty Harry uses the word "marvelous".

That was "mighty white of you".

Ann Althouse said...

"Althouse elides the racial aspect..."

I sure did. That stuff is embarrassing.

traditionalguy said...

Marvel Comics was always about super heroes. They can duck bullets. Ergo they would make great politicians. Nothing could touch them except term limits.

Or as Billy Crystal would say, your Blog looks mahvalous.

Chip Ahoy said...

The word that men should not use is fabulous. And they should especially not make the word more fabulous by saying it fabulously.

I know a military pilot who is studly in every aspect who one day came out with the word fabulous and he stretched it out like it was really really fabulous and I stood there looking at him and go, "gayor." So that's my opinion about fabulous although I can see a use for it when speaking of something fabled.

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

Maguro wrote:
Oh, the politically incorrect olden days when there were black criminals in the movies.

The guy who was the shotgun-wielding African-American bank robber who gets the "do you feel lucky?" psycho-torture treatment from Inspector Callaghan in Dirty Harry was played by an actor called Albert Popwell. Popwell was in the next three sequels in different roles. In The Enforcer he was a militant leader known as Mustapha, who instead of being a criminal is a police informer.

In all the Dirty Harry movies there was a tag line that Inspector Callaghan found an opportunity to use in nearly every scene. First it was "do you feel lucky?", followed by "a man's got to know his limitations" in Magnum Force. Next it was a sarcastic "marvelous" in The Enforcer followed by the iconic "make my day" from the otherwise forgettable Sudden Impact. The last gasp finale of the series, The Dead Pool features the extricable "you're shit out of luck" line.

Marvelous is an ok manly word. Real men ought to be reticent, however. A manly man should use the word sparingly, and it really helps if there's an obvious tinge of irony or sarcasm implied, as in "Obama has been a marvelous president" said within a context that makes it clear that the marvel is that a hopeless fuckup like Obama could become POTUS in the first place. I predict Romney's next use of the word will have just such a connotation. A real man must always avoid fabulous, however. Coupled with an adverb fabulous is toxic to virility. So DON'T say it or write it unless you want a reputation, ok?!

Lastly I want to mention that Althouse is a marvelous blog, and it's absolutely fabulous to comment here.

Wince said...

Ann Althouse said...
I sure did. That stuff is embarrassing.

As Mike Wallace would say, "come on".

Dirty Harry is an equal opportunity bad ass. He made peace with Mustafa, only to be flummoxed by the paper-pushing P.C. Police HQ who erroneously insist it's "black militants" when Harry says all his leads "keep coming up hookers". The guy he punched planted a bomb after he fell in with white leftist radicals.

Alex said...

I love the scene in "Sudden Impact" when Harry kills a mob boss with his words. Now that's badass.

wyo sis said...

We had a teaching aide (female) in the library who used the word fabulous for everything. She was very dramatic and charismatic. It wasn't long until the whole school used the word including the men.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

In the movie Carnage (2011).. directed by Roman Polanski, I remember Kate Winslet character delivering that line..

Marvelous..

The movie delved into political themes.. The acting was good but I wasn't too impressed with the plot.

Known Unknown said...

This guy was pretty damn manly.