April 10, 2009
No matter what the situation is, we can find a movie quote for it. For decades Hollywood writers have given us golden quotes that we can use in our lives outside of the movie theater. Whether they are inappropriately funny or so deep that it would even make God weep, these quotes have become a part of our everyday diction.
But, sometimes people abuse this power and just spew out the same one from the same movie over and over again; no matter how unrelated it is to the topic at hand. I will admit that I overuse some quotes, but there are groups of people who overuse these quotes to the point where they make the movie bad.

Granted this movie was not the best or even that great to begin with, the MTV Generation latched on to it and determined the rise and fall of this once good movie.
“Napoleon Dynamite” was a well-kept secret for about two or three weeks, but when it hit its peak with the middle and high school audience it became “comedic gold.” I remember being in ninth grade and seeing it either the first or second weekend after it was released into theaters and hardly anyone was in there. About two weeks later I went back trying to get one of my friends to like it, and the theater of about 300 was packed with the group of people I despise seeing in my theater nowadays (you know, those middle and high schoolers who come in groups of at least ten, think they are the pinnacle of all society and won’t shut up just so they can impress the preteen girl sitting next to them by being loud. If it were not considered assault I would hit each and every one of those guys. I’m making it my life mission to hit at least one).
At that point this movie got as bigger than Napoleon’s glasses, and that’s where everything started to go downhill. It was cool for about four months to quote the random and weird lingo of the different characters, but after a while it became old and society was looking for the next big thing. Too bad many people did not realize how annoying these quotes got and by over using them that they were killing the movie.
Today, it is okay to use a single quote from time to time when the setting calls for it, but using it more than once in a single sitting is outdated. And honestly, the only quote that should be tolerated is “I can through a pigskin a quarter mile” just because we know so many people who claimed to do that before the movie came out.
If this movie became popular and we never had to sit through the “Vote for Pedro” and “Gosh” lines for about a year it would probably still be fun to watch. Now it’s just obnoxious.
Yes, I know, this movie is pretty funny, but you people have killed it. This movie says stupid stuff just for the sake of sayin g them, and honestly whatever the co-stars say are the funniest quotes of the movie. People have overused quotes from “Anchorman” so often that the movie itself has become irrelevant because we don’t need it to act out scenes or major quotes anymore.
I knew a guy in high school who could do the Ron Burgundy impression perfectly, but he used the impression so much that it became a part of his persona, which at a certain point got kind of annoying unless he came up with his own lines while using the voice. In a school of 150 high schoolers, it got old after a while because there was little diversity in his routine.
I don’t want to be a hypocrite and say that I don’t quote this movie from time to time, but I only use them when my arsenal of good, appropriate quotes have been used enough.
Okay, I’m making a rule: Only lines from Brick Tamland (Steve Carrell), Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), Champ Kind (David Koechner) and Ed Harken (Fred Willard) are allowed to be used. The only exception is that you can use a Will Ferrell line whenever one of the other four has some contribution to the line.
Still, “Anchorman” and Will Ferrell get over quoted as hell, and after five years of going through all of the endless jokes it is getting extremely annoying.
Any Judd Apatow, Mel Brooks and Todd Phillips movie can be used at any time for any=2 0reason whatsoever. Other than “Anchorman,” most Will Ferrell movies are fine to quote readily, but just make sure you stay away from “Blades of Glory” lines because that movie and its quotes just sucked.
Just make sure that you do not start a trend that kills a movie just by over-quoting it. If a movie sucks, let is suck on its own terms and don’t remind people the reason why it sucks. If a movie is good and quotable, make sure you understand what the limit is on using a certain quote in a certain amount of time and make sure that your actions do not lead to a good movie becoming loathed because of quoting.
Jono Greco is a journalism sophomore.
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