Monday, March 14, 2005
Department of Stereotypes
St. Patrick’s Day is this Thursday. The river has been dyed green (from its normal rust color), the parades have been held (I especially enjoyed the "Eight Magical Years of Bill O’Reilly" float), and the leprechauns have been imprisoned and tortured in pursuit of their delicious lucky charms. But many Irish-Americans have become uncomfortable with the stereotype of their people as drunken, fumbling, potato-eating morons who couldn’t find a coherent English sentence with two hands, a flashlight, and a copy of Dubliners. And rightly so. Consider, if you will, these overlooked or misunderstood aspects of Irish culture:
– Great potato famine of the 1840s was closely followed by sour cream and chives famine and bacony bacos famine of the 1850s.
– St. Patrick didn’t exactly drive the snakes out of Ireland, they merely evolved into the present-day members of the Irish Parliament.
– James Joyce used to eat babies for lunch every second Tuesday.
– Irish jigs served as an inspiration for the American jitterbug and, later, the funky chicken.
– Ireland isn’t actually that green. The rug don’t match the curtains, if you know what I mean.
– The town of Cork boasts a number of famous former citizens, including Bill Cosby, that guy who won all the money on Jeopardy, and Alf.
– Irish people don’t really drink that much, they just have really low tolerances and they accidentally got blitzed on wine coolers at their sorority formals.
– All those extra letters in Irish place names aren’t there just to fuck with the rest of us. Actually, they’re a secret code that communicates allegiance to Ireland’s demonic lord, Zarax the Destroyer.
– U2 is actually from France.
Isn’t learning just the best?
St. Patrick’s Day is this Thursday. The river has been dyed green (from its normal rust color), the parades have been held (I especially enjoyed the "Eight Magical Years of Bill O’Reilly" float), and the leprechauns have been imprisoned and tortured in pursuit of their delicious lucky charms. But many Irish-Americans have become uncomfortable with the stereotype of their people as drunken, fumbling, potato-eating morons who couldn’t find a coherent English sentence with two hands, a flashlight, and a copy of Dubliners. And rightly so. Consider, if you will, these overlooked or misunderstood aspects of Irish culture:
– Great potato famine of the 1840s was closely followed by sour cream and chives famine and bacony bacos famine of the 1850s.
– St. Patrick didn’t exactly drive the snakes out of Ireland, they merely evolved into the present-day members of the Irish Parliament.
– James Joyce used to eat babies for lunch every second Tuesday.
– Irish jigs served as an inspiration for the American jitterbug and, later, the funky chicken.
– Ireland isn’t actually that green. The rug don’t match the curtains, if you know what I mean.
– The town of Cork boasts a number of famous former citizens, including Bill Cosby, that guy who won all the money on Jeopardy, and Alf.
– Irish people don’t really drink that much, they just have really low tolerances and they accidentally got blitzed on wine coolers at their sorority formals.
– All those extra letters in Irish place names aren’t there just to fuck with the rest of us. Actually, they’re a secret code that communicates allegiance to Ireland’s demonic lord, Zarax the Destroyer.
– U2 is actually from France.
Isn’t learning just the best?
