"Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys?"
Politics
| February 13, 2003
| Tim
Okay, as a Wisconsin boy, I've got to take some umbrage with the first part of that term. I eat cheese too -- I prefer a cheeseburger to a boring old hamburger, love a good Danish Havarti, and enjoy a good Mozzerella on my pizza. (Who doesn't?) And, love a good aged Cheddar.
When you think of "cowardice", Wisconsin is not a state that leaps to mind. Anyone watching a home Packers game might come away with the impression, from all the hunters present in the stands, that the team colors are camoflague green, yellow, and blaze orange. Plenty of gun-totin' Wisconsinite out there lookin' to "nail bambi". Even my mom, who used to hate my Dad's deer hunting expeditions, now just wishes someone would come around and "harvest" 'em more often.
True, Wisconsin is not quite the home to the rugged individualist as, say, Alaska. But I also couldn't help but notice, during my last visit to Fairbanks, how many Alaskans came from Wisconsin.
So I think the cheese part of that is a, uh, pickled red herring.
Perhaps "wine-drinking surrender monkeys"? Or how about "bad slice-of-life-film-watching surrender monkeys?" Now that would be more fitting, especially given the character and dubious artistic quality of many films of that genre. Ah, but it doesn't roll trippingly off the tongue. (Of course, we're Americans; we're linguistically promisicous and don't care about such things.)
As far as surrender, yeah, okay, in recently history, good enough.
But again, now: monkeys? Why bring them into this? Poor critters. Its hard enough surviving deforestation, zoo life, and being trained to wear pants and ride a skateboard without becoming a mascot for political animus.
Lastly, remember, there are people in each country who are different. I had a French friend who used to say: "You're not American, you're more like a European." (She meant this as a compliment.) I'd say: "No, your picture of America is incomplete. I'm not typical, but I'm not that rare either.
But that's no fun now either, is it?
For what it's worth, the phrase "Cheese-eating surrender monkey's" comes from one of my favorite shows, "The Simpsons."
Thanks to budget cuts, Groundskeeper Willie is teaching french, he introduces himself:
"Bonjourrr", you cheese-eating surrender monkeys!
Haha! So, don't take it too seriously, cheese-eater!
P.S. I love cheese.
nice piece. would have been nicer if several words had not been misspelled. mozzarella, camoflauge, promiscuous (the wrong word to use with linguistically), recent history
the monkey bit is because during some war a monkey got washed up on a beach in Hartlepool, UK and the locals hung it because they thought it was a french spy.
Cant we find some middle ground.
I hate both the French and americans.
The world is big enough for cheese eating surrender monkeys and obese ignorant consumer f***s.
By the way i'm english, feel free to chime in with your patriotic fuelled bile.
I will get you started, " if it wasnt for us you would be speaking german"
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,
oh say cant you see by the mmmmmmmm light mmmmmmmmmmmmmm somthing about a battle mmmmmmmmmm america.
Sorry my galic friends i have decided not to attempt of your national anthem.,
I hope you all have a splendid day
toodle pip.
Hello Max,
First, welcome and thanks for your comments. I'm always suprised at how much traffic this article gets. Apparently the search engines zero in on it.
Second, I don't actually hate the French. Nor the English. Nor Americans, etc., etc. The purpose of the article was not to bash all things French, but rather to poke fun at a particular insult. At times I have problems with certain leaders and certain things they do, but that isn't necessarily the same as disliking every member of that country.
You're quite right about us speaking German without you. We also have an excellent legal tradition which originated from the Danes but came to us through the English. And lets not forget the Magna Carta... but hey, everybody contributes. And detracts.
I'm a long way from obese...
Tim,
You seem to have missed the point that Max was making with regard to speaking German. He was referring to it from a British perspective, that the Brits would be speaking German if it wasn't for the Americans assisting in defeating the German Army in WW2. On the other hand, you were probably looking at it from the American perspective, that at the start of the 20th Century there was a debate in congress as to whether German or English would be made the official language of the USA. Max probably wouldn't know about this episode in US history. He is English! They have shown some arrogant ignorance throughout their colonialistic history!
Best wishes, Denzil D an Irishman.
"moi"
If you're going to correct someone's spelling, at least get it right.
Camouflage.
From the Old French word "Camouflet," meaning smoke.
Vox
You can all go to hell.
If it weren't for the cro-magnon's, you'd all be grunting. Pwahh! How about this:
The american's are being @sses, and using false claims to ride roughshod over the Islamic world. The name calling is probably the lowest form of propaganda...
Sedge, and American with a modicum of sense
It's interesting -- this stupid post, which is more about the cheese and monkeys than anything else -- gets more traffic than the rest of the blog combined.
Most readers don't get the main point: I'm not making fun of the French, but am rather asking why this particular phrase is supposed to be an insult, and its origins: I'm making fun of the insult itself -- not France.
Now, I do have serious disagreements with some aspects of French foreign policy. Click on the "France" topic to read those. But as I said in the post above, let's remember that a nation is composed of individuals, some of whom might be subject to whatever criticism we'd like to level, but many who would not fit that bill.
Not all French people hate Americans. Not all Americans are obese (I'm sure not) nor are they are "consumeristic".
Get real, people, and travel more. :-)
I love this constant "your American cousins pulled you out of the shit during WWII" rhetoric.
Yeah, you. You and about 25 million fucking Russians too, who -incidentally- didn't wait until the Japaneze bombed the fuck out of one of their harbours (sorry, harbors) before they decided to get involved.
I love this constant "your American cousins pulled you out of the shit during WWII" rhetoric.
It's not a line of rhetoric I support or follow. I've never made such an argument.
But there were two people have posted such comments. One was an Englishman (Max), one Irish (Denzil). You're welcomed to write them at their given e-mail addresses and tell them to stop engaging in that kind of propaganda.
Yeah, you.
You're quite mistaken.
You and about 25 million fucking Russians too,
who -incidentally- didn't wait until the Japaneze bombed the fuck out of one of their harbours (sorry, harbors) before they decided to get involved.
1: No, actually it's "harbour" -- singular. One harbour, not many.
2: The U.S. was quite "involved" before Pearl Harbor, including "lending" military personnel and munitions. It would be inaccurate to say this earlier involvement made no difference in the war's progress and outcome.
3: No, the Soviets waited until the Germans were actually in their country. So much better. (Not to mention their policies under "liberation" and "reconstruction", since we're positing historical moral equivalence.)
4: The policy of "Stay out out of it until directly attacked" you decry was also adopted by the U.K.
Your line of argument might be more effective if it corresponded more closely to historical realities.
I don't think your right on point 4. The UK entered the war because it had given a nervous Poland a commitment to do so if Poland were invaded.
The UK was not directly attacked before it declared war on Germany.
i don't hate anyone. By the way, have you ever actually tried french cheese? Or french monkeys for that matter? (mmm le singe avec fromage est magnifique) Anyway, you are all very rude to each other, why o why can't everyone juct get along? HEY I SAID YOU SHOULD GET ALONG! LISTEN TO ME!
Bye Bye all you people arguing about nationality superiority and the dissection of insults.
PS. Wasn't the original insult: 'cheese-eating, wine-swilling french surrender-monkeys'?
Freddie:
Have you ever tried any french cheese?
Mais oui! Some of it's quite good.
HEY I SAID YOU SHOULD GET ALONG! LISTEN TO ME!
Alright! Just tell our leaders to stop hacking each other off! And tell the press to report both sides of the picture! They started it!
(Nya-nya-nya!)
Actually, I have a few dear friends who are French. It doesn't mean we see eye-to-eye on every issue, but personally, we get along quite well.
Matthew:
The UK was not directly attacked before it declared war on Germany.
Sorry, didn't mean to be unclear: I was referring to the policies of Chamberlain, before Churchill. Obviously things changed after that point. Sorry.
Just a few thoughts.
Did you know that the US media, including our own station here in Phoenix, Arizona, referres to the Queen of England as "The Queen"? Why? because no matter how many people from around the world have settled and made a life in the US, we still think of ourselves as being born of England, and England alone. She is our Queen too, and we revere her as such.
As far as Churchill goes, many historians reflect upon him as a "warmonger" who started war with Germany because he had a vision of fighting a great enemy, and he personally saw that enemy in Hitler.
As far as WWII goes, it was a team effort, and also ignorance of history on the part of the German and Japanese leaders, that won the war for the Allies.
They learned nothing from Napoleon's mistakes.
Now as far as the name calling of Americans by people from other countries, well, this can be seen as petty jealousy. Or it can be seen as a genuine distain for the US due to the one sided propaganda of the media, including the US media.
Say something long enough, no matter how untrue it is, and eventually you will believe it.
Have you ever noticed that if you use historical facts to tell an Englishman that England did not single handedly save the world it is bile? ;)
We did it together. Not England or Russia or France or the US, but all of us together.
Well, maybe not the French. But that is because it is so much fun to pick on the French.
One last random thought.
If an attack had been carried out on any other country in the world like the one that happened here on September eleventh, two thousand one, the US would have been there to offer full support without hesitation. Our people would have made the same donations for anyone in the world that they made for the people here who suffered that day.
Freddie, do you really eat French monkeys?
Well, I guess they are safer than Asian or African monkeys as far as meat quality goes.....
I understand this is all beside the point of the cheese eating surrender monkey bit, I just couldn't resist. ;)
Did you guys know Geraldo Rivera actually used that term on the news once? And yes, he was referring to the French when he said it! :-O
BTW, just a bit of personal information, I am referred to by my closest friends as "a consumeristic, jingoistic, extreme right wing fundamentalist fanatic crazy drunk with a bad attitude toward women". And I tend to agree. ;)
"Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey" came from the napolionic war. The french left a monkey dressed up as a frenchman...and left the ship. The ship was washed up on to the beach, and the locals of hartlepool (not knowing what a french man looked like) decided to ask it questions, and run trials. They came to the conclusion is was a french spy, which was to be hung.
The two phrases :cheese eating surrender monkey" and "hang a monkey" came from this event.
I read somewhere that "Cheese eating surrender monkey" is actually a misquote of something George Washington said. Anyone know about this, or what the original quote may have been?
Still waiting for an apology from the Bush supporters for circulating this insult around. I won't hold my breath...
What insult are you talking about? The one discussed here was more a joke, and was popularized by the Simpsons, apparently.
Are you accusing Matt Groenig of being a Republican?
It may have been coined my Matt Groening, but it was popularized by Jonah Goldberg, editor at the National Review, an influential and outspoken opition leader of the pro-War and pro-Bush crowd.
"ndeed, since the inception of this column, I have been adhering to Al Bundy's immortal fatwah, "It is good to hate the French." I have made The Simpsons-derived epithet "Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys" an accepted term in official diplomatic channels around the globe.
OK, maybe not, but if you ever do hear Kofi Annan refer to the Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys, I will deserve much of the credit.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,893202,00.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldbergprint040601.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg071399.html
I could go on, but I think I have made my point.
Let me get this straight: You think Bush supporters who used the term "surrender monkey" regarding the French should apologize? To whom? The French?
I assume then that you'd demand a similar apology from the left for their various infantile smears against Bush?
And demand an apology from German and French publications, like "Der Stern" for calling Bush "Hitler"? And calling Americans "simple", "fantatic", "fat", and "stupid"?
Are are you instead rather selective (read: "hypocritical") in your sense of outrage and injustice?
For the record, I do not approve of hating the French -- or anyone for that matter -- nor of calling people "monkeys". If it wasn't obvious, the whole reason I wrote this post was to mock the insult itself, not the French.
Show me a point where some liberal has similarly put down the "Bush/Chimp" meme and I'll regard your demands as something more than a contemptible display of faux-moralistic hypocrisy.
That's right, I want Jonah Goldberg to apologize to the French. He was a rude over-the-top demagogue. Which he still is, to this day.
This is as good a time as any to demand an apology, since Bush is in Europe, trying to patch up the trans-Atlantic alliance. Though after the Congressional "Freedom Fries" stupidity, Bush's "Old Europe" comment and the Cheese thing, I don't have a lot of hope, unless we start apologizing.
And for the guys who brought us Ann "Beat Liberals With A Baseball Bat" Coulter, Micheal "Dick Smoking Faggots" Savage, Rush "Chelsea Clinton The White House Dog" Limbaugh, Sean "Liberals Are America Haters" Hannity and all the rest to complain about the tone of the debate is a bit rich, isn't it?
Your selective moral outrage is the very definition of hypocrisy.
And yeah, I think people who call Bush a Nazi, or who claim that Cheney is getting rich off of Halliburton or who worship Michael Moore are idiots too. They are just not in power, so I don't worry about them as much.
And no, it was not obvious of me at all that you were making fun of the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey meme. It seemed like you were supporting it.
Sorry for the confusion.
Your selective moral outrage is the very definition of hypocrisy.
What are you talking about? What "selective moral outrage"? Cite an example! I only see one "outraged" person here. And I'm not the one here who is complaining about "the tone of the debate" -- that seems to be your schtick.
I disagree with those sorts of insults you cite too -- I greatly dislike Michael Savage's over-the-top rhetoric as well. They're almost as bad as the Bush/Hitler nuttiness which got support from the highest levels of the Democratic campaign. At least Savage is just a lonely late-night talk show host.
But you know, if you'd actually take the time to first determine someone's views, this might go a bit better. You seem to assume that because I'm a conservative, I must somehow agree with, for example, Michael Savage. And seem to imply I'm somehow more responsible for his nutiness than you are, say, for the Bush/Hitler thing.
And as far as your fixation on Jonah Goldberg, take it elsewhere. You might consider sending him an e-mail, rather than complaining at me about it.
And, while you're at it, demand Soros to apologize to Bush for the "Bush/Hitler" thing, which you say you also disapprove of, and also let's hear the outrage you have for the many French and German insults about Americans. And demand Matt Groenig apologize to the French too, since it was his show that started it!
From one, you demand an "apology"; the others you simply passively disagree about. C'mon, show that your moral outrage about insults, which you've clearly expressed, is not "selective"! Do it! Do it! Do it!
They're "not being in power" doesn't make the insult somehow better. No doubt, you wish they were in power, so it's a bit hard to see how that argument makes any sense.
And as far as the "Bush/Hitler" thing, I can show that's a LOT more pervasive among democrats than the "Surrender Monkey" insult is on the right.
Look, I'm just a nonpartisan conservative who doesn't go in for all that stuff. Though I fail, I often try hard not to group all liberals together and assume they all agree with every single "liberal" policy or action. Of necessity, I often refer to "liberals", meaning a the collection of people who generally agree with liberal policies, but there's a vast difference between that and making specific assumptions about an individual, as you're doing here.
Much less accusing people of hypocrisy without producing even a shard of evidence.
As far as your implication that Jonah Goldberg somehow single-handedly ruined the trans-Atlantic alliance, I'd say that idea seems utterly out of touch with political realities.
Do you think the French didn't decide to follow through with their own promises regarding Iraq (Chiraq directly promised Powell he would support force) because somebody over here said "Cheese-eating surrender monkey?" Get real.
In case you hadn't been paying attention to the news, it come out since that (a) French banks were on the take with the Oil-for-Food money, (b) Chiraq and Russia had massive exclusive deals for oil if they'd keep Saddam in the shredding-people business, and (c) French officials have generally always despised the US. It was true under Clinton, it was true even under Charles De Gaulle, and it's still true today.
The "rift" is not caused by some spurious insult on a cartoon program. It has happened because French and American policies differ. The French have very different designs on the world than the US, and, if you look at their history of brutally suppressing their colonies, and current political subterfuges, it's clear French leaders and promises should be approached with suspicion.
The US isn't perfect either, oh no, but to somehow imagine that we owe the French government an apology, when no similar one should be coming back for their duplicity and outright fraud and trickery is the height of political naivete.
Not to mention for the far-more-disgusting insults broadcast nightly against our government on French prime-time television. Example:
George W. Bush is portrayed as a mentally retarded coward who urinates on himself. Osama bin Laden, on the other hand, is depicted as a plucky rascal with a good sense of humor. The popularity of the show is such that French teenage boys cheer on OBL in the streets of Paris...
George Bush: Evil. Bin Laden: Good. Got that?
Nor will a one-sided US apology solve anything. If we kowtow, and obey French orders, we will be "liked" again until the next conflict of interest. But no apology can get rid of the underlying problem: French interests are not always what's best for the US, much less the rest of the world. You need look no further than the French support for the aggressors in genocide in Rwanda, and now in the Sudan, for examples.
France, quite simply, wants to be in the limelight and, more importantly, accrete political power, and little things like ethics and honesty apparently don't worry her leaders. This doesn't mean all French people or policies are bad, but it also shouldn't cause us to be reflexively anti-American either.
I agree and disagree with these comments also pleas efind something better to do than write pages of historical facts, great debate and all but how i can i say this.........a litle dull.
love history and all and everyone who knows me knows i am as random as (------insert random thing here) but dude get a car, get a girlfriend, get a fish. (all in all get a life). No offence i think this what you're doing is ace and all but frogs rok my sox mor dan this.
I REALISE MY POINT IS NOT AS GREAT AS EVERYONE ELSES (MMHHM!) BUT I WANT MINE UP THERE SO I CAN SAY: "i am a simple person, an average person but now i finally hav a chance for my name to be up there with the greatest of them! AND : "Hi mum i'm on the tinternet!".
who is that amzing MiaT!!?? she is so amzing, brilliant super and gorgeous!!woweee. how VERY VERY clever she is.
dida fo0l ya? huh?huh?
Pretty funny to claim that Bush/Hitler is a bigger meme amongst liberals than Ann Coulter's ranting is amongst Conservatives.
Who is the best selling Conservative author ever?
Jim: Well, welcome back after all these years.
Pretty funny to claim that Bush/Hitler is a bigger meme amongst liberals than Ann Coulter's ranting is amongst Conservatives. Who is the best selling Conservative author ever?
I'm guessing you'd say it was Ann Coulter. You might be right: I have no idea.
Ann can be a bit over the top at times: and I would probably agree with you about the unhelpfulness of a number of things she's said.
But here's the key point: Ann isn't popular, generally, because of those things but rather in spite of them.
Take her book Godless, which I myself read just to see what she was saying. I definitely disagreed with the two or three lines which got her into trouble: but the rest of the book had some very reasonable and well-documented points -- points which were never mentioned in mainstream media discussions of the book.
But a lot of conservatives, including myself (and almost every one I heard discuss the matter), said that the book would have been a lot better if she had removed those specific, few, offensive lines -- they certainly weren't the books main selling point -- indeed, they were almost entirely tangential to the book's main thesis.
Similarly, Ann was invited to speak a conservative political conference recently. And when she made an over-the-top accusation about a prominent Democrat, she was ejected and has been subsequently banned from other conservative events as well. And many other conservative bloggers openly agreed with that decision.
Yet contrast this with the Bush-Hitler meme, or many others which are prominent on the left. It's not like there's a popular leftist author who just happened to say Bush was like Hitler -- and most people liked his other work, but disagreed with that line. The meme itself is popular!
And where Ann Coulter was banned for making over the top remarks, and many of her own compatriots condemned those remarks (including the American Conservative Union, John McCain, Bill O'Reiley (not really a conservative, but many think of him as such), and others). Similarly, when Trent Lott said stupid things, he was condemned.
But when Chris Hedges calls religious conservative "Fascists", is he condemned? Or is just popular because of the rest of his schtick, not that part? No: without that part, Hedges has no road show. Same with the Bush/Hitler meme: point me to a prominent leftist whose condemned it, as Lott's remarks were condemned?
And people tell me that it's unfair to suggest that Michael Moore's lies are representative of the Democratic position, but, Jim, he was invited as the guest of honor, to sit in the Presidential box at the last Democratic convention. The party as a whole embraced him, and I haven't seen any Democrats protesting that.
Can't you see the huge difference here?
rather the french and americans than the damn english, go use some deoderant, ya bunch of talcum powder using imperial wannabees
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For what it's worth, the phrase "Cheese-eating surrender monkey's" comes from one of my favorite shows, "The Simpsons."
Thanks to budget cuts, Groundskeeper Willie is teaching french, he introduces himself:
"Bonjourrr", you cheese-eating surrender monkeys!
Haha! So, don't take it too seriously, cheese-eater!
P.S. I love cheese.
Posted by: harry on February 13, 2003 06:37 PM