Difference between revisions of "110: Clark Gable"
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Revision as of 01:48, 25 February 2013
| Clark Gable |
 Title text: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a BITCH ASS SHIT FUCK DAMN |
Explanation
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn", is the signature catchphrase from the 1939 movie Gone With The Wind, which starred Clark Gable (mentioned in the comic title) and Vivien Leigh. The phrase is spoken by Gable's character Rhett Butler as his last line in answer to Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara's question "Where shall I go? What shall I do?". The response indicates that Butler he is no longer interested in O'Hara. This disinterest, and the mention of the word "damn", which was considered profanity at the time of releasing the film, led to the line being voted the #1 move line of all time in 1995’s American Film Institute ranking.
In this comic, Randall suggests that the line as written was not supposed to contain profanity, but the actor, Gable, had Tourette's Syndrome, which is a neurological condition which is stereotypically characterized by bouts of random uncontrollable cursing.
The title text contains a more stereotypical Tourette's Syndrome outburst of several profanities shouted in a row mid-sentence.
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The issue date is definately off, as the file doesn't have an issue date. Can anyone fix? Rikthoff (talk) 13:49, 3 August 2012
- Listed as 2006-06-02 as per https://xkcd.com/archive/ 172.68.141.28 09:18, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
Gable did not have Tourette’s syndrome 172.69.170.56 (talk) 17:49, 13 November 2020 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
This might be the only xkcd comic with realistically drawn human characters (in contrast to stick figures or the Barrel Boy). — BabylonAS (talk) 13:14, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
- But see https://xkcd.com/56/ 172.69.194.79 (talk) 07:42, 15 October 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
There's a story – not one for which I can find many references, but it is out there – that Gable's now-iconic (but weird, if you think about it) delivery of this line with the emphasis on "give" was done to avoid emphasising "damn". Maybe Randall is slyly referencing that? Sure, the supposed Tourette's could lead to making the curse stronger (hence the use of "don't give a damn" at all), but the inclusion of an odd inflection could be attributed to a vocal tic.
Now we all know the quote, saying "give a damn" sounds fine. But really, why is "give" emphasised? In any other circumstance, that would mean that precisely what he's prepared to do with his damn is the focus of the sentence, and that's clearly not the case. So I think there is some mileage in the odd-inflection idea, from a language nerd such as RM... Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 12:00, 22 April 2025 (UTC) Add comment
