Yippee-Ki-Yay ...The greatest one-liner in movie history.
Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007, at 12:33 PM ETRead more from Slate's Summer Movies.
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUponWhen terrorist-slash-exceptional thief Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) taunts hero John McClane (Bruce Willis), "Who are you? Just another American who saw too many movies as a child?" and asks this "Mr. Cowboy" if he really thinks he stands a chance, McClane's answer—"Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker"—marks the moment that McClane, an everyman, assumes the mantle of America's archetypal heroes: Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Gunsmoke's Marshall Dillon, and others who have been so vital to American boyhood. Unlike the many action-movie one-liners that are rooted in the hero's narcissism, McClane's stems from our collective wish-fulfillment. He is not referring to himself, not suggesting an "I" or a "me" but an us. And considering the European Gruber's appreciation of fashion, finance, and the classics, McClane's comeback acquires an additional subtext: Our pop culture can beat up your high culture.
In John McClane's stance, there lies a bravado that bridges two American traditions. "Yippee-ki-yay" summons America's mythic, gunfighter past, while "motherfucker" belongs to the modern action movie. Seen in this light, the line also recalls the macho cinema of the 1970s, when Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, and Don Siegel helped create the action genre while continuing to trade in Westerns.
A quarter of the line (or half, depending on how you count) is profane, and yet "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker" is actually a delicate wisecrack. Underscoring the line's bridging of generations is the symmetry of its construction. On either side of the comma, past and present each get four syllables. This balance is manifested in the evenness of Willis' first—and best—delivery of the line. Subtly, he eases off "fucker," the word that, by virtue of its syntactical position, and its very nature, we might expect to land hardest on our ears. That Willis does not employ the same deftness in the sequels is a pity. The phrase is most effective not as a buildup to some hammer punch, but as one seamless unit of defiance.
With Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) and Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995), "Yippee-kai-yay, motherfucker" transformed from a one-liner to a catchphrase. It has also been lampooned by celebrities including Ice-T and Dr. Joyce Brothers, parodied by Ben Stiller, and, more recently, commemorated in song. Now, for the franchise's fourth installment, the line has become an advertising slogan, standing less for the continuity of American heroism than for the continuity of the Die Hard brand. (With wry religiosity, the ads attribute "Yippee Ki Yay Mo—" to "John 6:27," referring to McClane's June 27 return.) In contrast, early in the third film's campaign, Fox trumpeted the movie with the line "McClane Is Back." Whereas the character was then the primary draw, his catchphrase has since become an independent asset.
The marketing value of "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker" may not equal that of Bruce Willis, but then, the line is an eight-syllable phrase, not an international superstar. Its role in the new film's advertising testifies that "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker" continues to excite our nostalgia—no longer for a distant, heroic past, but for the line itself and the movie era from which it sprang. This marks the improbable distance "Yippee-ki-yay …" has traveled: from a wisecrack to a trademark to the hallmark of a genre.
Have an idea for your own classic one-liner? See our reader contest here.
Hitchens: The "War on Terrorism" Didn't Cause the Fort Hood Shootings
Enter Slate's Write-Like-Sarah Palin Contest
Whoa! The House Health Care Bill Is Actually Less Expensive Than the Senate's.
Like Israel but Colder: The Jewish Autonomous Region of Russia
Why Everyone Should Read When Everything Changed
Spitzer: How Tim Geithner Was Fleeced by Wall Street
Remarks from the Fray:
The "Die Hard" line is a good one, but for my money the all-time greatest comes in "The Outlaw Josey Wales." Wales--- played, of course, by Clint Eastwood--- is drinking in a decrepit, dimly lit bar when a fellow patron recognizes him. The young man leaves at first but returns to confront him. "We don't have to do this, son," Clint intones, but the punk will have none of it. He knows there's a bounty on Wales's head and he wants the money. "I'm just tryin' to make a living," he says. Clint's reply? "Dyin' ain't much of a livin', boy." The he shoots the kid through the heart.
Eastwood's intonation--- quiet, matter-of-fact, utterly calm--- makes this perhaps the most perfectly delivered line in cinematic history.
--Malone
(To reply, click here.)
Call me old fashioned, but I think Lichtenfeld should show more respect for Clint Eastwood's "Make my day." Even though I never saw Sudden Impact, the Dirty Harry movie it was uttered in--I only saw the trailer--I rank "Make my day" as the greatest action flick one-liner of all time. Admittedly, in the quarter-century since its introduction "Make my day" has lost much of its freshness, and the phrase was sullied by Ronald Reagan when he used it to threaten veto of a tax increase in 1985. But there's a reason Reagan and various others co-opted "Make my day." It was and remains a small masterpiece of economy.
Imagine a tough cop saying to some violent punk, "You're doing me a favor by forcing me to act in self-defense because I will actually enjoy killing you, something I wouldn't have the opportunity to do otherwise, given the rules imposed by the law and by my profession, not to mention the ethical consensus imposed less formally by civilized society--rules that I am compelled, grudgingly, to obey." Kind of a mouthful, right? "Make my day" communicates all this in a three-word Haiku. As a bonus, those three words perfectly express the uniquely warped psyche of the Dirty Harry character. Yes, "Make my day" is an expression of individual derangement and egomania rather than a summing-up of the collective American mythology. So what? This is an action movie we're talking about, not some damned folk song.
Compared to "Make my day," "Yippee Ki-Yi-Yay motherfucker" is downright loquacious, and action movie heroes are supposed to say as few words as is humanly possible. It's also less exuberantly fascistic, and let's face it, we don't exactly want our action movie heroes to be card-carrying members of the ACLU. "Yippee Ki-Yi-Yay motherfucker" is "Make my day" with the pathology washed out of it, and where's the fun in that?
--Timothy Noah
(To reply, click here.)
(7/2)