Talk:Cheese-eating surrender monkeys

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[edit] Original Talk: discussion

I always assumed the phrase referred primarily to the speedy collapse of French military resistance at the start of WWII. Vichy seems plausible but surely not Napoleon (not a man to surrender lightly) or colonial disengagement (too obscure). Harry R 15:52, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

I also wonder if it has anything to do with French failures at Crecy or Agincourt.
I was happy to leave it at Vichy and worry it is turning into a Franch bashing page. Equally, as ABBA taught us, My my, at Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender. Oh Yeah, and I have met my destiny in quite a similar way. Ahem. So that's okay. --Tagishsimon
Better now? Also, if the episode doesn't mention the Battle of France, the final sentence of that paragraph is also unfounded and should be struck. JMD (talk) 02:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this page really necessary?

I mean, really, it's a stupid, throwaway joke from the Simpsons, and a cheap shot, too. And I discovered this page because it was linked from the front page of the site! When did it become cool to insult a whole nation by making an encyclopedia entry calling them monkeys, anyway? How long before you myopic, seemingly-retarded (and my fellow) Americans begin refering to African nations as "Starving genocide monkeys"? --Catblack 21:44, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

None of us will die for the lack of any of these pages. CESM had its fifteen minutes of fame - google for it to see how widespread it became - 10,200 hits. When did it become cool to insult a whole nation by making an encyclopedia entry calling them monkeys, anyway? It is not and you possibly miss the point entirely here. CESM happened. The encyclopedia is reporting that it happened, and putting it in context. It would be wrong to start a page which had no external reference - e.g. a page called Catblack misses the point; that would be to hijack the wikipedia for a POV attack with no basis. It is worlds apart from explaining the antecedents of a phrase with wipespread, though perhaps transitory, usage. Whoever put in on the front page presumably shares the view that it is well known enough to deserve an outing. --Tagishsimon

Catblack apparently doesn't mind insulting a whole nation by implying Americans are myopic and retarded. Also he/she/it doesn't realize that Wikipedia is international, not American, and Tagishsimon who started the page is apparently English, judging from his user page.

Or Scottish when the fancy takes me ;) --Tagishsimon

Catblack, we survive, no worry ;-) SweetLittleFluffyThing

I feel I must point out that this reference is, in fact, in error. The phrase in question comes from the episode “’Round Springfield” (2F32). The exact quote, in context, is as follows:


  • Bart: [walking into nurse’s room] Lunch Lady Doris? Why are you here?
  • Doris: Budget cuts. They've even got Groundskeeper Willie teaching French.

[cut to…]

  • Willie: Bonjourrrrrr, ya cheese-eating surrender monkeys!


The line in question refers to the students “learning” French from Willie, not the French themselves. It is not a criticism of the French. It is simply one of Groundskeeper Willie’s many oddly off-color statements. As a result, I find it incomprehensible that people in the U.S. and U.K. have used it as a rallying cry against the French. D.A.S., 22:11 EDT, 31 August 2006

I think you find it incomprehensible because you've gone too far with deconstructing the joke. Clearly the joke is at heart targeting the French, unless you really believe that there's some deep Vietnam reference in there (as why else would a Scotsman say it to some Americans?). As for Catblack's comments: it became much more than a cheap throwaway joke from the Simpsons, thanks to the run up to the Iraq war. Personally I just think it shows ignorance on the part of those who use it (and mean it) Bombot 10:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
It's a droll phrase. This being the case it is comprehensible to me that someone had the wit to pick it up & run with it. That the target of the phrase has been subverted is the least you'd expect when choosing vocabulary for a scabrous attack on a nation which has pissed you off (UK) / at which you're pissed (US). --Tagishsimon (talk)

[edit] VfD Debate 16th May 2004

Raised and removed by Catblack.

Template:VfD-Cheese-eating surrender monkeys

'Gained common currency' implies that many people used it, that it became a common phrase. I don't think that is really true - it might have been used in a few shows as a gag, but to say that it was in common use? I don't think so. Is there some alternative phrase that you'd be happy with? Mark Richards 19:53, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Hey, I'd never heard this phrase before, and it kinda surprised me that there was a page for it. I got shouted down, but hey, that-sa democracy for ya. And I mean it, I'd never heard this phrase before, and I don't think a page is really necessary. But then, the experience of sending VFD-wards was educational to me as to how the wiki works. (Or wonks as the case may be.)

But really, is there going to be a page for every joke on the Daily show, for example? I want my Giany Mess-O-Potamia! --Catblack 01:38, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

If the joke has legs of its own, then yes, why not. Can you not tell the difference between a phrase that is picked up and used by many people to express a political opinion, and a phrase whch us not? You say you had never heard of the phrase before. Welcome to the encyclopedia ... it tends to be a collection of that sort of stuff. I'm unsure what information was missed out of the replies you got to a similar query on the 15th May, (above). Perhaps some sort of groundhog day thing going on? --Tagishsimon

[edit] Slogan?

Shouldn't this be prefixed with Slogan: ? {Ανάριον} 14:31, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why? Should the Ford Ka be prefixed with Car:, or the article on bananas be prefixed with Fruit: ? You could at least make a case for your (to me, bizarre) suggestion. --Tagishsimon
Err... I am confused. I could've sworn that slogans were prefixed with Slogan: in the Wikipedia, but I now can't find any... never mind it. {Ανάριον} 15:11, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Besides which, albeit was used in a political context, I do not think it is a slogan, so much as an amusing insulting phrase. (well, amusig unless you are French, perhaps). --Tagishsimon

[edit] National Review

The line was first picked up and used predominantly by Republican American politicians and publications. They were led, according to The Guardian , by Jonah Goldberg, a columnist for the right-wing weekly National Review.

National Review is biweekly.

Noted. In the mean time, I believe that if the political characterization is going to be retained, then it would be appropriate to refer to The Guardian as a "left-wing daily". Ellsworth 21:48, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Left-of-centre, maybe. --Tagishsimon (talk)
And that's the problem. Where the "center" is inherently depends on POV, which is why I propose to drop the references altogether. Which I will do now. Ellsworth 14:36, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Good call. The Grauniad and National Review pages both adequately discuss the politics of each. --Tagishsimon (talk)
Let's see if it stands. Editors tend to get huffy about labelling or the lack thereof. Ellsworth 16:17, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] POV

The terminology is based on the complete collapse of French defenses in WWII, their defeat in Viet-Nam, and the frequent undermining of U.S. foreing policy initiatives. These include allying with genocidal Serbs, Chinese nationalists wanting to invade democratic and independent Taiwan, being one of the two largest recipients of oil for food bribes, undermining free trade in favor of big subsidies for French farmers and supporting Saddam Hussein.

Anyone else think this is more than just a little POV? Especially when it gets to "supporting Saddam Hussein". I mean, really, if we're going to play the "if you were against the war, you supported Saddam" game, we're going to get into a whole Mess-O-Potamia of our own. --MullHistSoc 10:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

It was User:Nickthaniel wot dunnit. I've reverted and left a note on his talk. --Tagishsimon (talk)

[edit] Origin?

The List of neologisms on The Simpsons states that the phrase "originated in Britain in the 1980s but was popularized by Scottish character Groundskeeper Willie," but this article credits "The Simpsons" with creating it. Which is correct?

It would be very helpful for the article to explain where the "monkey" bit comes from. I recall hearing there was a specific historical episode this refers to but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Any ideas? ElectricRay 16:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Hartlepool#Monkey_business, I'd guess.

[edit] Merge with Simpsons Neologisms

Oppose as per SN talk page.--Anchoress 07:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

It's grown beyond this though and is used quite frequently, particularly here in the UK. I have added details of William Hague using it on the page. Michaelritchie200 09:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

Including an appropriate image would be nice. I recommend this one.

[edit] Origin Aspect

The origin part cited that it was due to the French collapse to German forces in world war two, myself and many of my associates took it to be due to the fact the French incessantly had their arses reamed by the British throughout history, long before WWII, long before Napoleon, long before Agincourt. I believe this should be reflected in the article, yet as I am not a regular, nor of the mindset to be posting this late at night, I urge one of the fine editors of this article to make the ammendments as they see fit. The WWII reference may specifically be due to the fact that it is the only instance in which the Americans were on the 'good guys' side in their history, as they supported Napoleon in many under-the-table ways during that war where again the French were reamed. Thus indicative that the original authors were most likely American and didn't have much grounds of history past the era of America's foundation as a country. Jachin 16:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you have anything to back this up, or is it purely based on impressions you have about the origins? This sounds highly questionable to me. - BalthCat 02:53, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Something found on the web. Just an American's refreshing opinion:

It really, really amused me when Americans call the French "surrender monkeys". Due to various factors (shorter history, larger size, more geographic isolation) the US does not exactly have an unvarnished tradition of beating great powers on the field of single combat.

- The US won the revolutionary war... with substantial French help.

- The US started the war of 1812 but its invasion was beaten back and a peace treaty was signed.

- The only really serious war that was actually fought on a lot of US territory since the country was created was the Civil War... against itself. So part of the US surrendered to itself.

- The US did grab big chunks of territory from Mexico and Spain, pretty easily because they were just plain nowhere near as strong.

- In WWI, the US stayed out until the absolute last minute. Some claim that they helped "turn the tide", but what that really means is that other countries slogged it out for a brutal four years of actual fighting, and then the US sent a smaller force which barely reached the front lines before an armistice was signed, and the threat of additional troops may or may not have contributed to the armistice.

- In WW2, the US stayed out until directly attacked. It was initially so unprepared that it suffered crushing defeats against Imperial Japan, a smaller nation with a much smaller economy, and even a smaller navy. It won after nearly four years, mostly by virtue of being bigger rather than any strategic brilliance. On the European front, Hitler was defeated by the Russians (who were given some equipment by the US/west after they'd already fought the Germans to a standstill, thus allowing/hastening their offensive), and the US sent troops to add a western front, hasten his downfall, and incidentally prevent the Soviets from seizing all of Europe.

- In the Korean war, the US protected South Korea, but was beaten back out of North Korea by the Chinese.

- Since then, US military history has been pretty simple. The US has only fought ground wars against vastly inferior militaries. It defeats them in straight on battle, but tends to lose guerilla wars. Of the three major wars it's fought since Korea - Vietnam, Iraq I, Iraq II - Vietnam will be abandoned to guerillas, Iraq I stopped short of taking Baghdad because of fear of chaos, guerillas, etc., and Iraq II is such a quagmire of guerillas that it's basically inevitable that the US will pull out without having defeated them, and leave a low-level war in progress in the country.

- Then there's Afghanistan, not really a major ground war for the US since it basically won by bribing the locals into overthrowing the regime, and helping them with airstrikes. US troops fought one major battle at the Shah-i-kot, which if you know about that battle was actually sort of humiliating. The US was trying to surround and capture a large force of Al Qaeda troops holed up in a mountain valley, and use some Afghan allies as the main assault force in order to make them look good. Both goals utterly failed. The US didn't suffer a lot of casualties, but the battle should (and may) go down in history in military circles as a spectacular example of what not to do. US troops have been involved in the postwar occupation... in which their old enemy the Taliban has gained new strength, and the Afghan central government still controls little outside of Kabul.


It seems to be a popular misconception in the US that America has an unusually glorious military history, when in fact it's one of the less distinguished of the great powers, including in the 20th century itself. The US has the *largest military* today by far, but that's not quite the same thing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Onaryc (talk • contribs) 14:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC).

I find it perplexing how the then-third world countries of Haiti and Vietnam could defeat a major european power like the French. Did any other Western European countries have similar experiences with their colonies? Maybe these things contributed to the French image of military weakness? -Taco325i 18:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggesting merger & redirection

to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_people

68.113.160.226 23:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

(ps just kidding)

[edit] whats with all the connections with Rupert Murdoch?

There's all these ties of Rupert Murdoch owning Fox News and the Simpsons, which he does. But it's repeated and used irrelevantly, to the point of redundancy. I don't know what the big deal is, the Simpsons in a few episodes featured clips of an animated Fox News anchor discussing happenings in the episode while running ridiculous tickers such as "Do Democrats cause cancer?", obviously satirizing Fox News' alleged bias.--Exander 08:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moved from Article to Talk

I moved this:

I would like to say that it's a legitimate phrase and has a right to be here, why the questioning whether a phrase from a cartoon should be on wikipedia? I for one am glad it's on here cos I was chatting to some transatlantic buddies about their finding the phrase 'yanks' offensive, and I offered 'burger-eating invasion monkeys' as an example of a genuinely offensive (but hilarious) phrase. I had to search to find the right expression. Before reading this page though I always thought it was from something before the Simpsons...

from article to here. Avalon 02:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Monkey reference

The monkey part of the phrase stems from when residents of middlesborough put a monkey on trial and subsequently hanged it; assuming that it was a frenchman. This was during the hundred years war (I think) and francophobia was at an all time high, the people of middlesborough had never seen a frenchman or monkey before and so assumed they were the same.

Sigh. It was Hartlepool in the Napoleonic wars. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.18.73.199 (talk) 23:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC).
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