vardathemessage | Entries tagged with slang

script:
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. ARTHUR’S BEDROOM – NIGHT – 1973

Arthur’s face, breath CLOSE, staring at a photo of the preceding stage stunt, softly grinding.

VERY CLOSE on his open hand, circling slowly over stretching underwear.

I'm not sure if this had any influence on Todd, but in Cockney rhyming slang, 'Arthur' means to masturbate.
Cockney Rhyming slang uses two words to indicate a third word that rhymes with them. For example, 'trouble and strife' = wife. The rare word passes into American slang, like 'raspberry' - that loud sound made with a stuck out tongue that audiences use to show disapproval - comes from 'raspberry tart' = fart. So the etymology is from a well known film producer, The Rank Organisation. Their founder was 'J. Arthur Rank' which rhymes with wank.

script:
BRIAN
I just wanted to say ... I think your music is tops – smashing, really – best of the lot.
Curt looks up at him in a junkie blur.
CURT
Smashing, top hole, jolly old –

Despite being stoned out of his mind, Curt repeats Brian's smashing and comes up with top hole – both being RAF slang for excellent – and then doesn't quite make it through jolly olde England. Whether he is mocking Brian or trying to put him at ease, we can only guess, what's for certain is, they don't talk that way around Detroit.

script:

EXTREME CLOSE-UP of Jack opening a small compact. Zoom into mirror where three waiters are reflected.

CLOSE ON their mouths, each whispering a word in turn:
WAITERS
Maricon, épicène, sexe douteux. . .

Suddenly Jack glances up.

ZOOM IN to a small balcony as where the Businessman stands looking over.

Jack looks up, closing his compact and standing.

Everyone in the lavishly decorated nineteenth-century hotel lobby stares as Jack walks proudly across the room.

A Gentleman in the foreground turns to camera and confides:

GENTLEMAN
Le Vice Anglais...

There's a word for it in every language... Of course these are all foreign expressions meaning homosexual. In contrast to the many colorful British words we've heard, this shows the circles that Jack Fairy moves in are more refined and continental and yet they all - from the waiters who have seen it all, to the businessmen and gentlemen - recognize and abhor his type.

Maricon is Spanish for faggot.

épicène while seemingly French (it refers to the gender of nouns in that language) in English describes a person or thing that has the characteristics of both the male and the female, as well as meaning effeminate, or even neuter.

Sexe douteux (literally uncertain sex) is French for homosexual.

Todd's influence is probably from Richard Ellmann's Oscar Wilde [Before his marriage] "Punch had recently called him a 'Mary-Ann', Bodley had spoken of him in The New York Times as 'epicene', and if Wilde could not have yet read the entry in [the French publisher] Goncourt's 1883 Journal picturing him as 'au sexe douteux', he could guess that others took this view."

And Le Vice Anglais (the English Vice) here means homosexuality because the cliché goes all French men think the English are fags. It's interesting to remember in our permissible time that the notion of vice – an evil degrading or immoral practice or habit; a moral failing – is almost nonexistent. The more current meaning of Le Vice Anglais is having a taste for a good whipping, because, well, a British schoolboy's tender introduction to public school would leave a dramatic impression.

script:
MANDY
Darling, darling you were fabulous! Every bit! I was beaming- truly – like someone’s mum. And they adored you! The whole lot – transported!

BRIAN
(to Cecil)
Transported! – We went down like a fuckin’ knackered lift!

Translation: for us Yanks
"Transported! - We went down like a fuckin' broken elevator!

(note that Mandy is wearing Brian's New Year Eve sheepskin coat)

script:
HIPPIE FRIEND
Who’s this geezer, then?

HIPPIE
Some shirt-lifter from Birmingh’m.

Hisses from the audience, followed by a few shouts.

AUDIENCE
Get the fuck off! Cut the shite! Bugger off, you woofter!

Translation:
geezer: In the States geezer means an old man, perhaps odd but harmless, while in Britain the meaning is similar but more contemptuous. Interestingly the word originates in the word disguise. In the Middle Ages, a guiser was a mummer or masquerader, so the word is perfect to describe someone who is in 'costume' like Brian. of course I doubt that "HIPPIE FRIEND" is that erudite about his etymology. ;-)
shirt-lifter: homosexual
shite: the more polite sounding British 'shit'
bugger off: since bugger is to sodomize, it's roughly translated "go away you homosexual!"
the ever popular woofter, and yes how did you guess, another derogatory term for a homosexual.

script:
Cecil stares in quiet, amorous shock while his companions make the customary cracks.

FRIEND 1
Ooo, varda Mistress Bona!
(Subtitle reads: 'Say, have a look at “Miss Beautiful”!')

FRIEND 2
Varda the omie palome!
(Subtitle: 'Have a look at the homosexual!')

FRIEND 1
A tart, my dears, a tart in gildy clobber!
(Subtitle: 'A slut, mates, a slut in fancy clothes!')

The girls are speaking Polari, a gay slang that developed from Parlyree which was spoken by circus people, beggars and others on the fringes of society. Polari is a creative, campy secret language that allowed closeted gay men to communicate with each other in a society that had criminalized their existence. As Paul Baker says in the introduction to his wonderful book, Fantabulosa, A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang, "Because being openly homosexual was dangerous, the need for a language that protected gay men, and at the same time acted as a kind of 'gaydar' by allowing them to recognize others, was extremely useful."

While the language has fallen out of usage because it is no longer necessary, polari expressions like drama queen and fag-hag have entered the general usage. When Carson on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy explains how to jzuzh your cuffs just so, he is speaking polari.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have translated the bible into polari which somehow manages to make both the ridiculous aspects of that work and the sublime ones even more pronounced. "Let there be sparkle" has a certain glamour and majesty that "Let there be light" lacks.

Feel free to add your favorite polari expressions, book recommendations or sites.

script:
MANDY

You all know me – subtlety’s my middle name. It’s as subtle as the piece of skin between my vagina and my anus – ooh la! la!
(laughter)
Now what’s that called, does anyone remember what that's called, I can never quite remember ... No man’s land!?

Anatomically, it's called the perineum, but the word Mandy is most likely looking for is Taint, ('cos it ain't the vagina and it ain't the anus.) Kudos to Todd for actually having the word vagina in a film!

★ As discussed in the comments, Todd confirms on the Blu-ray commentary that Toni Collette ad-libbed these lines.

Record store dialogue

Bloody Nora!: exclamation of surprise or anger

pansy: Weak willed male or homosexual (it's funny because it's actually a rather hardy flower)

poof: a male homosexual

naff: unfashionable or of poor quality

script:
MIDDLE-AGED MAN

Well, I think it’s a disgrace, parading around all ponced-up like a pack of bleeding woofters. Bloody hell, what’ll they think up next?

Slang:
ponced up = Dressed up; or overdressed
woofters = male homosexual

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