Posted on 03/14/2006 3:45:38 PM PST by SJackson
I WAS watching the DVD of a favorite movie, "The Late Show," over the weekend and heard something that startled me.
The 1977 movie was produced by Robert Altman and written and directed by Robert Benton. It stars Lily Tomlin and the late Art Carney, who plays an old, cranky private detective named Ira Wells.
It's a funny, bittersweet mystery, a lovely film. It earned Benton a best original screenplay Oscar nomination. He mined the same territory two decades later, writing and directing "Twilight," with Paul Newman as the aging private eye. It's just a shade less satisfying than "The Late Show," but the supporting cast is extraordinary - Gene Hackman, Susan Sarandon, James Garner, Stockard Channing and Reese Witherspoon.
I've probably watched "The Late Show" half a dozen times. But for some reason, until this past weekend, I never noticed a line of dialogue uttered by the Carney character, Ira Wells.
Wells has just been roughed up by a character named Lamar, played by John Considine. Lamar is a tough flunky of a character named Birdwell, played by Eugene Roche.
A few minutes after Lamar tosses him around, Wells is talking to Birdwell and says the following:
"Before we do any talking, you better warn this cheesehead. Next time he tries anything with me, I'll kill him."
Art Carney's character called John Considine's character a "cheesehead."
Now, I've written before that I have never appreciated - to put it mildly - the cheesehead hats worn by Packers fans and other Wisconsin residents whose brains aren't doing their best work.
A decade ago, when I first began this column, I did an item about "Today" show weatherman Al Roker venturing outside Rockefeller Center to do the forecast. Roker spotted a woman looking ridiculous in one of those cheeseheads and naturally hustled right over to her. "Where you from?" Roker asked.
"Madison, Wisconsin," the woman replied.
When I pointed out that the woman had traveled all the way from Madison to Manhattan just to make a fool of herself on national television, I heard from a few readers who advised I lighten up. But I also heard from many people who agreed with me.
The point here is I had always assumed that the cheesehead - which eventually expanded beyond the hats, to the habitual referring to of any Wisconsin resident as a "cheesehead" - had started with the hats.
The hats, of course, were famously invented in 1987 by a Milwaukee guy named Ralph Bruno, who fashioned one out of the foam he was using to upholster his mother's sofa and wore it to a Brewers-White Sox game.
But apparently the term preceded the hat. I did a little research Monday and found that Bruno has said he carved the cheesehead and wore it to the game after some White Sox fans were mocking the Brewers fans by calling them cheeseheads. "I like cheese a lot," Bruno said. "I decided to make a cheesehead so they know it's not a bad thing."
Apparently Illinois residents had called us "cheeseheads" in the manner that some Wisconsin residents call Illinois people "flatlanders." And what of Minnesota? Last fall the Duluth News Tribune ran a story about Wisconsin residents calling Minnesota residents "mud ducks." The paper noted: "The origin of the term is fuzzy - it might have something to do with Minnesota lakes, or with the loon, Minnesota's state bird. Or it might just mean a loser."
There would appear to be plenty of regional insults to go around, but what this doesn't answer is how Art Carney's character wound up denouncing John Considine's character in 1977's "The Late Show" as a "cheesehead." Was Considine's character from Wisconsin?
Or was he perhaps from the Netherlands? The online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, has this citation for cheesehead: "A nickname (sometimes used derogatorily) referring to a person from either Wisconsin or the Netherlands, referring to the large volume of cheese production in those locales." I also found a Cleveland Plain Dealer story that quotes "The American Dictionary of Slang" calling "cheesehead" a nautical term, referring to sailors from the Netherlands.
A call to the Madison Public Library Monday afternoon, however, seemed to indicate that the term need not have to do with either the Netherlands or Wisconsin. The Dictionary of American Slang said this: "A stupid person." While the more recent Cassell Dictionary of Slang had this: "An idiot, a fool, a generally pejorative term especially directed at an overly emotional or dramatic person."
So Art Carney's character in "The Late Show" was just calling Considine's character a fool, which he certainly proved to be.
Whatever the origin, I still say it doesn't look good on your head.
And for what it's worth, Carney's "cheesehead" remark is far from the best line in "The Late Show," which I really do recommend most highly.
Right after the scene in which Carney is roughed up, he's limping along the sidewalk, looking pretty bad, carrying his bloodied clothes to a laundromat.
Lily Tomlin pulls up, and asks where he's headed.
"I'm on my way to the Brown Derby to meet Louis B. Mayer," Carney says in disgust. "Where does it look like I'm headed?"
At least he didn't call her a cheesehead.
If you'd like to be on or off this Upper Midwest outdoors list, please FRmail me.
As a Twin Cities resident, I appreciate the nearly infinite stockpile of beer and cheese available a mere twenty miles away.
When driving through the Cheddar Curtain...The Il and WI border....you need to stop at the "Brat-Stop" for a schooner of Old Style and a killer brat.
Nope.
I am NOT responding.
No, no, NO! ;)
Even Wensleydale?
You.
Off the net.
NOW!
:)
"Cheese, Gromit!"
Quick, somebody post the Eric Estrada "You're A Homo" pic.
Who cut the............
The article is very accurate in describing people who wear the wedge as either fools or do it for laughs. Some wear it seriously and they are fools, the ones who do it for laughs get the joke.
Say what you will, we love our cheese here in the land of beer, brats and cheese and we hate the flatlanders from the south.
A quick lookup rendered this definition, "Not a cheese at all, but a sausage made from the meaty bits of the head of a calf or pig (sometimes a sheep or cow) that are seasoned, combined with a gelatinous meat broth and cooked in a mold. When cool, the sausage is unmolded and thinly sliced. It`s usually eaten at room temperature.".
At the first look I have known some people whose brains were as functional as this substance. Their proclivity to wearing a cheese hat is unknown although Mr Dean's picture is suggestive.
I doubt it. It would make a great Phd thesis though. Feingold could find a grant. Besides, not everyone considers it a pejorative.
Yes and apologies, no intention to offend. I will say in passing though, that as a loyal fan of the Tampa Bay Bucs, for many years I've seen some really cheesy Cheeseheads.
Having the Bucs win the Super Bowl in '03 was sweet especially after all of those years where we would end up in Green Bay in January - Brrrrrrrr. I miss the old Black and Blue division and I hope that there is a new man to fill the mighty QB shoes of Brett and Bart.
Maybe that's what they call them down in Madtown...
No mystery/ no connection. It's the Cheese.
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