My Teenage Daughter Embarrassed Herself in French Class

[On the Road]

Didn't get the exact contest, but she tried to make a joke by saying:

"Noooooooooobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"



It not only fell completely flat, but it turns out nobody in the class (including the teacher) had even HEARD of Monty Python, except for one kid who knew it was a BBC show on cable. This in suburban Maryland.

The bright side of it is that now Angie thinks her parents are the ONLY ones who understand her.

:)

[Squatch]

1. That's it. I've had it.

:mad:

[LynneSin]

2. Just for your daughter!

You coming to NYC for the protest?

[On the Road]

10. No, Unfortunately I Can't Make It to NYC

Thanks for the smilies. I will pass it on.

[Lautremont]

3. I think your daughter embarrassed the teacher and the class, not herself!

Not knowing one skit is one thing, but never having heard of the show or the troupe? That's some cultural retardation there.

[LynzM]

4. I agree...

I mean, how can you never have heard of them?! The mind boggles! :crazy:

[hfojvt]

5. In French class it obviously should be

"nooooobody expects the revocation of the Edict of Nantes!"

Why would anyone expect a Spanish Inquisition in France?

[Jara sang]

13. They might in the Pyrenees

There is a lot of overlap down there.

[northzax]

64. well, ever since ETA gave up the fight

there's less need for one, I suppose.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

6. Hi neighbor!

Riverdalian here. :hi:

Was this one of our public schools? If so, I'm afraid I'm not surprised...

[On the Road]

25. Hi Neighbor!

This was actually in Kennedy HS in Silver Spring.

Strangely enough, as a white student in what I thought of as white-bread Montgomery County, she is in the minority at Kennedy. So are the black students. The dominant groups are Asians and Latinos. Who knew?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

28. Things have changed a lot in the last 30 years...

I grew up in Prince Georges and was there when the first black family moved in in the mid 1960s. A couple of neighbors swore that they were going to move :eyes:. I was sorry they didn't.

By the time my stepsons were in high school, the county was majority African-American; but there were also a lot of Asian and Latino people. It's thought that the Latino population will be the majority within the next 10 years.

It's interesting to see how things have changed...

[On the Road]

53. I Moved to PG County (College Park) in 1983

and still live right on the edge in Beltsville. (I'm divorced; my daughter's in Aspen Hill with her mother). To tell you the truth, I like PG county. It's more interesting and more diverse than Montgomery County or most parts of Northern Virginia. I remember it's being a little over 50% black, with a lot of immigrants moving into areas like Langley Park, but did not know it's becoming so heavily Hispanic.

[seemunkee]

40. My wife is a Kennedy HS alumni

Last I looked Kennedy had the highest minority population in Montgomery county. Has a lot to due with the apartments on Randolph and along Georgia Ave.

When my wife went there is mostly Jewish. Had an open campus and was liberal to the extreme.

[seemunkee]

7. Montgomery County resident

My daughter would have laughed, but I don't know if (m)any or her friends would get it.

[ET Awful]

8. What are they teaching kids in school these days? Not one student

knew who Monty Python was? GEESH.

That ought to be required as part of the curriculum.

I mean. . .what good is childhood without the dead parrot sketch? :evilgrin:

[anarch]

9. I went to public school in MD, and not only do I not know who this Monty

Python person is, I have never heard of the Spanish Inquisition either. Are they some kind of hip-hop group?

[On the Road]

11. No "Hip-Hop" Exactly

but they do other types of silly walks.

[anarch]

12. the Spanish Inquisition, you mean?

Do they have any, like, MP3's I can check out on i-tunes or something?

[Oeditpus Rex]

14. She's lucky she wasn't accused of heresy

on three counts: heresy by thought, heresy by word, heresy by deed and heresy by action... four counts.




(Diabolical laughter.)

[historian]

22. and dont forget

heresy by thought. association and for voting liberal - 6 counts!

[Xithras]

15. Keep in mind that highschoolers today were BORN around 1990

Python, being 1970's era comedy, simply predates them. Unless modern highschoolers happen to grow up in a house with Monty Python watching parents, the odds of them having any clue about them are pretty slim.

My daughter is only 12, but I already run into this kind of stuff with her friends. I had some Pink Floyd playing the other day when she walked into the house with three of her buddies. They stood there for a full minute listening to The Wall, arguably the most famous song Floyd ever made, before they finally asked me which band it was. After I explained Pink Floyd to them, the next question was "Are they still making CD's?"

Kids...

For perspective, by the way, here's some things to keep in mind. To most junior high and high schoolers, there has "always" been an Internet. They never saw an Iron Curtain or dealt with the Cold War. Telephones have always fit into your pocket, and have always had buttons. There have only been two Presidents in their lifetimes...Clinton and Bush. Charlton Heston has always been "that gun guy". The Sony Playstation is "old school" video gaming. Most of them have never touched a TV knob in their lives. Music has always come on CD's. None of them would understand a "Where's The Beef" joke. American roads have ALWAYS been dominated by foreign cars. There has never been a strong union movement in this country. There has always been AIDS. The KKK hasn't killed anyone in their entire lifetime, and blacks have never been denied the vote or the right to sit in the front of the bus.

And tragically, most have no clue who Monty Python was. Ask a classroom full of 16 year olds about the Grateful Dead, and you'll be lucky if five even know who they were.

It's a different world.

[Lautremont]

16. I don't know. I was born in 1970,

and it's like me not knowing about the Marx Brothers or Abbott & Costello at age 16, which I and all my peers most certainly had. It still seems unusual to me that an entire class hadn't heard of one of the finest comedy troupes known to humanity.

[historian]

34. sorry cant accept that

I was born in the late 50's but had a keen sense of the past because i was awlays e xposed to history, literature, art and music from a very young age. I dont think anyone has to excuse to be ignorant of events past - it is in fact the perpetuation of ignorance which allows the bushes of this world to reign over the rest of us. Sorry dont mean to be offensive but its too easy to dismiss todays ignorance in light of age. On the contrary, with the amazing sources of information avaiable ignorance is even less of an excuse!

[elehhhhna]

17. Could be worse:

My showoff brother thought he could speak some French. While in a fine restaurant in Aix-au_Provence (? IIRC?) he told a waiter that the wine was so good he wanted to make love the the bottle.

[Strong Atheist]

18. ".. the ONLY one who understands her" Lol! nt.

[SLCPUNK]

19. It is amazing

How many people miss references I make also.

She should feel good about it really. It just means she said something that went over all their heads!

[cassandra uprising]

20. I'd say, the students in your daughter's French class embarrassed

themselves. Keep up the good parenting. :thumbsup:

[historian]

21. dont worry

My children grew up with monty python, fawlty towers, early peter seller movies besides learning to speak several languages at home (french and portuguese) and have thankfully grown up knowing how ignorant their counterparts are and one has moved to europe and the other will follow suit once he graduates. So dont despair - shell reap the rewards of an intelligent parent when she grows up. And remember - norwegian blue parrots love kipping on their backs and they stun easily!

[deadparrot]

23. Wait 'til she gets to college.

A friend of mine was in a history class when the professor asked what they knew about the Spanish Inquistion. One of those awkward silences followed, until my friend hesitantly raised her hand and said "Nobody expected it?"

The professors stared for a moment, cracked a smile, told her that no one had ever given that answer before, and gave her an A for the day. :hi:

[On the Road]

24. That is a Great Response!

Wish I had said that.

[Blue_Tires]

26. "The inquisition--What a show!

The inquisition, here we go!
We know you're wishin' that we'd go a-waaaaaay---
BUT the inquisition's here and it's here to sta-yyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"

[pokerfan]

39. Mel Brooks!

[Mad_Dem_X]

62. "We're gonna teach them wrong from right,

We're gonna help them, see the light..."

Now that song's going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

[Blue_Tires]

66. lol...i sang it to myself all day today at work, also!

[Yavin4]

27. This Is Why You Have To Home-School Children

Honestly, not being able to get a classic Monty Python reference? What values are they teaching kids today? Comedic satire is the cornerstone of Western civilization. You can learn more about life through satire than any other form of literature. Satire requires a higher level of thinking, and it can exist in both open and closed societies.

[KevinJH87]

30. wow...

Wow I cannot believe nobody knew of Monty Python. I am a college freshman now but in my high school Monty Python was widely known. One of my history teachers actually showed it to the class once. I was in mostly AP courses though so I could have a distorted view on who was familiar with Monty Python.

[Blue_Tires]

31. welcome to the site!

and it happens...a few years ago, I was working close to a college campus, and the freshmen there had NO idea at all about my "Animal House" references....

And I'm not even that old; I graduated college in '99!

[Benfea]

29. That's really sad.

Obviously, you raised your daughter well.

[LSK]

32. Monty who?

:popcorn:

[begin_within]

33. The U.S. television industry is embarrassed that the two best series,

"Monty Python's Flying Circus" (the best comedy series) and "Upstairs, Downstairs" (the best drama series) of all time were made in England, not the U.S. So the American television industry has ignored them. Monty Python was shown on PBS, and I don't remember it ever getting any airplay on commercial TV, although probably some cable channel has rerun it somewhere. Their movies don't seem to pop up much on commercial TV either. The biggest insult was when "Seinfeld" finished its run, TV Guide magazine was calling the cast of "Seinfeld" "the Beatles of comedy" which was of course incorrect. Monty Python are the Beatles of comedy, not the case of "Seinfeld."

[Blue_Tires]

41. just for the record

in the late 80s, MTV re-ran MPFC late at night for about a year...It later went to Nick-at nite (iirc) not long after for a short while....i know this because this was when i first discovered my love for the show and i was glued to both channels...

Nick-at-night used to kick so much ass....On one long weekend night, I was able to watch: 1. SNL's original crew ('75-'79) 2. SCTV 3. MPFC

[asthmaticeog]

63. An American commercial broadcast network DID air MPFC.

Fucksticks re-edited it into total unfunniness and the Pythons sued.

[begin_within]

35. Monty Python is, and always has been, just outside the mainstream.

And I think they like it that way. I think it's better that it isn't as ubiquitous of a cultural icon as Lucy or Archie Bunker, etc. To me it somehow seems better or funnier when it's a little more of a "club" rather than a mass blockbuster thing.

[Canadian Socialist]

37. Mainstream U.S.A., maybe

but not in the rest of the English speaking world. Just sayin'. Next thing you'll be telling me is that you've never heard of Rick Mercer, or The Kids in the Hall.

[begin_within]

38. Everyone's heard of the Kids in the Hall. I confess I don't know who Rick

Mercer is, though

[Canadian Socialist]

44. He's on CBC

http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/
very funny...

[begin_within]

46. Thanks

[TheBaldyMan]

51. well here in the UK they are a national icon

they are even an international icon. If you have seen some of Michael Palin's travelogues. He's says it's quite difficult to find a place on earth where he does't get stopped in the street.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 'All in the Family' was shown on British TV in the seventies and was really popular although it was based on the original show 'Till Death Do Us Part'. It didn't seem to lose anything in the transatlantic translation. I'd say the same was for 'Will and Grace', one of my favourite US shows and unrecognisable from the UK original 'Gimme.Gimme,Gimme' that it is very loosely based on.

[On the Road]

54. Hey, I've Seen Some of Those Michael Palin Travelogoues

Including the one where he travels to Timbuktu in the Sahara. Pretty amazing.

It's great how the different members have developed their own careers in different ways.

[Orsino]

36. Kids today don't study the classics. :-(

[Goblinmonger]

42. Funny related story

I was doing my "bit" for my Junior class on "Pit and the Pendulum" and got to the point of the inquisition. My Principal ran in and and said "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" at the exact moment I did.

[China_cat]

43. Tell her next time she should tell her class

'go away or I'll taunt you again'.

[Goblinmonger]

47. You silly

English kkkkkk-nig-hits.

I fart in your general direction.

[China_cat]

50. Your mother was a hamster

...and you know the rest of that one.

[Robb]

45. Oddly enough, similar experience today

Kid at work was looking over my shoulder, trying to tell me how to do something. I said, "Hey! Who's the barber here?!?" and proceeded to crack myself up. :D

Nothin'. :eyes:

[lakemonster11]

48. That's really weird.

Monty Python was very popular at my high school (I graduated in 2000). We even watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail in my world history class. I also remember acting out one of their sketches in a junior high drama class.

My brother is three years younger than me, and he's a Monty Python fan, too.

[Kat45]

49. And the play "Spamalot" has been on Broadway recently

I would think that would bring some mention of Monty Python into media that these folks see and hear.

[HughBeaumont]

52. My 10-year old LOVES Monty Python and The Young Ones

He quotes Young Ones lines all the time.

So tell the girl she's not alone and surrounded by hip-hop-addled i-Drones.

[RedCloud]

55. Sacre bleu, mon ami

[El Fuego]

56. Looks like a whole generation isn't getting exposed to Python

When I was a teenager it was on PBS all the time. Sometimes every night.

It's never on anymore. :(

[Radical Activist]

57. You have warped your child

good job. :thumbsup:

[cssmall]

58. I believe your child will be a good one in college.

High school is, sadly, now a place where the great minds no longer have the ability to shine. It is not until college can students, with a high amount of intelligence can actually show critical thinking ability.

Not to say that liking Monty Python is the height of intelligence, wit and all, but for someone to understand and use that joke in a context illustrates a degree of intelligence for their age. What's even funnier is having been working all day on documentation, going to the bar and getting liberally sauced, returning to shop a few hours later in the night and running in, where all others can see and yelling that at the top of your lungs.

My daughter was all of two months old when she met a professor of mine, who quipped "Have you paid the tuition for that one yet?" I remarked, "sure." To which he said, "That's a scary thought and for that I'm going to the bar."

Now in my graduate studies, I assoicate with intelligent, witty professors and peers. It's amazing to find out that when the chaff of the standard education is knocked away and finally you are among others that understand you and your "lame" jokes how happy you really can be.

[mzteris]

59. why does this always remind me of

bush:

Nobody expected 9/11
Nobody expected we wouldn't find WMD's
Nobody expected we'd "win" the invasion so quickly
Nobody expected the Iraqi's wouldn't welcome us with open arms and parades.
Nobody expected Katrina would be so bad
Nobody expected the levees to break

[deutsey]

60. I'm constantly surprised by how little my pointless knowledge means to

others. :evilgrin:

Seriously, I was talking to someone not long ago (a woman in her early '30s) and she had no idea who Harpo Marx was (or the Marx Brothers in general).

[tigereye]

61. my almost 10 year old

can quote many Python lines... but then he also quotes Dr. Who and Red Dwarf, too. And a few poets. ;)

that's unfortunate since Python is the standard for so much "modern" humor.

My husband used to watch Python on PBS way back when and that's how we also learned about Dr. Who.

[LibertyLover]

65. Too bad

no kids from the local SCA barony were in the class - they would have immediately started the dialoge from "Holy Grail", "Dead parrot", "Lumberjack" or "Spam".

[Metta]

67. Proving there's good and bad in everything.

Or so it seems.