Often, when a comedian is making fun of someone who is retarded, they’ll say in a stereotypical nasal “Special Ed” voice …
“Will you marry me?”
Where and when did this start? Did anyone on the SDMB ever experience a marriage proposal from a mentally handicapped person of the opposite sex?
That is my favourite response to telemarketers… I never hear from the same one twice.
I’ve never heard that in my life from or in immitation of retarded people.
I’ve been asked “Will you be my girlfriend” several times. Marriage is a little passe these days.
There was a movie a long time ago (70’s?) with Shawn Cassidy in it. He(Roger) was retarded as was his girlfriend(Virginia). They wanted to get married and the movie, as far as I can remember, was about the legal fight they had to go through. There have been a few people I’ve met who have said stuff like " I want to marry you, Roger" in a retarded kinda voice, under certain circumstances. Thats my guess as to where that came from.
The movie was Like Normal People. It was a 1979 TV movie. I didn’t see it, but I remember previews for it. Shaun Cassidy wasn’t a very good actor, so I can imagine people imitating his rather poor attempt at sounding like a mentally retarded person.
And then again, there really are retarded people who say this.
Back in 1977 I worked a summer job where one my coworkers was an exceptionally good-hearted young woman who used to drive a mentally retarded young man places as a favor. I remember her expressing her discomfort as she told how he would ask her that from time-to-time while they were driving, and she would find quick ways to change the subject, as by asking him if he saw last week’s episode of Donnie and Marie, which, she happened to know was his favorite show.
BTW, many mentally retarded people can validly marry. It takes considerably less mental capacity to marry in The United States than it does to commit to most other contracts. A common joke among family lawyers is that if people had more mental capacity, there might be fewer marriages.
Just a guess but more recently it might also be from Forrest Gump’s 'Will you marry me, Jenny?"
I’ve never heard this in joking, but I do know of one mentally handicapped person (daughter of a good friend of my dad) who talked about her “boyfriend” quite a bit - he was similarly challenged and they both worked at the same workshop for such.
Apparently they did get “married” one day, but I don’t even know if it was official, as it reminded me - from this particular case - of the kind of thing where a couple 1st graders will just go around ont he playground like that, not really grasping what it means and not having this relationship outside of there.
A couple of examples online:
http://www.theonion.com/onion3502/very_special_forces.html
http://www.nationallampoon.com/wwwaste/rainbowtv/defaultpar.asp
(Click on “Mentally Challenged Lunar Landing”)