# Unintentional Movie Ironies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 29, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794 "2010-10-29T17:53:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/21 "2010-10-30T11:59:59Z")
Everybody has probably seen this a dozen times or more: [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZXhaDXvFfc) Sort of double irony? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/22 "2010-10-30T12:17:03Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > I always found it ironic how many prescient lyrics John Lennon sang with the Beatles. “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” being the prime example. If that’s your prime example, I don’t think you have an argument. What could possibly be seen as prescient about that song? Including the word “gun”? ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/23 "2010-10-30T12:45:10Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > If that’s your prime example, I don’t think you have an argument. What could possibly be seen as prescient about that song? Including the word “gun”? Wasn’t John Lennon shot? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/24 "2010-10-30T14:29:21Z")
I’d bet that any prolific songwriter has used the word “gun” in some lyric or other. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/25 "2010-10-30T14:37:28Z")
He asked what could be interpreted as prescient and I answered. Just as a disclaimer in case anyone tries to attach me to the belief that he was, in fact, uncannily predicting things. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Promethea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Promethea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Promethea)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/26 "2010-10-30T14:45:48Z")
I hated the “Heathers” line “Did you have a brain tumour for breakfast?” even before Kim Walker, the poor actress who spoke it, died of one in real life ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/27 "2010-10-30T15:11:42Z")
I think the lyric would have to be much closer in meaning to “I’m going to be killed by gunshot”'to really count. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/28 "2010-10-30T15:27:12Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I’d bet that any prolific songwriter has used the word “gun” in some lyric or other. Beyond that, “Happiness is a warm gun” shows the influence of James Joyce’s punning style on Lennon’s lyrics, and when you realize the intended pun, all literal references to sidearms vanish. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/29 "2010-10-30T15:30:11Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > Beyond that, “Happiness is a warm gun” shows the influence of James Joyce’s punning style on Lennon’s lyrics, and when you realize the intended pun, all literal references to sidearms vanish. OK, I’ll bite. THe only Joyce pun I know is “Henry saw Queen Molly’s pants,” which isn’t surprising, since I made it through _Portrait_ but not \*Ulysses \*or _Finnigan’s Wake._ So what influence did Joyce’s puns have on Lennon’s lyrics, or are you just being ironic yourself? ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/30 "2010-10-30T15:59:46Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > If that’s your prime example, I don’t think you have an argument. What could possibly be seen as prescient about that song? Including the word “gun”? Also the words, “Bang bang, shoot shoot” And then there’s “Yer Blues” which sounds like a pretty plaintive request to be put out of ones misery. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/31 "2010-10-30T16:10:03Z")
> [@Oy](#): > > So what influence did Joyce’s puns have on Lennon’s lyrics, or are you just being ironic yourself? You see it more in his writing _In His Own Write_, etc - imitation of Joyce’s recombinant words - sometimes very close to particular words in the Finnegans Wake. (Astoundaghast / Astoneaged, etc.) Probably the most Joycean of Lennon’s actual lyrics are “I am the Walrus,” which (like the Wake) goes to the well of the Alice books for its images. Lennon sometimes used a Joycean trick where the sound of a word or combination of words (together with immediate context) alters the meaning of a line depending on whether it is read or recited. This ranges from fairly obvious (“A penis is a warm gun”) to so obscured that it’s unlikely to be spontaneously decyphered (“Isn’t it good, knowing she would?”) Appypollylogies for this hijohn, which brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to the idea of the prefiguring of Lennon’s assassination: We know that Lennon read Finnegans Wake. I wonder if he blinked at all when he read: > [@](#): > > …he got the charm of his optical life when he found himself _(hic sunt lennones!)_ at pointblank range blinking down the barrel of an irregular revolver of the bulldog with a purpose pattern, handled by an unknown quarreler who, supposedly, had been told off to shade and shoot shy Shem. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/32 "2010-10-30T16:15:38Z")
Thank you, **Larry Mudd**. I didn’t understand any of your post, but then I don’t understand Joyce at all (would have been perfectly happy if he’d been drowned at birth, frankly), and precious little of Lennon, for that matter. But I appreciate your efforts to enlighten me, even though I should have realized from the start that they were doomed to failure. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/33 "2010-10-30T17:46:19Z")
> [@Ambassador Joseph E. Davies](#): > > Mr. Stalin, I believe history will record you as a great builder for the benefit of mankind. From [Mission to Moscow.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036166/) Yes, _that_ Mr. Stalin and it’s not intentionally ironic at all; it was completely sincere. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/34 "2010-10-30T19:23:12Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > In that vein, there’s the famous SNL sketch from years back where John Belushi is visiting the graves of all the other original Not-Ready-For-Primetime players, and says that he’s the last surviving cast member from that group. In reality he was the first to die. Surely that wasn’t entirely unintentional. I get the impression most of them knew they couldn’t save him from himself, and Belushi just didn’t mind laughing at the Reaper. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/35 "2010-10-30T21:07:24Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > This ranges from fairly obvious (“A penis is a warm gun”)… :smack: Never saw it before. ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/36 "2010-10-30T21:14:48Z")
It was a slogan on the cover of a gun magazine, though, so unless they saw the pun too… ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/37 "2010-10-30T21:55:25Z")
> [@Electric\_Warrior](#): > > It was a slogan on the cover of a gun magazine, though, so unless they saw the pun too… I think it’s clear that Lennon intended the pun, based on the context. The “gun” references in the song make sense in a sexual context, and sometimes _only_ as sexual puns. “Mother Superior jumped the gun” does not carry _any_ meaning in the usual idiomatic sense without any supporting context, but it _is_ sensible as a sexual (and positional) pun when placed immediately adjacent to “[A penis] is a warm gun, **mama**.” and also with both “bang” and “shoot” having sexual connotations. In the context of holding someone in your arms and feeling your finger on their trigger, the literal “Guns & Ammo” usage of the phrase would be completely out of place, but it’s perfectly serviceable as a dick joke. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/38 "2010-10-30T22:18:40Z")
In _Addams Family Values_ when Wednesday, Pugsley, and their friend won’t comply with the happy jolly facade of the summer camp they’re sent to “The Happy Hut”, a building filled with sickeningly sweet posters and movies (_Sound of Music_, _Annie_, dolls, stuffed animals, etc.). They look together at one wall and scream- it’s a poster of Michael Jackson. It was filmed before MJ’s child molestation trials, but premiered just after. The scream took on all new meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/39 "2010-10-30T22:47:01Z")
Not a movie, but the pilot of _The Lone Gunmen_ was unintentionally ironic when (in March 2001) the eponymous conspiracy buffs thwarted a plot from within the U.S. government to crash a commercial airliner into the World Trade Center with the intent of placing the blame on phony hijackers and starting a profitable-to-certain-interests war against an unpopular middle-eastern nation - perfectly anticipating the Next Big Thing for the crack-brained conspiracy theorists the show lampooned. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794/40 "2010-10-30T22:53:08Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > Not a movie, but there are a lot of jokes involving Phil Hartman’s character, Bill McNeal, that are just creepy and sad now. Gun jokes, death jokes . . . I can’t think of specific examples right now, but some of them really make me cringe. Similarly, Keith Moon’s character in _200 Motels_ saying “The pills…I took so many of them.” Speaking of John Lennon and guns, I was disturbed when, after decades of listening to the song, I learned that what I had always heard as nonsense syllables in “Come Together” was a chant of “shoot me.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentional-movie-ironies/558794.md?page=3)