What's so bad about cheese?

December 4, 2007 7:25 PM

What's so bad about cheese?

If anyone remembers the Pursuit of Happiness's "I'm an Adult Now", there's in a line in it:

"I'd sure look like a fool, dead in a ditch somewhere with a mind full of chemicals like some cheese-eating high school boy."

So, is cheese a big feature of Canadian high schools? Is this an insult? To my ears, it's a bit random. What if he were dead like an apple-eating high school boy - would that be preferable?

posted by pompomtom to media & arts (16 comments total)

Kinda cheesy.
posted by box at 7:28 PM on December 4, 2007

Aha!

In traditional underworld slang, a “cheese eater” meant someone not to be trusted, someone who might talk to the cops — in other words, a rat...
posted by Evangeline at 7:38 PM on December 4, 2007

Or it could just mean French.
posted by Evangeline at 7:42 PM on December 4, 2007

Cheese it, the cops!
posted by box at 7:45 PM on December 4, 2007

Behold the power of cheese
posted by hortense at 7:55 PM on December 4, 2007

More than many other foods, many cheeses lead to bad breath due to the fact that cheese is essentially rotted milk. The phrase "cheese eating/eater" rolls off the tongue easily, and is convenient literary shorthand for someone of poor hygiene or dietary habits.

Cheese also happens to be high in saturated fats, but the dietary implications of saturated fats probably weren't known when the phrase was first coined.
posted by explosion at 8:01 PM on December 4, 2007

Yeah, given that they're a Canadian band my first guess would be that it means Quebecker, though I'm not sure that that makes sense in the context of the sentence.
posted by Dasein at 8:03 PM on December 4, 2007

Unrelated for sure, but certain people peg autism on the opiate byproducts of the casein in cheese.
posted by tmcw at 8:12 PM on December 4, 2007

I had heard that cheese-eater was a slang reference to someone who sucked dick, that it was a weird smegma reference, so in this case maybe a gay slur?
posted by jessamyn at 8:23 PM on December 4, 2007

Oh, as a former poor kid, my first thought is that "cheese eater" would be someone who's a welfare mooch, thanks to government cheese.

But as they're Canadian, it's probably likely it goes back to the slang for French-speakers as cheese eaters (as Evangeline said).
posted by Gucky at 9:43 PM on December 4, 2007

I just don't see the French connection here. AFAIK cheese eater wasn't slang for Quebecker in the 80s. The song predates the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" meme, so it couldn't be that. It also predates the rise of poutine in the anglophone consciousness. ( <>
Moe Berg is originally an Edmontonian and probably didn't have much experience with Quebec highschoolers. I think it's more likely to be a way of saying farm boy, or possibly a gay slur, or both.
posted by teg at 10:25 PM on December 4, 2007

I have just been told that in North America there is cheese in spray-cans, and that kids may get a buzz sucking on aerosolised cheese (I feel ill just typing that....).

Does that make sense to people?
posted by pompomtom at 10:42 PM on December 4, 2007

I have just been told that in North America there is cheese in spray-cans, and that kids may get a buzz sucking on aerosolised cheese (I feel ill just typing that....).

Does that make sense to people?

Yes, yes it does.
posted by dkleinst at 12:18 AM on December 5, 2007

I still think the definition I originally quoted applies. "Cheese-eater" is prison slang for "informant", which fits with the whole "dead in a ditch somewhere with a mind full of chemicals" stuff. The high school boys in question are drug addicts, and, because of their connection to the world of drugs, informants for the police, which in some circles would make them particular objects of scorn.

And yes, "cheese-eating" (as in "cheese-eating surrender monkey") used as a term for the French originated in a Simpsons episode and wouldn't apply. Of course the band could have independently come up with the phrase "cheese-eating" to describe the French.

But if you search on "cheese-eater" and can wade through all the references to the Simpsons, you will find that the only time it's actually defined as a phrase is as "informant", "rat" or "fink".

I think, though, that if the band WASN'T thinking of this reference, jessamyn is probably on the mark.
posted by Evangeline at 4:47 AM on December 5, 2007

Well, an earlier musical reference comes from the divine Frank Zappa's do-wop classic, "Luigi and the Wisguys at the Table"

You-you-you-ooo
Look like a dor-r-r-k
You act like a dork
Most of the time, also
You're a dor-r-r-r-k
You are a double-dork butt rash
You are a dork, dork, dork, dor-r-r-r-k!
Nobody wants to ...
You are boring . . . you have nothing to say
You eat cheese - you eat cheese and other things
You can can wrap up an' take with you
From the table
With Luigi & The Wise Guys at the table
You are a dork

posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:29 AM on December 5, 2007

I have just been told that in North America there is cheese in spray-cans, and that kids may get a buzz sucking on aerosolised cheese (I feel ill just typing that....).

Evidentiary proof, alas. (So shaming for us Americans.)
posted by IndigoJones at 9:37 AM on December 7, 2007