The new confusion

July 29, 2023 1:10 AM

I'm looking for help explaining the usage and origin of a rhetorical device. The only example I can think of off the top of my head is "the new cruelty" from L.A. Story:

Maitre D' at L'Idiot : Your usual table, Mr. Christopher?
Carlo Christopher : No, I'd like a good one this time.
Maitre D' at L'Idiot : I'm sorry, that is impossible.
Carlo Christopher : Part of the new cruelty?
Maitre D' at L'Idiot : I'm afraid so.

I've found it impossible to Google, and this doesn't feel like the same thing as "orange is the new black" because "new" is being used in a more ironic way if that makes sense.

Any insights or other examples out there?

posted by Threeve to Writing & Language (17 answers total)

There was the new math, which was a big controversial thing in the '50, '60s, and '70s; I see there's at least one history of it, though I haven't read it.
posted by trig at 1:35 AM on July 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also "meet the new boss, same as the old boss", and the New Wave (though all of these examples predate L.A. Story by a good bit)
posted by trig at 1:50 AM on July 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

The New Deal.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:30 AM on July 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Given the restaurant is French, I suspect it's a play on all the European sociocultural movements that begin with "new." So yep, New Wave, New Woman, New Objectivity, even Nouvelle Cuisine although we tend not to anglicise that for some reason. The French intellectuals Jacques Julliard and Jacques Derrida both used the phrase the New Cruelty (for resurgent fascism, and certain tech developments in warfare, respectively) - I don't know whether they were using the phrase before 1991, though, because Google isn't being too helpful in that regard. If they were I imagine the sarcasm of the joke rests in using the phrase for something pettily sadistic.
posted by Ballad of Peckham Rye at 3:51 AM on July 29, 2023 [6 favorites]

In case this is additionally useful - because I wasn't sure, on reflection, whether it was the rhetorical device you were asking about rather than this particular instance - inserting a different word into a well known phrase such as "the new x" is called a snowclone.
posted by Ballad of Peckham Rye at 4:06 AM on July 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

I’ll add Dior’s New Look to Ballad of Peckham Rye’s list. (Not to be confused with the British budget fashion chain of the same name!)
posted by penguin pie at 4:06 AM on July 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

This term is also a dig at Reaganism. Ronald Reagan's term ushered in the era of "Putting a Smiley Face on Cruelty" by ignoring many of the urgent social issues at the time. His governing style was lampooned as "don't just do something, stand there" by many critics. He was California Governor before being elected President. A shift from the hippie to the yuppie as a cultural phenomenon.
posted by effluvia at 4:15 AM on July 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: There's a mention of this exchange in the FanFare discussion of the movie.

To me it seems kind of specific to being in a place like LA, if you move in competitive circles where there's a sense of inflation and that things just keep getting harder and harder and the obstacles more and more overt. God, were people always this snotty in Brooklyn? That sort of thing.
posted by BibiRose at 4:18 AM on July 29, 2023

On the origin of the term "The New": many fine art movements had certain terms applied to them by art critics beginning with "Impressionism" or "Pre-Raphaelites". The term "Impressionism" is first coined by a noted French art critic writing about a painting by Claude Monet called "Sunrise--Impression", and the whole painting movement was referred to by the critic's term for the painting style, and gets incorporated into the language as a term for the painting movement.

Artists that were influenced by the Impressionist movement would be dubbed "Neo Impressionists" by critics -- largely by French speaking art critics.

A lot of formal film criticism has its origins in French art criticism with terms from the art world applied to the various movement, like "French New Wave Cinema", then this term and the concept got picked up in pop culture uses and becomes ironic in its use eventually.
posted by effluvia at 4:38 AM on July 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Non-ironic claims that 'brown is the new black' (black traditionally being considered a color that works for every occasion) have been made in fashion journalism for years (example). This might be the origins of 'orange is the new black', and it might have spread to other areas.
posted by rjs at 4:57 AM on July 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Since it's one of the earliest examples we have here, I'll put a date on New Woman, which was Victorian. Wikipedia says it first appeared in print in 1894.

There was a short-lived television show called The New People in 1969, and thanks to the internet, I no longer have to wonder if it was a figment of my imagination (I've never met anyone else who remembers it, but I bet someone here does). It was about a group of people stranded on an island when their plane crashes. None of the older people survive, so it's about young people, college age, trying to create an ideal society, avoiding the mistakes of their parents. One weird thing about it - episodes were 45 minutes long. Here's the 1969 promo. And here's the pilot (written by Rod Serling!).
posted by FencingGal at 5:14 AM on July 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: I feel like Steve Martin referencing Derrida is extremely plausible. I do get the joke, to be clear, was just wondering about the structure and origins of that specific phrase. Thanks for all the answers and the Fanfare link!
posted by Threeve at 5:18 AM on July 29, 2023

I don't know if another example of it in contemporary usage is helpful at this point, but in early 2000s PDX, I recall the resurgence of nose-to-tail butchery/organ meats in restaurants being called (at least in my circles) "the new meat"
posted by dizziest at 5:57 AM on July 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

There are a number of post-War 20th century New Somethings in literary theory:

New Criticism
New Historicism
New Formalism
New Sincerity (less widespread)
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:16 AM on July 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

It's used in the deleted scenes (and the script book, which doesn't have the L'idiot dialogue—so they liked the quip enough to reuse it).
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:31 AM on July 29, 2023

Beck’s The New Pollution
posted by johngoren at 1:14 PM on July 29, 2023

Oh, I thought it was clearly a reference to the deliberate, ostentatious breaking of taboos that accompanied "La Nouvelle Vague" and "La Nouvelle Cuisine". Seems like at least a few other folks agree. Instead of a traditional, posh restaurant where the servers cater to the whims of the elite, the clientele come to be abused. It's not just that you're going against tradition, you're attacking the entire legitimacy and purpose of tradition.

In related topics, I'd throw in "The New Negro", a term that saw its height in the Harlem Renaissance. It was the word for an increasingly urban, educated, outspoken Black populace, not content merely to participate in society but to stand proudly as equal to anyone.
posted by wnissen at 5:02 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]