By Nikki Morris of Funny (For a Girl)
After the Republican National Convention, the masses have appraised Melania Trump as an evil dipshit who thought she could get away with plagiarizing the same speech Michelle Obama made at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. But I think there is more to Melanoma than meets the eye.
When she copied the first lady’s bit about working hard for your dreams? Malaria was employing a high level of tongue-in-cheek irony. She knows the only thing lazier than her speech that night was her left eye.
And kudos, Marijuana, kudos. Why work harder when you can work “smarter”? We can all take a cue from Mesothelioma Trump.
If you have a public speaking engagement coming up, just plagiarize one of these:
1. I Have a Dream
Martin Luther King, Jr. may have delivered “I Have a Dream” to 250,000 listeners at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, but it also works well as a commencement speech for prep-school graduations.
Rich kids tend to be the offspring of the #AllLivesMatter crowd and so they won’t recognize it (on account of being completely ignorant of black history). Just a word of caution, though: If you plagiarize MLK at a prep-school graduation, be sure to replace any mention of “minorities” with the word “money.”
2. JFK’s Inaugural Speech
Kennedy was the first Catholic President, a supporter of the Civil Rights Movement, and a true leader. He encouraged Americans to “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.”
If you are in middle-management at a call center, this is the phrase for you. Everyone at your “team meeting” has stopped paying attention and is instead thinking about which fast food chain they’ll drive through at lunch anyway, so you can totally pull a JFK without them noticing.
3. The Kanye/Taylor VMA Interruption
Sometimes your batshit crazy uncle Larry gets drunk and decides to make a toast at your cousin’s wedding. No one wants that.
Do your duty as maid of honor by grabbing his mic and saying, “Yo Larry, Imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.” The DJ has seen it before. He knows what to do after that: play Single Ladies and watch the lonely bridesmaids wrestle over the bouquet, obviously.
4. Fired Up! Ready to Go!
Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was peppered with a phrase he learned from South Carolina politician, Ms. Edith Child. Ms Edith’s motto is a call-and-respond where one party shouts, “Fired up!” and the other, “Ready to go!”
An appropriate occasion for this is when you need to give a pep talk. Perhaps even a pep talk to yourself…like when you’re about to try for your first shit after a c-section. Part of you fears that bearing down will rip open your delicate incision, but another part of you worries about dying of fecal impaction. Your scar may be fired up, but your bowels are ready to go. Give yourself the old Ms. Edith treatment. You’ll be glad you did.
5. You Complete Me
Maybe you need to apologize to your wife but you aren’t great at expressing matters of the heart. Tom Cruise can help you.
Just look deep into your lover’s eyes and declare, “Tonight our company had a very big night, but it wasn’t complete…because I couldn’t share it with you. I couldn’t hear your voice or laugh about it with you. I miss my–I miss my wife. We live in a cynical world, a cynical world, and we work in a business of tough competitors. I love you. You complete me.”
The whole thing is nonsense, but it doesn’t matter. Your wife just wants you to admit you were wrong.
6. Every Scooby Doo End-of-Episode Speech
Have you been caught red-handed? Perhaps your children saw you swig a shot of whiskey from behind the kitchen door. Or maybe they outed you in front of your horrible mother-in-law for calling her a “hateful bitch” behind her back.
That’s the right time for an old-fashioned Scooby Doo scolding: “I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you meddling kids.”
7. Braveheart
Braveheart came out in the late 1990s, before the world knew Mel Gibson was a xenophobic dickhead. In the film, a blue-faced, mulleted Mel rallied the Scottish clans and declared, “Would you trade your life to come back for one day? One day to tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!”
This speech happens to be on the docket for The Donald’s next presidential debate. I’m told he’s taking advice from his dear friend, Mr Gibson, and has googled a tiny-mustached leader from 1940s Germany for pointers on how to work a crowd (there will be a lot of podium pounding and sharp, staccato head nodding involved.)
Don’t let stage fright get you down at your next special occasion. Take a page from Donald and Meningitis Trump’s speech team–by taking an actual page from someone else’s famous speech.
*****
About the Author
Nikki Morris is a working mom from the great state of Texas. She loves hemming, hawing, and cynicism. At the risk of sounding braggy, she has written for various sites on The Internet. You can find her blogging at Funny (For a Girl) and you can follow her on Facebook.