'Gremlins' fans call out Tory MP over speech
If you’re going to use Gremlins as a metaphor, you’d better be getting the plot right.
Sadly, this has not proved to be the case for chief secretary to the treasury Liz Truss, who, bizarrely, is being taken to task online over evoking Gizmo in a recent speech.
In attacking environment secretary Michael Gove’s recent announcement to ban plastic straws and curbing the use of wood-burning stoves, Truss used a number of filmic references, among them Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
But it’s the Gremlins reference which she’s being pulled up on, and rightly so.
“Those familiar with the 1984 film Gremlins will recall how the cute Gizmo, when fed after midnight, turned into a slime-soaked baddie Stripe,” she said, accusing Gove of heavy handedness in policy.
“In much the same way, there’s a tendency for governments and bureaucracy to multiply and exert further control. And before you know it, gremlins are everywhere.
“There is a temptation to feed these creatures after midnight.”
Perhaps she’d seen the film recently, which brought it to mind, but if so, she clearly hadn’t been paying careful enough attention to the plot.
As anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the plot of Gremlins will tell you, Gizmo does NOT turn into Stripe. The multiplying part, as hackneyed a metaphor as it is, we can deal with. But not the flagrant factual inaccuracy.
Take it away Twitter…
This is slanderous, Gizmo does not turn into Stripe, he gets wet and multiplies, creating Stripe. Also Gremlins are not slimy, they turn into slime only when they are killed by sunlight or electrocution. If you can't even understand Gremlins, how can you understand governance? https://t.co/APtLDAGy5E
— Institute of Gremlins 2 Studies (@G2Institute) June 26, 2018
The real story here is that the Civil Service has uploaded a revised version of Liz Truss’s speech and it is STILL WRONG ABOUT GREMLINS. https://t.co/quO4eCx1Jp
— James Chalmers (@ProfChalmers) June 26, 2018
Has Liz Truss ever seen a movie?
To get one plot wrong (three billboards) & then get plot of Gremlins wrong suggests a subscription to Netflix is overdue pic.twitter.com/yteP5KfxZ2
— nazir afzal (@nazirafzal) June 26, 2018
Liz Truss can't even get the synopsis of Gremlins right.
— Blerkotron (@Blerkotron) June 26, 2018
Liz Truss has just lost the 80s movie nostalgia vote with this butchering of the Gremlins plot. https://t.co/jAwDEGVuNr
— Alex Spence (@alexGspence) June 26, 2018
The weird thing about Liz Truss getting the plot of Gremlins wrong is that the analogy she goes on to make is dependent on her remembering the plot correctly. https://t.co/p6pSE4dnZB
— James Chalmers (@ProfChalmers) June 26, 2018
With her birthday coming up next month, maybe someone needs to sort her the Blu-ray.
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