‘Splain to me why ‘splainin’ is funny out of context

From Guanajuato and Jalisco to Chicago and beyond

Thursday, July 16, 2009

‘Splain to me why ‘splainin’ is funny out of context

I’m not sure whether to be ticked off at Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., or amused, by his questioning Wednesday of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
It was during a line of questioning about a person’s right to defend themselves with a firearm that he wanted to know what she would think if she were in a situation where she grabbed a pistol and shot someone who was trying to hurt her.
IN AN ATTEMPT to find some humor, Coburn morphed into Ricky Ricardo, that nightclub operator husband who loved Lucy so much that he put up with her antics.
As Coburn put it to Sotomayor, “you’ll have lots of ‘splainin’ to do.”
That was usually Desi Arnaz’ line right before he would engage in a rapid-fire diatribe in Spanish that it’s a good thing English-speaking America didn’t fully comprehend what he was saying. Or else that show might have been taken off the air and been long forgotten by now – instead of being remembered as a classic of early television.
I’m inclined to downplay the moment, because of the fact that Sotomayor on Wednesday during her confirmation hearings appeared to find some humor in his third-rate Ricky Ricardo impersonation.
HER RESPONSE TO Coburn? “I’d be in a lot of trouble then.”

It’s just that I always find it a little ridiculous for people to take that line and try to use it to berate someone for something they did. I have lost count of how many people have used it throughout the years. It has become old and moldy, and loses all humor when coming from anyone’s mouth other than Arnaz – who has been gone from this Earth for more than a third of a century.
That line should have died with him.
I wish I could think that a member of the U.S. Senate would be more eloquent than to use someone else’s 50-year-old stock line that has become a virtual cliché.
IN FACT, I wonder at times which line annoys me more – “You’ve got some ‘splainin to do,” or “Go ahead punk, Make my day.” A part of me would like to tell people who use either of these lines under any circumstance to “Eat my shorts.”
Which, come to think of it, probably deserves to be put on the list of annoying stock phrases as well. Sorry, Bart Simpson.
It’s just that a good part of the “humor” in that line was based in the fact that Cuban-born Arnaz, who played the part of Cuban-born Ricardo on the classic television comedy featuring his wife, didn’t exactly speak “the King’s English,” and certainly didn’t speak it in any way recognizable to anyone who did a Southern drawl.
So seeing a man tell his wife she had to explain herself, when he couldn’t exactly pronounce the word “explain” properly, was worth a giggle back in the days before being Cuban someone implied one had the potential to be a Communist.
LIKE I SAID, Sotomayor didn’t seem to take offense. And quite frankly, it is too stupid a moment to get too worked up over.
I’m sure Coburn himself would deny that any offense was intended.
But would Coburn have used such a line if he were trying to politically interrogate any other official? Or did the image of Ricky Ricardo talkin’ funny come to him because his target was a Nuyorican?
The Ricky Ricardo character also lived in New York (even though they moved to California for the final seasons of the show), although not in the Bronx like Sotomayor did growing up.
I’D HATE TO think that he believes all Latinos talk alike. I’m sure on a theoretical level, he realizes they don’t.
But if I had the chance to speak to Coburn (and I’m not in the District of Columbia as I write this, so I’m not in a position to saunter over and try to confront him), I suppose I’d have to ask him to explain himself why he thinks ‘splainin’ is all that funny.
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