In the trailer for The Bounty Hunter, Jennifer Aniston delivers two lines in under three seconds that resonate with as much subtlety as a klaxon. As she's being bundled into a car trunk by Gerard Butler—a scene that the studio allowed to be photographed when it was being shot way back in August and then leaked for some cheap-and-cheerful tabloid publicity along the lines of "Jennifer Aniston Gets Dumped In Car Boot By Costar Gerard Butler!"—she yells, "You have got to be kidding me! You are not serious!" (Check it out at 00:38–00:41.)
It is the most disingenuous movie reaction to being thrown into the boot of a car that I believe has ever been committed to film. And the most desperate attempt to seem "current" and "cool." For some reason, sometime in the early 00s, young folks started rejecting the contraction and began channeling John McEnroe circa 1981: Everything became "do not!" this and "you have got to" that. Once upon a time, people were content to say "You're kidding" when they couldn't quite believe what they were hearing. Then that morphed into "You're kidding me!", as if all that kidding had suddenly become, like, personal—You're not just KIDDING, but you're kidding ME!
Now, however, you're not just kidding me, but you have GOT to be KIDDING me. You're not simply not serious anymore; you are NOT serious (alternatives include You canNOT be SERIOUS and its nervous cousin, Seriously?). The emphasis and the attitude often involve an arched eyebrow, a straight face and, according to my informal observations, were pioneered by Chandler Bing. With his trademark deadpan delivery, Matthew Perry imbued his lines with a slightly off-kilter sarcastic twist—"And I'm supposed to care... because?"—that swept through the mainstream like H1N1 and that we now hear echoed ad infinitum on The Office and Saturday Night Live and ads for Verizon. The language has repeatedly come out of the mouths of babes on The Hills and Gossip Girls alike, and contestants on Project Runway, and the likes of Seth Rogen and Michael Cera, and every stock stroppy teenager and disaffected hipster featured in any current sitcom or TV commercial you care to name. And as the years go by, the trend keeps growing stronger.
Maybe it's an affectation of the now-universal Valley Speak, or post-ironic posturing, but whatever it is and wherever it came from, it has simply got to stop. Lines like "You have got to be kidding me! You are not serious!" are a poor excuse for dialogue by now—especially for a 41-year-old like Jennifer Aniston. They are officially old-hat. And they need to be retired, along with "You got that right!"; "Let's do this!"; and the old chestnut, "That's what I'm talking about!" (aka "That's what I'm talking about!") It was cute when Will Smith popularized it in Men in Black. That was way back in 1997. It's time to move on. Seriously.
