Original artwork, not a still
He's a real gentleman, I bet he takes the dishes out of the sink before he pees in it.
— Steel Magnolias • 1989
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The line shows Ouiser's whole character in one sentence: gruff, furious and funny, praising a man as a gentleman while picturing the worst of him. It is the film's best-known example of the Southern put-down, polite on the surface and brutal underneath, and it is still quoted whenever someone is called a gentleman with heavy irony.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for Steel MagnoliasShow the scene
In Steel Magnolias (1989), set in a small Louisiana parish, the morning of Shelby's wedding finds her father Drum firing a gun of blanks to scare birds out of the trees before the reception. Grouchy Ouiser Boudreaux, who calls Drum "a boil on the butt of humanity", marches into Truvy's beauty salon to complain to his wife M'Lynn that Drum fired at her. M'Lynn and Shelby both reassure her that the shots are blanks and that Drum would never aim a gun at a lady. Ouiser fires back with this dry crack about what kind of gentleman he really is, then turns to the nervous new girl Annelle and demands to know who she is.
Sources (3)
- Wikipedia: Steel MagnoliasPlot, openingReference checked
- Wikiquote: Steel MagnoliasDialogue at the salonReference checked
- Springfield! Springfield! script for Steel MagnoliasSalon sceneReference checked
Context reviewed
