The Milkshake Line

As I've probably mentioned before, I'm not fond of posting articles lifted from other places around the net, although I do so on occasion. Usually, as I peruse the news of the day, and the opinions of others, I have thoughts that diverge, an opinion takes shape and then I write a stupid little observation on here. But Josh Ozersky writes so painfully well about There Will Be Blood's soon to be ubiquitous line, "I drink your milkshake!" that I'm just going to cut and paste it here. It helps that he's right. As famous lines quoted out of context go, the milkshake line is unique. It also happens to come from one of the most riveting, beautiful and strangely romantic movies ever made. When I saw it again last night, I felt that I was watching an artist struggling to compose a life as one would a masterpiece; passion, conviction and a god-like ego.

Anyway, read this, I urge you.

Grub Street's Josh Ozersky writes:

We have no doubt that “I drink your milkshake,” the volcanically dramatic, mind-bendingly cool line with which Daniel Plainview devastates his enemy in There Will Be Blood's final sequence, will soon enter the pop-culture catchphrase lexicon, nestling alongside such former lazy-writer tropes as “I see dead people,” “Say hello to my little friend,” “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,” and all the rest. Personally, we would like to see a federal law passed preventing this from happening. “I drink your milkshake” has such Dickensian grandeur that its miniaturization in the mouths of SportsCenter anchors, scab gag writers, bloggers, and their ilk is practically a national tragedy. Nonetheless, if somebody is going to do it, it’s going to be us. The question is, what is its proper use? What situation demands the milkshake treatment?

As a sports metaphor? (“Let’s face it. The Celtics drank the Knicks’ milkshake last night.”) An amorphously obscene double entendre, hearkening back to its Kelis-ian roots? (“I’d like to drink your milkshake!”) Or maybe, in a nod to the godlike venom of its utterer, a taunt: “You best back down before I drink your milkshake, bitch.” In the end, none of these seem quite right, especially as they all omit the special genius of the line’s coda, a burst of half-mad juvenilia that captures the demented feeling of the scene better even than the line itself: “I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!” Because the child is the father of the man, and the milkshake too. —Josh Ozersky