“Go ahead, make my day.”

DIRTY HARRY’S LEGENDARY CATCHPHRASE: “Go ahead, make my day.”        Clint Eastwood        American actor, director and producer        His legendary quote as the tough police officer “Dirty Harry” Callahan, in the film Sudden Impact (1983)         Harry utters these words in an early scene in the movie, during which he thwarts the attempted robbery of a restaurant by four armed thugs. He shoots and kills three of the would-be robbers and wounds another. The wounded thug grabs a waitress and points a gun at her head, thinking it will make Harry back off and let him escape. Harry calmly points his big .44 Magnum pistol at the thug and says: “Go ahead, make my day.” It clearly implies that Harry would enjoy killing him, too, if the thug provided an excuse by continuing to threaten the waitress. After pondering the remark and the steely look on Harry’s face, the thug drops his gun and surrenders.        The huge popularity of Sudden Impact made “Go ahead, make my day” a world famous catchphrase that has been used ever since, usually as a sarcastic taunt. One of the most noted uses was by President Ronald Reagan, who said in a speech on March 13, 1985: “I have my veto pen drawn and ready for any tax increase that Congress might even think of sending up. And I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers: Go ahead, make my day.”        Saying that something “made my/his/her day” — either as expression of true happiness or as a sardonic way of indicating displeasure — predates Sudden Impact. “Go ahead, make my day” was probably also used occasionally before 1983. But the movie made it a common, oft-heard idiom. Many sources attribute the inclusion of the line in Sudden Impact to Charles B. Pierce, who received a “story by” credit in the film. Pierce claimed he adapted it from a warning his father gave him frequently when he was growing up.

A RECENT USE RELATED TO A SUPREME COURT CASE: “Clint Eastwood: Go ahead, make my gay friends happy by allowing them to get married.”        Headline for a story posted on the Conservative website DailyCaller.com on Feb. 28, 2013        This snarky post lamented the fact that Eastwood was one of dozens of prominent Republicans who signed a legal brief urging the US Supreme Court to strike down Prop 8, the California ballot initiative that banned gay marriage, and affirm that marriage is a basic matter of equal rights under the US Constitution. In a landmark decision issued on June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court did just that, making it a banner day for all people who supported marriage equality.          Eastwood eloquently expressed his personal views on same sex marriage and people who opposed it in an interview published in the October 2011 issue of GQ magazine. He told GQ: “These people who are making a big deal out of gay marriage? I don’t give a fuck about who wants to get married to anybody else! Why not?! We’re making a big deal out of things we shouldn't be making a deal out of...They go on and on with all this bullshit about ‘sanctity’— don't give me that sanctity crap! Just give everybody the chance to have the life they want.”

A MOVIE LINE THAT’S READS FUNNIER THAN IT IS ON SCREEN: “Go ahead, make me gay.”        The catchphrase of “Flirty Harry”        Flirty Harry, originally a minor character in The Underground Comedy Movie (1999), was resurrected and made a lead character in the more recent film, InAPPropriate Comedy (2013), both of which were directed by comedian Vince Offer.        Offer played Harry in The Underground Comedy Movie. Actor Adrien Brody is Harry in InAPPropriate Comedy.        Both films were panned by critics and bombed at the box office.

THE HELL’S KITCHEN VARIATION: “Go ahead, make my dinner!”        An icanhascheezburger.com version featuring the world’s toughest chef, Gordon Ramsay.

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