"People hate me because I am a multifaceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius"
About this Quote
A joke and a dare, the line flaunts ego as armor while baiting the audience to test it. Jerry Lewis built a career on that tension. He was the manic child and the bossy adult in one body, the rubber-faced clown who also demanded to be recognized as an auteur. Calling himself a multifaceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius is both boast and bit, the kind of hyperbolic self-introduction that dares you to laugh, then asks if your laughter is envy, prudery, or genuine critique.
The phrasing maps neatly onto his career. Multifaceted: nightclub act with Dean Martin, solo slapstick star, writer-director of The Bellboy, The Ladies Man, and The Nutty Professor, technical innovator of the video assist system, tireless television presence, and crusading telethon host. Wealthy and internationally famous: adored by mass audiences, canonized by French critics as a film artist, and at times dismissed in the U.S. as corny or self-indulgent. Genius: a word he did not hesitate to claim, and one that needle-pricks American unease with unmasked ambition.
The line also plays as defensive rhetoric. By insisting that people hate him because of his greatness, he flips criticism into proof of merit. That move reframes detractors as resentful rather than discerning, a classic showbiz maneuver that protects the performer from vulnerability. Yet there is comic self-awareness in the exaggeration; the persona of Lewis often exaggerated everything, from a pratfall to a claim of supremacy, to expose the awkwardness of admiration and the sourness of resentment.
Context deepens the irony. He sought respect as a serious director while cultivating broad sentimentality; he raised vast sums for charity while weathering accusations of self-aggrandizement and outdated attitudes. The provocation captures that duality. It is a laugh line with a burr: a self-portrait of the artist as both needy and imperious, aware that fame invites hostility, and determined to turn even hostility into material for performance.
The phrasing maps neatly onto his career. Multifaceted: nightclub act with Dean Martin, solo slapstick star, writer-director of The Bellboy, The Ladies Man, and The Nutty Professor, technical innovator of the video assist system, tireless television presence, and crusading telethon host. Wealthy and internationally famous: adored by mass audiences, canonized by French critics as a film artist, and at times dismissed in the U.S. as corny or self-indulgent. Genius: a word he did not hesitate to claim, and one that needle-pricks American unease with unmasked ambition.
The line also plays as defensive rhetoric. By insisting that people hate him because of his greatness, he flips criticism into proof of merit. That move reframes detractors as resentful rather than discerning, a classic showbiz maneuver that protects the performer from vulnerability. Yet there is comic self-awareness in the exaggeration; the persona of Lewis often exaggerated everything, from a pratfall to a claim of supremacy, to expose the awkwardness of admiration and the sourness of resentment.
Context deepens the irony. He sought respect as a serious director while cultivating broad sentimentality; he raised vast sums for charity while weathering accusations of self-aggrandizement and outdated attitudes. The provocation captures that duality. It is a laugh line with a burr: a self-portrait of the artist as both needy and imperious, aware that fame invites hostility, and determined to turn even hostility into material for performance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Sarcastic |
|---|
More Quotes by Jerry
Add to List
