"When I die, if the word 'thong' appears in the first or second sentence of my obituary, I've screwed up"
About this Quote
Mortality is supposed to sandpaper your priorities down to something noble. Albert Brooks, being Albert Brooks, uses it to panic about underwear.
The line works because it treats “legacy” like a public-relations problem with one humiliating keyword. Obituaries are cultural résumé-writing at gunpoint: a final attempt to control the narrative from beyond the grave. Brooks knows you can do serious work for decades and still get flattened by one tawdry anecdote, one stray tabloid detail, one late-night bit that metastasizes into your defining trait. “Thong” is funny not because it’s inherently scandalous, but because it’s trivial and vivid. It’s the kind of word that instantly re-colors a whole life story, dragging it from “respected comic actor” to “guy with a weird thong thing.”
The subtext is a very Brooks-ian fear: not death itself, but indignity and misinterpretation. His persona has always hinged on the anxious middle-class male trying to behave correctly while the world keeps dangling the wrong prop in front of him. Here, the prop is a single, loud noun that would hijack the tone of a supposedly solemn genre. He’s making a joke about tasteful remembrance, but also about the merciless economy of attention: you don’t get remembered for what you meant; you get remembered for what’s clickable.
It’s also a sly confession about celebrity aging. When you’ve spent a career satirizing ego, you still want the last word to be clean, adult, and controlled. Brooks admits, with a wince, that control is exactly what you lose.
The line works because it treats “legacy” like a public-relations problem with one humiliating keyword. Obituaries are cultural résumé-writing at gunpoint: a final attempt to control the narrative from beyond the grave. Brooks knows you can do serious work for decades and still get flattened by one tawdry anecdote, one stray tabloid detail, one late-night bit that metastasizes into your defining trait. “Thong” is funny not because it’s inherently scandalous, but because it’s trivial and vivid. It’s the kind of word that instantly re-colors a whole life story, dragging it from “respected comic actor” to “guy with a weird thong thing.”
The subtext is a very Brooks-ian fear: not death itself, but indignity and misinterpretation. His persona has always hinged on the anxious middle-class male trying to behave correctly while the world keeps dangling the wrong prop in front of him. Here, the prop is a single, loud noun that would hijack the tone of a supposedly solemn genre. He’s making a joke about tasteful remembrance, but also about the merciless economy of attention: you don’t get remembered for what you meant; you get remembered for what’s clickable.
It’s also a sly confession about celebrity aging. When you’ve spent a career satirizing ego, you still want the last word to be clean, adult, and controlled. Brooks admits, with a wince, that control is exactly what you lose.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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