Leo Varadkar has defended his use of a Mean Girls quote during his address to the nation last Friday.
The Taoiseach appeared on RTÉ’s Prime Time last night, and was grilled on whether he thought using the quote was appropriate.
Prime Time host David McCullagh asked him: “At a time when people are looking to you as Taoiseach for leadership, do you really think its appropriate to be using a speech to quote teen movies as an in-joke with an actor?”
Leo responded: “I think any quote is appropriate if it’s appropriate in its context whether it was written in a movie or by a poet.”
"I think any quote is appropriate if it's appropriate in its context" Taoiseach Leo Varadkar discusses the use of film quotes in his Covid-19 speeches#RTEPT | @mcculld | @LeoVaradkar | #Covid19 pic.twitter.com/KiAzVK1Gs1
— RTÉ Prime Time (@RTE_PrimeTime) June 23, 2020
The host continued to grill Leo by asking: “So the quote ‘the limit does not exist’ which I believe is from the movie Mean Girls, that was appropriate for use?”
“Yeah in the context,” the Taoiseach responded, “It was the context of our ambitions as a country and I know that some people may be snobbish about those things, that a quote from a movie is different to a quote from a poet or a great author like yourself, but I don’t see it that way.”
David stated although it was a “trivial issue”, he highlighted the fact that many people have died in the pandemic, and some have had their livelihoods destroyed.
Leo Varadkar ends lockdown with a quote from Mean Girls: “That limit does not exist.”
After his plagiarism of Lord of the Rings, actor @SeanAstin (AKA Samwise Gamgee) dared him to do Mean Girls next. pic.twitter.com/Y3RwNCCdFa
— Kevin Doyle (@KevDoyle_Indo) June 19, 2020
Leo replied: “I’ve used quotes that I identified with that I think explain some of the feelings that [families that are grieving and people out of work] are having and the darkness around that.”
David finished by asking was the quote not a “distraction” from the serious message he was trying to get across.
Leo responded: “I think it’s a distraction for some people but not for me.”
On this week’s episode of #GossChats – Ali Ryan chats to Aoife Walsh.
The former Miss Ireland opens up about postponing her wedding, being apart from her fiancé, and the lessons she has learned during lockdown.
#GossChats is sponsored by top Irish aesthetic clinic Haus of JeJuve.
