18/05/2023
“Geronimo!”
For the record…I love Hot Shots and this isn’t slander toward that movie. Hot Shots Part Duex, Top Secret, Airplane, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Space Balls, and Loaded Weapon 1 all informed/raised me.
This was the funniest instance of “Geronimo” I could find.
Jumping out of a plane, bungee jumping or leaping off a cliff into water…for a long time was accompanied with the phrase “Geronimo!”
A term blurted out to signal bravery and rising to the occasion aka, “F**k it!”
Where did this come from and of all words to elicit spontaneous bravery…why Geronimo?
Multiple anecdotes attest that it was either spawned from an army parachute test platoon at Fort Benning, after a screening of the movie Geronimo (1939). The parachute had just been approved for troop drops so there was naturally a sense of fear tied to jumping out of an airplane. But instead of barbaric yelling, the troops defaulted to yelling “Geronimo”…based on a movie and what was portrayed.
While a few other origin stories exist for this phenomenon, it proves the point that representation matters. Even in the face of death when people who know nothing about Apache culture or a historical figure like Geronimo, a movie can inform and influence to the point where your last words could potentially be, “Geronimo” as you plummet to your death.
However it lasted for years and the truth as to why we say it is still debated…think about that the next time you see someone yell “Geronimo!”
