X is the Y of Z

“X is the Y of Z” is a snowclone–an adaptable, Mad Libs-like idiom like “May I compare thee to an X?”, “X is the new Y,” and “I for one welcome our new X overlords.” This snowclone touches on every subject imaginable, including music. So without further adieu, today’s topic is…

Cher

As a wee lad, I never realized I had a gay uncle, but his plethora of Cher albums should have tipped me off… Alas, I was too young to realize Cher fandom was a crucial element in calibrating what scholars now call “gaydar”. My Star-Wars-merchandise-dar was the only dar that functioned. To use an idiom I’ve written about elsewhere, I’d gladly have gay-married the Millennium Falcon.

Having a gay following is only one part of the package of meanings wrapped around Cher’s name: career longevity, inexplicable success, frequent retirements, having one name, and being briefly wedded to Gregg Allman are all part of the package, which I now present to you, so that when the Cher of yada yada does whatever to your blah-blah, you’ll be prepared.

“Popular culture consumers are a generous and forgetful bunch. Something can disappear, then come back the same but different, and it’ll seem like it never left. Certain entertainers, like Cher, have that kind of crowd-pleasing durability. So, too, does the ‘Rush Hour’ franchise. These movies are the Cher of cartoonish action-comedies: hard to embarrass and probably not biodegradable.”

(June 26, 2009, Ultimate Place for Latest Movies Online)

“One Tree Hill is the Cher of CW shows, except I like Cher. What is it with that show, anyway?”

(May 21, 2009, What’s Alan Watching?)

“Now, most well-mannered dessert fads would have gracefully accepted their fate by now, but fro yo has miraculously managed to dust its chalky-ass self off in time for another round as our favorite ‘food of the future.’ And really, would we expect anything less from the Cher of dessert fads? After all, this is a food which, despite having always been somewhat weird, only very questionably healthy, and perpetually overpriced—spawned several competing national chains for decades.”

(May 7, 2009, Tiny Jean Jackets Everywhere Twitching)

“Secondly, I turn to Scott, the Cher of discriminating Dallas diners. Scott runs Dallasfood.org, where a tough group of hard-to-please palates lurks behind scary avatars. Scott has a review of Lito’s, a small Mexican spot on Jefferson. If the words don’t make you hungry, the pictures will.”

(April 9, 2009, Nancy Nichols, SideDish)

“Spinal Tarp, er, Tap, are the Cher of semi-fictional rock bands. Or in the semi-fictional words of bassist Derek Smalls himself: ‘If you let the worm grow long enough, it’s going to turn. That’s what’s happened to us.’”

(March 3, 2009, Siran Babayan, LA Weekly)

“Nitrogen, was Atomic Number 7, and was one of the Cher of elements, needing only one letter in its symbolic name – N – unlike nouveau elements like Ununoctium which is so new that it still has a temporary name and a three-letter symbol, Uuo.”

(Jan. 23, 2009, Palm Beach Bike Tours)

“@Jeff G: Great…we have the ‘Cher’ of crackheads to look forward to.”

(Jan. 15, 2009, Celebitchy)

“Excited? Of course you are. So let’s get started with a singularly-named beverage, the Cher of the Asian drink market… Aloe:”

(April 7, 2008, Zombie Fights Shark)

“Filene’s: The Cher of Boston department stores?”

(May 25, 2006, James Gordon, Universal Hub)

“He’s kind of like the Cher of professional wrestling. I don’t know how many ‘Farewell Tours’ Cher has done over the past years, I’ve simply lost count. The same goes for Hogan, how many times have the fans expected this match, or this match, or this match, to be Hogan’s last? He just keeps going and going and going.”

(April 19, 2005, Pro Wrestling Source)

Mark Peters is a language columnist and humorist who writes for Good, Visual Thesaurus and other mags, while maintaining too many blogs, including Wordlustitude, The Rosa Parks of Blogs, and The Pancake Proverbs.

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