About

"Marcia, Marcia Marica" is a memorable quote uttered by the character Jan Brady on the American situational comedy The Brady Bunch. In years since the phrase originated, it has become an expression of jealousy towards another's success. The phrase has also been used to mock those making what some perceive as an illogical or ridiculous argument.

Origin

On November 19th, 1971, the Brady Bunch episode "Her Sister's Shadow" aired.^[1] In the episode, the character Jan complains about her sister Marcia's success (portrayed by Eve Plumb and Maureen McCormick, respectively). She says, "Well all I hear all day long at school is how great Marcia is at this or how wonderful Marcia did that, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!"

Spread

On February 17th, 1995, a film adaptation of the series, The Brady Bunch Movie was released in the United States. In the film, Jan (portrayed by Jennifer Elise Cox) repeats the line (trailer below, left).

On January 17th, 2007, Urban Dictionary ^[2] DennyJr defined the phrase as "A whiny dramatic response by someone who is jealous of another person. The name Marsha could be changed with the name of any person you're mad at. Secondary: Could be used as a sarcastic reply or to make light of a seemingly ridiculous situation." In about 12 years, the post received more than 100 upvotes (shown below, right)

Russia, Russia, Russia!

On September 26th, 2016, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton participated in the first 2016 Presidential Election Debate. During the debate, Clinton accused the Russian government of hacking into the Democratic National Convention's email server, which was later proved by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Trump responded, "She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia. Maybe it was. It could also be China, it could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. You don't know who broke into DNC, but what did we learn? We learn that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people. By Debbie Wasserman Schultz."^[3]

Following the debate, and allegations of the Russian government's interference in the election continued, the phrase "Russia, Russia, Russia" began to be used as a way to dismiss the allegations (examples below).

On May 30th, 2019, Twitter ^[4] user @realDonaldTurmp tweeted, "Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax…And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist. So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media." Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 112,000 likes, 38,000 comments and 26,000 retweets (shown below).

Following the post, people mocked the tweet because Trump seemingly admitted that Russia had helped him win the 2016 election (examples below, left and center).

Twitter user @OhNoSheTwitnt posted a picture of Jan Brady with the caption "Russia, Russia, Russia." the tweet received more than 2,600 likes, 200 retweets and 50 comments in 24 hours (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References