the call is coming from inside the house

English

Etymology

A classic horror-movie cliché. The line was first used in the 1974 horror film Black Christmas.

Pronunciation

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Phrase

the call is coming from inside the house

1. (idiomatic) A problem is the result of internal factors or agents, and is not the result of outside influence or interference.

   The government has blamed the recent unrest on foreign agitation, but they'll soon realize that the call is coming from inside the house.

   • 2020, David Bond, “A House Divided: Ben Lerner’s America”, in Anthropology Now‎^[1]:

     The groundwork of Trumpism was laid not by foreign tinkering or stratospheric inequality but in the barbed souls of young white men coming of age in the 1990s. The call is coming from inside the house.

   • 2020, Douglas Almond, Xinming Du, and Alana Vogel, “Russian Holidays Predict Troll Activity 2015-2017”, in National Bureau of Economic Research‎^[2]:

     As the New Yorker recently put it, the impactful IRA narrative may be an “overly convenient” explanation for our home-grown problems and: What if, to borrow an old horror-movie trope, the call is coming from inside the house?

   • 2021 December 14, Paul Elliott Johnson, I the People: The Rhetoric of Conservative Populism in the United States, University of Alabama Press, →ISBN, page 228:

     But this is no takeover: the call is coming from inside the house. What folks call “alt-Right” simply names a spirit lurking in American conservatism.

   • 2022, Elizabeth Popp Berman, Thinking like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 223:

     In contrast to accounts that see the changes of the 1970s as something “done to” the state by outside actors, whether intellectual movements or political interest groups, in this story the call is coming from inside the house.

   • 2022 May 13, Andrew Parkin, “Forget Ottawa — Albertans growing alienated from their own leaders, too”, in CBC News‎^[3], archived from the original on 2023-09-29:

     But what stands out most right now is that it is a region marked by growing dissatisfaction with their provincial governments as well. With western alienation, the call is coming from inside the house.

2. (idiomatic, informal) Used to accuse someone of being hypocritical; look who's talking!

   You're always complaining that she's too self-centred. Dude, the call is coming from inside the house!

   • 2022 May 11, David B. Gowler, “Marjorie Taylor Greene's version of Christianity is a massive betrayal of the teachings of Jesus”, in Salon.com‎^[4], archived from the original on 2024-01-12:

     Greene accuses the very people who strive to follow the teachings of Jesus as being directed by forces of evil. Perhaps it is too much to expect anything better from someone who, because of her recent court testimony, some have started calling "Perjury Taylor Greene," but I would argue, as they say in horror movies, that the call is coming from inside the house. Evil — or "Satan," if you prefer — is present in such words of hatred, fear and deception.

   • 2022 October 31, CT Jones, “’I’m Not Going Anywhere’: Dylan Mulvaney Gives a Masterclass in Grace After Caitlyn Jenner’s Transphobic Comments”, in Rolling Stone‎^[5], New York, N.Y.: Penske Media Corporation, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-11-23:

     Transgender TikToker Dylan Mulvaney wants Caitlyn Jenner to know the call is coming from inside the house. On Sunday night, Mulvaney dedicated Day 233 of her "Days of Girlhood" Tiktok series directly to Jenner after the Olympian recently echoed several transphobic and harmful remarks about Mulvaney and her appearance on social media. In the video, Mulvaney called herself and Jenner "two of the most privileged trans women in America at the moment" and asked Jenner to stop using her Republican-given platform to "publicly degrade" the trans community.

See also

• pot calling the kettle black