Girlie men is a pejorative term that was notably used by former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to characterize opponents in the state legislature of California over the state budget. History of the phrase Schwarzenegger borrowed the term from a series of Saturday Night Live sketches in which Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon played bodybuilders named Hans and Franz, large men with Austrian accents. The two characters, for comic reasons, were characterized as cousins of Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger's usage The term was first used by Schwarzenegger, who was accompanied by then Vice President George H. W. Bush, in the 1988 presidential election. He attacked Bush's opponents: "They all look like a bunch of girlie men, right?" He repeated it in the 1992 election, then campaigning for President Bush, again applying it to the Democratic candidates, as seen in the 1992 documentary Feed by Kevin Rafferty and James Ridgeway. He used the phrase again on July 17, 2004: "If they don't have the guts to come up here in front of you and say, 'I don't want to represent you, I want to represent those special interests, the unions, the trial lawyers ... ' if they don't have the guts, I call them girlie men." He would use the term twice in the speech. Schwarzenegger would later use the term again at the 2004 Republican National Convention, where he implored the audience not to be pessimistic about the economy, saying "Don't be economic girlie men." Schwarzenegger was criticized by various gay rights and feminist groups. California State Senator Sheila Kuehl, who is a member of the legislature's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus, claimed that the governor had resorted to "blatant homophobia", stating that the phrase "uses an image that is associated with gay men in an insulting way, and it was supposed to be an insult. That's very troubling that he would use such a homophobic way of trying to put down legislative leadership." Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, said he was not upset by the remark but that his 13-year-old daughter was. "She's a young girl who knows the governor and really likes him a lot and didn't find the term to be a positive term, and finds it to be derogatory," Nunez said. "It was no question a very, very insensitive comment to make. I personally am not intimidated or threatened by it, but I think it really is beneath Gov.