What motivates aliens in movies to say, "Take me to your leader"?

[Boojatta]

To me it sounds like, "Could I please speak with the management?" This raises the question: what kind of potentially deceptive messages about the planet Earth are being sent out throughout the universe that could be giving alien visitors their expectations? After all, people who have no expectations can speak with whoever they come in contact with. They don't have any motivation for seeking to immediately jump to communication with higher authorities.

If aliens have no expectations, then they should say something like this: "Do you live and work here, or are you just a visitor like me?"

[MiddleFingerMom]

1. If only those damned aliens would learn to ENUNCIATE...

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... we probably have been invited to join their damned Federation LONG ago.
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GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU DAMNED ALIEN PUNKS!!!!
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[MrCoffee]

2. Aliens know better than to commence high-level negotiations with the riff-raff

It's all "Can I take your picture for the Enquirer" and "Please don't anal probe me".

[Beer Snob-50]

3. adn teh problem with anal probes are??? nt

[Dr. Strange]

8. MrCoffee had a bad experience with an anal probe.

I don't want to start any rumors, but if you Google "Alex Trebek" + "anal probe" you'll find out a mess of something you'll regret later.

[mitchum]

4. It's their authoritarian nature

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. There's a short story in which the alien tries to communicate with a car

rather than the carbon-based parasite that is infesting it.

[kayakjohnny]

6. I think that they're under the assumption that it's accepted intergalactic protocol to say that....

Not because they believe it per se, but because they've heard it so many times in sci-fi movies and such, that they are willing to go with it from a culturally understood precept.

They realize the phrase has been done to death and that it has a certain universal or even inter-planetary appeal, that they feel certain that the average joe will understand their wishes to 'speak to your supervisor', as it were.

They are cerebral enough to know that it might save time by dropping that well-worn phrase, but savvy enough in my opinion, to understand that it might not result in a meeting with the 'actual leader'.

It's an ice-breaker, of sorts.

Much like when meeting someone new at a party.

[baldguy]

7. Obviously, they want to negotiate a trade deal.

Most civilizations in the Orion Arm of the galaxy think pimento loaf if a delicacy on a par with Beluga caviar. Duh.

[Kali]

9. pretty much what you have to say when you get on the phone with customer service

and since presumably they are more advanced, maybe they just figure the first level of communication is with some outsourced population that can't really accomplish anything useful, so on to the leader/supervisor level

[HopeHoops]

10. Only the dumb ones assume we actually HAVE leaders.

The intelligent ones say, "Take me to your beer, pizza, and strip joint" instead.

[jmowreader]

11. Because it sounds more alienly than them saying...

"Take me to a 19-year-old girl who slings hash at Waffle House for $2.95 an hour."