Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu movies. So camp…So good…So racially stereotyped.
I think that you’d be hard pressed to find a movie from the 70’s or earlier that would be made now without significant alterations. Maybe a few Hitchcock pictures, But then you’d need a director for better sensibilities as Hitchcock seems to have badly mistreated many actors, especially the females.
But people today will not sit still for a slow developing plot. The movies pulling in audiences are all superheroes, fast and furious and the like.
And she was up against Olivia De Havilland.
I honestly don’t know how accurate the dialects were in Gone with the Wind, but it would be unfortunate if we couldn’t create a historically accurate film IMO.
I think the bigger issue might be finding actors willing to portray black confederate soldiers.
Yeah, you didn’t really see much of the slave quarters in the film. Or much ill treatment of the slaves. I think Scarlett talks about whipping Prissy for lying about knowing how to deliver babies. Certainly nothing about the difference in food.
I liked that aspect of Downton Abbey… the family was eating their fancy food upstairs in the dining room and the staff was downstairs eating a stew. I liked the scene after Edith was left at the alter and Cora asked to switch meals. The family would eat the stew meant for the servants and the servants could have the lavish wedding reception food.
I was about to protest “until he marries Scarlett” but I guess that was after the war was over, so we must assume that Mammy was their employee at that point.
A bunch of racist and/or misogystic shit.
The interesting question is what movies made now couldn’t be made back then.
I guess it depends on when “then” is.
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner was considered groundbreaking at the time, but Sidney Poitier & Katharine Houghton never even kiss on screen. (Well, the opening scene we’re made to think they’re kissing in the taxi, but you don’t really see them kissing.)
Contrast that with, say, Kevin Costner & Whitney Houston shown passionately kissing and later in bed together in The Bodyguard. I don’t know how far back you’d have to go before that would have been too taboo to show…
The key to this thread is what would the corporate advertisers and the studios fund. Because that’s what keeps shit from being made. The money. It’s America after all and profit is king. Why risk the profit if you know you will offend.
Sure. So how far back would you have to go before the scenes in The Bodyguard were too risqué for the studios?
Sometime after 1967, but no later than 1992… a 25 year window.
The Bodyguard is studio shit. What about the HBO portfolio of art.
The Wire
The Sopranos
The Game of Thrones.
Could those of been made earlier?
We keep moving to a more accepting, open society but the closed-minded old fucks that can’t let go of their tiered society world view can’t accept that they can’t punch down for comedy. Someone mentioned All in The Family. Could it have been made ten years earlier? Did Archie ever apologize for being a bigot even when shown he was wrong? It was a transitional show, like Soap, and Hill Street Blues, and Murphy Brown. Hell, Golden Girls was transitional in its own way.
That is the nature of art, to reveal truth. So many, so very many struggle with the truth that is revealed.
Get over your god damned feelings. Humans are humans. Equal, beautiful, ugly. Comedy and insight should be found in the reveal of the universal truths we face as humans not the differences. If you can’t see past the differences yer just a hack.
that is TV, not movies
before cable, no. As soon as there was Pay TV, there was sex and nudity. Network hasn’t changed. It took a new vehicle
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I hear your point, but that’s a different trend
But these days almost everything is bound to offend one faction or another. So it’s not a matter of avoiding risk, but rather taking a calculated risk based on one’s own priorities and on which faction is most feared.
inb4 actuarial quip about risk
“Almost everything” offending one faction or another has always been the case. In the past many of the factions didn’t have a voice, now they do.
Possibly, but there’s no way to know what every faction has thought all through history. I think you are imposing your own judgment about what people should have been offended by.
Just pointing out the obvious suppression of groups.
And what does this even mean?
“I think you are imposing your own judgment about what people should have been offended by.”
I’d expect nothing less.
I mean, I think you are looking at things now and deciding there’s good reason for certain factions to be offended by them (which I’d probably agree with), then concluding that those same factions were, in fact, offended when the thing premiered, which may have been the case, but it’s not a certainty.
Thank you for the clarification. Yes, there is a degree of assumption between what offends a group today probably offended the same/similar group in the past. It does ignore the pervasiveness of greater offense within society at the time. For example, it is tough to voice your offence with (or be concerned with) a racial portrayal in a movie when the offense of needing to avoid beatings, arrests, and murder are part of your daily life.
When it comes to mistreatment I totally agree with offensive now offensive then (to the mistreated). What about something that may have been stereotyping, but viewed as a positive characteristic, or “cool” behavior at the time? Is such a category an empty set in your view?
The simple answer. There are rarely empty sets when it comes to humans and human behavior.
To get to a better answer I reread the thread. It’s a tough question to answer. I’m going to categorize some things just so I don’t, we don’t, start mixing the peas with the potatoes so to speak. Note “Then” is a moving scale, “Now” is a fixed point at time of writing (or reading I guess).
- Good then, Good now.
- Good then, Bad now.
- Bad then, Good now.
- Bad then, Bad now.
When I hear or read phrases like “movies that couldn’t be made today” it is often portrayed in the context of either “look how bad what we thought was good in the past was” or in the context of “we (or those people) are too sensitive.” The look what was good but now is bad is a fairly simple review, not a bad exercise but not particularly revealing. It can be overly sensitive with conclusions that go astray such as pointing out a particular actor as racist as measured by todays standard rather than by the standard of the society they performed in.
The answer to the question of are we too sensitive now such that things that should be made can’t be made is I don’t think so. Fragmentation within society and media consumption does create insular groups. Often these groups become outspoken about how their beliefs need to be applied to the greater whole. My guess for each group some points are valid, some points are not (a nice wishy washy noncommittal answer to avoid judgement of any group and the loss of the thread to tangents). The reporting and opinion media companies (talking heads) benefit from the conflict between groups, so that is what we hear. The reason I don’t think we are too sensitive is because we are hearing all the voices from all the different groups. I do not want to silence groups, even bad groups, simply because it makes it harder for entertainers to entertain. (see footnote)
Another factor in this equation is the changing nature of movies and entertainment media. American consumers watch movies at home and have a greater choice of productions and sources. Large studio movies rely heavily on overseas markets to generate profits. Low budget movies can be made well due to technology improvements. the streaming service model allows cater to taste choices rather than a few dozen big movies you have to pick from. All those types of changes drive the major productions, the biggest movies, to be blander so they appeal to the widest audience.
Footnote: I am not a fan of our current marketplace of ideas. The trying to shout the loudest is driven by the beak down of the basic structure needed to communicate and weigh the pros and cons of any idea. We do not readily distinguish between what is fact, what is fiction, what is opinion what is a conclusion, or what is a belief.
I was thinking about this thread the other day when I got to thinking about the movie All of Me with Lily Tomlin and Steve Martin.
I wonder if such a movie could be made today . . . or made with the “positions” switched.
Song of the South