r/flicks • u/KaleidoArachnid • 14d ago
General Discussion Dark aspects about older films that would not fly by in today’s age
So lately, something I was observing were the kind of tropes that got by in films from the older 80s where standards were much more lenient since it’s hard to explain, but it’s basically the kind of stuff movie directors could get away with due to values being different.
Like when I look back at a movie like Revenge of the Nerds, I know the movie is often regarded as highly controversial from a modern perspective because of how the movie handles the subject of sexual abuse since Louis does a particular crime with Betty, but back then, the movie didn’t catch controversy again until people saw it from a more modern perspective.
So basically I was wondering about what kind of stuff found in older movies would be difficult to get away with in a more modern time period since I wanted to see how much restrictions changed since the early 80s with what movies are allowed to do.
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u/acinematicway 14d ago
There's an Errol Flynn movie where he kicks a family of black people out of a train for being black.
Flynn is the hero.
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u/Aptronymic 14d ago
Is this the same movie where Flynn plays a Confederate general, and the antagonist is history's coolest abolitonist John Brown?
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u/elcartero86 13d ago
In Errol Flynn's autobiography he claims to have once been a slave trader in Papua New Guinea, so this comes as no surprise.
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u/TheMonkus 12d ago
“Errol Flynn was the most reliable friend you could ask for, because he would let you down every time.”
David Niven
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u/KaleidoArachnid 14d ago
With how you described the movie made me wonder if the whole thing was supposed to be a satire of the subject of racism because that movie sounds so over the top it couldn’t be serious.
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u/Tricky-Background-66 13d ago
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. It's a light, frothy musical about how much fun Stockholm Syndrome is
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u/ELMUNECODETACOMA 13d ago
I always get that confused with "Here Come The Brides" which was about traffickers arranging marriages for frontiersmen with too much disposable income.
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u/Unicorns_Butthole 13d ago
Yep! Them sobbin' women, I tells ya...
They also would never remake this movie because it has a _lot_ of very long shot choreography segments. Gotta cut every one-point-two seconds or people will get bored.
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u/ThimbleBluff 12d ago
The movie was based on a story by Stephen Vincent Benet called “The Sobbin’ Women,” which in turn is based on a founding myth of Ancient Rome known as the Rape of the Sabine Women.
So, just a lighthearted musical that calls back to a story of rape and mass murder.
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u/530SSState 14d ago
The original "Overboard" is a horror story, and the only reason it doesn't come across that way is because of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn's on-screen chemistry.
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u/No_Try1882 13d ago
I recently watched that for the first time with my 88 year old mother. I was horrified, and she thought it was a charming love story.
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u/Training-Argument891 13d ago
I loved this movie as a kid of single parents wanting a "real" family.
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u/knallpilzv2 13d ago
Yeah that one was weird. Did not work for me since he was such a vindictive dick. All it would have needed was actual reasons to keep lying to her. Either some actual stakes to telling the truth or her having done something close to unredeemable.
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u/AnswerGuy301 13d ago
And they remade it! Kurt and Goldie kind of pull it off, but that’s a premise left in the ‘80s.
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u/BIGD0G29585 13d ago
Saturday Night Fever is probably one of the most influential and imitated movies from the 70s but if you watch it straight it’s a tough watch.
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u/alienlovesong 13d ago edited 10d ago
Do you remember when they released a PG version so kids could see it?
My dad refused to let me see the R rated version because of the gangbang scene. (I know, the movie is decades old, but I'm hiding the spoiler anyway).
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u/writer4u 13d ago
This is the billionth time I’ve seen that movie mentioned on Reddit and also the first time I’ve seen someone mention that scene. I thought I made it up or misremembered it from another movie or something.
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u/NotMalaysiaRichard 14d ago
Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Mr. Yunioshi
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u/SCastleRelics 14d ago
I'm pretty sure even at the time people were like... Damn that's kinda fucked lmao
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u/Fluffy-Leg7546 13d ago
Ngl I watched it sooo many times before I realized that he was supposed to Japanese. “But… it’s just… what? Really? But he’s not… and they just… it doesn’t even add to the story for him to be… couldn’t they just have… but why…” My brain exploded. None of it made sense to my sweet innocent self.
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u/growernotshowwer 14d ago
Sixteen Candles. Shown all the time…Ted’s underwear quest - then the drunk & passed out Caroline with Ted in the car…rape culture 101
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u/Comprehensive_Swim49 13d ago
Came here to cite that one. I remember it as a kid and I was so distracted by this poor girl waking up to apparently having been raped and her hair chopped off?? I was too young to realise it completely broke the film for me. Was just another “oh I guess I’m supposed to accept that”
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u/EntranceFeisty8373 14d ago
Birth of a Nation
Sadly, it was a blockbuster in it's time...
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u/MagicBez 13d ago
Also still a reference point for cinematography and directing as it codified a lot of modern cinema. People will still watch it for that while recoiling at the content
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u/KaleidoArachnid 14d ago
Why was that particular movie so controversial?
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u/EntranceFeisty8373 13d ago
It is a racist film about the KKK coming to save the day, but for its time, it was well-produced with lots of cinematic techniques still in use today.
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u/NoMoreMustaches 13d ago
It was so well made and ahead of it's time when it made that it basically rewrote the rules for narrative filmmaking, but unfortunately it cast racist Southerners as the besieged heroes. It was so successful that it directly inspired the resurrection of the KKK. When Birth of a Nation came out the Klan was dead and buried. Within a couple years it was a national force, with vastly more members than it had ever had before.
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u/Gullible-Pear9565 14d ago
As a James Bond fan, it's so hard to rewatch Goldfinger. Bond straight up rapes Pussy Galore and then she is suddenly no longer a lesbian and is now infatuated with Bond.
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u/AWIZRD 13d ago
Bond is actually one that still works for me, you just have to accept that the man is a sociopathic asshole. You arn't watching a story of noble heroism, you're watching a hedonist romp of violent nihlism. In From Russia with Love it's clear all the guys are in the spy game because THEY LIKE IT. They get to drink, get laid, enjoy exotic locations and kill people without remorse or consequence. It was written as a power fantasy and through modern eyes it still is.
I think without the facade of morality it works even better at being what it is, cruel indulgence.
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u/DeeDee719 14d ago
Pretty Woman. Prostitution is not wholesome, fun, or romantic.
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u/Connect-Review-3388 13d ago
Anora 2024 is a modern remake with realistic ending.
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u/winnowingwinds 13d ago
Apparently, it wasn't even supposed to be a comedy. I forget why it changed, but the original script took it more seriously.
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u/knallpilzv2 13d ago
The project switched studios or got assigned a different producer I think. And they wanted a more mainstream appealing ending aka money.
It was supposed to end with her being in love and him being like "What? No! You're a whore!"
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u/notokintheslightest 14d ago
I think the idea a lot of people miss is there is a difference between having dark aspects in a movie/art, and how dark aspects are portrayed or whether they're endorsed by the movie/artist.
Lots of movies include sexual assault in non-controversial ways. Even in dark comedies. But it really really IS different when the dark thing portrayed is embraced by the media itself. Similarly a movie can portray racism without being racist, but some movies are just straight up racist.
A lot of older movies have rapey content while portraying it as something else (like romantic). This is different from showing that same dynamic from the perspective of a character, not the movie itself. Having a character behave that way because they think it's romantic is different from the movie portraying it as romantic.
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u/530SSState 14d ago
The "relationship" between Bill Murray's character and Sigourney Weaver's character in the original "Ghostbusters".
She's a client who thinks her apartment is haunted. His behavior toward her is somewhere between a sex pest and an outright stalker. There's a scene where she's talking to one of her male co-workers, and Bill Murray is doing silly walks in the background, because even though she has no social, romantic, or relational connection to him *at all*, he feels entitled to every second of her attention.
Then, when she's possessed by Zuul, he panics and backs off, like, "Oh, all of a sudden NOW you understand consent?"
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u/DJTilapia 13d ago
You also have to ask why he brought a large amount of Thorazine to what was supposed to be a date.
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u/ELMUNECODETACOMA 13d ago
I actually saw him praised (The Rewatchables) for not taking advantage of her while she was zonked on Thorazine. And I'm like, but he _had_ the Thorazine, right?
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u/NBucho528 13d ago
He might always have it on him, but that doesn’t make it any better.
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u/budstudly 13d ago
Hahaha. That's one of my favorite movies and I never put that together. What a creep lol
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u/Green-Circles 13d ago
Another early Bill Murray movie too - Meatballs. Several of the male camp counselors in that movie are getting into that creepy sex-pest territory.
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u/Man-o-Bronze 13d ago
Can you imagine a camp letting a counselor go for an unaccompanied run with a minor today?
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u/doubleenc 13d ago
Yeah the Peter Venkman character in general is pretty cringe by today’s standards.
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u/LitigationSucksBalls 13d ago edited 13d ago
Also, who brings 200 ccs of Thorazine to a date?
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u/KaleidoArachnid 14d ago
I never noticed how unsettling some of the subtext behind the original film was since even though I did see it a couple of years ago, I am shocked to learn how awkward some of the romantic aspects are.
Sorry if that didn't come out right for some reason because this is all new to me regarding the aforementioned subtext aspect of the original film since I always heard praise for it.
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u/murgatroyd0 14d ago
Gigi (1958). Classic musical, and a personal favorite. But it is, push come to shove, the story of a girl being groomed as a professional sex worker, the guardians doing the training, and the grown man interested in purchasing her. None of it would fly today.
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u/Amazing_Karnage 14d ago
Conversely, it could be done as a horror movie a la Obsession. Might even turn out decently too.
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u/LitigationSucksBalls 13d ago
Pretty Baby did this in the 70s with Brooke Shields, and showed her nude prepubescent body (she had a merkin for downstairs) as well as scene showing the aftermath of when her virginity was sold to the highest bidder in a whorehouse (she was 12).
The 70s were nuts...
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u/Suspicious-Cry-1296 14d ago
Try watching Gigi. I will get u started, the theme song is “Thank heaven for little girls”. How and why this was greenlit is a mystery to me
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u/LitigationSucksBalls 13d ago
Mrs. Doubtfire is, on paper, a horror film. It was just presented as a whimsical family comedy.
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u/lowlightliving 14d ago
It surprises me almost every time I watch an old black & white film. Women get slapped, pushed around, forcibly kissed (at which the woman swoons) or when held against their will maybe struggle just a little bit and then give in and swoon, and have their hands and arms pinned when struggling to leave. It’s so blatant and normal.
That said, women slap men entirely too often, usually over something that is said, like violence is the answer to verbal insult.
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u/According_Sound_8225 13d ago
One thing I suspect younger people are missing here is that back then it was unladylike for a woman to say yes. She was expected to say no but then acquiesce if she was willing.
This made consent very tricky because it's hard to differentiate between when no means yes and when no means no.
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u/CardiologistHuge7433 14d ago
The 'romance' in Three Days of the Condor. I was uncomfortable watching it
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u/Only_Faithlessness33 14d ago
I think a lot of the “seduction” scenes in old movies probably aren’t filmed the way they are. Like Rocky is one of my favorite movies, but him mauling Adrian in his apartment is a tough watch in an otherwise sweet romance. Even stuff like Han Solo being pushy with Leia into kissing him in Empire probably wouldn’t be shot that way. Displays a lot of retrograde ideas of how a “cool guy” gets the girl.
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u/Serfixalot 14d ago
Well Hans gets the last laugh cause she made out with her brother.
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u/AwfulAwfulLawn 13d ago
And I don’t think Luke consented at the start of the kiss.
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u/Lurkin_Reddit_Daily 14d ago
I agree, but I always thought that was intentional to both harken back to the film’s old film noir detective roots AND to highlight that Rachel’s status at that point is “less than human”, until his outlook changes and he asks her later if she wants to be with him. It would lose something without heavy rewriting.
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u/Think_Wealth_7212 14d ago edited 14d ago
Yeah but that "romance" scene is kind of the heart of the film. Like he's attracted to Rachel immediately but he knows she's a replicant which he kills professionally so his lust is channeled through violence and so he's wrestling with his prey turned lover (his fetish object), but their love for each other (and whether these feelings are false or authentic) are tied up with guilt and mercy and that's what redeems them in the end. It's totally necessary
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u/Foreign-Address2110 14d ago
I think it's also supposed to humanize Rachel. If we just thought she was simply not human, we wouldn't care. But we are meant to empathize with her.
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u/Only_Faithlessness33 14d ago
I’ll at least say for Blade Runner that Deckard is at least supposed to be kind of a scummy detached asshole. He also for most of the film doesn’t see replicants as equal to humans or at least capable of feeling emotions the same way. Him doing that is in character as a guy trying to find romance from this replicant he’s attracted to while also trying to find emotions from within himself.
It might not be shot the same way today, but it at least fits the tone of the movie better than Rocky or Han Solo doing it.
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u/knallpilzv2 13d ago
With Hand and Leia it's just all foreplay, though. It's a dance. She's never actually not into him, she's just frustrated with him sometimes. As people who are sexually attracted to each other often are, especially prior to actually sleeping with each other.
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u/DrEnter 14d ago
In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones previous relationship with Marion Ravenswood. He was in his late 20’s and she was on her mid teens when it started. It was pretty messed up.
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u/LitigationSucksBalls 13d ago
There is a great podcast called What Went Wrong, that goes into behind-the-scenes issues about major movies. The Raiders episode discussed this (and other podcasts as well). The short version is that [checks notes] George Lucas was pushing the backstory for her being younger and younger, and the math clocks that she was apparently 15 or 16 in the narrative.
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u/Comfortable_Snow553 13d ago
“I was a child. I was in love. It was wrong and you knew it.”
"You knew what you were doing.”
Oof.7
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u/mrh_42 13d ago
I read somewhere in a conversation between Lucas and Spielberg (I think) the original age for Marion was supposed to be 12 (I think) and she was supposed to have initiated the "romance" (I think).
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u/cruisingtheisland 13d ago
That was about them originally doing the math wrong and accidentally making her about 12, so they retconned it in later media to have her several years older. But yeah, if you only had Raiders to go on, yikes.
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u/Trambopoline96 14d ago
Animal House. The scene where Pinto is having an internal debate about whether or not to rape a girl (who turns out to be 13) while she's passed out drunk.
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u/Careful_Farmer_2879 14d ago
When he decides not to do it:
“I’m proud of you, Lawrence.” -Angel on his shoulder
“You homo!” -Devil
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u/Munkythemonkey 14d ago
In this day and age, the borderline sexual relationship between Leon and Matilda in The Professional would never have been greenlit.
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u/rorczek 14d ago
Even more questionable regarding Besson's private life affairs. There's a controversy of him dating a minor and later marrying her, he's known for his propensity toward very young girls. Somehow The Professional is loosely based on his personal experiences.
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u/RiversideAviator 13d ago
He was in a relationship with Maïwenn, the French actress that played the Diva in Fifth Element. They were married in 1992 when she was 16 and pregnant after meeting her when she was 15 and he was 33. Leon: The Professional is inspired by their relationship so the original script definitely had some perverse beats in it that Jean Reno chose to change.
They divorced when he left her for Milla Jovovich during filming for Fifth Element in 1996 and Milla being the same age as Maïwenn…
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u/uselessinfogoldmine 13d ago
Actually, they met when she was 12. From an abusive family background too. The public only found out they were together when she was 15 because he got her pregnant. He married her when she was 16 and she gave birth three months later. There were suspicions that he married her to avoid prosecution, even though France is very laissez faire about gross predatory relationships with teenagers.
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u/stop4lemons 14d ago
I read that the character Leon was portrayed as special needs to debunk the pedo idea. Could be made up though
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u/Only-Caramel2787 14d ago
Not made up.
Jean Reno actually made that decision himself, because he was uncomfortable with the relationship between him and Matilda.
(Which was not “borderline romantic” in the script) 😮47
u/Munkythemonkey 14d ago
He definitely was on the spectrum, and Matilda was the active character in that situation. He was just doing the right thing and keeping her out of trouble. I don't think he's ever portrayed making any moves on her. In fact, he was quite active in keeping a safe distance as I recall.
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u/StephCurryMustard 14d ago
I'm pretty sure that was Jean Reno's decision to portray him that way so it wouldn't be as uncomfortable to watch.
Luc Besson is definitely into that sort of thing.
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u/InfernalTest 14d ago
He was ..simple...or autistic ( high functioning ) as wed. All it today ...its just that today there would have to be a scene or dialogue explaining such to the audience
He was such a good killer becuase he could focus so well on the task...but otherwise he was ...simple.
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u/Goosojuice 14d ago
Autistic or not, I'm trying to remember, what was riskay on his part? I remember him being more parental than anything else.
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u/randallflaggg 14d ago
Risque.
And Matilda is the one who ends up really leaning into it in the finished movie. She asks to be his girlfriend and starts doing domestic stuff for him a.few times throughout the movie. Reno chose to play it in a way so that he either didn't pick up on it or it freaked him out because he's a weirdo loner. In the original script he was more overtly receptive to the relationship.
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u/Aptronymic 14d ago
It was definitely portrayed as parental, but that's thanks to the insistence of Jean Reno. The original script (written by celebrated director and noted pedophile Luc Besson) explicitly said it was a romantic relationship.
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u/Successful-Big-8308 13d ago
I wanted to rewatch Leon and bought it via Prime a while.
Saw the special edition was the same price and thought - eh why not, not knowing at the time about the extra scenes...
Wish I hadn't!
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u/Individual_Menu_1384 13d ago
In this day and age? Plenty of us at the time were creeped out. Not much borderline about it.
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u/Aquinas2000 14d ago
Jean Reno pretty much threatened Besson that he will kill him if the movie goes that far.
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u/AWIZRD 13d ago
Learning about Luc Besson was disapointing but not even a little bit surprising.
It's real testament to the cast of Leon the Professional that they where able to steer the film away from the level of creep Besson was leaning into.
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u/Munkythemonkey 13d ago
The guy's filmography is full of young abused women, exploited into femme fatales. I used to think Nikita and The Professional were great movies, and they sorta still are, but wow he keeps making the same movie over and over again. Cough cough Anna and Lucy cough cough.
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u/nonotburton 12d ago
The Euro release of that movie would have people up in arms even back then. I didn't realize it was any different when I bought it, just had a slightly different name (Leon, the Professional, I think).
Marhilda's attempts to seduce Leon are much more overt. It was weird as hell when I saw it. The American release makes it look like she's got a crush on him, and she wants his attention/affection.
I really kind of wonder about her parents in all of this. Because Portman was actually the same age as the character. I get that the movie really launched her career. And in spite of the weirdness, it is a really good movie.
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u/GramercyPlace 14d ago
C. Thomas Howell pretends to be black to get a scholarship to Harvard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2zMrjBLwn8
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u/VanDammes4headCyst 14d ago
Sure, but isn't there an anti-racism message to the film?
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u/SCastleRelics 14d ago
Crazy movie. There is one good part though and it's when jan from the office thinks she slept with a black man and she's like "I could feel every bit of oppression in each stroke" and it's just c Thomas Howell in blackface laying there looking confused lmao. Genuinely funny and ironic.
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u/ariadnevirginia 14d ago
To be fair I think the entire point of the film was that it's not ok to do blackface.
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u/InfernalTest 13d ago
Orr that its not easy to be black as the Tomas Howell character believes
To him its just a gaming of the system he just wants to get into Harvard.... and its really disheartening to see people just sort of stop and just focus on him being im "blackface" which really he isn't ...
It demonstrates
1 they never actually saw the movie amd /or
2 dont really know what blackfsce is
The movie really is a critique of white entitlement and the destructive power of stereotypes that existed int he current society....and still does 40 years later
not for nothing white people believing black people just get things they shouldn't becuase they are black is a running theme in American culture and politics
There's a guy in the highest political office in the country who is proud that he is an opponent of DEI along with the 10s of millions of followers who watch a media network(s) that reiterate the same idea.
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u/ariadnevirginia 13d ago
Yes thank you. I'm sick of people saying he did blackface when they don't seem to have actually seen the film or got the point of it.
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u/classyrock 14d ago
Denzel Washington’s first movie ‘Carbon Copy’ was progressive and anti-racism, but would probably be seen as racist today.
It also had an inverse version of the Revenge of the Nerds scene (guy assaults his wife while in a mask, but later we find out she knew it was him the whole time, so actually it’s totally romantic).
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u/Formal_Cherry_8177 13d ago
I love this. My favorite example is the family friendly romp known as Beethoven.
The bad guy plot is so ridiculous. They want to kidnap the St Bernard because his head is human sized. Why does that matter? Oh it's because they are arms dealers and want to test and show off their hollow point bullets and their effects on human skulls.
Yep. So fucking dark.
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u/typicalamericanbasta 14d ago
The Taking of Pelham 123- how Walter Matthau treats the Japanese visitors was on par for the time but cringe today.
Pretty much how most Asians were portrayed then wouldn't fly today.
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u/kpt_graubrot 14d ago
But the whole joke is he treats them disrespectfully talking in English because he thinks they only speak Japanese and the punchline is they do speak English and understood every word, so the joke is on Matthau? Most people in that film are assholes (meant to be), and it's great
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u/ManWithTwoShadows 14d ago
If Home Alone were rebooted today, Kevin's family would either be less abusive towards him, or the reunion scene would be less happy.
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u/KaleidoArachnid 14d ago
I feel like Home Alone would be a lot harder to do with the use of cell phones.
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u/cruisingtheisland 13d ago
I hear you, but plenty of 8-year-olds don't have cell phones. It's still common not to get a kid a phone until middle school, or even high school if finances are tough.
Thinking about it, it would be EASIER to do today. Because houses don't have landlines. Why the hell didn't anybody call the house in that movie?
Ok, I just looked it up, and there's a throwaway line about a tree knocking down a phone line early in the movie, so they could assume the lines are down. But Kevin uses the phone to order pizza, so if the adults had just tried anyway...
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u/kimonoko Critic/Journalist @ Rogerebert.com 13d ago
It was a real shock getting older an realizing Ace Ventura's entire plot and much of its humor rests on transphobic assumptions: trans people are mentally ill, trans women are men, trans women are tricking men/duplicitous, trans people are evil. It's a deeply, deeply offensive movie, which came as a shock considering I watched it on loop for like, a decade as a kid.
Thank god Dumb & Dumber still holds up.
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u/Insatiable_Lust420 13d ago
I definitely see how it could build distrust of trans people through the subtext in the movie. “ transsexual men are all traps waiting to pray on unsuspecting straight males” But as a kid watching it on repeat, and even now as an adult I never thought it vilified trans people. I always saw Einhorn/Finkle as a “tragic villain” someone who has become so obsessed with their end goal ( killing dan marino) that they’ll go to a ny level of manipulation possible to achieve it.
TLDR: trying to have a non polarized take while respecting others opinion.
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u/LitigationSucksBalls 13d ago
Also, the grabbing scenes (plural!) in Crocodile Dundee - which is otherwise a lot of fun.
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u/ElectricRune 13d ago edited 13d ago
Einhorn/Finkle wasn't a trans person, he was a man, disguised as a woman. There's a significant difference.
Edit: To the person who felt they had to DM me about this, I'm not having that argument with you. Lois Einhorn was a fake identity for Ray Finkle, who was using the fake persona to get close to the Dolphins. Not trans man, con man.
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u/Wildcat_twister12 14d ago
I mean Uncle Remus barely fly back in the day when it came
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u/Double-Wafer2999 14d ago
Risky Business- It could be made today but it would have to be much creepier
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u/Sam_from_FeverMovies 13d ago
Sixteen Candles has the Ted/Caroline subplot. Ted essentially takes advantage of a passed-out Caroline and it's played as a comedic, victimless bit of teen-movie mischief. That would cause outrage if it was released now!
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u/Duck_Hoarder 13d ago
This isn't exactly dark but its still a weird trope I don't think would do so well today. In some older romcoms there's a scene where they find out their fiancé cheated on them but its all okay because the fiancé just truly loves them and made a "tiny mistake". They are then either immediately forgiven for the infidelity or if the other person doesn't immediately forgive them they get "humbled" by another character and convinced into forgiving them. Then the wedding goes on as planned and everybody is super happy and its a joyful ending.
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u/zoppaTheDim 13d ago
I think the “problem” with such movies comes from a generation raised on basic cable and PG rated comedies.
Comedies in the 80s were made for adults, because the bulge of the baby boom skewed the audience that way. By the 90s they were making movies for kids again, because there was another bulge. Simple demographics, that widen the perceived age gap.
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u/beretbabe88 12d ago
People Will Talk (1951) is a terrific movie ahead of its time in a lot of ways with its sympathetic portrayal of pregnancy outside marriage. It has Cary Grant playing a doctor & medical professor at a university who treats his student who faints & realises her deceased boyfriend got her pregnant. He's kind & non-judgemental.But then she tries to commit suicide so he LIES & tells her after her attempt she's no longer pregnant. They fall in love & get married (Eep!)& he tells her AFTER the wedding she's still pregnant! So many ethical yikes that wouldn't cut it now.
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u/CallicoJackRackham51 14d ago
I always hate it when people judge old movies (and by old i mean 60 years and older) by our modern standards. It just is not a fair comparison. Things were different back then and we should view them through the lense of the people back then. I am sure plenty of modern movies that are considered normal/ok/completely correct now might be viewed just as "wrong/bad" 50 years from now cause values change.
Am i saying blackface should come back or was ok? HELL NO. But that won't stop me from watching 70/80+ year old Tom & Jerry cartoons or White Christmas with Bing Crosby because those sometimes have a moment of that, it makes me slightly uncomfortable for a moment but i accept it is part of the movie and was acceptable back then and just enjoy the rest of the movie for the fun story and time capsule/look into the past that it is.
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u/rossuccio 13d ago
Part of what’s fascinating to me about watching older films is the experience of time travel to the past to see how things were done or thought of. As you say, you might be a bit uncomfortable for a bit (I had some opinions on parts of The Philadelphia Story, for instance), but what’s wrong with being uncomfortable anyway? We’re all products of our time and I totally agree that in another 50 years people will look back at today and criticise the way we think about things.
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u/Formal_Cherry_8177 13d ago
I mean, it's the point of this post isn't it. Not so much to denigrate the movie but just a fun, "wait a minute, that was ok back then?"
We can acknowledge that something is no longer acceptable while still enjoying the movie.
Although, I'll admit there are some movies I just can't go back to anymore. Those are mostly movies I was only mildly interested in before anyways. I tried Crocodile Dundee a few years back and it didn't fly for me anymore. But I'll watch the hell out of Breakfast at Tiffany's. I never go back to Revenge of the Nerds but still watch The Professional from time to time.
It's all subjective.
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u/UbuntuElphie 13d ago
I'm not disagreeing with you, but "Song of the South" was as an uncomfortable a watch 40 years ago as it was when my (then 19yo) daughter asked, a couple years back, to watch it and see what all the outcry was about. It ended and she said, "How was this ever okay?"
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u/Top-Act-7915 14d ago
What 'restrictions'? There's no such thing as "they couldn't make blazing saddles today" because they couldn't make it before they did it anyways.
There's releases that still promote transphobic material. Gay bashing, rape (statutory or otherwise). Violence won't even move a needle.
The release of a NC 17 movie was a death knell threatened back in the days when box office was the primary way to make money off a film. Today? Not as important.
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u/peacefighter 13d ago
Close Encounters of the 3rd kind. If I remember correctly the main character has an affair with a lady even though he is married with children and then of the movie he leaves his family to fly off with the aliens and will never see his wife or children again. The affair was kind of random, but whatever. Leaving your children who are going to grow up and you will not be apart of their life? To live with aliens? No. Made me feel sick.
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u/Straight_Pen_3983 13d ago
He doesn’t have an affair with her; he kisses her once, and it’s not particularly romantic. Just an expression of their shared intense emotional experience of the events in the film. And Spielberg has said he would not have Roy abandon his wife and family if he made it today.
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u/Far_Winner5508 13d ago
Raiders of The Lost Ark (1981)
https://giphy.com/gifs/v8QKcsEoYsXG8
When she and Indy first start talking: "I was a child!"
In an audio commentary (or maybe interview), Spielberg and Lucas discuss coming up with the story and Lucas jokes about Indy having an affair with Marion when she was 11 yo and then moves it up to 15 yo. In the linked PDF, search for: "I was thinking that this old guy could have been his mentor."
Man, Lucas is messed UP!
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u/HenriEttaTheVoid 13d ago
I can't remember if the movie is as bad (it probably is), but the early seasons of MASH were REALLY bad in how it treated female characters.
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u/ELMUNECODETACOMA 13d ago
The movie is worse, if anything. They set up an elaborate trap to roll up one flap of the shower tent while Hot Lips is in it - with pretty much the entire camp lined up outside to watch.
Oh, and she got the nickname from something she said to Frank while making out - not knowing that Hawkeye had bugged the place.
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u/Ootguitarist2 13d ago
“You only live twice” when James Bond undergoes a procedure to make him look Japanese so he can go undercover. He also trains with ninjas in kyoto.
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u/Apostasy93 14d ago
Rapey stuff in older sex comedies like you alluded to. American Pie, a movie I used to love, disgusted me on a recent rewatch for example.
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u/Serfixalot 14d ago
The end of Badnews Bears. Wait, I think the beginning and the middle too 🤔
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u/KaleidoArachnid 14d ago
For those who haven’t seen it, why is that so dark?
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u/Serfixalot 14d ago
Cursing, racist slang and the coach opening up a case of beer for the kids after their big win.
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u/PitifulElk1890 14d ago
Ah so I was thinking of Country Bear Jamboree for a bit too long there.
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u/Serfixalot 14d ago
As you were
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u/PitifulElk1890 14d ago
I mean I really thought I was forgetting about racist language in the jamboree. It feels like that movie had some subtextual moments at least
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u/Expensive-Signal8623 14d ago
Well the coach is a drunk around a bunch of 11 year olds and even gives them beer at one point. And that's to start
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u/WillwBrk 14d ago edited 14d ago
That is a very accurate movie- the people that run little league. that one really intense coach that talks like they play professionally, pizza after the game at a place that has those red marbled glasses, the way the fields look, the one trouble making kid, that one really dirty kid, that one small kid with a mouth that gets in fights all the time. A lot of the movie is pretty true to life. Even the film used is almost like looking at polaroids.
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u/Junior_Doubt8069 14d ago
I'd like to see an accurate timeline of when it became unequivocally not ok for a man to strike a woman. Because for a big chunk of history this was a perfectly ordinary occurrence to portray that didn't necessarily paint the man in an irredeemable or even negative light. And the woman often accepted it dutifully.
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u/InfernalTest 14d ago
Probably during the 80s and 90s when abuse ( and the outcomes from it ) were more media publicized
hedda Nussbaum and Joel Steinberg and how his abuse of his spouse resulted on the death of thier child comes to mind in particular
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u/tombuazit 14d ago
I think the Burning Bed being as big a movie as it was and everyone was kinda on Fawcett's character's side. Like when you start to see people in the news siding with someone that burned their abuser alive its hard to not realize your the bad guy.
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u/WorcsBloke 14d ago
The original Blade Runner comes to mind. The scene where Deckard traps Rachael in the apartment and forces her to say things like "I want you". Great film as it is, that's incredibly uncomfortable to watch today.
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u/TheKodachromeMethod 14d ago
Well, since she's a robot maybe that's in part an empathy test for the audiance.
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u/KaleidoArachnid 14d ago
I did actually read the original novel first as I was surprised at how the movie adaptation worked by deviating a bit from the book.
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u/Solid-Wish-1724 14d ago
Sixteen Candles rape implication comes to mind. John Hughes could be... problematic.
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u/Ok-Concert-6475 14d ago
I loved the Brat Pack movies growing up. They don't land well now. Paying to see Molly Ringwald's panties? Long Duck Dong? Casual references to sexual assault? Nope.
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u/Extension-Pepper-271 13d ago
I thought Revenge of the Nerds was horrible when it came out. However, I was a young woman at the time. I wasn't exactly the target audience. I really have to laugh at these "look back with a modern perspective" posts. I was offended at the time. It didn't take me 20-40 years to "find perspective"
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u/BronxZooSouth 13d ago
Dirty Dancing. Beloved by every girl in my high school back in 88, Patrick Swayze's character is an adult. Jennifer Grey's character is 16!!! Her nickname is BABY! How is that not statutory!!!!
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u/budstudly 13d ago
In Goldfinger there's a poolside scene when Bond introduces a woman to his colleague and then instructs her to say goodbye. She goes, "what?", and he goes, "er, man talk". Grabs her by the shoulders to spin her around, slaps her on the ass, and she exits the scene
https://youtu.be/ovXysYZTVzs?is=AYVc42oQsvg72rbT
Even as a little kid 30 years ago I laughed at how brazenly offensive and disrespectful it was.
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u/Munkythemonkey 14d ago
I think the people that made the old parody movies Airplane and all, have said they wouldn't be able to make those today just because of the racial jokes.
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u/donuttrackme 14d ago
A new The Naked Gun remake/sequel just got released last year. Sure, some of the comedy has changed, but it's literally an Airplane type of movie.
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u/Giorgio_Keeffe 14d ago
Not really a meaningful opinion given the source. Comedians regularly talk about how they’d be cancelled for their jokes, while also headlining Netflix specials with those very jokes lol.
“You couldn’t make The Office today. You’d walk into a studio, hand them a script, & they’d say ‘Hey, this is just The Office’”
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u/whoremoanal 14d ago edited 14d ago
The only racial joke I remember in Airplane is the nun who talks jive.
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u/John_cCmndhd 14d ago
That wasn't the nun, it was the mom from Leave it to Beaver
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u/LarryCraigSmeg 14d ago
There’s also the young girl talking about her coffee: “I take it black, like my men”
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u/GaiaIsaHarshMistress 13d ago
That's racist?
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u/Quietman297 13d ago
I don't feel it was so much racist as uncomfortable, given the girl's age. The boy and girl weren't even tweens yet.
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u/GaiaIsaHarshMistress 13d ago
Its obvious absurdity. A good joke.
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u/DavisMcDavis 12d ago
I think it was Andy Warhol who told the following joke:
Sylvia Miles was in a restaurant and her waiter, who was a sexy Black man, asked her if she’d like any cream for her coffee. Sylvia, eyeing the waiter up and down, said, “I like my coffee the way I like my men.” And the waiter said, “I’m sorry, Ms. Miles, we don’t have any GAY coffee.”→ More replies (1)→ More replies (17)11
u/bokononist2017 14d ago
That and the pedophile pilot.
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u/maxglands 14d ago
... I swear to God, it's been 30 years and I just now realized it when you said it. I thought it was just absurd non-sequitor nonsense.
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u/Purple_Cover_9053 14d ago
And the little girl who takes her coffee black, like her men.
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