There is no way Animal House could be made today. Thinking back, I believe the same would hold true for Sixteen Candles. Maybe it’s just comedies that would fall under this topic?
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Gone with the Wind is one, and I definitely wouldn’t qualify that one as a comedy.
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I’d say Soul Man and Tropic Thunder because of blackface.
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Interesting take:
“In 1978, the progressive liberalism that had sustained the counterculture from before the civil rights era to the fall of Richard M. Nixon began to feel like an oppressive doctrine. But when you were young and in college you still had to subscribe, right?
“Animal House” said, No, man, you didn’t. You didn’t have to mean it at all. The film expressed and articulated a growing frustration with an overbearing political correctness, a fear that you can’t say what you want without stepping on someone’s toes.”
Perhaps that’s not a message that filmmakers in Hollywood would be likely to adopt nowadays, but as the article points out, Animal House was a very low budget independent film, and I could imagine a similar approach could work today. Whether such a film would be funny might be another matter though…
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I’d like think that the winking approval of sexual assault on a drunk, underage girl (or on anyone, really) would be unthinkable today. Which is a good thing.
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The obvious one is “Blazing Saddles” with it’s overt racism. I do think that it’s purpose was more to mock racism and racists than to be racist. But still it would never be made today.
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I agree, but I think it’s a great movie.
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The same situation unfolds in Sixteen Candles, but with 2 high school age people.
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M.A.S.H. the blatant sexual harassment bothered me at the time as well
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Yes. It changed as the series went on, and Alda had more input. The movie was egregious. I thought it at the time even, as a young teen, but of course during that time period you were being a prude if you disapproved of sexual harassment or even actual assault in a movie.
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Never seen it. I know I’d be furious if I did.
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There are many films with scenes that are “of their time”. For example the portrayal of the North Vietnamese in The Deer Hunter. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t make the film without that scene.
I don’t think sexual assault is the central theme of Animal House (unlike say Sixteen Candles).
I don’t see how it matters that it’s not the central theme. It still approves of it. Like I said, I will never watch Sixteen Candles.
But the question was could you make the movie nowadays. Obviously that scene would have to be changed. But I think Animal House would still work as a movie without it.
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Great thread! We watched a movie recently and I told my husband they could never make it today. But I can’t remember what it was!
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American Beauty. It was cringey back in ‘99 as well.
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A Clockwork Orange
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The Toy. There was nothing amusing about it.
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Ah. I read it as, good this movie (as is) be made today. I didn’t see any reference to “remade” which is a different thing. Lots of problematical movies would not have been made today, though I suppose most (not all) could be remade without the rapey and/or racist stuff.
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I would say some, I’m not sure about most. In many cases directors simply wouldn’t make a film with that storyline anymore. Does anyone want to make a film about the lives of upper class white southerners in the Civil War? Or an older guy’s obsession with a teenage girl, just to take two examples from the films mentioned above.
The ones I wonder about are those comedy films where the entire style of humor is no longer broadly acceptable, and it’s hard to imagine how the storyline could still be funny without it. Airplane is a good example. Is Animal House as crude?
For example, I don’t think it’s generally considered acceptable nowadays to find comedy in teenage sex, like say American Pie.
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