You know, “The Summer of '42” received four Oscar nominations. If you remember this film, we’re sharing a knowing laugh right now. Everyone else, Google it.
2 Likes
Woody Allen’s MANHATTAN where he plays a 42 year old in a relationship with a 17 year old.
18 Likes
I’ve wanted a 1967-69 Camaro ever since watching Better Off Dead in the theater.
3 Likes
The King and I has a lot of painful stereotyping, and the there’s South Pacific…but let’s talk about Seven Brides for Seven Brothers!
7 Likes
I suspect “Snow White and the Seven Little People” would get some push back.
2 Likes
I’m tempted to mention another John Hughes movie, Weird Science, because of the concept of two guys creating a woman. But Kelly LeBrock’s character was quite powerful in the movie, so would a modern feminist green-light such a movie?
The Jerk with Steve Martin.
4 Likes
The movie “Soul Man” with the blackface stuff:
1 Like
Ah, so an autobiography.
16 Likes
I think the list of movies that you could remade might be shorter.
4 Likes
Real life version of Soul Man:
1 Like
Wow, the “Oh the Left is Oppressive” folk are really reaching now. Next they will claim that MLK was marching against “The Oppression of Political Correctness”.
It was making fun of the uptight wealthy conservative parents who were sending their kids to Ivies in order to produce copies of themselves.
In fact, the backlash that was rising against “Progressive Liberalism” at that point was claiming that the left was making things too permissive.
Of course, people who liked using racial epitaphs, engage in stereotyping, etc, always have felt oppressed by requests that they treat minorities as equals, and treat women as humans. But those weren’t the people who were making that movie. That movie was made by the scions of wealthy families who felt suffocated by the requirement that every man grow up to be a businessman in a suit and every woman would become a Stepford wife.
The movie was written by Chris Miller who graduated from Dartmouth in 1963, and spoke to HIS experiences. The scene with the folk singer? That was a 1950’s to early 1960s phenomenon. In 1978, no kid on the left listened to folk singers and they hadn’t since 1965. At most they listened to folk-rock, like Simon and Garfunkel, and even they had broken up in 1970.
Ty Burr, who wrote the article, attended Dartmouth at the time the movie was being shown, after Dartmouth had already become co-ed, after the ROTC (which featured prominently in Animal House) was evicted, etc.
His interpretation is based on his experiences, perceptions, and beliefs, not on the movie itself.
Ty Burr is a wealthy White dude who feels oppressed because he cannot be as openly racist and misogynistic like the old movies he so loves. He was born to wealth and privilege, attended elite private schools and an elite private college, when these had few, if any, minorities or poor kids. He married a woman from the same exact background, and lives in a wealthy community.
When he was 21 in 1979, he suffered no actual oppression, so the fact that suddenly he was unable to engage in careless bigotry seemed to him like “oppression”, so every protest against oppression was, for him, a struggle against having to avoid being a bigot.
I find it ludicrous that anybody can think of a movie in which the Bad Guys are all super conservative, pro-military, and bigoted, as a movie that protests the “Oppression by the Left”
2 Likes
All you have to do is say you are sorry…
Hah, art imitating life!
Not a movie, but every episode of The Honeymooners seemed to have Ralph threaten to beat his wife. “One of these days, Alice…”
Separately, here’s a segment in Silver Streak that would not happen again:
1 Like
Movies are great time capsules of cultural attitudes of the times they were made, some being leading indicators of trends. Timeless comedy is hard because so much comedy is directed at topics that were uncomfortable at that time but may not then have been a societal taboo.
That having ben said, I think Caddyshack can still be made today and while the Dalai Lama may no longer be a big hitter, he can still grant total consciousness.
7 Likes
Any of the Death Wish or Dirty Harry movies. The premise of vigilantism is still popular and accepted today but their graphic portrayal of assaults against women was too exploitive.
Revenge of the Nerds.
4 Likes
If you’re a 10-year-old boy. That being said, I love Mel Brooks (he’s 97). Personally, I liked The Producers much better than Blazing Saddles.
I’m young at heart. 
2 Likes