# Apparently serious social commentary that is hilariously unsubtle **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 11, 2012, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455 "2012-03-11T11:00:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455/21 "2012-03-13T02:59:51Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > [are you kidding?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9338370&postcount=39) [I replied to your points](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14862085&postcount=14) so as not to hijack this thread. But even if you grant the movie is a good one (I don’t), for the purposes of this thread, it still hammers its point home with all the subtlety of a ten-ton brick. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455/22 "2012-03-13T03:12:03Z")
_Traffic_ (2000) - I think Topher Grace actually said something very like, “Don’t worry! We won’t get addicted. We’re better than them!” at some point. That entire movie was a complete piece of unsubtle shit. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455/23 "2012-03-13T07:17:07Z")
_The Life of David Gale_ = the death penalty’s bad, m’kay. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455/24 "2012-03-13T11:06:02Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > [I replied to your points](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14862085&postcount=14) so as not to hijack this thread. > > But even if you grant the movie is a good one (I don’t), for the purposes of this thread, it still hammers its point home with all the subtlety of a ten-ton brick. Given your misunderstanding of the movie’s point, I think it’s plenty subtle :). ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455/25 "2012-03-13T11:37:58Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > _The Life of David Gale_ = the death penalty’s bad, m’kay. I watched that once. The lesson I took away was that even when deliberately withholding evidence that might exonerate him, it is damn difficult to be sentenced to death, much less have the penalty imposed. I found it to be an uplifting endorsement of our legal system. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455/26 "2012-03-14T05:15:31Z")
I was just coming out of my Quaker/pacifist phase when I saw _The Trial of Billy Jack_, which remains the high-water mark–hell, the Hurricane Katrina–of mawkish “Message” movies. Also, any Lifetime Network production–special mention to one called _Cyber Seduction_, which is like a modern _Reefer Madness_ for Internet pornography. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455/27 "2012-03-14T05:34:13Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Nothing tops TOS for hilariously unsubtle. > > BELE: Are you blind, Commander Spock? Well, look at me. Look at me! > KIRK: You’re black on one side and white on the other. > BELE: I am black on the right side. > KIRK: I fail to see the significant difference. > BELE: Lokai is white on the right side. All of his people are white on the right side! Didn’t Kirk at some point say during this conversation something like: [alien home solar system]… isn’t that on the southern side of the galaxy?" ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455/28 "2012-03-14T06:32:01Z")
I’m willing to cut Star Trek: TOS a lot of slack considering the constraints of the time. Heck, even doing an unsubtle show about racism was pretty bold in the 1960s, and I’ve a special respect for _A Private Little War_, which analogized Vietnam (without specifically naming it) and rather than go for an easy cod-liver-oil “war is bad” message (as I’m sure TNG would have done) they frankly admitted that supporting a proxy war was better than letting genocide happen, which struck me as a bravely messy ending instead of a pat “good guys win”. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455/29 "2012-03-14T20:54:49Z")
Atlas Shrugged. If Ayn Rand were still alive today, she’d be the quintessential Internet Arguer, building up her massive fortress of strawmen, happily knocking them over and setting them back up again and again, oblivious to arguments or information from outside. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455/30 "2012-03-14T21:35:05Z")
Yeah, but I don’t think Rand was trying to be _subtle_, ya know? One that got me thinking about starting a thread like this was Robert Sawyer’s _Hominid/Neanderthal_ series of books. He should have saved a bunch of trees and just sent out a mass email saying: … Men are bad, m’kay? Not women… men. … So are cars. … Oh, and religion is idiotic and likely caused by a defect in _Homo Sapiens’_ brain. That last was _literally the climax of the series_. And when I say “literally” I mean “literally” - because of some Improbable Astronomical Event everybody in the world started having religious visions because of a defect in HS’s brains allowed for such a thing. This defect (and these visions) are apparently what started every major religion in the history of mankind. Fortunately, the much-better-than-us Neanderthal society had developed a medical procedure to get rid of this anomaly. Yippee! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-serious-social-commentary-that-is-hilariously-unsubtle/615455.md?page=1)