# Films that don't make sense unless you understand the zeitgeist of the time

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 20, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730 "2010-02-20T03:42:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 11

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**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/201 "2010-03-04T18:38:35Z")

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> [@Zeldar](#):
>
> I have begun to refrain from watching the reruns which appear at least once a year, because even for me the ranting and posturing and angst has worn thin.

Really. I remember wondering what those kids in _Rebel_ were rebelling against. So they had protective parents – big whoop.

I think the 50’s movies about teen delinquency and alienation were about marketing to a new demographic. I think the problem of delinquency in the 50’s was blown out of proportion to create a market for books and movies, and jobs for psychologists and social workers. Compared to the gang culture that formed years later, the uproar in the 50’s about leather jackets and hot rods seems like much ado about nothing.

If _Rebel_ fits into zeitgeist, it’s a phony zeitgeist – it never really existed.

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**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/202 "2010-03-04T18:40:10Z")

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> [@AuntiePam](#):
>
> If _Rebel_ fits into zeitgeist, it’s a phony zeitgeist – it never really existed.

It existed for me. All I can say.

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**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/203 "2010-03-04T19:01:52Z")

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> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> The movie was completely different from the play, though. I don’t think any of the play survived to the onscreen version\*. The film was really a “looking backward” not entirely accurate rendering of what 1979 remembered 1969 as.

Like all of Milos Forman’s American films, \*Hair \*is mostly about a foreigner looking at the United States from the outside, trying to understand it.

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