# Films that don't make sense unless you understand the zeitgeist of the time **URL:** \ **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:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/121 "2010-02-28T04:01:02Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > But Luke wasn’t directly railing against the government, his self-centered malaise as establishment defiance is all 60’s. > > A teenager watching that today would remark, “So the guy ate 50 eggs, who cares?” Speaking as a teenager watching that today (metaphorically speaking), I thought it was a powerful movie. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/122 "2010-02-28T05:01:34Z")
I consider [The President’s Analyst](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062153/) pretty damn funny under any circumstances, but in order to get the full impact you really need a feel for:[ul] [li]The general paranoia of the time;[/li][li]The terminally weird relationship between the US and the USSR;[/li][li]The FBI under J Edgar Hoover, and particularly its culture as contrasted with the CIA;[/li][li]The influence of a certain (now disbanded) corporate monolith on US society as a whole.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/123 "2010-02-28T05:48:12Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > Benjamin Braddock in _ **The Graduate** _ seems like an annoying, mopey jackass nowadays. I seem to recall that Roger Ebert thought Benjamin was an annoying, mopey jackass when the movie came out. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/124 "2010-02-28T06:01:47Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I seem to recall that Roger Ebert thought Benjamin was an annoying, mopey jackass when the movie came out. No, he didn’t. I linked to Ebert’s 1967 review of the film in post #53, and he didn’t say anything particularly negative about the Benjamin character then. In fact, he seems to have identified with him to some extent: “Dustin Hoffman is so painfully awkward and ethical that we are forced to admit we would act pretty much as he does, even in his most extreme moments…Benjamin’s acute honesty and embarrassment are so accurately drawn that we hardly know whether to laugh or to look inside ourselves.” By the time of his 1997 re-review of the movie Ebert felt otherwise, and described Benjamin as “a self-centered creep”. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/125 "2010-02-28T06:47:07Z")
I once caught part of Blondie and Dagwood movie in which Dagwood was sent to college for some reason I can’t recall and the movie treated college like it was some kind of mysterious, crazy, alien , incomprehensible environment. I found none of the jokes funny at all, merely weird. I could only chalk it up to an era in which few people experienced higher education and it was viewed as some kind of arcane and frivolous class-centered hijinks. ---
**Author:** ![Rrose\_Selavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@Rrose\_Selavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rrose_Selavy)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/126 "2010-02-28T13:06:02Z")
I’ll submit the cold war sci fi classic: [Colossus: The Forbin Project](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project) ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/127 "2010-02-28T13:34:38Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > Benjamin Braddock in _ **The Graduate** _ seems like an annoying, mopey jackass nowadays. I’m glad you said that - I always root for Anne Bancroft when watching that film. I take my parents at their word that I “just don’t get it.” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/128 "2010-02-28T13:37:10Z")
Any of the “Cannon Group’s” terrible Chuck Norris flicks. Chuck always manages to fend off a small army, without getting a scratch. I’d also nominate Art Garfunkle’s “Bad Timing”-that was a bad movie, whenever you watched it. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/129 "2010-02-28T14:52:20Z")
\*Some Like it Hot \*(1959) I would dismiss it as some corny slapstick vehicle who had no other purpose than to put Marilyn Monroe in front of a camera, but it’s AMC #9 best movie of all time! To even call it a comedy with a straight face you have to think cross dressing is really really really funny. Really funny. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/130 "2010-02-28T15:55:49Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I once caught part of Blondie and Dagwood movie in which Dagwood was sent to college for some reason I can’t recall and the movie treated college like it was some kind of mysterious, crazy, alien , incomprehensible environment. I found none of the jokes funny at all, merely weird. I could only chalk it up to an era in which few people experienced higher education and it was viewed as some kind of arcane and frivolous class-centered hijinks. “Arcane and frivolous class-centered hijinks” haven’t totally died out on American campuses. I attended a small private school (class of '03) and there were several lingering traditions relating to what year you were expected to graduate – symbols and colors associated with certain years, songs, rivalries between the years that involved ritualized pranks, and even two flights of stairs in one building where you were supposed to use only one or the other depending on your graduation year. It’s my limited understanding that this sort of thing was common on college campuses in the earlier part of the 20th century. IMHO it was mostly pretty stupid and I either ignored or grumbled about a lot of it, but I’d immediately understand what was going on if I saw something similar in and old movie. I think someone who’d attended a big state school at the same time would have been mystified by the traditions at my college, though. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/131 "2010-02-28T16:20:02Z")
Hijinks might happen on campuses, but it’s a sideshow and only those who vounteer for them are subject to it. It certainly doesn’t define the college experience, especially for an older student like Dagwood. For us attending college especially once you’re past 22, is about work and study. The most bizarre scenes weren’t scenes of fraternity-style pranks, which I at least recognized. The weirdest scenes were about Dagwood’s interaction withprofessors and attending class. It portayed aclassroom as a place where a professor babbled incomprehensibly andimplied that nothing really important is imparted in the course of higher education. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/132 "2010-02-28T16:47:47Z")
Ah, I misunderstood what you meant by “class-centered”. I thought you were referring to graduating class, not academic classes/the classroom. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/133 "2010-02-28T16:54:50Z")
Actually, by “class-centered,” I was referring to social class. It refers to a time when the epithet “college boy” meant something in terms of how people lived their lives and what their expectations were in life. People whose families sent them to college really lived in a different world. It was the G.I. Bill that was bringing large numbers of people from a different social class into this world. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/134 "2010-02-28T17:02:28Z")
I guess we really can’t review films objectively they are a product of their times as we are, as a film made sense in the 60s or 70s it seems strange to us now. I wonder if the films we think are true to life now will be as dated and odd when we are much older? ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/135 "2010-02-28T17:07:03Z")
> [@In\_Winnipeg](#): > > Any of the rah-rah-rah patriotic crap that came out during the Reagan administration – _Rambo_, _Red Dawn_, _Top Gun_…it was all so propagandistic, and needlessly so… > > …but then again, so was Reagan, actually. “Ronald Wilson Reagan” anagrams to “Insane Anglo Warlord”. Just sayin… ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/136 "2010-02-28T17:32:37Z")
Funny thing … Dazed and Confused is kind of like that but instead of capturing its own time it captures a tine about 20 years prior. I remember when I was a kid in the 70s hearing stories of freshman hazing from high school kids. By the time I actually got to high school that kind of this was ancient history. So Dazed and Confused helped recall not direct experiences for me but rather second-hand experiences. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/137 "2010-02-28T17:37:58Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Funny thing … Dazed and Confused is kind of like that but instead of capturing its own time it captures a tine about 20 years prior. I remember when I was a kid in the 70s hearing stories of freshman hazing from high school kids. By the time I actually got to high school that kind of this was ancient history. So Dazed and Confused helped recall not direct experiences for me but rather second-hand experiences. That’s a really good point. I was just starting high school when Dazed and Confused came out and I remember hearing how accurate it was for the time period. Looking at my own high school days it amazed me how much things changed. The only time that many kids got together for a party in my high school was graduation, yet my parents talked about doing stuff like that when they were teens a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/138 "2010-02-28T17:38:18Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > I guess we really can’t review films objectively they are a product of their times as we are, as a film made sense in the 60s or 70s it seems strange to us now. I wonder if the films we think are true to life now will be as dated and odd when we are much older? Guaranteed. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/139 "2010-02-28T17:39:25Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > _Dr. Strangelove_ is probably hard to appreciate fully w/o understanding Cold War mentalities. Note the “fully” in that sentence-- I doubt that any films make no sense without understanding the current zeitgeist. Indeed, much of the nuclear war fear, specifically. For someone who mostly grew up after the cold war—though I’m sure it just sounds jaded and cavalier of me, and to some degree I’m sure that’s right—the undercurrent (or outright hysterical shrieking) of “WE’RE _ALL_ GOING TO BE _MURDERED_ BY NUCLEAR MADMEN! THE END IS NIIIIIGH!” in a number of flicks seems almost _quaint_. Though I’ll concede that a good deal of that fear was a _good_ thing…it helped keep MAD working. Alfred Nobel would be proud. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/140 "2010-02-28T20:19:58Z")
How about **Salvador** with James Woods. Latin America, Ronald Reagan, communists, right wing death squads supported by American aid. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730.md?page=8)