# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/141 "2010-02-28T23:13:30Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > 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. Consider that in the comparitively brief span of fifteen years, we went from a score or two crude heavy fission bombs delivered by propeller-driven airplanes to hundreds or thousands of multimegaton thermonuclear warheads delivered at hypersonic speed by missiles. In the early days of the nuclear arms race it was still possible to imagine defending against nuclear attack, so the byword was alertness and preparedness. Then we effectively reversed course 180 degrees and said “forget it- if the nukes come, sayonara folks”. That was a whiplash to say the least. After a quarter century however, people accepted the status quo and life went on. I’m convinced that at least part of the explanation for the Sixties as a cultural phenomenon was an entire generation of children expecting that five or ten years down the road we were all going to die. ---
**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, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/142 "2010-02-28T23:55:37Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Consider that in the comparitively brief span of fifteen years, we went from a score or two crude heavy fission bombs delivered by propeller-driven airplanes to hundreds or thousands of multimegaton thermonuclear warheads delivered at hypersonic speed by missiles. In the early days of the nuclear arms race it was still possible to imagine defending against nuclear attack, so the byword was alertness and preparedness. Then we effectively reversed course 180 degrees and said “forget it- if the nukes come, sayonara folks”. That was a whiplash to say the least. After a quarter century however, people accepted the status quo and life went on. I’m convinced that at least part of the explanation for the Sixties as a cultural phenomenon was an entire generation of children expecting that five or ten years down the road we were all going to die. The irony being that the presence of an unsurvivable missile threat probably made things _safer_—it dulls down each side’s ability to think “y’know, he don’t look that tough…I think I can take him.” I love humanity. Sometimes they’re like Chihuahuas, and the next minute they’re like Afghan Hounds. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/143 "2010-03-01T01:37:11Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Believe it or not, I have begun adding to my YouTube Favorites quite a few of the old Disco tunes, especially [Boz Scaggs - Lowdown](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKptFyOAs1I) Holy cow!! I didn’t realize how many of his songs I knew!! Talk about bringing back memories, wow. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/144 "2010-03-01T01:49:41Z")
> [@Taomist](#): > > Holy cow!! I didn’t realize how many of his songs I knew!! Talk about bringing back memories, wow. “Loan Me A Dime”? Some extra fine Duane, too. Haven’t seen it on YouTube yet. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/145 "2010-03-01T02:25:47Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The L Shaped Room was a movie starring Leslie Caron who played an unmarried ,pregnant teenager who moved into a bad apartment to fend for herself. It was not the thing that we were public about in 1962. It was a big think back then. OMG I thought I was the only one that ever saw that picture. I saw it in the late 60’s early 70’s on tv late one night and it totally traumatized me. I watched it because it had Ms Caron in it who I had only seen in Gigi\* previously. I was expecting a comedy. Hahahaha. \*In retrospect this movie was not very funny either. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/146 "2010-03-01T02:48:32Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > Throw in **The World of Henry Orient** too; it’s not quite as incomprehensible, but you’ve got underage girls stalking an older man and a dash of outdated racist humor. I met Al “Granpa Munster” Lewis once, at his restaurant in NYC, when he was mingling with the customers, and wanted to say something to him he was unlikely to have heard 100 times earlier that day. So when he got to my table, I said “I just saw **The World of Henry Orient** ” recently and I hadn’t known you were in it." He thought about it for a second and said “ **World of Henry Orient**. That was a funny one.” And he went to the next table. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/147 "2010-03-01T03:10:14Z")
> [@aaelghat](#): > > I’m not sure, but I think the movie [Shaft](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaft_%281971_film%29) might fit the bill. > > I haven’t seen it in a long time, and I saw it long after 1971. I understood it, but it seemed campy when I watched it. I don’t know if the whole pimp/ganster/Shaft as Womanizer thing was a stretch in 1971, but it certainly was in the 80’s when I watched it. Yup. This is perfect. I was thinking about posting it last week. It was being shown at the local museum summer nights series, and a bunch of my friends went thinking it’d be good campy fun. It didn’t hold up at all, and we just couldn’t tell what was cheesy, what was the norm for the time, and what was serious. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/148 "2010-03-01T03:24:20Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > 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. > > […] The irony being that the presence of an unsurvivable missile threat probably made things _safer_—it dulls down each side’s ability to think “y’know, he don’t look that tough…I think I can take him.” If the political leadership on both sides is rational, and the military command and control structures are functioning as they ought to, then yes, you can probably rely on MAD to do its job. (Although, we have only a 30-ish-year example of the phenomenon to go by.) But the events of human history, especially those in the 20th Century, don’t offer much comfort that rationality will always prevail, or that the machinery invented by man to control events will function as intended. If you’ve never seen [_The Day After_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/), and want to understand Cold War anxieties a little better, then I’d highly recommend watching this film. This is how many of us assumed World War Three would likely happen if or when it happened — not from madmen pressing the Big Red Button just for the hell of it, but from a steady escalation of hostilities leading to tit-for-tat vengeance and a total breakdown in communication and trust. Even trust that the leaders of the other side will act rationally, in the interests of themselves and their nation. _The Day After_ was broadcast by ABC in 1983, when I and my friends were in high school. I remember on that night we gathered in one guy’s house, in his rec-room downstairs, and watched the film together, probably about 15 of us. The film was shown without any commercial interruption, a rarity both then and now. And, it _blew away_ our green little minds. Many of us were morose for days afterward. We certainly did not laugh it off, or dismiss the plot for making wild assumptions. The film is (or was) entirely plausible. I’d say it’s a little dated now only because those particular triggers of war have gone away: the Soviet Union has since collapsed, and Germany has re-united, so a NATO-USSR war over Berlin is no longer a possibility. But human rationality has not noticeably improved since 1983, I assure you. Looking ahead, we have the prospects of China, India, Pakistan, Iran, or all four having their own arsenals of ICBMs. A Cold War, or multiple Cold Wars, might be preparing to make a big comeback sometime this century. If or when that happens, it’s not obvious to me that MAD is a sustainable state of world affairs for decade after decade, century after century — however logical it might seem to rational people when they’re sitting calmly in a room. One problem of course is, crazy people are sometimes the ones in charge. (Witness Stalin, Hitler, or Paul Pot). Also, in the heat of a nasty war, even rational people can do the unthinkable, if they have reason to believe the other side is about to do the same to them. Sleep tight, kiddo! **click** ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/149 "2010-03-01T04:54:16Z")
Yes, like “On The Beach” (which is going to be shown on TCM next Saturday evening). That is exactly how the world ended, a steady escalation of hostilities, tit for tat. And the last humans alive on the planet quietly prepare to die. Disturbing, haunting movie with Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, and Ava Gardner. ---
**Author:** ![montag01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@montag01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/montag01)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/150 "2010-03-01T06:35:11Z")
I’ve just never found this movie at all convincing, despite its reputation, and I think part of it has to do with the drug attitudes of the time. If I recall correctly, the heroine is at one point kidnapped by a now-comical gang of lesbians and “rubbed down” with marijuana to get the bud scent all over her, an act the movie treats as defilement. I think the gang leader even threatens to “drug” the heroine with marijuana, as if it were PCP or something. Its interpretation of U.S.-Mexican relations in regards to drug smuggling and corruption might seem prescient in hindsight, but I’m so used to thinking of major gangs and bloody violence rather than the individual “evil” Welles studies in the movie, making it all feel too quaint to me. So I just can’t quite get into it or appreciate it, and that’s my loss. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/151 "2010-03-01T08:12:29Z")
> [@montag01](#): > > I’ve just never found this movie at all convincing, despite its reputation, and I think part of it has to do with the drug attitudes of the time. If I recall correctly, the heroine is at one point kidnapped by a now-comical gang of lesbians and “rubbed down” with marijuana to get the bud scent all over her, an act the movie treats as defilement. I think the gang leader even threatens to “drug” the heroine with marijuana, as if it were PCP or something. Its interpretation of U.S.-Mexican relations in regards to drug smuggling and corruption might seem prescient in hindsight, but I’m so used to thinking of major gangs and bloody violence rather than the individual “evil” Welles studies in the movie, making it all feel too quaint to me. So I just can’t quite get into it or appreciate it, and that’s my loss. Wow, that so doesn’t square with my memory of the film–and neither does Wikipedia’s synopsis of it! Turns out there have been several edits of Touch of Evil and that scene differs significantly in each. (Although I’m pretty sure the hoodlum gang had only one lesbian in it.) Oddly enough, your description does fit an early **Police Comics** story featuring Plastic Man, where lesbians at a gun moll ranch knock him out and force him to smoke “marihuana.” Not making this up; see vol.1 of the **Plastic Man Archives**! ---
**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:** [March 1, 2010, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/152 "2010-03-01T08:25:52Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > If the political leadership on both sides is rational, and the military command and control structures are functioning as they ought to, then yes, you can probably rely on MAD to do its job. (Although, we have only a 30-ish-year example of the phenomenon to go by.) But the events of human history, especially those in the 20th Century, don’t offer much comfort that rationality will always prevail, or that the machinery invented by man to control events will function as intended. The fact that we haven’t _had_ another world war in 65 years, and that as I recall _machetes_ have killed more people than The Bomb in that time, speaks more to me about human rationality. Or, in fact, possibly the opposite…the human capacity to chicken out. Yes, “The Day After” probably _did_ show a realistic scenario “steady escalation of hostilities leading to tit-for-tat vengeance” leading to WWIII. That’s probably why it _never happened_. The conclusion would have been just as foregone as pressing the button for kicks. Yeah, crazy people are sometimes in charge. Like Hitler. Who was sitting on several thousand _tons_ of _nerve gas_ by the end of the war, and never fired a drop of it. Humanity has increasingly failed to impress me with it’s ability to completely escalate itself into death. ---
**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:** [March 1, 2010, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/153 "2010-03-01T09:52:05Z")
**Smokey and the Bandit** followed the brief 70s CB radio and truck driver “cowboy” fad. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/154 "2010-03-01T10:06:28Z")
> [@montag01](#): > > If I recall correctly, the heroine is at one point kidnapped by a now-comical gang of lesbians There is one lesbian-type character in the gang (short hair, black leather jacket), played in a cameo by Mercedes McCambridge. The rest of the gang is six men and three skirt-wearing gang molls. [Trailer](http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi33489177/). > [@montag01](#): > > I think the gang leader even threatens to “drug” the heroine with marijuana, as if it were PCP or something. The gang leader refers to both marijuana and to “mainlining” drugs by injection, but I don’t think he means injecting marijuana. Afterward, Quinlan (the police detective played by Orson Welles) says, “They found her at the Hotel Ritz, half naked on one of the beds, drugged. There were reefer stubs and a heroin fix.” Later, the assistant D.A. tells Charlton Heston’s character, “They didn’t give your wife any real dope. The doc says it was only that truth stuff.” ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/155 "2010-03-01T10:42:21Z")
> [@montag01](#): > > If I recall correctly, the heroine is at one point kidnapped by a now-comical gang of lesbians and “rubbed down” with marijuana to get the bud scent all over her, an act the movie treats as defilement. I think the gang leader even threatens to “drug” the heroine with marijuana, as if it were PCP or something. Interesting as that scene sounds, it’s not from _ **Touch of Evil** _. ---
**Author:** ![montag01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@montag01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/montag01)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/156 "2010-03-01T12:57:39Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Interesting as that scene sounds, it’s not from _ **Touch of Evil** _. Judging from the responses, I must truly be thinking of a different film. I thought it was Touch of Evil. Oh well - whatever the film it is I’m thinking of, I think I would have understood it better according to its zeitgeist. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/157 "2010-03-01T17:26:58Z")
> [@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. Richard Linklater is from Austin, went to Austin’s McCallum High School (where, believe it or not, he was a JOCK, not an artsy type), and shot the film here in Austin, but Austin is NOT one of the places in Texas where such hazing rituals went on. Native Austinites like my wife were baffled by the scenes in which seniors were paddling freshmen or pelting them with eggs, because that kind of thing just didn’t happen in the 70s in Austin. On the other hand, I’ve met guys my age (48) who grew up in smaller, more rural Texas towns who assure me that paddlings, beatings, wedgies, and humiliations of all kinds definitely DID go on in the Seventies. I was assured by one Hispanic female friend that, yes indeed, freshmen girls in her hometown WERE driven through the car wash every year in the back of a pickup truck. And teachers/principals not only didn’t try to stop it, they flat out disrespected the sissies who complained about it. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/158 "2010-03-02T13:00:12Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > On the other hand, I’ve met guys my age (48) who grew up in smaller, more rural Texas towns who assure me that paddlings, beatings, wedgies, and humiliations of all kinds definitely DID go on in the Seventies. I was assured by one Hispanic female friend that, yes indeed, freshmen girls in her hometown WERE driven through the car wash every year in the back of a pickup truck. > > **And teachers/principals not only didn’t try to stop it, they flat out disrespected the sissies who complained about it.** This encapsulates everything that is wrong with the American education system, in my opinion. It’s not about education, it’s about establishing a society where people learn how to effectively dominate and humiliate other people. No wonder your politicians couldn’t care less if the poor die from lack of health care or not. ---
**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:** [March 2, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/159 "2010-03-02T13:40:32Z")
I thought we were making the point that this was NOT part of our direct experience. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/160 "2010-03-02T14:00:38Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > This encapsulates everything that is wrong with the American education system, in my opinion. It’s not about education, it’s about establishing a society where people learn how to effectively dominate and humiliate other people. No wonder your politicians couldn’t care less if the poor die from lack of health care or not. :rolleyes: Please. Totally getting off topic here, but I went to school all over the U.S. (including rural Texas and Tennessee) in the same time frame (I’m in my 40s), and experienced nothing like this. While there was some bullying, it was certainly not condoned by the administration. FWIW, today, school administrators actively work to eliminate bullying. Students in my son’s school can fill out a “bullying slip,” which are taken quite seriously. An investigation takes place, including interviewing witnesses, and if there is any credence to the complaint, the accused bully’s parents are brought in and the bully is punished by detention or suspension. There is very little tolerance for bullying today. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730.md?page=9)