# 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:** 9
**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, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/161 "2010-03-02T14:48:21Z")
Oh well, what do I know? I don’t even live in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/162 "2010-03-02T15:50:29Z")
I don’ know about zeitgeist, but I know that being born in 1958 and not seeing it until about 1990, Citizen Kane certainly failed to wow me the way it was supposed to. The whole “it’s never been done before!” thing was completely lost on me. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/163 "2010-03-02T15:50:54Z")
> [@robby](#): > > :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. Too late for some of us, but I’m glad to hear someone, somewhere, in some school, is doing SOMETHING. What does it say when you get out of school crammed full of knowledge, useful or not, but you are a bitter, broken human being? I often think instead of study hall and running laps around the gym schools ought to offer something like “Lessons For Life” - teaching kids ethics, manners, and good behavior, how to deal with abusers and stalkers, things they are supposed to learn from wise concerned parents. In my dreams, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/164 "2010-03-02T16:04:29Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I don’ know about zeitgeist, but I know that being born in 1958 and not seeing it until about 1990, Citizen Kane certainly failed to wow me the way it was supposed to. The whole “it’s never been done before!” thing was completely lost on me. It came out around the time I was born, so I can up your degree of “so what?” to the point of saying that by the time I was able to stay awake all the way through seeing it (after at least four earlier tries), I just couldn’t decide what was so great about it. That’s because all the technical gee-whiz things it had introduced were by that time old hat and being used in even cheapo films. In this particular case, where the technical innovation and brilliance is a huge part of why the film is so well regarded, “you had to be there” when that stuff was new. One day, IMAX will make people say “who cares?” if that’s all there is to the movie’s appeal. 3-D was old almost as soon as it came out, because of the glasses, and here they are trying it on a new generation. Might as well use those “Stareo” thingies, as far as I’m concerned. (Remember John Candy moving that piece of bacon in and out to simulate old 3D movies?) ---
**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:** [March 2, 2010, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/165 "2010-03-02T19:31:43Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > (Remember John Candy moving that piece of bacon in and out to simulate old 3D movies?) Was that “House of Cats”? ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/166 "2010-03-02T19:33:37Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Was that “House of Cats”? Good! Yes it was and I could have been all wrong about the bacon. Was it a cat instead? ---
**Author:** ![FallenAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/167 "2010-03-02T19:43:35Z")
I know it was touched upon upthread, but _Rebel without a Cause_ was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid/teenager/young adult. Then, at about 22 or so, I was surprised my girlfriend hadn’t seen it; so I rented it, excited to show her this cinematic masterpiece. After we watched it she said something to the effect of, “Okay, so a pissy 16 year old has a bunch of temper tantrums and acts like an idiot. \*THAT \*was worth 2 hours of my life?” She insisted on picking out movies for a month after that. What killed me was when I realized, if they didn’t have a grasp on what life was like in 1955, pretty much everyone would think the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/168 "2010-03-02T21:33:11Z")
A lot of New York City based films like **Taxi Driver** , \*\*The Warriors \*\*and of course **Escape From New York**. In the 70s and most of the 80s, NYC was more of a shithole and it did not seem as fantastic that it could turn into a lawless wasteland for street gangs. I saw the movie \*\*Colors \*\*with Sean Penn again recently. Aside from the fact that the gangs were a little more “multicultural” than I would expect actual Bloods and Crips to be, it seemed to mostly reflect a lot of the “Just Say No” drug and gang fears of the 80s. Pretty much any 80s film about the Cold War. Which is why [this movie](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234719/)will suck. Also the movie **Office Space** , while a timeless depiction of corporate life, is very much a product of 90s dot-com tech culture. ---
**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:** [March 2, 2010, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/169 "2010-03-02T22:35:28Z")
> [@FallenAngel](#): > > I know it was touched upon upthread, but _Rebel without a Cause_ was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid/teenager/young adult. Then, at about 22 or so, I was surprised my girlfriend hadn’t seen it; so I rented it, excited to show her this cinematic masterpiece. > > After we watched it she said something to the effect of, “Okay, so a pissy 16 year old has a bunch of temper tantrums and acts like an idiot. \*THAT \*was worth 2 hours of my life?” She insisted on picking out movies for a month after that. > > What killed me was when I realized, if they didn’t have a grasp on what life was like in 1955, pretty much everyone would think the same thing. What was life like in 1955 that made a pissy 16-year old with temper tantrums acting like an idiot more sympathetic? ---
**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, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/170 "2010-03-02T23:50:54Z")
I was going to ask too. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/171 "2010-03-03T01:15:04Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Also the movie **Office Space** , while a timeless depiction of corporate life, is very much a product of 90s dot-com tech culture. Let’s not forget Peter was working in Y2K compliance. It won’t be very long till people have _no idea_ what that was all about. ---
**Author:** ![McGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f4b2a3/32.png) [@McGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McGeek)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/172 "2010-03-03T01:40:28Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I saw the movie \*\*Colors \*\*with Sean Penn again recently. Aside from the fact that the gangs were a little more “multicultural” than I would expect actual Bloods and Crips to be, it seemed to mostly reflect a lot of the “Just Say No” drug and gang fears of the 80s. I saw “Colors” in the theater when it was released in the late 80s, with high expectations given that it starred Robert Duvall and Sean Penn. I thought it was totally formulaic, and the depiction of gangs seemed cheesy. Not as cheesy as West Side Story, but West Side Story was not pretending to be realistic. ---
**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 3, 2010, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/173 "2010-03-03T02:25:20Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Let’s not forget Peter was working in Y2K compliance. It won’t be very long till people have _no idea_ what that was all about. Why? There’s a character _in the movie_ that has no idea what that was all about, and Peter does an excellent job of explaining it. Again “product of the times” does not equal “unrelatable outside of that time period”. Otherwise ever period piece ever filmed would have to be mentioned here. “Mom, why is everyone wearing weird clothing?” “Why don’t they let William Wallace and everyone else just vote?” ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/174 "2010-03-03T04:38:53Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Let’s not forget Peter was working in Y2K compliance. It won’t be very long till people have _no idea_ what that was all about. They might get a refresher course before you know it. In fact, possibly as soon as the year 2095. I’ve been reading articles lately about how some software developers are “reverting” back to using two-digit years when writing new software. The lesson didn’t completely take, it seems. ---
**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 3, 2010, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/175 "2010-03-03T04:54:58Z")
> [@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. I’m 47. I went to the worst private school in the world for junior high. The one way you could be sure that a bully would get away with bullying, even including physical assault with black eyes, split lips, chipped teeth, whatever, was to report him to a teacher. He would immediately get a pass, and the “snitch” would be punished. By the teachers. There were a few kids the teachers just couldn’t stand–thankfully I wasn’t one of them; I was “the smart kid,” so teachers liked me even if I wasn’t popular with the other kids–but there were a few kids that some of the teachers couldn’t stand. They were the ones who most frequently got the Enforcer, which was the nickname for the paddle cut out of a board and wrapped in electrician’s tape. I only got it once, and I don’t remember what it was for, but that thing was a weapon. I was bruised purple for more than a week, if I remember right. Seemed just the way things were at the time, but looking back and picturing Major Decker, a huge lumbering sasquatch of a foultempered, rhimy=eyed alcoholic, storming backlit down the dormitory hallway, 7- to 14-year-olds scattering before him as he bore down on them swinging a 24" long piece of pine–man, if Midwest Military Academy still stood, I’d be in jail for arson. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/176 "2010-03-03T05:05:47Z")
Not a movie, but a TV show - Charlie’s Angels. The premise is stuck in the 70’s and women’s lib era, when women were not expected to do things like _gasp_ be private detectives. Look at what they had to do to redo it in the recent movies - play up the camp angle and go way over the top on the characters. It just wouldn’t work straight. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/177 "2010-03-03T05:13:04Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > 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. […] Humanity has increasingly failed to impress me with it’s ability to completely escalate itself into death. Well we didn’t have the power for total self-annihilation until the early 1960s. That’s 50 years ago — which might seem like an ample amount of time for a good test of MAD, but in historical terms, 50 years is only a blip. You might be interested in [this article](http://www.worldcitizens.org/petrov2.html), about a day in 1983 when WWIII was almost started by simple misinformation. Here’s a summary from [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_III): On 26 September 1983, a Soviet early warning station under the command of Stanislav Petrov falsely detected 5 inbound intercontinental ballistic missiles from the US. Petrov correctly assessed the situation as a false alarm, and hence did not report his finding to his superiors. This highly likely prevented World War III, as the Soviet policy at that time was immediate nuclear response upon discovering inbound ballistic missiles. Now imagine a glitch like this happens to occur _while your two nations are at war_. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/178 "2010-03-03T05:34:49Z")
The extensive nudity and sex available on cable and the internet makes I am Curious (Yellow) very dated. At the time gossip columnists reported Jackie Onassis went to see it and left early. Who knows how we would feel about a "dirty film’ that has interviews with Martin Luther King Jr and future Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. Plus plenty of questioning people in the streets whether Sweden is a classless nation. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/179 "2010-03-03T05:53:54Z")
I get the sense that the parody in American Psycho would be difficult to comprehend if you didn’t understand the 80’s culture-of-excess ---
**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 3, 2010, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/180 "2010-03-03T06:13:14Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > Well we didn’t have the power for total self-annihilation until the early 1960s. That’s 50 years ago — which might seem like an ample amount of time for a good test of MAD, but in historical terms, 50 years is only a blip. Yeah, so for the first fifteen years of the atomic age, the guys with their fingers on the nuclear triggers weren’t assured that they _couldn’t_ win. Hell, for almost the first _five_ years, one side had a complete _monopoly_ on nuclear arms. And _no one tried pull it off_. > [@](#): > > Now imagine a glitch like this happens to occur _while your two nations are at war_. Yes, that _could_ be a problem with two major nuclear powers in a major shooting war. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we _never got that far_. Time after time, for all the glitches, for all the saber-rattling, people always _blinked_. People always pulled themselves back. It would be a kind of war too terrible to wage—so no one _has_ dared wage it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730.md?page=10)