Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is a motion picture that is often cited as an example of transphobia in movies. Sleepaway Camp(1982), Death Hunt(1981), and Crocodile Dundee(1986) are often cited as well.
They made American Pie in 1999. Don’t they still make those kinds of movies today?
Generation X wasn’t born until the 1960s and by and large they weren’t starring in those sex comedies of the 1980s. Kim Cattrall of Porky’s was born in 1951, Robert Carradine of Revenge of the Nerds was born in 1954, and Diane Franklin of The Last American Virgin was born in 1962.
My mother’s high school had a graduation dinner. They couldn’t have a prom. This was in 1949. I don’t think the policy changed until the late 1960’s.
Dirty Dancing is based on people’s real experiences.
It bothers me that today’s humor is so heavily scrutinized. Some of our greatest comedians like George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, and Billy Crystal wouldn’t have a career today. They would all be rejected by social media.
“Lenny Bruce would not have a career today, unlike the fabulous success he had as a standup in the '60s!”
If you want to argue that things are more oppressive today than they used to be, maybe don’t use an example of a guy in the '60s who was literally put on trial for his standup routine?
Billy Crystal has talked about his admiration of the old Borscht Belt comedians. It’s heavily influenced his work. Alan King, Jackie Mason, and Mel Brooks had similar careers.
I love that type of humor. I doubt it would be accepted today.
But of course the greats of comedy would have a career today. They were super-talented. They would just adjust their comedy to the times, exactly as they did back then. Remember that Carlin was a short-haired, non-controversial, mainstream comic until the late 60s changed the scene.
Sure, but it wasn’t exactly a cornerstone of his act - it’s not like, “You can’t do blackface,” would hamstring his career the way, say, “You can’t do sexist nursery rhymes,” would hamstring Andrew Clay.
At any rate, I think it’s pretty safe that if Billy Crystal were starting his standup career today, “Sammy Davis Junior” impressions would not feature heavily in his act for a variety of reasons, and not just “sensitive audiences.”
Okay, a type of humor that hasn’t aged well, that’s not specifically racist/sexist/whatever?
Third act bullshit. Stripes is a solid, reasonably grounded comedy about a couple of fuck-ups learning how to be mature in boot camp, and they fuck it up with the third act where they take a militarized Winnebago on a joyride through Eastern Germany. Trading Places is a sharp commentary on wall street and race relations, whose third act climax revolves around this group of smart, savvy people undertaking a dangerous, illegal scheme to manipulate the stock market and ruin two of the richest men in America, and their plan to do this by dressing up in funny costumes and doing goofy accents.
She’s literally a special case, with personal ties to Crystal. And she said that back in 2012, almost another era. I don’t doubt that what she said was true. I also don’t doubt that that no longer matters to the world.
Agreed. And 1984/5 when he was on SNL, was several other eras ago. Raking him over the coals for the old footage seems kind of pointless, but it’s stunningly unwise on his part to revive the impression.
The legality of the scheme was not cut and dried at the time - at the time, trading on inside info in the commodities markets was legal - see the “Eddie Murphy Rule” https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-MB-18853
We have recommended banning using misappropriated government information to trade in the commodity markets. In the movie “Trading Places,” starring Eddie Murphy, the Duke brothers intended to profit from trades in frozen concentrated orange juice futures contracts using an illicitly obtained and not yet public Department of Agriculture orange crop report. Characters played by Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd intercept the misappropriated report and trade on it to profit and ruin the Duke brothers. In real life, using such misappropriated government information actually is not illegal under our statute. To protect our markets, we have recommended what we call the “Eddie Murphy” rule to ban insider trading using nonpublic information misappropriated from a government source.
I heavily agree with this. There’s so many great episodes of The Simpsons or King of the Hill where the 3rd act is all story resolution/drama and practically no jokes. Makes them hard to rewatch.