I think we’re on to something here. We should strip the following movies of their Best Picture awards:
Chicago - for portraying lawyers as moneygrubbing, manipulative liars
American Beauty - for portraying repressed homosexuals as sadistic murderers
Titanic - for portraying rich people as stupid, greedy and vicious
Braveheart - for portraying English royalty as stupid, greedy and vicious
Unforgiven - for portraying cowboys as stupid, mean and prejudiced
Dances with Wolves - for portraying Union soldiers as stupid, mean and prejudiced
etc., etc.
OR, you can write a screenplay in which a repressed homosexual rich greedy noble born lawyer in the Union army kills a cowboy and you’ll be sure to get an Oscar.
Jeezel, think of the message that the Academy was sending by giving Hannibal Lechter (Anthony Hopkins) an Oscar for that role in Silence of the Lambs. Damn serial killer loving Academy!
No, not negative at all. I was going with the idea that the Academy only gives awards to movies that portray people in a sterotypical fashion, so that would rule out Winn Dixie. I have since changed my stance to the more proactive one where we should investigate all movies that have ever shown a particular kind of person in a negative fashion and strip them of any awards they received. This might take to long to be practical, however.
Are you saying that poor people who don’t live in trailers are not stereotyped? Because they are. How commonly-held does the stereotype have to be before it’s unacceptable to depict?
Film almost has to deal with stereotypes–because it cannot depict the whole of human existence inside of three hours. What I mean by that is that the filmmakers have to use individual people to talk about general themes. Especially in your typical “person from a bad upbringing makes good” kind of story, because the main focus is how the person is going to overcome their past in order to triumph. The focus isn’t on the upbringing itself; it’s on the end result.
Well, you said that any film that “promotes bigotry” shouldn’t win a Best Picture award. Even if they’d been promoting bigotry on purpose (which I don’t believe), I don’t believe your statement is true. Artists (including filmmakers) have no obligations whatsoever to make their work acceptable to every group, or even to any group. In fact, I’ll go even farther than that. Artist have no obligations at all. Sure, if they want to be financially successful, or critical darlings, they’ll most likely have to compromise a little. But they’re under no obligation to do anything at all in regards to their work. It’s art, not an ad campaign.
As to historical precedents – I’m not too good on movie history.
More generally: It’s surely no big leap to recognize that movies have influence. My modest suggestion was merely that peddling hate against a vulnerable group shouldn’t get Best Picture.
I’m only being modest because I can tell you wouldn’t buy the more aggressive course I’d favor.
I wonder how all the proud, scornful defenders of glorious artistic freedom here feel about movies depicting sex with children? Is politics suddenly legitimate there?
Yes, but in what way? You can break it down further, if you like; Swank’s character’s brother is portrayed as (1) recently released from prison and (2) having many tattoos. He is shown to be brutish, violent, moneygrubbing, and unconcerned for his sisters plight. Did you assoiciate his demeanor with any of those traits? Does his portrayal reinforce negative stereotypes? Is the young black boxers sadism intended to reflect on all young black males? Does Freeman’s character perpetuate the “Uncle Tom” myth?
The only Texan in the film was portrayed as a mental defective, and the sole lawyer was an unethical shyster trying to cheat Swank’s character out of her money and take it for himself and her undeserving family, including the heavily tattooed brother. Now, I am heavily tattooed, a Texan, and a lawyer. Should I be offended that this movie has characterized me as a violent, brutish, moneygrubbing, unethical, uncaring mentally defective tattooed Texan lawyer, or simply accept that those characters are not intended to be indicative of the whole?
The problem here (one of them, anyway) is that you keep using loaded, fundamentally meaningless phrases like “peddling hatred” and “promoting bigotry”. That’s why it’s taking so long, and has been so difficult, to figure out what your actual position is. And I don’t agree with it (conditional, of course, on replacing the phrase “peddling hatred” with “exacerbating a real prejudice against vulnerable people”). What to do about American Beauty from Rufus Xavier’s list (the most convincing example there where you could argue that the stereotyped group was “vulnerable”)?
As long as the sex is simulated and not real, then the artist has the freedom to depict it all he/she likes. I might not actually watch the film (though that’s by no means to say that I absolutely wouldn’t–it would depend on the film as a whole), but the filmmaker is perfectly within his/her rights to use that in a film.
This is another problem. In order to have a meaningful discussion on themes and depictions in film, background and history is pretty much required. I’m not saying one has to be a movie expert, just that basic familiarity with general filmmaking conventions and the historical development of filmmaking is important.
Of course, Shirley MacLaine’s portrayal of Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment isn’t even properly in the running, as she was more self-absorbed than mean. She was quite the. . . acquired taste, though, wasn’t she?
Either it was the best picture of the year, or it wasn’t. If it presented an unpleasant message, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t artistically worthy. In fact, there’s a lot to be said for films that present unpleasant messages.
As for your talk about movies “depicting sex with children,” “Lolita” is one of the greatest books ever written in the English language. The subject matter is unpleasant and the lead character’s a sociopath, but it’s a great book. If they could make a movie that met that standard (they’ve tried a few times and failed) it would be a great movie too.
Incidentally, thanks for the link to that site. I’ve never read dumber authors in my life; their columns are an absolute scream. the article about a Toronto Star writer, in which he demonstrates his total lack of reading comprehension skills, is comic gold. Best satirical site on the Net, hands down, except maybe “The Onion.”
I gotta admit this discussion is almost getting on my nerves.
That lazy, mean, vicious woman? That’s Eastwood himself!
I often wonder – they spend a fortune making these movies. Can’t they pay a few bucks for some guy with just a smidgeon of story imagination and capacity to invent dialogue?
It was enormously lazy of the MDB moviemakers – seeking to produce a tough background for Maggie to overcome – to snap their fingers and come up with the abysmal cliche that the ugly trailer park mom represents.
It was also mean and vicious. Do I have proof that trailer park folks are being harmed? Show me the money if you want proof. This is a discussion board. Recall for yourself the recurring references to trailer parks in the daily media glop – 99% evince contempt. A movie like MDB contributes to the culture’s prejudice; it feeds America’s thirst to blame and denigrate somebody; and it is itself a party to the abuse of the people its heroine represents.
I really have to laugh at the idea of associating “art” with the mediocrity we generally see in movie houses. Hey – if it’s art, why are people all around pigging out on large feedbags of popcorn with their mouths open so everyone can hear their lowgrade contentment?
Isn’t art supposed to stimulate thought and awareness? Does anyone imagine movies are doing that for people? The media is homogenizing people, producing conformity, inducing brain-deadness. I thought the secret was out. What’s up with all this talk of “art”?
Let’s quote an artist – Arthur Miller, in his essay on Robert Kennedy:
Are ALL poor people stereotyped, as LindyHopper claims? No.
Do films have to exploit stereotypes because there’s simply no time to tell a story in a not dumb way? No.
Is “peddling hatred” a “fundamentally meaningless phrase”? I don’t see why.
LH also says movies depicting simulated sex with children are in principle OK by him. Aren’t they illegal? (That at least might suggest I’m not out on some lone branch here.)
It really seems so misguided to me to take this extremist stand about art, like there’s something so sacred about it. Sure Lolita’s a fine book. Quite enjoyed it myself. But does anyone think the world is going to collapse if art is not permitted to depict sex with kids?
Art’s defenders seem to think of art as some absolute principle – like any real-world effects are irrelevant. Why? It violates common sense. How did some people make it through evolution without the inclination to consider consequences?
RickJay provides a further, perhaps redundant iteration of the “art” argument, but redeems his brilliance by writing “Best satirical site” satirically.
pravnik, who is “heavily tattooed, a Texan, and a lawyer,” says the movie doesn’t insult him. I agree.
On art as an absolute principle – consider violence. Fictional violence causes real-world violence. It’s not only obvious to any dunkhead, it’s also been established by hundreds or thousands of scientific studies. What sane argument exists – besides the money being made by the industry – for permitting the level of violence we see today in our mass entertainment?
How is Clint Eastwood lazy? He’s out there working instead of carping about insensitive movies on message boards. If anybody’s lazy, I think it’s you for pinning all the blame for the movie on Eastwood, who didn’t write it or create any of the characters.
Actually, that’d be the work of the late Jerry Burns, a.k.a. F.X. Toole, who wrote the story on which the movie was based.
What a lazy copout. I paid to be here, and I asked you a fucking question. You keep going on and on about how hateful and hurtful the movie is, is it outlandish that I ask you to prove it? We’re not all going to buy your assumptions. In fact, so far it seems that nobody does.
ISpeaking of getting on people’s nerves, the only thing it seems you’ve brought to this argument is your contempt for everyone else. Since it was a book first, your sneers about popcorn are irrelevant.
I said that too, and if they’re not porn, no, it’s not.
I thought we were arguing about whether the movie was wrong or not. When did the legality of child porn become an issue? Pick a tangent and sink with it.
Freedom of something or other, I forget. Probably not important.
RickJay is correct about the reading comprehension you demonstrated in the Toronto Star piece, by the way.
Well, as a Southerner who has been exposed to quite many trailer parks (I’ve even visited people in them before… slept in a trailer overnight a time or two…), I was always under the impression that trailer park trash ARE right-wing. I mean, the women wear halter tops and dutifully fix grub for their beer guzzling men, while the Stars and Bars dangles precipitously from a hickory stick outside. Don’t they?