# Movie Romances You Found Extremely Disturbing (though they weren't supposed to be) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 27, 2006, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053 "2006-03-27T06:08:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MidnightRadio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@MidnightRadio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MidnightRadio)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/41 "2006-03-27T20:00:02Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > In **Big** , Tom Hanks hooks up with Elizabeth Perkins, and ha ha, he’s really 12 years old. Ewww. I don’t blame Perkins’s character, because I don’t think it’s normally the sort of thing once asks a prospective boyfriend (hey, are you really 12 years old?) so she doesn’t know … but I know. And it’s creepy. One minute he’s dancing on a big piano, and the next thing you know, he’s getting his freak on. I don’t think they actually had sex. _She_ wanted to, or was at least expecting it to happen, but he (being 12 years old), was completely oblivious. It’s been a long time since I saw the movie, but I remember him asking her if he could be “on top,” then getting onto the top bunk when she said yes. If I remember correctly, she had a kind of disappointed look on her face. Besides, it was supposed to be a family movie, I think, so I doubt they would have put something like that in there, even if he _wasn’t_ really 12 years old. > [@Cervaise](#): > > I saw a production of _Bye Bye Birdie_ last year and at the end I was squirming in my seat thinking “I don’t remember it being this creepy.” I haven’t seen that since I was a little kid. What was so creepy about it? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/42 "2006-03-27T20:03:11Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Well, but Clueless was based on Emma, where the title character grows up with Mr Knightley, who is a kind of older brother figure who has always hung around her house, and finally realizes she wants to marry him. I guess the original story is less creepy in context of its society. To put that in perspective: I’ve read, but can’t find a cite, that when Alice Liddell – the model of Alice in the novels of Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson – came of age, Dodgson, who had known her from childhood, approached her parents and asked for her hand in marriage. He was rebuffed – not because he was too old for her (20 years her senior), but because he was too lowborn for her. But by standards of the time there was nothing indecent about his suit. ---
**Author:** ![Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Man_With_a_Cat)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/43 "2006-03-27T20:09:48Z")
I’m seconding Pretty Woman. It’s just…wrong. It doesn’t feel right, just diving into love with some hooker with a heart of gold. I mean, come on, you rented her in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Stentor\_2.5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@Stentor\_2.5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stentor_2.5)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/44 "2006-03-27T20:10:06Z")
> [@MidnightRadio](#): > > I don’t think they actually had sex. _She_ wanted to, or was at least expecting it to happen, but he (being 12 years old), was completely oblivious. It’s been a long time since I saw the movie, but I remember him asking her if he could be “on top,” then getting onto the top bunk when she said yes. If I remember correctly, she had a kind of disappointed look on her face. > > Besides, it was supposed to be a family movie, I think, so I doubt they would have put something like that in there, even if he _wasn’t_ really 12 years old. I think you forgot about the scene where she takes her shirt of and puts his hand on her breast. They definitely had sex at one point in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/45 "2006-03-27T20:25:52Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Short-lived love triangle between a teenage girl, her boyfriend, and the not-much-older rock star she idolizes? No, not the Conrad Birdie subplot. The Albert/Rosie story. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/46 "2006-03-27T20:28:25Z")
> [@Stentor 2.5](#): > > I think you forgot about the scene where she takes her shirt of and puts his hand on her breast. And then cut to Tom Hanks damn-near _skipping_ down the street, face aglow. Yes, Virginia, he dipped his wick. ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/47 "2006-03-27T20:51:38Z")
I remember being upset by _Bus Stop_, possibly because I figured it would the usual Marilyn Monroe silliness. Instead there’s this kid who’s, like, 19 years old and has never been off the ranch, and he goes to The Big City and sees MM in a revue or something and decides right then and there that he Loves her and is a-gonna Marry her by God and haul her off to the ranch where she can spend the rest of her days cooking his meals and having his babies and washing his socks. This is not quite what she had in mind, although she would like to get out of showbiz. She doesn’t quite stand up to him, unfortunately, and there follows quite a lot of bullying on his part. I kept wanting her to dump him already, because he’s tremendously immature and possibly potentially violent. Maybe somehow casting MM in the role was a mistake – too gorgeous, too sexy, in what was originally a gritty stage play. Maybe her character is meant to be more ordinary-looking. ---
**Author:** ![Foybal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/fbc32d/32.png) [@Foybal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foybal)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/48 "2006-03-27T21:04:03Z")
I was put off by “There’s Something About Mary”. The more boyfriends she had the less the romances worked for me. I kept wanting to wrn the guy away from her rather than hope they would win her affections. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/49 "2006-03-27T21:26:34Z")
OMG, Bus Stop! What a horrible, horrible situation, and everyone around poor Marilyn Monroe smiles and winks as this bumpkin takes over her life. Yikes! ---
**Author:** ![priapus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@priapus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/priapus)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/50 "2006-03-27T21:39:05Z")
I always thought it strange how young Audrey Hepburn always ended up with the older “A” stars of Hollywood…Bogart,Cooper,Peck,Astaire,Grant ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/51 "2006-03-27T21:41:16Z")
The Goldie Hawn movie, [Overboard](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093693/). Another skeevy stalker dude lying to a woman, and falling in love, so it’s all okay. :rolleyes: While it’s not a movie, I want to share my hate for the anime [Don’t Leave Me Alone, Daisy](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294147/). Now anime has a lot of geek fantasy stories where the borderline stalker geek gets the girl of his dreams after doing something stupid/brilliant. That’s what I thought this was going to be when I got it. Silly me. While it is about a geek, there’s nothing **borderline** about his stalker tendencies. I don’t remember much, but I remember very clearly that he spent all his time with the girl (whom he’d tricked or kidnapped into spending time with him) calling her “Daisy,” instead of her name. When she complained it wasn’t her name, he told her it was her name. The other name was just a mistake. (shuddering) I did not finish the series to see how it came out. When this unstable character was revealed to have a pet nuclear armed cruise missile on top of his continuing creepiness, I just couldn’t keep watching. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/52 "2006-03-27T21:56:16Z")
I first saw [Sweet Hostage](http://imdb.com/title/tt0073772/) when I was in my twenties. It’s an offbeat romance in which Martin Sheen abducts Linda Blair and holds her prisoner in a cabin; she gradually falls in love with him. I just loved this movie! Thirty years later, I saw _Sweet Hostage_ again. It was like a totally different movie. Somehow the idea of being kidnapped by a stalker doesn’t seem so romantic to me anymore. ---
**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 27, 2006, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/53 "2006-03-27T21:59:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > To put that in perspective: I’ve read, but can’t find a cite, that when Alice Liddell – the model of Alice in the novels of Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson – came of age, Dodgson, who had known her from childhood, approached her parents and asked for her hand in marriage. He was rebuffed – not because he was too old for her (20 years her senior), but because he was too lowborn for her. But by standards of the time there was nothing indecent about his suit. Yeah, Jane Austen is full of stories of quasi-siblings or quasi-parent-substitute types being considered suitable matches. In _Mansfield Park_, Fanny Price’s perfect match is Edmund Bertram, who is not only her first cousin, but basically her brother – they grew up in the same household from a pretty young age. There’s an example of how the Lewis Carroll situation was viewed in the Edwardian era from the Jeeves and Wooster stories. Madeleine Bassett, whom Bertie wants desperately to avoid marrying, eventually weds the 8th Earl of Sidcup (a/k/a Sir Roderick Spode). The situation is explained that Spode knew Madeleine from “when she was so high” and had always loved her. The implication is that the adult Spode was in love with a child, and he married her when she came of age. There is no implication that there’s anything creepy about this. It is presented as something that is considered very fairy-tale-ishly romantic. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/54 "2006-03-27T22:01:24Z")
**Bringing Up Baby**. Katharine Hepburn’s character is a borderline psychotic stalker, and Cary Grant’s is terrified if her. I never “got” his suddenly falling in love with her, I think she just bullied him into it, and it will be months before she manages to get both of them killed. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/55 "2006-03-27T22:01:29Z")
**Bringing Up Baby**. Katharine Hepburn’s character is a borderline psychotic stalker, and Cary Grant’s is terrified if her. I never “got” his suddenly falling in love with her, I think she just bullied him into it, and it will be months before she manages to get both of them killed. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/56 "2006-03-27T22:11:58Z")
Don’t forget the whole idiocy of how she deals with a deadly predator as a pet, too. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/57 "2006-03-27T22:12:32Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > **Bringing Up Baby**. Katharine Hepburn’s character is a borderline psychotic stalker, and Cary Grant’s is terrified if her. Borderline? The woman is certifiable. She’s crazier than Mary of Scotland. Cary Grant’s character should run away from her faster than from a houseful of serial killers. > [@a35362](#): > > I remember being upset by _Bus Stop_, possibly because I figured it would the usual Marilyn Monroe silliness. > > Instead there’s this kid who’s, like, 19 years old and has never been off the ranch, and he goes to The Big City and sees MM in a revue or something… What about _Some Like It Hot_, in which the protagonists are basically two con men, one of whom toys with Monroe’s affections (and utilizes her weaknesses) while the other tricks and old, lonely man into thinking he’s an eligable woman. A funny movie…until after the credits roll. At least in _The Apartment_, the creeps actually come off as being creepy. Oh, well. Nobody’s perfect. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/58 "2006-03-27T22:12:39Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > It’s supposed to be a romance between the two worst caricatures of capitalism, the street hooker and the corporate raider. Before Garry Marshall tidied it up, the opening scene was of a dead hooker in a dumpster. It’s really supposed to be icky. And they fell to the third worst caricature of capitalism: The committee-driven focus-grouped Hollywood hack. How delightful! ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/59 "2006-03-27T22:59:33Z")
I’m not sure it qualifies as a relationship, but the ending of **Revenge Of The Nerds** is pretty queasy: nerd screws jock’s girlfriend by pretending to be jock in costume. When he reveals his true identity, instead of calling the cops she is touched and delighted because the sex was better than with her boyfriend. I’m pretty sure that would qualify as rape, actually. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2006, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053/60 "2006-03-27T23:00:39Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > To put that in perspective: I’ve read, but can’t find a cite, that when Alice Liddell – the model of Alice in the novels of Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson – came of age, Dodgson, who had known her from childhood, approached her parents and asked for her hand in marriage. He was rebuffed – not because he was too old for her (20 years her senior), but because he was too lowborn for her. But by standards of the time there was nothing indecent about his suit. Frances Folsom grew up calling her father’s longtime friend/business partner, who bought her her first pram, “Uncle Grovey”. He married her when he was president and a 49 year old bachelor and she was a 22 year old deb. Raised a few eyebrows, but the marriage was longlasting and fruitful (though there are allegations of spousal abuse by him). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-romances-you-found-extremely-disturbing-though-they-werent-supposed-to-be/350053.md?page=4)