# Movies that could not be made in today’s world **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [September 13, 2023, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064 "2023-09-13T18:10:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/101 "2023-09-16T22:10:37Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > I don’t think anyone approved of Maggot’s behavior in the film. Ah, you’re totally correct. > **[Archer J. Maggott](https://dirty-dozen.fandom.com/wiki/Archer_J._Maggott)** > > Archer J. Maggott (portrayed by Telly Savalas) was a member of the Dirty Dozen team. Maggott considers himself a very religious man, using his religious beliefs to justify his racism and hatred (including rape) of women under the guise of wanting to... ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/102 "2023-09-16T22:28:48Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > “The Great Santini” - thoroughly two-dimensional, unhinged, child-harassing wife-beaters (Duvall) probably wouldn’t be the most poplular character these days. Like numerous Pat Conroy novels and their film adaptations, it’s based on the author’s actual childhood. Conroy was not trying to make Santini a “popular character”, he was depicting the reality of growing up in that kind of family. Robert Duvall’s Santini is only about 1/10th as shitty as the one in the book, who is likewise said (by the author) to be an _understatement_ of how mean his actual father, Col. Don Conroy, was. It should be noted that the father and son Conroys became much closer in later years and “Santini” made a good faith effort to change his behavior and reconcile with his children, but the damage was done and Pat Conroy and all of his siblings were deeply troubled from the trauma of this upbringing. But in any event, there’s nothing about _The Great Santini_ that couldn’t be made today and there was nothing about it that was glorifying that character as someone who should be admired. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/103 "2023-09-16T22:34:12Z")
Oh, the gentleman from the South had a question about the dining arrangements. He and his comrades are discussing place settings now. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/104 "2023-09-17T00:25:31Z")
Thank-you for the elucidation! ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/105 "2023-09-17T00:37:22Z")
I’m sorry I can’t think of a good DD rejoinder to that. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/106 "2023-09-17T01:24:22Z")
And for those who are wondering about my post, I probably should have added more context, but I got distracted. It’s a quote from The Dirty Dozen. Maggot asked “Are we going to have to eat with n\*\*s?” which led to Jim Brown’s character jumping at him, and a general fight breaks out. Lee Marvin’s character says what I posted to the guard as he’s walking out. One of my favorite lines from the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/107 "2023-09-17T02:43:08Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > “I Spit On Your Grave”. Sure, there’s incredibly stupid torture porn these days, but some of the over-the-top misogyny here, such as when the raping assailants stand above their beaten victim while laughingly reading aloud from her diary…yeah, that’s just a whole new level of “nah, not these days”. There was a remake in 2010 and two sequels in 2013 and 2015 that IMO had rape scenes that were just as if not more disturbing than the original. So they quite _literally_ made that same movie in today’s world. And there are plenty other recent rape/revenge movies in the extreme horror world. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/108 "2023-09-17T06:57:48Z")
Ah, again fair enough. (ha! been gettin my butt kicked here in this thread, but in an awesome TIL way) It’s vaguely coming back to me there were remakes - that genre, along with rape/revenge stuff I’m pretty ignorant of. Heh, Liam Neeson? (I know, I know - a bit more undergound than him.) ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/109 "2023-09-17T12:32:34Z")
Come to think of it… if we’re are talking of truly the “same movie made today” as in exactly alike, that simply could not happen in virtually any case, never mind “having issues” about content. Movie or record or whatever “X” was made the way it was made because it was made _then_ , by _those people_ for _that public_ . That’s why you get remakes and reboots reinterpreting things, save for gimmicks like the 1998 _Psycho_ calque. “X could never be made today” is not really a denunciation of today. So Blazing Saddles could not be made _exactly the same_ in 2023 _because_ it was made in 1974 and made its point _then_ , mocking how the pop Western genre had erased or sanitized the racial issues of the period and that persisted into the then-current time (\*) , playing its part in the culture moving in the right direction so we would not _need_ the exact same thing again. ( \* the point was NOT that it’s fun to have someone say “n\_\_\_” every other scene … then again in 2023 we have people complaining they can’t get AI to use the word so maybe we need a movie ridiculing **that** ) ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/110 "2023-09-17T16:58:55Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > The joke’s on the white guys. I don’t think so. One of the frat boys asks one of the girls what she’s studying. When she says “primitive cultures,” we instantly cut to the Black guys dancing onstage. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/111 "2023-09-17T17:44:06Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Do they even make high school sex, drugs, & alcohol comedies in the style of Fast Times & Ridgemont High, Dazed and Confused, American Pie, and Superbad anymore? There have been several movies in the past few years that could be summarized as “like American Pie, but from a female perspective”. For instance, 2019’s excellent _Booksmart_. And, upcoming, the absolutely bananas-sounding [Bottoms](https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/bottoms-review-1.6953679). ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/112 "2023-09-17T18:02:41Z")
I enjoyed _Booksmart._ It’s definitely a sign of changing times. > Jared: Prepare to get bashed! In a fun way, like consensually bashed, I mean. Consensually bashed, it should say. Prepare to get consensually bashed. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/113 "2023-09-17T19:54:52Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > And, upcoming, the absolutely bananas-sounding [Bottoms](https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/bottoms-review-1.6953679). Google image search for _bananas bottoms_ yeilded interesting results, but not nearly as x-rated as I expected. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/114 "2023-09-17T20:47:02Z")
[No Hard Feelings](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15671028/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_1_act) sounds like a typical and traditional teen romp. Haven’t seen it. Will soon I think. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/115 "2023-09-17T22:51:23Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I always figured it was satirical, specifically about the thought processes in Hollywood that led to “I Am Sam” and “Rainman”. I mean, if you’re aware of those two movies, it seems pretty obvious that Ben Stiller’s character was essentially doing the same thing, but was so blithely unaware of how problematic “Simple Jack” was. Kind of a “Let’s exaggerate it’s offensiveness, so we can show how offensive these older movies really were.” sort of thing. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but that’s what I came away from it with, not so much that they were _directly_ making fun of the mentally handicapped. That’s what I thought too, and that Lazarus, RDJ’s character, was right. Audiences love movies about triumph over adversity, such as mental disability or physical disability. But they want it glurged up, and they don’t want to know messy details. Simple Jack stayed simple to the end of the story. No hook, no Oscar. What I did find offensive was the bit where Speedman (Ben Stiller) is talking about adopting a kid, and his agent (McConaughey) says “At least you get to choose…I’m stuck with mine,” and looks sadly at a photo of himself and a kid with a slack jaw and blank expression. I remember a rather uncomfortable reaction in the theater, and there was an attempt to fix this, with a skit at the MTV movie awards that showed the kid as generally neurotypical, just an unmotivated slacker. But that wasn’t something that aged badly; it was a bad idea even at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2023, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/116 "2023-09-18T03:41:47Z")
I happened to watch _Cannonball Run_ a couple days ago. I don’t think it could be made in today’s world. The scenes of Burt Reynolds abducting and drugging Farrah Fawcett, and Terry Bradshaw and Mel Tillis loading up their car with beer for the race to California wouldn’t fly these days. Plus, it was absolutely terrible. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2023, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/117 "2023-09-18T17:45:55Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Plus, it was absolutely terrible. I agree but… that’s not a reason it wouldn’t be made today. Against a budget of $18 million, it grossed over $72 million. In 1981 dollars, that’s over $182 million. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2023, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/118 "2023-09-18T18:27:57Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Do they even make high school sex, drugs, & alcohol comedies in the style of Fast Times & Ridgemont High, Dazed and Confused, American Pie, and Superbad anymore? [I recognize most of the movies on this list, but none that strike me as particularly iconic.](https://www.imdb.com/list/ls062781406/) > > Maybe with all the helicopter parenting and social media these days, the themes of kids with largely absent parents getting into all sorts of trouble and throwing a massive end of the school year party no longer resonates with today’s youth? Just a seat-of-the-pants guess, but I suspect some of the decline in the teen sex comedy can be laid at the feet of the internet; specifically, internet porn. I was a teenager back in the 80’s, and part of the appeal of the teen sex romp was, well, the sex - Phoebe Cates taking off her bikini top in _Fast Times At Ridgemont High_, or the guys peeking in the girls’ shower in _Porky’s_; these movies were aimed right at the libidos of horny high school boys. Now, of course, those boys’ horny sons and grandsons can go online and find hours of far more explicit pornography, for free and without leaving the privacy of their bedrooms. A five-second shot of an actress’ breasts or buttocks simply isn’t as tittilating. > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > It seems to me that _anything_ can be the premise for an interesting screenplay. Some interesting films have involved unexpected settings. I certainly would never have thought “two stoners use a time-traveling phone booth to bring noted historical figures to the present for their homework” would make a good movie; and yet _Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure_ was a thoroughly enjoyable film. ---
**Author:** ![pirviii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pirviii/32/3233_2.png) [@pirviii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pirviii)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2023, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/119 "2023-09-19T01:41:20Z")
Cannonball Run is one of those nostalgia movies for me, but I agree it has some issues. The real crime was recasting the hotties in the Lambo for the sequel, not sure I saw that one more than once. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2023, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/120 "2023-09-19T02:17:12Z")
> [@pirviii](#): > > Cannonball Run is one of those nostalgia movies for me, but I agree it has some issues. The thing that I noticed is that they make a big deal of all the teams punching a time clock at the start, and say that the lowest time from coast-to-coast wins the race. Then everyone is neck-and-neck at the finish, one team (the Lamborghini) punches the clock, and everyone else gives up. Some team that left after the Lambo could still punch in and get a better time. Yes, I know I’m missing the point; it’s a small wtf moment in a movie that’s all about towering stupidity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064.md?page=7)