# 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:** 7
**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, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/121 "2023-09-19T02:27:51Z")
As a kid I just assumed there was some sort of check point/ they were all stuck there in traffic and so the times were equal type of thing, I was pre-teen what did I know. As an adult and knowing haw the race really worked, everyone that started after the Lambo, would have won and they seemed to have left fairly early on. I think the chase makes for a more exciting ending for cinema, but why spend time explaining the rules? The Lambo girls still didn’t deserve to be recast in the sequel. ---
**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, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/122 "2023-09-19T02:43:44Z")
> [@pirviii](#): > > I think the chase makes for a more exciting ending for cinema, but why spend time explaining the rules? The way they did it was more cinematic, but it just seems so careless; like the producers really didn’t give a damn. > [@pirviii](#): > > The Lambo girls still didn’t deserve to be recast in the sequel. Maybe they retired as champions, or the actresses wanted more money for the sequel. The likeliest answer is that the producers figured they could put any two women in catsuits and the audience wouldn’t notice. At least they didn’t recast Seymour Goldfarb for the sequel. ---
**Author:** ![WhyKickAMooCow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9fc29f/32.png) [@WhyKickAMooCow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyKickAMooCow)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2023, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/123 "2023-09-19T09:48:25Z")
Whole thread bemoans films objectifying women, thread ends with posts objectifying women. This place is a joke. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2023, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/124 "2023-09-19T11:00:26Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > > [@hogarth](#): > > > > I remember thinking _The Seven Year Itch_ (a purportedly hilarious comedy about a guy sexually harassing his nameless neighbour while his wife and kid are away) had aged poorly when I saw it in the '90s. I doubt it has improved much since then. > > > [@Riemann](#): > > > > Even in the era it was made, I never understood the whole notion of a movie (and very successful stage play!) where the entire plot is “creepy middle-aged married man fantasizes about fucking the hot girl upstairs”. > > It could be remade but not as a comedy - more of a stalker/slasher/horror flick. I dunno, ISTM that that theme was the main driver of the 1999 “black comedy-drama” American Beauty. Admittedly, 1999 is not today, and the movie basically had to have a tragic ending to redeem the protagonist’s creepiness, but the middle-aged-man-lusting-after-hot-teen premise was still presented as essentially comic. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2023, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/125 "2023-09-19T11:33:31Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > How do you even make a “period movie” now. Show the casual racism of the time and be accused of endorsing it or not showing it leaving yourself vulnerable to accusations of “whitewashing”. There are different ways. Some films, like [the 2015 Brooklyn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_(film)) about an Irish immigrant to the US in the mid-20th century, just have a very narrow focus on a particular historical demographic consisting of white people who are portrayed as culturally and geographically very segregated from Black people. So Black people remain almost totally peripheral to the film, and it doesn’t seem implausible that neither race nor anti-Black racism is ever really addressed at all. Other films, like [the 2019 Personal History of David Copperfield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Personal_History_of_David_Copperfield) adapting the Dickens classic, just go for race-inclusive casting without worrying about historical accuracy, and without explicitly confronting racism issues in the historical period they’re portraying. Others, like [the 2022 miniseries Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=why+didn%27t+they+ask+evans+miniseries&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) adapting the Agatha Christie classic, use inclusive casting in a more restricted and slightly more realistic way; IIRC the two most prominent non-white supporting characters in that 1930s British setting are a Black ex-Navy sailor who’s the hero’s business partner, and a Sikh Indian butler/majordomo who runs the heroine’s country-house establishment. Yes, in all these approaches, sympathetic characters are not shown exhibiting racist attitudes, although unsympathetic characters may do so. In the actual period being portrayed, of course, casual racism on the part of white main characters would generally not have been considered in any way remarkable or unsympathetic. Neither would mild animal abuse, mild corporal punishment of children, or casual class prejudice, for example. These are all things that would create an unfavorable impression in audiences nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2023, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/126 "2023-09-19T20:10:38Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I dunno, ISTM that that theme was the main driver of the 1999 “black comedy-drama” American Beauty. Admittedly, 1999 is not today, and the movie basically had to have a tragic ending to redeem the protagonist’s creepiness, but the middle-aged-man-lusting-after-hot-teen premise was still presented as essentially comic. Isn’t there also a scene towards the end where Spacey’s character has the opportunity to put a move on the young girl, and as soon as it stops being fantasy, he realizes how creepy it would be to go through it, and backs off? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2023, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/127 "2023-09-19T21:31:18Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Yes, in all these approaches, sympathetic characters are not shown exhibiting racist attitudes, although unsympathetic characters may do so. In the actual period being portrayed, of course, casual racism on the part of white main characters would generally not have been considered in any way remarkable or unsympathetic. Neither would mild animal abuse, mild corporal punishment of children, or casual class prejudice, for example. These are all things that would create an unfavorable impression in audiences nowadays. It’s a twenty year old movie now, but Mike Lynch’s _Topsy-Turvy_, about Gilbert and Sullivan’s relationship while working on _The Mikado_, handled this pretty well. There’s a scene with a few of the actors having oysters for lunch, and being casually super racist with each other, in the way that was common among 19th century Victorians. Verisimilitude restrains the film from having anyone call the characters out in-scene, so instead, the next scene has the oyster-eating racists getting violently ill from bad oysters. It works both as a valid slice-of-life Victoriana - food safety was at best a young science, at the time - while also giving the characters an emotionally satisfying comeuppance for being shit head racists. ---
**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 20, 2023, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/128 "2023-09-20T00:58:50Z")
> [@WhyKickAMooCow](#): > > Whole thread bemoans films objectifying women, thread ends with posts objectifying women. This place is a joke. [![](https://i.postimg.cc/SKvwYzs0/Dale-Gribble.jpg) ](https://i.postimg.cc/SKvwYzs0/Dale-Gribble.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2023, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/129 "2023-09-21T03:12:18Z")
Yes. He thinks she is experienced and willing and he’s eager for their tryst. She is apparently willing but she tells him she’s a virgin and he has second thoughts. He kisses her on the head and leaves. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2023, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/130 "2023-09-21T03:42:51Z")
A few years before that, there was “Go Ask Alice”, which purported to be a real diary, and later exposed as fiction (which I would have figured out on the first page if I had read that when I was 16, not 11). Both books had TV movies made from them within a couple years of their releases. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2023, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/131 "2023-09-23T14:49:02Z")
> [@Toxgoddess](#): > > Yes. He thinks she is experienced and willing and he’s eager for their tryst. She is apparently willing but she tells him she’s a virgin and he has second thoughts. Which is some rather fucked-up shit in its own right, yeah? Like, sure, it’s fine for a middle-aged dad to be hitting on his daughter’s high school classmate as long as somebody else has previously popped her cherry? I hope that moviemakers today would think a little harder about such assumptions if they were considering a similar plot. ---
**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 23, 2023, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/132 "2023-09-23T14:53:03Z")
The dueling Twains had me laughing my ass off. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2023, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/133 "2023-09-23T14:58:05Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Like, sure, it’s fine for a middle-aged dad to be hitting on his daughter’s high school classmate as long as somebody else has previously popped her cherry? But I don’t think anything about Kevin Spacey’s character in _American Beauty_ is portrayed as “fine”. Most (all?) of the characters are messed up in one way or another, and him lusting after a schoolgirl is one of many dysfunctional things going on in the movie. (And fwiw I think the point about him discovering that’s she’s a virgin is that it snaps him out of objectifying her.) My bemusement about _Seven Year Itch_ is that a middle-aged man creeping after young Marilyn is the _entire_ fucking plot, and it’s portrayed as lighthearted comedy entertainment. ---
**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 23, 2023, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/134 "2023-09-23T15:05:25Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > My bemusement about _Seven Year Itch_ is that middle-aged man creeping after young Marilyn is the _entire_ fucking plot, and it’s portrayed as lighthearted comedy entertainment. Watching some old guy who thinks a young woman, Marilyn Monroe no less, would actually be interested him is… _ **funny** _. I don’t think it’s that great of a comedy, but your lack of understanding for its basis just baffles me. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2023, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/135 "2023-09-23T15:05:50Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > funny Sure, as a 10-minute subplot. Not the entire content of a feature-length movie. Different strokes, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2023, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/136 "2023-09-23T15:06:49Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > But I don’t think anything about Kevin Spacey’s character in _American Beauty_ is portrayed as “fine”. Sort of agree, but ISTM that he is presented as the most sympathetic of the protagonists. > [@Riemann](#): > > (And fwiw I think the point about him discovering that’s she’s a virgin is that it snaps him out of objectifying her.) Less agree. AFAICT it just flips him to objectifying her as Innocent Maiden rather than objectifying her as Hot Teen Slut. Pretty much nothing about the standard patriarchy fetishization of virginity involves actually respecting young women as individual human beings. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2023, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/137 "2023-09-23T15:11:28Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Pretty much nothing about the standard patriarchy fetishization of virginity involves actually respecting young women as individual human beings. Of course I don’t disagree with that in general, but if that were his thought process in _American Beauty_, shouldn’t he have been even more eager to take her virginity? I realize it’s open to interpretation, but the way I read it was that it snapped him out of his outrageous objectifying fantasy into seeing a human being like his own daughter. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2023, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/138 "2023-09-23T15:15:22Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > > [@Riemann](#): > > > > My bemusement about _Seven Year Itch_ is that middle-aged man creeping after young Marilyn is the _entire_ fucking plot, and it’s portrayed as lighthearted comedy entertainment. > > Watching some old guy who thinks a young woman, Marilyn Monroe no less, would actually be interested him is… _ **funny** _. I don’t think it’s that great of a comedy, but your lack of understanding for its basis just baffles me. Tom Ewell was in his forties when he played the role. I don’t think he was “some old guy” but perhaps a middle-aged husband and father. ---
**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 23, 2023, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/139 "2023-09-23T15:36:03Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > The dueling Twains had me laughing my ass off. Sorry! Wrong thread! ---
**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 23, 2023, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064/140 "2023-09-23T23:36:31Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > > [@Kimstu](#): > > > > Pretty much nothing about the standard patriarchy fetishization of virginity involves actually respecting young women as individual human beings. > > Of course I don’t disagree with that in general, but if that were his thought process in _American Beauty_, shouldn’t he have been even more eager to take her virginity? I realize it’s open to interpretation, but the way I read it was that it snapped him out of his outrageous objectifying fantasy into seeing a human being like his own daughter That’s how I read the scene; it wasn’t her virginity _per se_ that made him back off; it was noticing that for all her pretense of sexual experience, she was actually nervous and uncomfortable. Still creepy, of couse. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-could-not-be-made-in-today-s-world/990064.md?page=8)