There are still class divisions in the young adult world that could be played out in a movie that would be derided as a clone of the original. It was a low-brow comedy, intended to be offensive in the same way current movies intend to offend current mores, but it wasn’t intended to promote rape.
I think one aspect of that might prevent a Revenge of The Nerds type film from being remade is how the increase in school shootings would give any revenge-type fantasy set in high school/college an subtext some might find unnerving/creepy.
The same with “The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao”.
Yes, American society and popular culture are controlled and defined by the nerds now. Successful jocks play for professional sports teams. Successful nerds buy professional sports teams. The nerds won.
I think it might have been Matt Baum on youtube who did a video about it… But Zorro, The Gay Blade is gettin re-evaluated as weirdly empowering. Yes, Bunny is a stereotype but he isn’t degraded. He’s a competent hero. The villain is clearly having his closet unlocked by Bunny’s presence but it’s treated as he’s struggling with it and not offensively homophobic.
Dude, Where’s My Car? has a couple of transphobic jokes in it that don’t hold up well.
Lethal Weapon likewise with homophobia.
Could both be remade with those removed, though.
CGI. 
And there is a small, tiny chance they still survive. So I wish all those idiots chasing bigfoot and nessie (hoaxes) could instead spend some time doing more useful work. Ivory Billed Woodpecker maybe even.
No, there’s more than that. Before the brother even comes on scene there is funny stuff. And it is a decent swashbuckler and romance besides.
And the gay brother is a hero, note.
Yep.
That is a great film, even so.
I have long (30 years?) said that Blazing Saddles could never be re-made.
While you could easily make another Ace Ventura movie, it would be a reboot/sequel, not a remake. I’d argue the the transphobic plot IS integral to the first movie. The plot of the first movie is essentially “A detective is trying to find a kidnapper/murderer, but no one knows what happened to the primary suspect. It turns out the suspect is actually a transwoman/cross dresser (it’s never made clear in the movie, part of the transphobia) and is the detective’s boss/lover.”
Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank?
I mean the plot is similar, but I doubt the N word is used all that often.
Along those same lines, I wonder about A Guide for the Married Man. Maybe Walter Matthew’s character getting caught at the end might save it. Creepy none-the-less.
And using pejorative terms to prove yours?
Oooh, I’d watch that!
This isn’t the whole movie, but whenever I watch Miracle on 34th Street (the version with Natalie Wood as a child), it occurs to me that the scene where Kris Kringle is sitting with Natalie alone in her bedroom, on her bed (she’s tucked in and in her jammies) talking about what she wants for Christmas–that scene could not be shot that way today. Maybe he’d have to stand in the open doorway or something, I dunno.
I think the only thing holding that back is nobody really remembers Charlie Chan any more. Part of the joke with Sellars’ portrayal is poking fun at how racist the previous portrayals were. (“Why can’t one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century say his articles or prepositions!?”) Just lean more into that a bit, and you’d get away with it, much like Robert Downey Jr. got away with blackface in Tropic Thunder by making the joke be how inappropriate it is.
There are many many more movies made today that could not be made in past then the reverse.
People have this warped sense of nostalgia that only their era was challenging the norm. They project this nonsense into music and all other areas of pop culture.
Tropic Thunder was made in 2008, and from what I recall it is a spectacular film, but also from what I recall, I’m not sure if it could be made today, not 15 years later.
I don’t think it’s a matter of people thinking only their era was challenging the norm - but I think there was something specific going on in the 70s and early 80s regarding young teenagers that I haven’t seen since. Maybe you could remake most of Kentucky Fried Movie nowadays - but I saw it in the theatre with my friends when I was 14. I don’t think that would happen now. Little Darlings would not be made now. Brooke Shields’ movies might have been made - but either the actress would have been older or the movies would have been changed because no way is a movie being made today with a 12 year old or even a 14 year old doing nude scenes. I was searching on line trying to find out when a particular product was sold, and my search took me to a website where someone was scanning in old copies of Seventeen magazine. The magazine didn’t target 17 year olds, it was aimed at younger girls (starting at 12 or 13) and the ads seemed a little overly sexualizing to me with today’s eyes. ( “Six ways to turn a girl on” for a hair appliance? ) . In 1975. Forever, by Judy Blume was published . Nowadays, people are trying to ban the book. In 1975, girls were openly reading it in my Catholic school 7th grade class. Did our parents approve - I don’t know. I suspect that they had no idea what we were watching or reading - and that’s something that i don’t think happens as much any more.
This post is baffling. Fantasizing about unattainable romantic partners is a staple of comedy involving men and women of all ages on both sides of the equation and it doesn’t make people creepy, it makes them human. There are only two ways to end stories like that and they chose one of them for this movie. How else would you end this common story that plays out in real life and fiction over and over?
In 1975 it made the news that a “young adult” novel included sex. I’ve been reading a lot of young adult novels recently, and was surprised at how matter-of-factly they treat sex and birth control.
For instance, the books by Tamora Pierce
I think a lot of movies could just have material unpalatable to modern audiences removed and you’d still have a similar story. A few years ago one of the streaming services had The Monster Squad. It was a rariety in my household for the entire family to go see a movie together, but we all piled in the car and went to see The Monster Squad in 1987, so I decided to give it a watch because the only thing I could remember after 25+ years is that Wolfman had nards.
I was more than a little surprised about the homophobic rant two of the kids went on about their principal. It came out of left field and I kept thinking, “This is for kids?” And then there’s Dracula who just straight up tries to murder some children. Dude does not screw around, he picks up some dynamite and tries to blow the kids up in a tree house. Then there’s Horace who uses a shotgun to kill the the Gillman. How many movies are we going to see these days featuring the heroic use of a shotgun by a twelve-year-old kid?
Have you seen the movie? You can’t just make an abstract generalization to call it “fantasizing about unattainable romantic partners” like it’s Romeo and Juliet or something. It’s about selfish lust, and the male lead character is a creepy narcissistic letch. Of course that’s still a common part of human nature, but it’s a mystery to me who sees that as a good premise (the entire premise) for hilarious comedy.
But obviously I’m in the minority, or at least I would have been in the minority in that era, the play was very successful.