[Moderating]
And let’s refrain from rolleyes smileys, and try to keep this discussion civil.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
When is a “rolleyes” appropriate?!
For Crissakes, we’re debating the so-called historical accuracy of a Christmas movie! Lighten up!
It’s a movie. It’s got things that pinpoint the date; it’s got props that are good enough to fit; and it’s got a story and bits and pieces of nostalgia drawn from an adults memory – if your pedantic approach doesn’t deserve a rolleyes, then get rid of the damn option.
[Moderating]
In GQ, pretty much never.
Exactly. Please take your own advice. (I also note your reference to other posters making a “hot mess” of the thread.)
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
How do you know these were conscious decisions? How do you know it wasn’t a prop master that took the first things he could get his hands on? How do you know the car they rented for production didn’t just happen to have 1940 tags on it?
Unfortunately, written dates are a bit more concrete than say, oh… a hat. Let a date land somewhere like a newspaper or on a coin/tag on film, and you’ve allowed the movie to have a date.
Things get fuzzier with other props. They just do. Car models that aren’t exact to the year? Hmmm… I don’t know… sitting in theaters are a bunch of people, able to read and understand dates, but car models… or the year a magazine cover showed up? Not so much.
See, intentional or not, allowing dates to be seen just so happens to, well… date something. Sure, playing loosey-goosey with various specifics is fine by me, and it drives obsessive people (SDMBers) bonkers when they play these games, but A Christmas Story is pure joy because, even if one is obsessive, one must remember that all sorts of stuff can be off, because an adult is recalling his childhood.
So, on one hand, it’s been dated – and I’ll say “unintentionally”. On the other hand, props can’t be perfect for a movie of this budget and for which one is not pursuing spot on accuracy. Throw in nostalgia and an adult weaving a tale of his youth, and it works.
It can be dated. It doesn’t have to synch up perfectly because no one was pursuing that.
I know enough to see what appears before my eyes: The movie dates itself; it suffers from inaccuracy like so many films ; yet it doesn’t much matter because some inaccuracy comes from practical limitations and the fact that it remains a tale told by an adult of his childhood.
A tag with a date on it is no more an indication of a year setting than anything else. It’s just another prop. Sorry, Phil, you’re wrong.
Honestly, I think Philster’s theory is a really good one. It may not be the Set In Stone Canon Correct one, but it’s a really cute idea to think that it is set in 1940 but that you jumble together things from your childhood.
I was 8 in 1990, but I bet if I was constructing a movie about my specific Christmas that year, I could want to include this one song I remembered from “around then”, but it was actually made in 1992 (as an example).
Person seeks out date.
Someone shows date.
Person points to things, like props, that don’t jive with that date.
Person points out that props usually don’t jive with dates in movies because it ain’t that easy to get 'em all lined up.
Person notes: Exacerbating the issue is that events were recalled from memory many years later – nostalgia and all that.
Person points out that the dang producer, and everyone involved intended for it to be somewhat obscure as far as exact date goes.
Person already has date in mind; the darned staff of the producer/director/writer unintentionally dated the movie.
SDMB goes apeshit.
Happy New Year!
Confirmation bias is not actual evidence of confirmation.
FWIW, the Davey Crockett hat is also seen on the Old Man’s head in the cowboy fantasy scene.
I don’t recall seeing the Old Man’s name anywhere. The main character’s name is Ralphie in the original story, but it is used only on the gift tags.
As for dating the story: I am unable to think of the story as being set at any time other than 1939 or 1940, although any particular date necessarily involves anachronisms (hardly unusual with historical movies, even those that, unlike this one, try to avoid them). Consider the following:
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Although the family is far from affluent, especially by modern standards, they do have some resources and are not constantly worried about money. This is inconsistent with a setting during the worse years of the Depression (1929 - 1933); the years immediately afterward, when that period would still be fresh in people’s minds; or in the severe recession of 1937 - 1938.
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It is plausible that a child like Ralphie would give little attention to a distant war in Europe. It is not plausible that he would similarly ignore a major war in which his country was actually involved. So a date of 1941 - 1945 is out of the question, and there are too many references to earlier periods for a post-WW2 setting to be likely.
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While I don’t think it’s as compelling a point, I’m also influenced by the use of characters from The Wizard of Oz (clearly the movie, not the book). The movie’s release in 1939 (the high-water mark of American movie-making, by some measures) is reasonably well-known.
re: the hat of the bully.
i thought it was a fox hat not racoon. it is a bit too reddish orangeish. most racoon or fake racoon hats are medium to dark brown. it reminded me of the fox scarves that were popular amoung women at that time. 2-3 foxes sewn nose to tail. also the tail didn’t seem to me to be a racoon tail.
the closeup of the front of the hat in one of the bullying scenes has a definate face… a fox looking face. i don’t remember racoon skin caps having the face on the front, just fur.
great… now i’m gonna fire up the dvd to take a better look at the hat.
Yes, very reddish, very fox-y looking. Coonskin caps usually didn’t have the face or head, as they are usually made from coyote, rabbit, whatever other fur is cheap at the time of manufacture, (otherwise they would be too expensive for parents to buy for children that would tire of them, also the fact that 5,000 a day sold during the height of the craze, that quickly depleted the availability of raccoon). If you can recall the t.v. series Daniel Boone, he did wear a coonskin cap that did have the face/head. I have always been a serious fan of Daniel Boone, both in reality and fiction, and had my share of coonskin caps as a kid in the eighties/nineties. I always wanted one with the face just like Fess Parker, but could never find one at the dinky souvenir shops here in Kentucky. I later learned the reason why, and when I did locate the real deal, the price tag was far too much for a ten year old.
Yes, The Old Man wears a coon cap during the Black Bart Fantasy, but is different than Scut’s. The Old Man’s has no face (far as I can tell, Scut’s does) I think it would have to be, I recall that when I assessed the possibility of acquiring an authentic cap I lamented that I could not find one to fit a kid’s head, so it makes sense they would have to have two different caps to fit the Old Man and the Bully. Even though the Davy Crockett craze had not arrived at the time I believe this movie most reflects (1940), it makes sense a kid having a frontier fantasy would imagine characters in coonskin caps. The mythical association of that cap and the frontier had been present since John Filson presented his biography of Boone, Crockett died at the Alamo and John Bakeless published Daniel Boone: Master of the Wilderness in 1939.
Picture of the hat: http://media.photobucket.com/image/scut%20farkus/geekgrrl/uncle.jpg
It’s red, but it’s got stripes like a coonskin cap. Still, I always thought of Scut as the kind of kid who would go and kill a racoon to make his own.
Ralphi brings his teacher a honkin’ big fruit basket, including a pineapple. Even today, a pineapple costs $5. Back then, it must have been a rarity in a grocery store and cost a whole lot of money, for the time. Where did Ralphie get a fruit basket, and where did he get the money?
I don’t think I follow on the pineapple being out of place. I bought a pineapple yesterday for $2. You have to think that bananas were pouring into the U.S. from Central America at a price cheaper than our own local fruit from the 1890’s on, and pineapples can be grown in Mexico, so transport is not so far-fetched. (Bananas are still the cheapest fruit in the grocery). 1925 saw The Pineapple Upside Down Cake become very popular, introducing many to the fruit if they had never considered it before, so the fruit may been well known and sought after by many Americans at the time, even if they usually only knew it in canned form. I imagine Christmas time would see the actual fruit becoming more widespread in whole, fresh form, as it is simply more classy than a can.
As far as him having money for the basket, I imagine he was probably allowed a stipend by his mother for a gift for the teacher, and charged with purchasing it (just like the other kids). Maybe not enough to pay for the whole basket, but Ralphie added to it (he viewed it as an investment, since he wanted her to condone his acquisition of the Red Ryder BB Gun). Not something I thought to be out of place.
But of course, I’m making a lot of assumptions and a few educated guesses. I suppose to really settle the point we need to find someone in their 80s-90s, grew up in a fair-sized Midwestern City and ask them about the prevalence/expense of pineapples. Not something I could easily answer with a little Googling.
Oh, and a visit to an inflation calculator yields this: If I pay 2 today for a pineapple, it is .13 in 1940. If I pay 5, it is .33. So, I think the cost is possible for Ralphie to cover.
If you look closely, you can see the year on the side of Ralphie’s Little Orphan Annie decoder pin. I do believe it said 1940 (but I haven’t seen the film in years, unfortunately, so my memory is a bit hazy).
The main story the film is based upon is set in the Great Depression. No year is specified.
Awe, how cute that we try to play this game. I know this is the little ol’ SDMB, so I gotta be sharp, huh?
Confirmation Bias: This hardly would apply to non-disputed items, such a coins and tags with dates. Too simple and accepted to prompt us to be careful of confirmation bias.
Such as a lottery drawing, where everyone sees the numbers. The newspapers and TV station don’t concern themselves with confirmation bias when they see the numbers, yet millions are on the line.
There are several anachronisms in the film:
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"Black Bart’ is referenced by Ralphie more than once. The original film with that character came out in 1948.
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The Radio Orphan Annie decoder pin that Ralphie receives is the 1940 “Speedomatic” model, indicating that the movie takes place in December, 1940. Different decoder badges were made each year from 1935-1940. By 1941, the decoders were made of paper.
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While reading the newspaper at the kitchen table the “Old Man” angrily mentions that the “Sox traded Bullfrog”. This is a reference to long time Chicago White Sox pitcher Bill Dietrich, who’s nickname was Bullfrog. He pitched during the 1930s and 1940s. Dietrich was never traded from the Sox, he was released September 18, 1946.
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Shepherd said the film is set in 1940 and it is usually agreed that the action takes place in 1939 (Wizard of Oz characters) or 1940 (there is no reference to Pearl Harbor or WWII). But in Jan. 1940 Ovaltine dropped the “Little Orphan Annie” radio show and switched to “Captain Midnight.” In Dec. 1940 Quaker Puffed Wheat was “Annie”'s sponsor. The announcer, Pierre Andre, also left “Annie” in Jan. 1940 because audiences identified him with Ovaltine, and he too went to “Captain Midnight.” These facts would only fit the action of a film set in 1939.
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On Christmas morning (of what is supposed to be 1939 or 1940), the family is listening to Bing Crosby’s “Merry Christmas” album while they open presents. That album was not released until 1945 (and reissued in 1947).