It didn’t help things that it was supposed to be a comedy and C. Thomas Howell is not funny. As far as humor is concerned, he’s a black hole (no pun intended).
I dunno, having lived through a lot of the pop culture of the 70s through 2020s I don’t actually feel like there is very much that was laughed at in the 70s that isn’t laughed at today. Certainly, the venues certain types of humor are going to be featured in, and the societal critiques that might emerge will be different now. To cut a bit through the fog–there’s funny comedy that makes fun of gays, racial minorities etc, and there is mean-spirited comedy that makes fun of them, and there are characters treated thoughtfully and respectfully, and characters that are rank caricature. A big difference now is you might get called out for featuring a gay character that is a rank caricature, but you’re going to be able to keep featuring that character if you really want. Versus in 1975 even a caricatured gay character that is frankly portrayed in a demeaning and insulting way, was going to have some trouble even getting past the network censors who at the time would have preferred you not feature a gay character at all.
At the end of the day people broadly speaking still laugh at all the same things, but some people have stopped laughing at comedy that clearly crosses over from primarily being about humor that can be enjoyed even by the butt of the joke and is instead really just a vehicle for “punching down” in the words of Carlin. Today you might get judged for laughing at assholish “comedy”, but it’s still a free country and people still laugh.
I always wonder if Kinison would still get away with his anti-gay material. I’m sure he’d of had something to say about same sex marriage, but would many people listen?
With a nod to Soul Man, don’t forget a predecessor was Watermelon Man, with Godfrey Cambridge.
That actually sounds like something that could still be hilarious in today’s racial landscape.
To be fair, WM is by a black director with a black actor in the lead. Like Dave Chapelle’s whiteface sketches, I think even today this would be given a pass, by non-reactionaries, on the grounds of politically important speech. And because whiteface is nowhere near as oppressive and threatening as blackface.
And on that basis, I must disagree that it’s a predecessor to Soul Man, which is a farce, not a satire, that exploits racism for laughs and upends, and ignores the real life experiences involved.
As a gay man who saw The Birdcage upon its release, I must respectfully, but vehemently, disagree. If you’re not a gay man who lived through that time, you will obviously see it through a different lens.
IIRC, Marty’s partner wasn’t in fact camp or flamboyant, but was instead a conventional, middle-aged man; I remember a line where he chides Marty for perpetuating the stereotypes.
Looking back, having an LGBT man who wasn’t mincing or effeminate seems even more transgressive than having sympathetic gay characters at all.
IIRC Watermelon Man was cited as an influence on the 1995 film “White Man’s Burden”.
The key to Marty and his partner was that Barney and the rest of the detectives took them seriously and treated them respectfully. Remember, Barney Miller premiered only six years after the Stonewall riots. The fact that the show treated gay characters (and especially a flamboyant, stereotypical gay character) like they did every other crime victim was pretty damn progressive in its time.
Even so,there wax clapback from the gay community during the first season because the gay character was portrayed as a thief, and a bit stereotypical. So the show’s creator gave him a partner, living openly as a couple, in S02E01. Then he had to threaten to quit when they said he couldn’t air it.
He aired it.
Some comedy is timeless. And some comedy ages like milk and needs to be left alone. There’s a lot society found funny 10, 20, 40 etc. years ago that simply isn’t funny now.
I don’t post on SD much, especially after the old vBulletin software got dropped for something newer but the last time I checked in here this last summer there was an incredible thread similar to this thread’s subject matter. It was all about old songs that are plain ridiculous now. It was a fantastic primer into what I said earlier. I just wish I could find it now because I thought I had bookmarked it, but I didn’t.
Yes. Many years ago, I saw Buster Keaton’s The General in a theater, with an organist providing musical accompaniment. The film might be controversial now, since the hero is a wannabe Confederate soldier in the Civil War; but Keaton’s slapstick had the audience in tears. Physical comedy doesn’t age.
A few weeks ago one of the other higher ups repeated a line straight out of Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part I. I don’t remember what the discussion was about but it was that scene where the woman who played Dorothy in The Golden Girls is doling out cash and has an argument with Mel Brooks’ character.
Short story of this is I remember some of the other Mel Brooks films having zingers that just aren’t appropriate today. However, the British had a series of films. The Carry On series.
“Did you try to bullshit this week?”
Yeah, Mel was a “standup philosopher”.
“A bullshitter”, Maude clarifies.
So many movies from the 1980s wouldn’t fly today. Revenge of the Nerds featured our protagonist secretly filming women while they were nude and selling those photos to the student body during some carnival. And then there’s the scene were Louis under the guise of her boyfriend has sex with her.
When I worked at the museum, we would often show our younger visitors those old Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons from WWII. That wasn’t my part of the tour, but one day I had to take them in the theater to show them, and, holy cow, I didn’t remember how racist some of those jokes were. When I took the kids in there, one of the teachers was practically coming out of her skin because the cartoons made her so uncomfortable. I apologized to her and later that day had a chat with the director explaining that the cartoons were inappropriate for younger viewers.
I just watched the Mary Tyler Moore Show episode “My Brother’s Keeper.” Phyllis’s beloved brother Ben comes to town for a visit. Phyllis desperately wants him to go out with and eventually marry Mary, but he hits it off with Rhoda, much to Phyllis’ dismay. Rhoda teases Phyllis by saying she is engaged to Ben, which makes Phyllis collapse in despair. When Rhoda tells Phyllis that she is not going to marry Ben, Phyllis asks why. Rhoda says “He’s gay.” Huge laugh line from the audience/laugh track.
The thing I found surprising was that Ben was played as a regular guy, not at all mincing or effeminate, and Rhoda played the “He’s gay” line like, hey, this is the reason I am not going to marry him, not like “there’s something wrong with him.”
Maybe Lissener can weigh in, but I found I was surprised at how progressive it seemed for 1973.