Actual quote
“If a show goes back to a specific time in its actual past, they’ll usually key it to a specific important historical person or event, because they have to give the audience something it knows about history, or else it won’t care. But if the show goes back to the present, then it doesn’t do that. It just shows that time and the characters reacting to it. It’s a dramatic irony thing.”
Westerns like Gunsmoke from the optimistic 1960s had characters who were generally straight arrows, and even the hookers were referred to as “dance hall girls.” In more cynical, disillusioned times, Deadwood was a cesspool of vice and villainy, with few if any characters entirely admirable. The latter was perhaps a little closer to the truth but still an exaggeration.
I thought that HBO’s Rome made an effort to show how different the mindset of the time might have been, particularly with regard to the Roman religion and personal relationships. They also displayed Rome as a real city with slums and mundane activities, not just marble monuments. Of course there were a lot of inaccuracies, but I thought they made an effort to get away from historical stereotypes.
That’s late 17th century, not medieval. And not in the case of formal marriages. And not condoned by any authorities.
it’s such a glaring dichotomy of TV Westerns of the 60s how anything hinting at sexuality was whitewashed, as you mention; yet the violence, though mostly bloodless, was shockingly casual. The good guys routinely killed people as often as the bad guys did, and as casually as stepping on a bug; the only difference was the good guys only killed when they were drawn on, and there was not a hint of even the most rudimentary investigation other than “he was drawn on first, sheriff”. “OK, good enough for me”.
Bullets flew in the streets constantly. One episode of “The Rifleman” had a group of rowdy cowboys in town on R&R after a cattle drive, getting drunk and shooting up the town. One cowboy doesn’t like the look of one of the townsfolk, and shoots at his feet in the street to “make him dance”. Then one of his buddies says “that’s a waste of bullets” to which he says “watch, I’ll shoot the buttons off his shirt” and the victim goes off running to much laughter. So they’re the “bad guys” of the episode, right? No, they’re just letting off steam. The real “bad guy” of the episode was a young Robert Vaughn filling in as sheriff and is too gung-ho, cracking down on the basically decent cowboys and pushing them to the limit. Why, he even has the nerve to put up signs saying visitors to the town have to check their firearms at the city limits! The power-mad sheriff barely escapes with his life, thanks to the intervention of Lucas McCain.
And yes, I watched the first season of Rome (was there a second?) and I remember appreciating what they did attempting to create an ancient Roman cultural worldview and mindset as well.
Rome had two seasons, the first of 12 episodes, the second of 10. The first ended with the [spoiler alert!] assassination of Julius Caesar, the second with the victory of Octavian over Anthony and Cleopatra.
There were some absurdities and inaccuracies, but when I read up on some of the more outlandish plot twists during the Roman civil wars, it turned out they were based on historical fact, or at least rumored in contemporary accounts. The changing alliances and multiple betrayals were like something out of The Sopranos or Breaking Bad, and these were the aristocrats.
Yeah, that show Outlander, where a 20th century nurse happens to find the one highlander with good teeth, a lack of vermin, who can speak a language/dialect she understands, and who is egalitarian. :rolleyes:
The film also bothers me as it shows the “It’s evil if men cheat, but romantic if women do it” trope.
Bridges of Madison County is the standard bearer in this, but it is in many other films.
That reminds me of another western trope: the still attractive, but a bit withered, cynical bar maid with a past (ex-prostitute, but that’s of course only implied) and a golden heart, torn between the villain and the good guy. As perfectly exemplified in the John Sturges western Last Train From Gun Hill from 1959 I saw just last Sunday.
Shazam kinda reverses this trope, but Joseph Campbell has a lot to answer for. Not every hero goes on the mythological Heroes Journey, so start that way.
Yes, Sgt York is the reluctant hero. But Audie Murphy had always wanted to be a soldier.
I don’t think I agree with that interpretation. Technically, yes, Rose slept with Jack before breaking her engagement to Cal. But it’s not like she carried on an affair that we’re supposed to forgive based on her gender. We’re supposed to forgive it because she was being forced into a marriage with a man who hit her, condescended to her, and was generally a boorish jerk (I also think that Picasso reference wasn’t about showing how sophisticated she was, but about how stupid he was to be so dismissive of her), but then she found true love and the inner strength to tell him to fuck off.
If this sort of thing happens less often with men, in real life or in fiction, it may be because men have not been forced into those unhappy marriages as often as their brides. Historically, men have had more agency, and thus are not the underdogs you cheer for.
Forced? in 1909? Hardly. Arm twisted by family maybe. If Cal was that bad, dont agree to the engagement.
She was, as I recall, 17 in the movie, and her father had sunk the family fortune. Don’t underestimate the extent to which familial pressure exerted on a minor child (“Do this or we’ll end up on the streets, and you can make jokes about Freud and the male fascination with size all you want as you’re turning tricks in bars instead of being a pampered socialite girl!”) as being somewhat… deleterious to that child’s agency.
I do hope you’re not one of those people who thinks the world’s problems can be reduced down to “women marrying jerks instead of nice guys” (referring to an element of a certain… troubling ideology).
Is it possible to be tired of a trope that hasn’t occurred yet?
Because I am already anticipating “reconnection” books, television shows, and movies where the main character is someone who is on the job at all times and is neglecting family/neighbors/pets/favorite hobbies/……kitchen appliances…but then finds a wonderful reconnection to them due to the need to quarantine at home. Think of it as a 2020 update to “Jingle all the Way”.
Also, romantic comedies where the two people become aware of each other (they might live on opposite sides of the street) but cannot get together because each is self-quarantined.
And, so then, after the ship sinks- how well off is her family? Not only that, but now she is in America without a dime.
It is just that I dont like the reverse tropes of when men cheat it is so very evil and bad things must happen to him, but when women cheat it is gloriously romantic.
Nope. It is a problem, but so is men marrying bimbos. Neither one is critical, it’s been happening since Og the caveman.
A girl is looking forward to the new school year with her best friend, only to discover that the friend is now interested in boys/fashion/makeup instead of whatever the main character likes, and is therefore presented as shallow, possibly mean because she has made new friends who share her interests, while the main character is a much better person.
The extent to which it was “wrong” for Rose to “cheat” on the guy she “agreed” to marry (all of those in quotes for a reason) depends, to my mind, on whether or not you think it is “right” or even just “okay” for families to coerce their teenage children into marriage for financial gain.
“Men marrying bimbos” is not nearly on the same level as forced child marriage for financial gain in my book.
All too often, the chosen one has the initials JC, or at some point they appear in the Jesus Christ pose.
Have you ever read Herodotus? Because there are some passages where the Spartans talk about how awesome it is being free.
But the Spartan concept of “freedom” had nothing to do with the modern concept of freedom, since they were basically a fascistic society based on slavery. The Spartans believed in liberty for themselves, but not for anyone else, and not as a general ideal. They believed in freedom the same way the Confederacy believed in “liberty.”
Aw man, Last night I watched “Black Moon Rising” for the first time, a cheesy 1986 movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Linda Hamilton. Highly recommended if you like bad 80s action movies. The plot was basically just a bunch of tropes strung together. A few good ones:
“Good guy gets shot at from close range multiple times and all shots miss”
Tommy Lee Jones is hired by some gov’t agency to steal a computer tape from an evil company. While making his escape, he is shot at from about 20-30 feet away with a fully automatic Uzi while running straight down a hall. A blind man shooting in his general direction with, once again, an Uzi, could not have missed.
“Good guy crashes through a plate glass window to escape bad guys and doesn’t get a scratch”
This is at the end of the hall running away from Uzi fire-- Tommy Lee Jones gets to a glass door leading to the parking lot, the type with a horizontal steel push handle. He breaks through the glass door; glass chunks and steel handle go flying. Isn’t that steel push handle like, attached to the steel frame of the door or something?
“Crawling through ventilation ducts conveniently large enough to fit an adult human”.
Tommy Lee and Linda Hamilton escaped though ventilation ducts not just large enough to crawl through, they were so large they sat upright in them at one point.
There were many many more-- I barely scratched the surface. If you played a “spot the trope” drinking game with this movie you would surely black out.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, free on Amazon Prime!