# What movie would you show to somene from the 1950s? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 8, 2003, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373 "2003-01-08T21:27:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/21 "2003-01-09T15:24:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zoggie \* > \*\* > Either that or Fight Club because I’d love to see the expression on his/her face when the fighting commences…😉 \*\* You bum! 🙂 When I opened this thread, I was gonna type almost that exact line about the exact same movie! I wasn’t even going to temper my comments with a smart remark like yours about Far From Heaven. Mine woulda been all low brow! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/22 "2003-01-09T18:07:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Silentgoldfish \* > \*\* > Men in Black might be an entertaining way to show how special effects change but movies stay the same. \*\* They might be shocked to see a film with a black lead. I’d show them one of these four films. Planet of the Apes Logan’s Run Gattaca (These are for the documentary gag) Then I’d show them. The Godfather ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/23 "2003-01-09T18:23:30Z")
from Kilt Man: > [@](#): > > Anyway, why does she think it’s “evil”? I can see an older individual being put off by the language or upset that violence is “glorified” (although everyone who dies in it dies a very messy, painful death…not much glory there), but “evil”? Has she actually made this pronouncement to you, or are you predicting her reaction? Yes, she has made this pronouncement to me when I told her it was one of my favorite movies. How did she reach this conclusion? Somebody told her. The same with \* Harry Potter\* and \* L.A. Confidential \* and \* The Simpsons \* (which she has never seen because it comes on while she’s at church on Sunday nights). I finally got her to actually WATCH \* LA Confidential _, and she enjoyed it. She said it was an “old fashioned” kind of movie, which is what I was trying to tell her all along. Generally, when she says things like that, it goes something like “Well, Juanita said that movie was just AWFUL!” and that’s the end of it. It rarely comes directly from the pulpit (unlike the rest of the enlightened pronouncements that come out of the preacher’s mouth, like the Christmas Eve when my raised Episcopal and Catholic girlfriend was home with me and he said that the Pope was the Antichrist…but that’s another story…), but judgements on which entertainments are evil filter through the congregation (and from congregation to congregation in the area_) just like the judgements on which family has slipped into apostacy because they missed Wednesday night Bible study or their daughter was seen wearing short pants. I picked that scene in particular because of the reading of the bible verse. (interestingly, QT is from Knoxville. I wonder if he was raised fundamentalist) If I sound a little bitter, I’m really trying not to be. I decided I was wasting too much of my energy railing against the church and screwing up my relationship with my family. I went to 18 years of Church of Christ Sunday school. That’s why I’m an atheist. If they can’t be big enough to just let me be about my (utter lack of) religion, then I can be big enough to deal with it when I’m home and keep my mouth shut. I injected my earlier comment into this discussion because I thought that my mother, with her faux-50’s moralizing, would be a good proxy for the fifties mentality since actual time travel is not feasable. But strangely, I don’t think it was just the violence and language that the CofC folks were objecting to in \* Pulp Fiction \*. The unorthodox storytelling seems just as offensive to them as anything else. It’s strange, new, and therefore must be bad–a tool of Satan!–because God has already introduced all of his approved storytelling techniques in the King James Version of the Bible. I’m not kidding here. When they say that fundamentalism is a reaction to modernity, that’s what they mean. That mindset permeates every facet of their lives. Perhaps the 50’s mindset which the OP implies exists was similar? I do not mean to insult, demean, or disparage your religion, \*\* Kilt \*\*, or anybody else’s. From all of your posts you seem a perfectly reasonable and intellegent guy, and you are free to believe or practice whatever religion you want without judgement from me. In fact, my take on atheism demands utter indifference to other people’s religions until they start shoving them in my face, which you have not done and show absolutely no signs of doing in the near future. I will, however, take issue with your assertion that QT is a bad director. He’s a fantastic screenwriter, is fantasitic with his actors, focuses on character development (sometimes to the detriment of pacing), and even if he’s not visually as innovative as some would have you believe, is at least in possession of his own distincitive visual “voice”. I think his quick and huge success spawned a legion of substandard imitators that has diluted the impact of his movies, and it didn’t help that he hasn’t made a movie in several years, but he’s a great director. And yes, I loved \* Jackie Brown \* and I’m really, really looking forward to \* Kill Bill \*. \*In the rural county of less than 30,000 people where my mom and all of the rest of my family lives, there are over 70 congregations of the Church of Christ! I understand that the highest concentrations of CofC is in East and Middle Tennessee and Texas, where you are from \*\* Kilt \*\* I would be interested in exploring the differences between the way the religion is practiced in the two areas in another thread, if you like. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/24 "2003-01-09T18:32:04Z")
**Clerks**. Because it’s black and white just like they’re used to. But very different too. ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/25 "2003-01-09T18:57:36Z")
Naked Lunch. Then I’d tell them it was a mainstream Hollywood release and was a hit at the box office. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CyberPundit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@CyberPundit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CyberPundit)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/26 "2003-01-09T18:58:28Z")
“Far from Heaven, maybe, to show them what we think of their life and how things have changed” That was my first thought when I saw the thread. LA Confidential would also be interesting; it’s a throwback to the film-noir classics of that era but with a more modern sensibility and greater sensitivity to issues like race. In the blow-them-away category I would show them some anime like Ghost in the Shell and Metropolis. ---
**Author:** ![grendel72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/91b2a8/32.png) [@grendel72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grendel72)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/27 "2003-01-09T19:21:19Z")
I’m thinking a double feature of **Natural Born Killers** and **Hedwig and the Angry Inch** just so I could see their head explode. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/28 "2003-01-09T19:22:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hometownboy \* > \*\*Had to go out to the garage and hunt through old SF magazines, but in the mid-winter 1984 issue of Analog, Eric Iverson had a story, “Hindsight” in which an SF author and editor (thinly disguised Poul Anderson and John Campbell) investigate in the 1950s a mysterious author who has been turning in top notch SF stories to the magazine. Problem comes about when the editor gets a submission from the Anderson character with exactly the same story that has just been submitted by the mysterious author. Campbell character flies out to California, meets Anderson character and they investigate. > > Mysterious author turns out to be a lady from the future who brought back with her a number of SF books and is trying to reprogram the culture by submitting selected stories earlier than they would have appeared otherwise. She also brought back a color TV and VCR, and plays \*\*Star Wars \*\* for them. In the mid-50s, they have never seen color TV, much less higher definition, much less the effects of even the first Star Wars film. They are mightily impressed with effects (though not scoring the plot that highly.) > > Great little story, which catches the mood of the 50s perfectly, and well worth looking up. \*\* I remember that story. They get suspicious because the paper has strange serrations on the sides, which turn out to be perforations from those old continuous feed printers. It’s been ages since I’ve read it. I agree with **Far From Heaven**. It would be comfortingly familiar up to the point where she opens the office door and sees her husband kissing a man then their whole world would be turned upside down. Unless they were Lenny Bruce fans. Or bohemians. Or homosexuals. Or all three. On second thought, try **The Matrix** or wait a few months and go for the sequels, which are supposed make the first one look like IT was made in the 50’s. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/29 "2003-01-09T20:44:38Z")
_Backdoor Sluts 9_. ---
**Author:** ![Indygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/30 "2003-01-09T20:57:56Z")
Pink Flamingos by John Waters. I would love to see their faces when Divine eats the dog doo. ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/31 "2003-01-09T22:12:33Z")
As stated above, “Logan’s Run” Also, “The Day The Earth Sood Still” Jake ---
**Author:** ![Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/32 "2003-01-09T23:51:27Z")
_Lord of the Rings_ and _Harry Potter_, all of the movies of those series that are out so far. _Moulin Rouge_, partly because I show everyone I know that movie (it rocks) and also because I’d want to see if their take on that period in time is similar to ours now. All the _Star Wars_ movies in the order produced, although of course I’d have to explain the differences in quality of special effects. Personally, I don’t want to think about what film a person from 2050 would show me if they were able to. That would be frightening. And perhaps some movies from the next year or so after they came back or I went there, just to give them a heads-up and make them the envy of all their friends. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/33 "2003-01-10T01:39:58Z")
I just thought up some better ones. JFK Apollo 13 Platoon ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/34 "2003-01-10T01:48:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hometownboy \* > **Had to go out to the garage and hunt through old SF magazines, but in the mid-winter 1984 issue of Analog, Eric Iverson had a story, “Hindsight” in which an SF author and editor (thinly disguised Poul Anderson and John Campbell) investigate in the 1950s a mysterious author who has been turning in top notch SF stories to the magazine. Problem comes about when the editor gets a submission from the Anderson character with exactly the same story that has just been submitted by the mysterious author. Campbell character flies out to California, meets Anderson character and they investigate.[snip]** underlining mine I don’t know if you realize it. But Eric Iverson is a _nom de plume_ for Harry Turtledove. ---
**Author:** ![bobblehead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e4f/32.png) [@bobblehead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobblehead)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/35 "2003-01-10T01:52:05Z")
Meet The Parents ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/36 "2003-01-10T02:40:20Z")
I would probably show them **Jurassic Park**. They would have no reason not to believe me when I told them that dinosaurs were again common on the Earth and this movie was the story about how they came back :D. Then of course I would tell them I was just yanking their chain and they would never believe me when I tell them the soviet union fell and Russia is now our good friend. Stupid 1950s jerks :mad:. ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/37 "2003-01-10T03:40:06Z")
Many thanks, **detop**. I didn’t know that, or I certainly would have thrown that in. I have a bunchteen Harry Turtledove books and enjoy his many alternative histories. What’s gratifying is that my 19-year-old gloms onto them as well, when he’s home from college. Makes me think I actually might have raised the kid properly. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/38 "2003-01-10T03:54:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by watsonwil \* > \*\*You bum! 🙂 When I opened this thread, I was gonna type almost that exact line about the exact same movie! > > I wasn’t even going to temper my comments with a smart remark like yours about Far From Heaven. > > Mine woulda been all low brow! 🙂 \*\* I’ve learned the hard way. You have to sneak into a movie thread fast if you want to get the obligatory “Fight Club” reference in. If it’s got more than 20 replies, all hope is lost and you might as well wait for a new film thread to start up. 🙂 But thanks for the smart remark comment. I think we’re all having a little too much fun imagining what it would be like for those fifites people to watch our movies. What with the exploding heads and the gasping, and the hey hey it hurts. I do like the idea of them seeing Jurassic Park and thinking dinosaurs did indeed walk the earth (but were mostly confined to zoos). Thought of one more to freak them out, though. How about “Head”? I mean, it’s still freaking people out today… ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/39 "2003-01-10T05:38:26Z")
The Southpark movie. Just wait until the Uncle F\*cker song comes on. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373/40 "2003-01-10T05:51:46Z")
I **was** a kid in the fifties. The movies that I think would have changed my thinking most are _Pleasantville_ and _The Stepford Wives._ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-would-you-show-to-somene-from-the-1950s/147373.md?page=3)