# When Hollywood gets the message all wrong – worst lessons from TV/film. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 12, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198 "2009-05-12T18:32:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/61 "2009-05-13T01:08:25Z")
> [@Small\_Hen](#): > > Disney. I’m pretty sure holding someone captive in your castle and forcing you to date them or starve counts as abuse. In the original story, Beauty was sold to the Beast by her father. He gives her her own free life to live, except that of course she reside in the castle. She stays out of obligation to her father not because the Beast keeps her. ---
**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:** [May 13, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/62 "2009-05-13T01:21:56Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > In the original story, Beauty was sold to the Beast by her father. He gives her her own free life to live, except that of course she reside in the castle. She stays out of obligation to her father not because the Beast keeps her. And to be fair, doesn’t the Beast say that she can stay or her father can, it doesn’t matter which? Her father wants to go back to the Beast because he doesn’t want to put her through it, but Beauty tells him she’ll go. Not so conducive to love, but considering women’s rights/marriage wasn’t quite as progressive as it is today, it’s relatively civil. It’s not like Beauty would necessarily get a choice about whom she married if she didn’t have to go to the Beast–and she might be equally repulsed by whomever she had to marry as well. I read somewhere that this story represented marriage from the POV of a young girl–having to go away and live with some creepy guy she barely knows. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/63 "2009-05-13T01:33:42Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > And to be fair, doesn’t the Beast say that she can stay or her father can, it doesn’t matter which? Her father wants to go back to the Beast because he doesn’t want to put her through it, but Beauty tells him she’ll go. > > Not so conducive to love, but considering women’s rights/marriage wasn’t quite as progressive as it is today, it’s relatively civil. It’s not like Beauty would necessarily get a choice about whom she married if she didn’t have to go to the Beast–and she might be equally repulsed by whomever she had to marry as well. I read somewhere that this story represented marriage from the POV of a young girl–having to go away and live with some creepy guy she barely knows. That’s really interesting. I may have to seek out the Hans Christian Anderson original sometime. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/64 "2009-05-13T02:21:06Z")
Disney’s **Hunchback of Notre Dame** (not the original source): Ugly people who risk their life to save you and love you dearly are deserving of your friendship. But your romantic interest… what are ya drunk? Bring the handsome guy over here and send Quasi a ‘jam of the month club’ membership as thank you. **The Birdcage** - it’s alright for two men to love each other and have a committed relationship as long as one of them is mainly around for comic relief and doesn’t actually have a bond with the child he helped raise. **Oklahoma** - You can try to talk the disturbed guy into killing himself and still be the hero. **West Side Story** - Aiding and abetting your brother’s killer is sweet so long as his killer is a guy you fell in love with yesterday. (I know- Tony isn’t exactly a cold blooded murder, it’s more involuntary manslaughter, but still… Maria doesn’t know that.) **Tyler Perry’s (Anything with M’Dea)**- acts of wanton vandalism and life threatening insanity with firearms are funny if it’s a sassy old woman, and by the way rich men are scum so stick with the blue collar guys who are intrinsically more virtuous. (And from “Mad Black Woman”- torturing your abusive ex-husband when he’s powerless and at your mercy does not in any way conflict with a Christian message.) > [@astorian](#): > > A Time to Kill: “Black people (but not white people) have a right to commit vigilante-style murder and get away scot-free, because The System is so hopelessly racist that a black man can’t get justice any other way… even though the town has a black sheriff… and the all-white jury acquits the black vigilante… which means that a black man CAN get justice, which means he ahd no business committing murder… man, this is confusing.” Hmm. I got “a black man who murders the men who raped and inflicted irreparable gynecological injuries on his pre-teen daughter should have the same trial a white person would get in similar circumstances”. I don’t see Kiefer Sutherland as having quite as much justification and it’s little to do with race and more to do with the fact his brother was murdered by the father of the little girl he raped and permanently injured. Potato po-tah-to I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/65 "2009-05-13T02:26:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > _Forrest Gump_ sends a clear message – and a very, very pernicious message when you think about it – that virtue is more important than intelligence, not on any abstract scale of values but in terms of achieving material success. Forrest Gump gets rich just because he always does the right thing and does what he’s told and works hard and deserves it and has God on his side (which obviously is why his is the only shrimping boat spared by the hurricane), while all around him more intelligent persons destroy their own lives and others’ by running after kicks and causes. The latter part of that is plausible, but not the former. Real-life Forrest Gumps never get rich save through connections or inheritance. Let’s take that interpretation a step further. Forrest doesn’t care about money. He doesn’t enjoy wealth for its own sake, for the status, for the power, or for the trappings. He lives the same life, wears the same clothes, lives in the same house as he always did. (Which is quite lucky for him, I suppose; can you imagine Forrest Gump missing a tax assessment and having to make any kind of a living?) If virtue is the path to wealth, so what? The movie is equally clear that wealth is not an end in itself, and is not the path to happiness. Someone may truly believe the “pernicious message” you describe. But virtue that is undertaken in pursuit of material reward is not true virtue, so they’ll still be out of luck. **KToK** , nice picture, but as I remember the movie, it was a low-percentage shot at best. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/66 "2009-05-13T02:28:41Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > **Tyler Perry’s (Anything with M’Dea)**- acts of wanton vandalism and life threatening insanity with firearms are funny if it’s a sassy old woman, and by the way rich men are scum so stick with the blue collar guys who are intrinsically more virtuous. You misspelled “Beverly Hillbillies”. ---
**Author:** ![smurfslappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f9b8f/32.png) [@smurfslappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smurfslappa)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/67 "2009-05-13T02:32:17Z")
> [@robot arm](#): > > you misspelled “beverly hillbillies”. lawlz ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/68 "2009-05-13T02:37:40Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > You misspelled “Beverly Hillbillies”. The comedy value and believability was about the same either or. **STAR WARS** - just because you kill billions and billions of innocent people and are a complete toady to the most evil figure in the Galaxy doesn’t mean you can’t get into heaven with one good deed at the very end (by hastening the death of somebody who was about to be blown up anyway). ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/69 "2009-05-13T02:40:00Z")
**Forrest Gump** – if you ever try to change the system, your life will be shit and you will die of AIDS. But if you never question anything, do what you’re told and keep your head down, you will be successful. That movie infuriates me. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/70 "2009-05-13T02:41:43Z")
[Cagney & Lacey](http://www.cagneyandlacey.com/) Re Lacey’s son Harvey Jr. If you find a girly magazine in your teenage son’s room instead of ignoring it you need to confront him about how this is exploitative of women and sit down on his bed and make him page through it with you so you can explain in detail why these pictures are very, very bad. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/71 "2009-05-13T02:48:56Z")
[Female Trouble](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_Trouble) It’s OK to beat your mother if you don’t get the cha-cha heels you’ve been wanting for Christmas. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/72 "2009-05-13T02:53:23Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > **Forrest Gump** – if you ever try to change the system, your life will be shit and you will die of AIDS. But if you never question anything, do what you’re told and keep your head down, you will be successful. > > That movie infuriates me. ? She got AIDS because she shared needles. I don’t see how her war protests gave her AIDS. ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/73 "2009-05-13T02:57:41Z")
> [@astro](#): > > [Cagney & Lacey](http://www.cagneyandlacey.com/) > Re Lacey’s son Harvey Jr. > > If you find a girly magazine in your teenage son’s room instead of ignoring it you need to confront him about how this is exploitative of women and sit down on his bed and make him page through it with you so you can explain in detail why these pictures are very, very bad. This reminds me of one of my favorite Lifetime Original Movies - _Cyber Seduction_, the moral of which is that looking at internet porn will completely and utterly ruin the life of a teenage boy. ---
**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:** [May 13, 2009, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/74 "2009-05-13T03:05:37Z")
> [@astro](#): > > [Female Trouble](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_Trouble) > > It’s OK to beat your mother if you don’t get the cha-cha heels you’ve been wanting for Christmas. Wait, you mean it’s not? ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/75 "2009-05-13T03:18:09Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > I’ll take some heat for this, but . . . > > **The Bridges of Madison County** > > If you’re a man and have an affair, you’re a complete asshole. But if you’re a woman, and your husband is a good, yet boring man, who is off taking the rest of the family to a wholesome state fair, it’s acceptable, no, romantic and heartwarming, to screw the hell out of some out of town dude and contemplate running off on your kids and husband. I’ll see your **Bridges Of Madison County** and raise you **The Piano** : is your husband boring and repressed? There’s nothing more empowering than falling in love with a guy you’ve barely met and who is already abusing you. Basically, in Hollywood adultery is reprehensible unless you’re a woman or secretly gay, in which case it’s not only acceptable but downright laudable. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/76 "2009-05-13T03:38:04Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > _Top Gun_: If you are a young, hot-headed pilot you should strip down to your underwear and play volleyball with a bunch of sweaty men. You realize that a great many straight women and gay men who were teenagers when they first saw this movie are thinking the same thing as Miller and I are: “What’s wrong with _this_ message?”😉 Did I miss a mention of Twilight yet? I’ve only seen the movie, so this might or might not also apply to the book: If a boy is uninterested in you, it makes him mysterious. If he’s then out-right mean to you, and says “we shouldn’t be friends” that means he’s your soulmate. You should obsess about him, because…he sparkles? sorry, I think I’m too old to have completely gleamed the “why” part, there. ---
**Author:** ![kasuo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8c91f0/32.png) [@kasuo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kasuo)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/77 "2009-05-13T03:43:17Z")
> [@Siege](#): > > _A Knight’s Tale_: given a choice between a reasonably attractive woman who can support herself, give you good advice, and who treats you well, and a stuck-up, high-maintenance, well-born beauty who manipulates you and nearly gets you killed, go for the beauty. > > Guys, could you _please_ explain this one to me? It’s been a while since I’ve seen this movie. Remind me – is the “reasonably attractive woman” you are referring to the blacksmith? ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/78 "2009-05-13T03:45:43Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > If virtue is the path to wealth, so what? I think BG’s point is that it isn’t. In reality FG would end up as a hardworking honest diligent loyal janitor being trodden on by his employer till he retired and died. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/79 "2009-05-13T04:08:12Z")
> [@Siege](#): > > _A Knight’s Tale_: given a choice between a reasonably attractive woman who can support herself, give you good advice, and who treats you well, and a stuck-up, high-maintenance, well-born beauty who manipulates you and nearly gets you killed, go for the beauty. > Guys, could you _please_ explain this one to me? Kate the Farris? (Laura Fraser) I’d have to say rather more than “reasonably attractive”… but I’ve never gained the impression that she had romantic intentions towards Will (or that he made any sort of choice between her and Jocelyn). As for “high-maintenance”, the ‘nearly getting him killed’ I’ll grant you, but Jocelyn offers to run away from her privileged life for him (even if she doesn’t really realize what that would mean). I’d say A Knight’s Tale on balance has a decent message that one can and should set ones sights high and that (per the film’s tagline) a “man can change his stars”. Despite his birth Will shows courage, mercy (in his dealings with Chaucer and his debts), and chivalry (towards the Prince) far in excess of that of his supposed social superior Adhemar, and in the end is rewarded. Pretty standard “local boy makes good” sort of message really. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/80 "2009-05-13T04:13:24Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > I think BG’s point is that it isn’t. In reality FG would end up as a hardworking honest diligent loyal janitor being trodden on by his employer till he retired and died. Well FG does end up as a janitor (sort of – he mows lawns). He is independently wealthy mostly because Lt. Dan made good investments for him (in “Apples” IIRC). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198.md?page=5)