Films that would not be made now

[Samcro]

I know it’s a topic that has been done before.
but what film do you think would not be made now and why?
mine is, every which way but loose.
yep the Clint Eastwood film with the orangutan

Apologies, haven’t RTFT, has anyone said Tropic Thunder? Robert Downey Jnr got an Oscar nomination for that. Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise’s reps would no doubt turn it down these days too.

Why?

A new televised version of Harry Potter is already in the pipeline and casting is currently taking place.

The snowman is an animated film a bit a a child and a snowman. Why would this be problematic?

It was remade pretty recently and was ABOUT segregation.

I sometimes wonder about the argument "so and so who doesn't have the condition should not play someone with the condition". How far do you take that?

I have very mild CP. Most people never guess. I have met a few adults with mild CP who likewise "pass". Would it be acceptable for such a person to play Christy Brown? They DO have a diagnosis of CP after all.

The actor who played Walter White Jr in Breaking Bad, for example, has mild CP but admits he exaggerated, for want of a better word, his physical symptoms in his portrayal since the character was written as someone with more severe CP. Is that okay? Or should the performer be required to be an exact fit for the character?

I haven't read all these posts so not sure if it's been mentioned but Grease.

Awful awful film with an awful message- the guy you love doesn't love you for who you are due to peer pressure and weird social conventions so you turn yourself into a sex siren in order to win his approval? No thanks.

Also don't get me started on the song 'greased lightning' which contains the words 'it's a real pussy wagon'- how has no one noticed this before?!

The breakfast club
(Had to edit ad it said babysitter lol)

I watched it again recently and it made me so uncomfortable. Basically sexually harassing the girl and were supposed to be sympathetic to him because his dad is abusive.

It's sick

It’s the very definition of acting - pretending to be someone or something you’re not. The idea that people with disabilities should only be played by people with said disability is ridiculous. They should be played by however can do the job best. My left foot and DDL performance is outstanding.

Does that mean that we should not make complex films dealing with problematic subjects? Or perhaps test the intelligence and critical thinking skills of the audience before they are allowed in?

I see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers has been mentioned and it's not hard to see why, and no it wouldn't be made today...but while it's not unproblematic, I do think it has more in its favour than one might think.

It passes the Bechdel test - all seven brides have names and they do have discussions that aren't about the men (even if it is only about Millie's baby!). Millie is a strong female character who absolutely rules the roost even though the men don't like to admit it; they stay out of the house when she tells them to, in fact they do everything she tells them to, to the best of their ability. She is the moral protagonist.

Adam is supposed to be a sexist pig initially but having a wife and then a daughter makes him reconsider the way he's been viewing women and realise how wrong he's been; that's the point. The film is super clear that while the women have been kidnapped (very wrong, obviously!), they have definitely not been raped; even Adam goes out to sleep in a tree when Millie says she won't share a bed with him. Adam even says it's all OK because they're "just boys in love" and Millie is the one to make them see that it really isn't. And when Adam storms off after she gives him what for, she doesn't pursue him or enable him; she lets him leave, even though it breaks her heart because, as she says, he's got to learn that he can't treat people that way.

It's obviously not without problems, but in its way I think it's better than you might initially think. Sexist but not misogynistic, if that makes sense.

I’ve not seen it, but isn’t it basically Madam Butterfly?

I haven't read all these posts so not sure if it's been mentioned but Grease.
Awful awful film with an awful message- the guy you love doesn't love you for who you are due to peer pressure and weird social conventions so you turn yourself into a sex siren in order to win his approval? No thanks.
Also don't get me started on the song 'greased lightning' which contains the words 'it's a real pussy wagon'- how has no one noticed this before?!

I think anyone of adult age is very aware of the lyrics. The lyrics in modern pop songs are infinity more problematic.

I think, like many other movies, Grease was of its time. It opens up conversations around relationships, slut shaming and bullying in a helpful way. Most movies are only problematic if you don’t watch with a critical eye, never discuss what you watch.

We need to take care we don’t end up with movie media that is bland, uncontroversial and vacuous lest someone gets offended.

Could you imagine a world without movies like Trainspotting, Shawshank Redemption, and even Grease - our cultural references stem to some degree from popular movies.

Another Clint Eastwood film 'The Bridges of Madison County' would also not be made today. It's a beautiful film. However, the age gap is cringe, he goes after a woman he knows is married and despite having a good relationship with her husband she cheats on him. She even falls in love with the other man and contemplates leaving him.

The story-line is fucked up and these characters aren't redeemable. But I was totally on their side the first time I watched it. Years later, when I thought about it, I feel cleverly manipulated into excusing behaviors that do not align with my own values.

No, she'd be called Allota Fagina 😀!
(Austin Powers anyone?)

Based on Madam Butterfly

I don’t necessarily disagree with most of that, but the film (unsurprisingly, given its date) doesn’t interrogate the idea that men marry to have a woman take care of them (Adam proposes to Millie because she’s a hard worker, and she only objects once she finds out she’s been ‘hired’ to take care of seven men, not one), and it’s jokily fine with the sort of Stockholm Syndrome that depicts six kidnapped women gradually softening towards their kidnappers while captive, and the culminating ‘joke’ that the townspeople, intent on hanging the brothers for kidnapping their daughters, acquiesce to a mass shotgun wedding when all the brothers claim to have fathered Hannah the baby, making the six unmarried women ‘damaged goods’ and needing to be married off.

Holiday Inn?

Agreed. I couldn’t watch it due to this.

But nothing in your post suggests why it wouldn't be made today. Age gaps still exist. Affairs exist.
If it's irredeemable characters, then there's an awful lot of literature that wouldn't be made into films.

It might be might today, but I think the tone would be different and the movie wouldn't try so hard to make us root for characters who are hurting others.

I remember working with Year 3s and discussing their favourite film and was truly shocked at how many had watched it

Another Clint Eastwood film 'The Bridges of Madison County' would also not be made today. It's a beautiful film. However, the age gap is cringe, he goes after a woman he knows is married and despite having a good relationship with her husband she cheats on him. She even falls in love with the other man and contemplates leaving him.

Why would it not be made today? Lots of movies have complex love relationships at their core with age gaps etc. Not a movie but most of Greys Anatomy would be wiped out in one fell swoop if age gaps etc relationships and infidelity were unacceptable as story themes.

I first watched the history boys years ago and enjoyed it. I got dd to watch it with me recently and I was appalled.

I recently watched Frankie and Johnny with Al Pacino and Michelle Pfieffer. I used to love this film. The story of an ex con cook and a lonely waitress who fall in love in the NY diner that they both work in.

All I saw was an overbearing creep who used coercive tactics and guilt to get a vulnerable woman to sleep with him. Gross.

Maybe it’s the fact that language has changed, but why did I view it so differently when I first watched it?

Ditto Pretty Woman for obvious reasons and Sleeping with the Enemy - she escapes an abusive marriage and runs straight into another relationship with a guy who pushes for it. Red flags!

Watching stuff with dd has really opened my eye to a lot of improper behaviour.

It might be might today, but I think the tone would be different and the movie wouldn't try so hard to make us root for characters who are hurting others.

Thats ridiculous, movies often try to engender empathy for thoroughly unlikeable, irredeemable characters, The Joker is incredible for drawing out empathy for someone who by any means is irredeemable.