Are all films <5 years problematic in some way

[anon666]

I guess it might be a sign of rapid progress, but recently I've watched:

Pretty Woman
Dirty Dancing
Bend it like Beckham

All of which have a girl/woman falling for an authority figure. It really looks creepy to a modern eye. Or does it? Am I being too Gen Z about the whole thing?

There are hundreds of posts on MN proving how babied kids are now, specifically adult children. They don't become adults overnight so if you are banning your 18 yos phone after 10pm or giving them a curfew of 11pm then that is babying them IMO. That is the kind of babying I am referring to.

Having better conditions for our teens is of course how it should be but at 18 me and my friends were very much adults and our parents ensured they prepared us for this way before we turned 18. If your DCs were independent and capable then you clearly haven't babied them.

Not read the whole thread, but is this a reason not to like the film or just a reason not to like a character? People have always told stories about flawed characters doing morally ambiguous or downright unpleasant things.

I mean, Rocky also makes a living from punching people in the head until they're so damaged they lose consciousness. I've never been tempted to do that as a result of watching the films, either.

But the scene when he runs up the steps is iconic!

This is exactly what baffles me. What sort of films will we be watching if no one can do anything awful or be anything less than moral then I think films will end up pretty dull. People make mistakes in RL and people make mistakes in films 🤷‍♀️

I concur. When I was a teen, the Scouts was well known having problems with paedophiles amongst the leaders. I was first sexually assaulted at school when I was eight and used my agency that my parents let me have to choose an all-girl school to prevent that from happening again.

It's not babying to protect your children from abuse.

At 18, she's legally an adult, old enough to have a loan or own a home. That's where we collectively have drawn a line and said "you are no longer a child", so 18 is old enough to decide who to date without safeguarding questions being raised about the person she is dating.

There are two current threads concerning 16 yo boys who have gone to live with older women. In one, the mother clearly describes the boy's cowed behaviour that has only got worse since he went to live with the woman. 16 is old enough to date someone of similar age but not seven or more years older.

yes let’s burn them all and only watch films with entirely “unproblematic” (what does this mean?) characters and plot lines from now on. That will definitely be an accurate representation of society. And a lot of fun.

This is awful that it happened to you but really not the point of the thread or relevant to any posts on here, same as the thread you are quoting.

Kids are babied in the way of not being able to watch a film that may have a few talking points about potentially inappropriate behaviour. No one is saying it's OK to expose kids to abuse. Most people are discussing 17/18 yos so basically adults.

I was always under the impression that art, including films and theatre, should be allowed to be challenging and controversial. Doesn't have to be, but should be allowed to be. We are guilty as a society of applying current standards to historical events and literature, let's not do it to movies from 25 years ago too. It's bad enough that books are being banned. The only thing that'll happen if we trigger warning our entire lives is madness and a total dearth of creativity. Who wants to live in a world like that?

I was always under the impression that art, including films and theatre, should be allowed to be challenging and controversial.

Yeah, but "boy meets girl, girl is emotional support human for boy" and similar tired tropes isn't challenging or controversial, it's reinforcing the norm within society.

Wadjda is one of my favourite films because it confronts the enormous state-imposed misogyny of Saudi Arabia without using cheap tired shorthands like rape (looking at you, GoT) or DV to convey the "no, really, it is shit here for women" message and challenges that misogyny.

Obviously you like that film because for you it has a positive message. The point is, not everyone expects or wants their films to have only positive characters and messages. Some may want to be entertained, challenged, amused or in some way experience the rich messiness of humanity, warts and all.

I think that’s becoming a huge issue at the moment. People want films to be moral stories. The protagonists should all be morally upstanding and perform political correctness at all times. There may be one antagonist who doesn’t conform who will either be clearly shown as ‘wrong,’ or who will be educated by the end of the story. And in the end there is really no space for interesting or relatable characters.

I think you've mistaken modern audiences for Hays Code censors. The irony is that the Hays Code removed the capacity for the nuance and moral greyness that you bemoan the modern audience's alleged lack of appreciation of.

I haven’t mistaken you for the Hays Code at all. Very similar, but not quite the same. It’s also not ironic at all - I’m saying that moral censorship removes the possibility of good filmmaking. It would be ironic if the Hays Code had done the opposite and allowed for realistic characters. I think you’re confused about what ironic means.

You literally can’t seem to cope with the concept of any morally grey area in film and blame it for your life difficulties and struggles. In good films, characters behave like people. It seems like you want a South Park style wrap up or one of those PSAs you used to see at the end of Full House or 21 Jump Street. Jennifer Grey should stand up at the end of the film, after the big dance, and say ‘but we all learned something today! Xyz is wrong and we should do abc! If you’re affected by any of the issues in this movie, please call the number on the screen.’

In reply to that mis-statement of my views, I'm going to quote part of my first reply:

YABU for ignoring films like Thelma And Louise and Alien that have strong female leads and don't rely on that trope at all, and Princess Bride and Labyrinth that subvert it.

There's no moral grey areas in Thelma And Louise? You don't think that Westley concealing his identity from Buttercup, even threatening to hit her, until he was sure that she didn't want to be with Humperdink and was there by force was actually quite a nasty mind game to play? It's understandable why he did it, but it was still shitty of him to test her like that. That's an example of the exact kind of moral greyness that you accuse me of rejecting completely and failing to understand.

What I don't like is "dominant male, subordinate female" relationships being normalised. Women face enough of that shit already and I don't find it entertaining so it's no good for mindless entertainment.

Jennifer Grey should stand up at the end of the film, after the big dance, and say ‘but we all learned something today! Xyz is wrong and we should do abc!

If you have to do that to get your message across, quit making films because you suck at it.

If you’re affected by any of the issues in this movie, please call the number on the screen.’

We do this with Eastenders and Corrie. Are their audiences all snowflakes? Or do we simply recognise that sometimes, a careful treatment of a theme in a soap episode can make someone realise something about their past or themselves that they hadn't realised before, and that that can be a bit of a shock.

It's not audiences as a whole demanding this kind of bland film-making. It's a small group of ideologues, and for some reason, the studios.

Disney is losing money hand over fist producing these kinds of films though, the majority of audiences don't like it and see that it's shit storytelling.

But if we only watch films made in the last few weeks how are we ever going to be able to congratulate ourselves as to how progressive we are these days?

Be interesting to see what people in 10, 20, 30 years time come up with. And what will they think of our current crop of cinematic entertainment?

I didn’t say they should do that. I said it seems like that’s what you want so you can cope with films not being moral guides.