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?

Woke virtual signalling content is already a turn-off. I forced myself to finish the first episode of And Just Like That, tried episode 2 and gave up in despair after a few mins. It's like I'd been transported to a different planet, which, to be fair, is an accurate reflection on current times for me.

Saturday Night Fever is pretty dark, but was always meant to be. Just because it’s got an upbeat soundtrack it doesn’t mean the film is lighthearted!

If we sanitise everything we watch then how will we learn about real life. In real life there are creepy people. I was a teen in the 90's and loved films like Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman. I didn't watch them and dream of being rescued by an older man, I loved the films for what they were but was fully aware that the reality of life for prostitutes was very different to what was portrayed in the film. I was also keenly aware as a 15 yo girl that the relationship between baby and Johnny was very unrealistic and in real life a man that much older would be some sort of predator. Do people now imagine that in the 90's we were all running around starry eyed waiting for older men?

Exactly this, explained more eloquently than I could.

My memories of watching Bend It Like Beckham 20 years ago were that it was a film about a girl’s ambition to play football (a ‘non-feminine’ activity), dealing with culture clash, racism, family and friendship. I’d remembered the romance bit as “the two friends both fancy the coach and it comes between their friendship but then they make up”.
I had to check the plot just now on Wikipedia, and obviously a romance with the coach isn’t ideal, but given that I’d forgotten about it, it’s hardly the main message of the film. And the film ends with them sort of together but she’s heading off to the US to train and leaving him behind so I still think the positives outweigh the negatives.

Well, quite. If you look beyond the basic 'boy meets.girl' part of the story Dirry Dancing becomes quite a different film. Critique of snobbery and class structures, the horrors of illegal abortion, a very rare movie example of a man and woman (Johnny amd Penny) being friends who respect and support each other without any romantic relationship. And, as you say, no judgement towards Penny for wanting the abortion - just towards the people who put her in that position.

There's an episode of The Movies That Made us about DD, and it's really interesting. The screenwriter had to fight hard with the studio to keep a lot of those elements in. It was always intended to be a film with a message - the fluff was just a vehicle to smuggle it in.

Honestly, this is why we’re left with drivel like all the Marvel movies now or worse the Fricken PC/woke reboots

Yeah the quality of mainstream US cinema has fallen off a cliff the last twenty years. The best picture selections have been pretty pitiful for a decade or more compared to what they used to be.

It would be easy to point the finger at woke culture or whatever but I think the reality is more boring: the studios discovered that the Marvel/other franchise endless sequel films have guaranteed box office returns while the old style picture simply doesn’t. And then it is true that the market domination of these teen/young adult type films has the knock on effect that most other films that aren’t Marvel etc will still to cater to this powerful young demographic, which is also easily reached for promotion purposes via YouTube/Facebook etc. The result is you get a ton of Marvel movies and easy to market reboots, lots of edgy unfunny comedies, gross out comedies, lots of teenager aimed fantasy and a bit of sci fi. But the classic grown up Hollywood type drama/comedy/sci fi aimed at adults, or the classic whole family type film, is nearing extinction.

The point about Pygmalion surely is that the "remaking" of the female woman is purely superficial, she was already what she needed to be, everyone is just deceived by the outer trappings, partly because they are shallow. But she remakes the man in a much more profound way - he becomes a different sort of person.

I want to defend DD too! I saw it in the cinema when it came out, we all danced our way home. I watched it more recently in my late 40s and loved it all over again. I’d go so far as to say it’s a feminist movie. Agree with pp about Penny’s choice being validated, the true “villains” unmasked (Robby and the social structures that allowed HIM to be a serial predator, don’t forget he’s preying on Baby’s sister), and Johnny supporting Penny. Also yes Baby is younger but not that much, she has agency at every point, she makes her own choices and she becomes sexually mature and liberated. Johnny also sticks up for her and sees that she is a strong woman with a life ahead of her. Class is a strong theme, as much as social conservatism. There‘a a LOT there! Tbh the only thing it would take to “correct” some of the criticism would have been to cast much younger actors and then I don’t think anyone would blink. But then we wouldn’t have had Patrick Swayze…
Pretty Woman - love Julia Roberts but really, yuk.
Beckham - watched it in the last ten years, thought, why is the camera foregrounding Keira half naked (club scene) in a supposedly feminist film? Why is she the only one with sexual and relationship agency? Why is she the only “fully rounded” character? I thought this was about the Asian community? Oh, the white girl is the centre of the story. How predictable. (I am white). A League of Their Own did sport better and East is East did immigrant community better.

I think generally - watch everything, discuss everything, critique everything.

Depressing, isn't it. Storytelling is a dying art. I gender modern movies and TV unwatchable due to the special effects. I'm epileptic and flashing images and light effects rule out many shows for me.

I doubt they have a good impact on non epileptic brains either, tbh.

That odd "gender" was meant to say "find". Weird autocorrect.

I rather like the love-interest plotline in Die Hard. He's been an arse, she's lost patience with him. Capitalism is leading her to have to hide her private life at work and battle with the patriarchy on all fronts. He realises he's been an arse but can't work out how to make it right. She is forcibly reminded of his good points and the fact that he is committed to their relationship, and they work together as a team. She uses her specific abilities to look after the hostages and negotiate at the same time as he's using his somewhat more blockbuster friendly skill set.

I have written a book where a woman falls for a slightly older authority figure.

I'd find it horribly disappointing if anyone dismissed it out of hand without having even read it on that basis.

Oh god it's turned into all new films are shite.
We had a binge recently of films some where shite but enjoyed Everything Everywhere, Nomadland, The Fabelmans, Parasite and The Dig. There has been loads so rubbish but it was ever thus.

This is a great interview with the writer of Dirty Dancing. She made the horror of illegal abortion a key part of a film that was otherwise mainstream and ‘fluffy’ because she believed Roe vs Wade could be reversed. And now it has been.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/05/roe-v-wade-dirty-dancing-writer-fought-to-keep-illegal-abortion-17701695/amp/

This is a really enjoyable discussion - I agree that Dirty Dancing has more than stood the test of time - and a young girl maturing and learning about life and her sexuality is a key life experience that DD does well.

I also agree that films shouldn't have to provide role models or exemplers of social responsibility, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun to critique and unpick them. I love doing it with my daughters - they bring their more recent upbringing to bear and it is fun.

I still think Pretty Women is vile - I thought so at the time and I still do.

Depends. Can you think about it with your mouth shut? Or is it necessary to "enlighten" the poor fuckers keeping company with you?

Yup. This is why we have such a problem we are conditioned to see women questioning this sort of thing too genZ or snowflake

I agree with the OP. But I also think there is bad messages in more recent films too. We just have to watch with a critical eye and teach our kids to have a critical eye

Sorry but that last exchange reads as if porn is fine but showing a woman falling for a rich powerful man is dangerous and harmful

To me the first is always wrong and the second is much more contextual- if you had films also with bloke falling for rich powerful woman then they would just both be fairy stories

Although I guess it would be nice if they fell for nice people instead - although that gets you into the territory of the most sickly sweet American movies

Slightly off tangent but what about Jennifer Lawrence's new film 'No Hard Feelings'? She plays a woman who is paid by the parents of a sheltered 19 year old to sleep with him before college to make him more worldly. He doesn't know this is the plan and thinks she genuinely likes him and wants to date him. Couldn't believe it was being made in this day and age and imagine if the sexes were reversed!? Made me feel a bit sick honestly!

Give me Pretty Woman any day!

I don’t understand why pp find Dirty Dancing problematic. Baby is 17 and it’s the summer before she goes off to college.

Absolutely not, the message of 're-education and cancelling' anything you don't agree with has to be delivered loudly and publicly, just to make sure everyone around you knows how superior and saintly you are compared to the Dirty Dancing viewers.

If "problematic" means something like "implicit or explicit moral messaging, assumptions or portrayals I disagree with", then almost everything from every era that has any human complexity is going to be problematic, but I think we can cope with imperfection.

The last few films I watched were In the Heat of the Night, David and Lisa, Men in Black, Analyze This, and Everything Everywhere All at Once. I could find objectionable aspects to probably all of these, and those aspects tend to go "pling!" in my brain while I'm watching or emerge while I'm thinking about the films afterwards, but that's okay with me. I'm planning to watch Birth of a Nation tonight, and expecting to find that about as problematic as it's possible for a film to be.

Haha, brilliant. I did think that - this is a guy who treats women like shit. His wife, his girlfriend. He sacked them because they weren't at his beck and call. Then he hires a prostitute who is at his beck and call.

I guess I'm watching it with my dad, and I'm realising that far from a romantic ideal, these films are giving young naive girls the idea that this stuff is aspirational. 😬

I'm just seeing them with new eyes, that's all. I'm not trying to invoke some kind of "culture wars".

Eek, not my dad. My dd.

Stupid autocorrect