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?

I watched Pretty Woman, The Breakfast Club etc back in the 80s and even as a teen I was rolling my eyes at parts of the plot. Being raised by a feminist helped. Still enjoyed them as entertainment though. People aren't stupid by and large and can do their own 'filtering' without being babied.

So, to be clear: just because the man is older, he's creepy? Right.

Honestly I wasn't trying to lecture anyone or, god forbid, "virtue signalling". I was genuinely curious to see if it was just me that had re-watched these films recently with different eyes.

I thought maybe it was some kind of progress that we had made in society, maybe women recognising that we're not men's pawns any more.

Also I think I am permanently changed because I have seen IRL someone groomed by a much older man, a predator, and it's horrifying in real life and deeply creepy.

Nothing like any of the romantic films or stories where a coach/teacher/instructor seduces a young naive teenager. I've seen it through the disillusioned eyes of someone who realises that the "love of their life" is in fact a serial predator who has moved on while breaking their heart.

It's just made me see these narratives with new eyes, and made me wonder why we fill young women's heads with this stuff then wonder why they fall in love with older, predatory and ultimately abusive men.

Looking at the AIBU stats, it's a very personal sentiment.

Mad Max Fury Road isn't sanitised either, and it's much more recent.

I'm over 40 and lose track of when films came out.

Even though parts of Pretty Woman are highly problematic and glamourise prostitution, there is still a very clear message that prostitution is not glamorous, and for some, fatal. The latter point is made in the first scene - Pretty Woman opens with a murdered prostitute found in a dumpster. At its outset, the film is showing us that women who sell sex will be punished. Indeed, by the film's end, Vivian has been attacked by her client's lawyer. She also decides to move to San Francisco to go back to school, having realised prostitution isn't for her.

The saccharine ending of Vivian and Edward riding off in the limo together was added after test audiences didn't like the original ending where they went their separate ways. That would have been the better, more realistic ending.

Am by no means defending Pretty Woman, but it isn't quite the happy hooker film many like to think it is.

Also, and perhaps most surprisingly, Pretty Woman is one of the few mainstream Hollywood films that advocates safe sex and condom use.

OP, is your daughter aware that Bend it Like Beckham was written, produced & directed by British Asians, that the lead actress Parminder Nagra is a working class woman from Leicester and that the film was widely praised for being an authentic & sensitive portrayal of the difficulties faced by young British-born Asians who feel conflicted as they try to navigate two different & often clashing cultures? If not, maybe she should recognise that she has a lot to learn…

Pretty Woman jumps through loads of hoops to set up an artificial situation where he hires a prostitute but he's not "the sort of guy who uses prostitutes".

He's also a guy who can't keep a woman because he's a terrible boyfriend, but that's fine because he learns and grows through the influence of our heroine. ...

So Pygmalion meets Beauty And The Beast then.

Mad Max Fury Road came out in 2015, two years ago Twelve Years a Slave and 8 years ago.

Hear, hear.

For these very reasons, Bend it Like Beckham is held in high regard. On a scholastic note, it is often included/taught as part of any Film Studies course.

Disney animated features are awful for messaging towards girls until very recently.

Snow White: rescued from murder because the man instructed to kill her develops a conscience, rescued from starvation and exposure by seven men, then rescued from choking and married by yet another man. Be pretty, innocent and charming and a man will rescue you. Great message for young women, that.

Beauty And The Beast is basically the template for male abuser, female co-dependant.

It's only with Shrek and later films that I've seen this subverted with "action princess".

We deliberately expose our DC to older movies and I am pleased to have brought up two teen boys (18 and 16) who I think are very aware of the feminist viewpoint on issues and who see through all the gender nonsense but are thoughtful and sensitive. Clearly there is still a different approach to some issues from the younger generation but in general I think we have taught them balance.

We watched The English Patient last night with DS1 (18). It’s uncomfortable in places; deliberately so. RF’s character is obsessive and “stalkery” - certainly by todays standards. It shows the reality of an affair and has some quite “passionate/forceful” sex scenes. DS1 couldn’t actually talk at the end of it because he was crying so much with the raw emotion of it.

There's a difference between MotherOfDragonflies DSs watching a film with questionable behaviour in it at ages 16-18 when they old enough to analyse and question that, and having the film used as nanny for younger children whilst Dparent puts the dinner on.

A PP said that age restrictions are important. Problem is that age restrictions don't stop an undiagnosed autistic girl aged 6 from seeing Snow White...

I don’t think the AIBU stats tell you anything. “Are all movies <5 years problematic in some way?” All is such an absolute term and you actually meant >5 years anyway. You sparked an interesting conversation though!

If the older man is constantly leching after young women who could be his daughter then yeah, he’s creepy. But no, he isn’t creepy because he is whatever (say 55) age. He’s creepy because he wants to cast himself opposite women in their early 20s constantly.

I have a feeling she was only 16. Doesn't it say in the narrative at the start that she had just turned 16? Haven't seen it in years so I might be wrong.

Sorry just googled and it says shes 17. It doesn't help that the actors were 10 yrs older so he looked like an older man as 34, she was about 27ish I think.

Thanks for clarifying!

I have two gen Z DD's, they love all the rom coms, inc. the ones mentioned. They also love things like Friends, and Life on Mars, and many, many, other, so called problematic film/TV. They also read all the classics when children, and have no issue with any of them. They were of their time, and are enjoyable as such.

Being honest i take v little notice of what the young folk think cos half of it makes no sense. Women need to be portrayed as empowered but at the same time they can't be in love with or a sexual relationship with an older man til they are about 20 cos women are too f*ing stupid to make decisions about themselves and need to be protected. It's a complete paradox. People have forgotten that women are or at least were more mature than their male counterparts, so it's actually more likely a 16 or 17 yr old would be attracted to an older man cos they feel that boys their own age are childish idiots.

And you completely ignore the huge power imbalance between a teen and an older man. He's got financial and social capital that she lacks. That's where the safeguarding concerns come from.

No I think it very much depends on the context and personality of the 2 people but I don't agree this blanket safeguarding thing. For example an 18 yr old girl student dates a 25 Yr old man who is working, that shouldnt automatically ring bells. Same girl dating her college professor then yes there's an imbalance of power.

I would likely have said the same until I saw with my own eyes the way certain older men can use and abuse the naivety of young girls. In real life it's often very different to fairy tales or romcoms.

I think the whole issue of safeguarding has brought me to a point where I realise there are men who serially take advantage of young women's naivety to portray themselves as a gallant rescuer when they are in fact a creep. The whole of the male community involved in the Rotherham scandals played into this exact vulnerability. Girls can buy groomed into dependency so easily. If I hadn't witnessed the transition with my own eyes I would probably not have picked up on it. ☹️ It's not just girls, boys the same.

I wonder if any of you would approve of a relationship between a schoolteacher and a pupil in the same way as you're happy to tell me off for finding a football coach or a dance teacher to be a slightly problematic romantic hero. I just think we've become a bit wiser.

PS none of this was about the British Asian community element of BILB. It was totally the coach falling for a pupil.

I grew up in the 80s, and my dad used to bring lots of videos home from work which his mates assured him were suitable for kids eg Rambo, Commando, and many other cert 18 action movies.

He probably should have watched them first to check, but this was the 80s, he'd only just bought our first video player, and it was a different world back then!

I am a huge movie fan, and really enjoy watching the old films I grew up with.

But I did draw the line when I recently rewatched Predator 2, when Bill Paxtons character has an argument with a woman, and asks 'is this bitch on the rag'.

I thought nothing of it at the time though, because that was the norm.

Attitudes towards women, and their roles in films has definitely changed for the better since I was a kid. There was definately a hell of a lot of gratuitous female nudity back in the 80s/90s. I don't remember there being many strong women role models at all.

I have two daughters, and i think its great that there are far more strong female characters in films these days. I really loved taking them to see Captain Marvel. Funnily enough, not a lot of men seem to like that film.