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?

Johnny in Dirty Dancing is not her dancing teacher.

African Queen

I always thought the disapproval in Dirty Dancing was because of class and because the Dad thought Johnny was the one that got Penny pregnant. It’s even emphasized when Johnny is jealous that the Dad is accepting of Robby, another worker dating a daughter, but a worker attending college. Age never even entered my mind as an issue at play.

The whole movie is a commentary on social class in America. The abortion plot emphasizes the dire economic position faced by a young woman with no resources. Baby’s romance isn’t about her romance, it is about opening her eyes to the world she has never seen because she has been protected and coddled. Sure it is wrapped up in fun songs and dance numbers, but the people who made that movie knew exactly what they were doing.

Disney reckons that the Jungle Book is 'problematic', so it's a load of old arse.

Johnny in Dirty Dancing is not her dancing teacher.

And she's the one with the financial and social capital.

Yes it's a fair power balance. And he is the one who gets fired spoiler alert 😂 for having a relationship with a client, not on account of her age. Robbie wouldn't have gotten fired cos he was the 'right' sort. I love the scene when baby tells Penny she envies her and Penny is like are you serious? My parents were very protective and I was always jealous of the girls who were out hanging around the streets being themselves while mine only talked about education. I totally see why Baby was jealous - I remember thinking first time I saw it at 13 that I wish my mum would kick me out at 16 so I could be myself too. I wished someone had rescued me from my corner!!. Seeing it again in my 20s and it's a very different context. BUT privilege comes at a high cost and I love that Johnny saw that in her and showed her parents that she was more than just their version of her.

I should clarify when I say seeing it again in my 20s that was about 20 yrs ago, am in my 40s as my opinion probably reflects!!

@PocketBattleship Yes older men who go after young women are creepy as fuck.

It depends how far back you want to go. The one George Bernard Shaw based his on was a statue which came to life…

You know what, this never occurred to me, and I think this is to an extent a red herring. He's a professional teacher at the holiday camp. She is one of the clients. The very fact that he would be fired for sleeping with one of the guests should set off some red flags. The fact that she is 17 is the other oddity.

17 is really young for an older man to seduce. If the film had been cast with a real 17 year old instead of the super confident 23 year old Jennifer Gray, the inappropriateness and vulnerability would have showed through.

As it was, I can see why no-one finds the film itself creepy, but I think age matched casting would show up the storyline for what it is - an older, mature man in a position of authority/responsibility seduces a schoolgirl.

But happy to agree to differ.

The owner of the club encourages the Ivy League waiters to seduce the guests’ daughters. He told the working class staff to stay in their place. Johnny was fired for messing with the good jewish girl from a rich family.

The owner of the club encourages the Ivy League waiters to seduce the guests’ daughters.

Eww.

I've never understood that either. That dance at the end is gorgeous. They both adore each other. Nothing manipulative at all.

Scroll up three posts? The owner of the club encourages the Ivy League waiters to seduce the guests’ daughters. Eww.

It's clear that you are supposed to see this character as being hypocritical and sleazy in that moment. He's not the hero of the movie. A movie can have antagonists or bad guys without making the premise of the movie problematic.

That’s got nothing to do with whether Johnny and Baby’s relationship is inappropriate - he isn’t one of the Ivy League waiters being encouraged! In fact the resort owner and the Ivy League waiter are depicted as being gross/creepy and Baby dislikes them.

Full disclosure, I didn't get as far as the end dance because I had got so angry about Ivy League waiter lying about knocking up the working class female dancer.

It's not entirely true though.

He encourages them to flirt with them and date them and keep them happy.

But the background to that are these are the kinds of young men the parents at the resort would like to see their daughters-of-marrying-age date. They are studying to be doctors and lawyers, and are from good Jewish families. It's probably one of the places the young people in these families get to go out of their own local community and meet a lot of other young Jewish people they don't already know.

That's why Baby's parents are quite happy to have their elder daughter date one of the waiters. Or for that matter, for Baby to date the son of the owner of the resort, who is probably about the same age as Johnny.

The fact that Robbie is a creep is really down to Robbie, there's no reason to think all the waiters were like him. Johnny's not a creep, but he's working class and probably Catholic. In the 60s, it's not surprising that people the age of Baby's parents might have, at best, really mixed feelings about marrying out.

I suppose this means Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is down the tubes too.

In my experience though that's pretty accurate. It's much less common to see age gap relationships where the woman is a good deal older.

Films aren't there to show people what is (or someone imagines) is the best way to do things. They are meant to show life.

@DemiColon Just because it used to happen a lot doesn't mean it's right. We're trying to be progressive and move away from things that aren't appropriate and thankfully that's being reflected more in films and tv. Then that goes into peoples heads and over generations things change.

I haven’t but whilst it’s not sanitised it does fit an agenda.

There is an age gap of between 7 or 8 years between Johnny and Baby, although this is not really mentioned in the movie. But the age of Patrick Swayze makes it look more. If they had a 24 year old male playing Johnny it would probably not be seen as a problem because there is not the authority figure, vulnerable figure character dynamic.

If someone made an insulting generalisation about your generation you'd be the first to whinge about it.

Just imagine it. Someone making an insulting generalisation about Gen Xers. Surely that could never happen.