Enjoying films I couldn't see made now.

[Treaclewell]

Specifically "Some like it hot" and one part of "Crocodile Dundee". Both on this week.

...is actually ahead of its time in that it perfectly portrays how autogynephilia works. Not that all autogynephiles are murderers ofc, in fact almost none of them are. But it shows the psychological process creepily well.

I always get it mixed up with Lover Come Back - the one where they're both advertising executives and he pretends to be a scientist. I love the bit in Pillow Talk in the piano bar where the singer clocks what he's up to, and switches to singing a song that goes "You lied, you dog, and you'll be sorry..."

The heroes are in the KKK and that’s depicted as an honourable thing.

Great movie, sure, but racist as all hell.

@WomenShouldStillWinWomensSports would you mind DMing me the details of the end of the book, as I'm never going to get around to reading it, but you've got me wondering as to what direction of unhappy ending it ends up going in.

You thought that the lynch mob were heroic and honourable? Why?

What the hell are you on about? The book (and the film but to a smaller degree) both position Ashley and Rhett are part of the KKK, Rhett’s in jail for shooting a black man who “was uppity to a white woman.”

They are supposed to be Scarlett O’Hara’s romantic heroes. “Protecting white women from the danger of black men.”

Racist
As
Fuck

Silence of the Lambs was contentious even at the time. Its director, Jonathan Demme, was mortified and took the criticisms really seriously.

If anything the buck stops with Thomas Harris, but the transsexualism (as it was then known) was handled fairly sensitively, especially for its time. Transsexualism was sympathetically treated - as made clear by the depictions of the staff and treatment options available via Johns Hopkins in the novel. Harris and Demme both make it clear that Buffalo Bill isn't a 'true' transsexual: he's a man with a paraphilia who hates women and tries to enact revenge for his mother's early abandonment of him by dehumanising them, stealing their skins, and dressing in them.

Ted Levine's acting in that movie was stellar and very much undersung by comparison with Anthony Hopkins' (as ever) magnificent performance.

Buffalo Bill incidentally has great taste in music - 'Goodbye Horses' was an awesome track!

Calamity Jane was also mentioned upthread: Doris Day was my favourite actress bar none but I'm guessing the dodgy bits related to the portrayal of the first nation Americans. (And perhaps Mr AKA 'Miss' Francis Fryer.....)

Pillow Talk is a favourite movie of mine. I never tire of watching it - Doris Day's comic timing is impeccable - although it does have some cringeworthy sexism far more typical of its age than now. Not to mention Rock Hudson's 'pregnancy' near the end of the film. Despite the fairly sickening sexist trope of man treats woman like shit, woman falls for man anyway, I love this movie. The piano bar scene never fails to raise a guffaw!

Caught the end of Some Like It Hot on BBC4 last night. I'd forgotten how good Jack Lemmon is in it.

I watched SLIH last night too. I’ve seen it about 90 times - it was a big family favourite growing up and dsis named her dcs Daphne and Josephine!!

Looking at it yesterday, of course it would never be made now. Men dressing up as women (and still looking just like big hulking men) is Not Allowed To Be Funny.

Old things that I dubious are ones with gratuitous sex. Any 80s-90s film has women getting their kit off and baring all for no reason. I don’t mean Basic Instinct, but films where “nude scenes” are shoehorned in (whilst man of course remains fully clad).

Grease! Poor old Sandra D made to dumb herself down and tart herself up for a guy that's far beneath he league.

This is going to be so outing @fixies but I did a school production of Grease. I was twelve but a grade and a half ahead (English born, staying in America). Everyone else was fourteen or over. All references to alcohol and especially cigarettes were erased but we also were DEFINITELY not allowed to refer to teen sex so Rizzo’s song - sung by an absolutely amazing African-American pupil who I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the body double for Beyoncé and out-singing her nowadays - ended up being:
There are worse things I could do
Than steal a radio or two

Obviously that turned it into total nonsense. Extra fun because it was an international school so Kenickie, for example, had the strongest French accent I’ve ever heard. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard “this car is GREASED LIGHTNING” but pronounced as if you were in the 5th arrondissement.

Grease! Poor old Sandra D made to dumb herself down and tart herself up for a guy that's far beneath he league.
I'm not a great fan of it, but watch the end again. Sandy has transformed herself, but so has Danny. He's wearing a jacket which quickly discards when he sees Sandy.

I think Lady and the Tramp does too.

I actually thought it was gross at the time. Also Fatal Attraction seemed appallingly mysoginistic.

Wallander and most Scandi stuff is starting to look awfully anti woman and exploitative

I watched life of Brian again the other night, it struck me that the trans character in life of Brian is treated fairly sympathetically. after initially reacting with incredulity (even the most right on members of the group agree which side of the physical binary she falls on, since as with almost everyone it's blindingly obvious), Loretta's colleagues consistently avoid 'deadnaming' her, and at one point apologise for telling a sexist joke in her presence.

What does everyone think of Babs in League of Gentlemen? I always had a soft spot for her because she is a complete grotesque, but so is everyone else in town and they all treat her with total respect and exactly the same as everyone else.

Also, men in drag in LoG and Python? Can't bring myself to be offended, because it works. Am I wrong?

The best drag ever was Les Dawson.

Yes, I think this is very much the point. Both spend the film trying to conform to certain social roles - Sandy as much as Danny. By the end they have both come to the conclusion that is less important than their feelings for each other.

People also miss that the letter sweater isn't just a change in fashion, it represents a lot of work that Danny put in over the whole of the school year. It's in some ways less superficial than Sandy's transformation.

Of course in the end they go with the Greasers because those are the characters the audience has spent the whole show building up a relationship with.

I don't think you can compare men playing female roles (or vice versa) in sketch comedy with the kind of drag show associated with the gay club scene. It's just not the same, it's not meant to do the same thing. In a lot of cases it's completely pragmatic, the actor has developed a role that happens to be the opposite sex, or sometimes a sketch piece needs a role with limited choices about who to fill it.

Sometimes a cross-sex role is done to emphasize the masculinity or femininity of the person for humour. But if it's well done it's very effective, I always think of the Newfoundland actress Mary Walsh who used to do a misogynist male character who commented on "male" issues. It wouldn't have been nearly as funny if she's been a man.

Victor Victoria, a women pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman, love that film.

Love Julie Andrews. Like Doris Day, she can do no wrong 😀

People also miss that the letter sweater isn't just a change in fashion, it represents a lot of work that Danny put in over the whole of the school year.

I don't think I'm alone in mostly missing the cultural significance of the letter sweater. tbh, I've always assumed it's something that people who represent the school in sports receive. I know people can buy them so I'd always assumed that that had happened with Danny rather than him earning letterman status, IYSWIM.

Rita, Sue and Bob too.

Yes, I can see that, it's probably more obvious to Americans. But if you remember, there's a section of the film where he is trying to find a sport to get involved in, so earning the letter relates back to that.