Social mores as seen in film: once acceptable, now quaint--and film as propanganda. (1 Viewer)

[Mike Broadman]

Vickie, just to nitpick, you may have missed something subtle in that Goodfellas scene: when the woman mentioned how jealous Pesci's character is, she looked scared and trapped, and was hiding it by faking a smile.

 

[Vickie_M]

Mike wrote:

Vickie, just to nitpick, you may have missed something subtle in that Goodfellas scene: when the woman mentioned how jealous Pesci's character is, she looked scared and trapped, and was hiding it by faking a smile.

Hmmm, I didn't get that. I'll have to go back at re-watch it.

Vickie

 

[Ike]

And just a little bit embarrased.

For a similar scene, during Casino, Pesci tears into his girlfriend for find Sammy Davis Jr. attractive, since he's black and Jewish.

Scorsese does seem to enjoy racist/mysogynistic traits in his characters, but I hear now his having second thoughts about some racist slurs in Gangs of New York-I sure hope the film doesn't change!

 

[Scott Dill]

Ike, The scene you are referring to is also in Goodfellas, not Casino.
I don't think that Scorsese has a problem with inter-racial relations, just that some of his characters do... and it seems appropriate for those characters. Remember, Tommy is a pshyco, his treatment of women is just another manifestation of his problem, we're not supposed to see it as acceptible behavior. Tommy is the one character above all in film that I "love to hate" so to speak.

 

[Richard Kim]

Maybe instead of focusing on how attitudes have changed regarding wife beating (more men should get what Carlo finally gets) but the change in attitude toward abortion.

PLEASE NOTE: DO NOT TURN THIS INTO A DEBATE ABOUT ABORTION!!!!
I don't think abortion is the primary focus of that scene in The Godfather II (though it is interesting that it takes place before Roe v. Wade), rather it's about how Kay tries to regain some power from a subordinate position. Francis Ford Coppolla talks about this in the DVD commentary. The Corleone family is a patriarchal society, with the males solely taking part in the family business. True, Kay was not a battered wife like Connie, but she definitely was put in an inferior position from her husband, which is symbolized at the end of the first film when Neri shuts the door in Kay's face, a recurring motif. Since she had no influence in the family business, the only way she could reassert herself and voice her dissatisfaction to Michael is by terminating her pregnancy and depriving him of a potential male heir to succeed him. Notice the anger and urgency in his voice when he asks Hagen if the "miscarried" child was a boy.

 

[Ike]

I could have swore it was in Casino, but I guess I'm wrong.

And I wasn't saying Scorsese was racist, just that his characters were.

And I think Richard is right about the abortion in The Godfather II. What an excellent touch.

 

[Tom Rhea]

What if the director honestly feels it is a stupid, self-destructive activity and either himself subconsciously associates it with idiots and scum or would like to include that impression?

If the DIRECTOR (or writer or producer or whoever) honestly feels smoking is as you describe it, no problem. The problem is all these self-appointed righteousness committees that say you can't show X and if you do then X must be shown to have horrible, devastating consequences. If somebody wants to make a movie and include the idea that it's deadly or glamorous or disgusting or exciting or all of the above, no problem. But nobody not involved in the creative process should get a vote.

 

[Chris]

Just a note:

Rhett referred to one of the African-American characters as a "darkie."

OK.

I guess I have the other problems with films; sometimes in an attempt to be PC, we try to change the past to compensate to our current views. I'm surprised Rhett used the term "darkie" he could have used a lot worse. People around the civil war did not use politically correct terms; even in the north (is anyone going to call out "Glory" for having northerners use similar terms?)

In a lot of ways, films the way they are a good way to chronicle where we were and where we are going.

I have almost no problem with "Gone with the Wind" using like terms in it's time frame. I would find it shocking and innaccurate if they decided to make characters in that time frame significantly different then they were (UPN tried this with a sitcom set during the civil war that failed miserably)

If I were to film a movie today set in post-civil war north, I would expect to have quite a few black actors cast into roles where they would be generally happy that the war was over, and happy to be working for room and board in good places - which in no way means it's right by todays standard, but was the historical norm for a culture who had just been "freed" from slavery.

I would make a statement in regards to smoking, but I think I'll offer this: while smoking is a longterm killer; alcohol can kill instantly (drunk driving, achohol poisoning) yet in films set currently (after we know this happens, including two alcohol poisoning deaths at a college already this year) many characters drink - and get drunk - with only "funny" results.. so, where is the indignation about that?

Let's not try to change the past, but we could improve the current. A much better way to look at it.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

...so, where is the indignation about that?

Steering back to what Jack was getting at when he started the thread, the indignation should lie with the coercion of a film's content by third parties. Whether you are talking anti-smoking or anti-drinking advocates applying political pressure or tobacco and liquor companies trying to place products in the film. This particular issue has been around as long as the concept of financial patronage of the arts, however, and will be with us for the forseeable future.

Regards,

 

[Jack Briggs]

Ken's got it.

Let me clarify: What I meant was that those many films from those many bygone eras reflected by their very nature what society found tolerable then.

Of course a film that concerns itself with an unpleasant subject must use the slang of the era in which it is set. To Kill a Mockingbird would not ring true at all if the "N" word and all the badness that goes along with such an attitude were not portrayed accurately.

That's not what I was getting it. Instead, my post wants to go in two directions at once: 1) how filmmakers "looked the other way" and went along with their eras' now-seen-as-odious social mores (Birth of a Nation anyone?) and, 2) how, when social mores change, certain groups of people want film and other popular-culture icons to allow only for their "reformed" worldviews. For example, in commercial-network television programming, no characters are allowed to be shown smoking (except when the intent is to make a negative point about smoking itself). Well, people do smoke--and most of them, I just bet you, may be good people.

Gone With the Wind presupposes an unspoken racism on the part of its audiences, whereas To Kill a Mockingbird shows the deadly consequences of racism.

Here's another example, concerning how society regards gays and lesbians: Remember 1976's Fun With Dick and Jane? There's a scene in which the title characters are trying to get a bank loan and they encounter a transvestite. "Dick" later makes a disparaging, put-down remark about that person to the bank teller. Then the bank teller begins defending the tranasvestite, while, in the process, revealing himself to be gay--all to "humorous" effect at the expense of gays.

No director could get away with that today. Yet, in the mid-'70s, it was still deemed socially acceptable to make fun of that population segment. And people yukked it up in the theaters as a result. Such "homor" today would result in jeers.

See what I am saying?

 

[Patrick Sun]

Are we just saying movies seem to pander to the prevailing lowest common denominator of its time, and rarely challenge the average movie goer? Nowadays film making is mainly about marketing and demographics, and not about art for art's sake.

Art attempts to strip away to get the essence of some thing or idea. Commercials films tend to complicate the message with pop cultural riffs that appear to make them seem tapped into the psyche of the time. It's dilution by addition.

 

[John_Lee]

Has there been a recent mainstream film with more smoking than 'A Beautiful Mind?' At times it seemed almost a parody of the films referenced above. Or is it more accurate to say that ABM, as well as films of that time, accurately reflected the prevelence of smoking in that era?

 

[Richard Kim]

Has there been a recent mainstream film with more smoking than 'A Beautiful Mind?' At times it seemed almost a parody of the films referenced above.

I guess you haven't seen The Man Who Wasn't There yet.

 

[Ashley Seymour]

That's not what I was getting it. Instead, my post wants to go in two directions at once: 1) how filmmakers "looked the other way" and went along with their eras' now-seen-as-odious social mores (Birth of a Nation anyone?) and, 2) how, when social mores change, certain groups of people want film and other popular-culture icons to allow only for their "reformed" worldviews. For example, in commercial-network television programming, no characters are allowed to be shown smoking (except when the intent is to make a negative point about smoking itself). Well, people do smoke--and most of them, I just bet you, may be good people.

Jack, in responding to 1 above, your criticism seems to be leveled more at the filmakers lack of forsight as to what social mores are going to change. I think I know what you are getting at, but the examples you used to start the thread were not in my opinion examples of filmakers being oblivious to the negative implications of the 'social mores' they were depicting. The smoking scene and the Michael and Kay scene amoung the others. Your post seems to indidate a more passive attitude on the part of the filmakers than I believe they intended.

For 2, As I mentioned above, I am not opposed to depicting smoking in a negative light. You are mixing up the concept of good people smoking and the negative effects of smoking. Do you mean to imply that because good people smoke that smoking must not be that bad? Edgar Allen Poe believed that every element in a story should add to and be integral to the message that the writer intended to convey. In the 1940's smoking was not yet seen as a health hazard. How can we hold filmakers to a standard that did not yet exist? By what reason should a filmaker today show smoking as a casual undertaking with no negative effects. People take drugs. That is a fact of life. Should we have more movies showing young wall street early achiervers shorting cocaine at parties? We know a lot of teens engage in unprotected sex. Most of these kids are good. We can show more drinking, and people not wearing their seat belts, consenting gay men having unprotected sex. We could fill several pages with examples. A libertarian would argue that all of these activities should be legal and not interfered with by the government. But you could also get most libertarians to agree that the depiction of these acts and behaviors should not be encouraged by the government or the media. Though they would defend the right of the media to depict any stupid act that they chose.

Jack, this is a good topic; hope we can keep from having it shut down.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Interesting points, Ashley.

If a filmmaker wants to indulge in propaganda and demonstrate the evils of smoking tobacco, fine. I choose not to watch his or her film.

But look at how smoking has become demonized in society. Scroll back to 1996's awful Waterworld. Note how Dennis Hopper and all the other bad guys were smoking cigarettes (that somehow survived hundreds of years and were still smokable--go figger). Now, that's stereotyping if ever there were any.

(BTW, not defending smoking here. I am just making a point at about how it has been depicted over the years in film.)

Another point, re propaganda. It is possible for it to be cinematically/artistically excellent, no matter how perverse or evil. Case in point: Triumph of the Will.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Steering back to what Jack was getting at when he started the thread, the indignation should lie with the coercion of a film's content by third parties.

Well, duh. I don't know how many people you'll find who are pro-censorship or otherwise look favorably upon outside parties messing with an artist's work on this forum.
To be honest, I'm not sure what Jack is trying to get at by joining these two issues.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Well, duh. I don't know how many people you'll find who are pro-censorship or otherwise look favorably upon outside parties messing with an artist's work on this forum.

Not so duh. It can be much more complicated than that. I thought Leonardo and Michaelangelo did some pretty good work even when the Church was telling them what to paint/sculpt. Similarly filmmakers are beholden to the source of their financing and third party interests will affect the film. Is this censorship, good business, or merely an illustration that the auteur theory that a film has a single author, the director, is not entirely valid? Reducing this dynamic to saying it is censorship and obviously we all oppose that is a gross oversimplification.

Jack was trying to stir up a discussion of the effects of external influences, beyond just the ones that I was talking about and inclusive of audience expectations and prevailing mores, change the way a film is made and also how it is perceived over the passage of time.

Regards,

 

[Mark Pfeiffer]

This sort of thing still goes on, of course. If you take a look at some of the films from the 80s, gays and foreigners/ethnic minorities receive some pretty shoddy treatment in the form of broad stereotypes. I can't remember specific titles, but in one of John Hughes' movies a Japanese (?) exchange student is insultingly portrayed in a way you probably won't see much anymore. (Go back to the 60s for a worse example with Mickey Rooney's Breakfast at Tiffany's character.)

I think a current example that will be looked upon poorly from future perspectives is the generalization that all African-Americans are pot smokers. Friday, Next Friday, The Wash, How High and others that don't come to mind. What really caught my attention with this is the trailer for All About the Benjamins. One character makes a joke about the first black president. He hums Hail to the Chief and then pauses to toke a nonexistent blunt. I realize it's a joke, but this is the predominant stereotype along with the non-commital "sex fiend" portrayals.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

I'm surprised Rhett used the term "darkie" he could have used a lot worse. People around the civil war did not use politically correct terms

Of course, they did. It's just that what was "politically correct" in 18*65* was DIFFERENT from what's "politically correct" today, which is different from what will be "politically correct" a century from now. It's all in WHO GETS TO DO THE DEFINING.

 

[AaronP]

hehe Goldfinger is great to see how Bond treats the women. I always get a kick out of how he slaps that girl on the ass and sends her away when Felix comes to talk to him when they're at that resort in the beginning.
And in just about all the Connery Bonds, as was mentioned earler, he forces em quite a bit, then they give in when he wants to get it on. I don't think they're really resisting though, just sort of a faux resistance that they know isn't sincere.
Also, check out Dirty Harry and The French Connection for a couple more recent examples.
In FC, remember the scene in the beginning when Doyle tells his partner "never trust a nigger" my friend and I watched that movie together awhile back and it was the first time either of us saw it, but we really busted out laughing when he said it because it was so atypical of what we see in recent movies, and frankly, despite its insensitivity, it was funny.
And Dirty Harry, well that movie is just loaded with stuff.