Can we forgive old movies?

[Cassandra]

On 11/25/2017 at 12:20 PM, Tech priest support said:

I think you mean love and death, which I like as well.

 

Yes.

[Tech priest support]

On 11/26/2017 at 8:12 PM, gewing said:

Never saw Valley of the wolf but I have no intention of ever watching anything involving Roman Polanski again. He should have been in prison rotting for the last 40 years or so

ok I think you're confusing valley of the wolves with valley of the dolls. Valley of the dolls was made by Polanski and about drug use from what I hear. 

 

Valley if the wolves was a Turkish movie that served solely as anti american, anti Jewish, pro Islamic propaganda in which Americans were portrayed as evil psychotic kidnappers and murders, billy Zane played an American kidnapping young muslins so they could be murdered and their organs taken for transplant. Garey busey played a Jewish doctor who took organs from young men slims to sell in new York and tel Aviv. In would never watch a new movie with either of them in it.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_the_Wolves:_Iraq

[Badger]

Yeah, I think we mentioned that (pile of crap) movie, way way back in the day here, for what it is worth.

 

Though, Roman Polanski's name does bring up an interesting argument,  can you watch something made by someone who did such a revolting act in their past (aka Stephen Collins). 

 

 

 

[Tech priest support]

Yes. I know some people who burned their STTMP DVDs when Collins' crimes were exposed. I didn't. I would not watch anything with him made after it was revealed, but if the producers didn't know at the tie I won't condemn a good movie for it. Now when someone's past is revealed I shun further things they do and, for example  I really looked down on Harrison Ford for going to France to work on a Polanski movie after his crimes were revealed. But I kind of forgave ford later when he flew a rescue mission for a wounded camper.

 

I mean, when you don't know, you don't know. A director or producer who hires an actor not knowing he was a pedo when it was not known isn't guilty of anything. People who work with someone afterwards are to some degree at least contemptible for it.

 

I like the movie "predator 2", but after Gary busey starred in " valley of the wolves" I would not watch new movies with him in it as I regard the movie to be anti american, anti Jewish hate propaganda. (Incidentally now when I see predator 2 I enjoy busey's last scene more.)

 

 

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

That is a question of separating the art from the artist. It's a centuries old question and the answer is: it depends. Some people do it, some people do not. Most people do both for different pieces. There is no right response. I cannot watch anything with Bill Cosby, and even something as benign as The Naked Gun is difficult to take with O.J.'s appearances in it.  On the other hand, Ender's Game does not bother me at all despite the author being, well, controversial let's say. For most of us it is a case by case basis. However, my original point on letting the art stay still stands. Let people judge for themselves.

[massey]

On 11/21/2017 at 2:05 PM, Cassandra said:

 

Let's see.  The Nazis systematically murdered Six Million Jews in Concentration Camps, but we made them look Cruel and Sadistic in movies.

 

We made Japanese look bad in comics, but they killed 100,000 Chinese Civilians in The Rape of Nanking, many of them women and children.  Oh, and lets not forget the Bataan Death March.

 

I would say that the comics didn't even come close to showing the evil of the Axis.

 

My grandpa was in the Bataan Death March, and was a POW until the end of the war.  So I'm pretty forgiving as far as wartime propaganda goes.  These were political commentary as much as they were entertainment.  So while we can say that these depictions would generally not be acceptable today, we should also recognize that the people of the time had very legitimate reasons for showing things the way they did.

[massey]

On 11/21/2017 at 1:53 AM, Tech priest support said:

 

I've seen all the episodes of this beautuifilluy animated and technically excellent series,  and I'll admit many episodes are horribly racist by today's standards. Racist stereotypes abounded in this series. If a non white person appeared in this series, you can be he would be a walking stereotype writ large.

 

An episode set in Africa was really awful, with Africans portrayed as  evil, bloodthirsy,  pointy teethed, pointy headed, subhuman savages. And don't even get me started on how the Japanese were portrayed. The fact an episode about Japanese saboteurs was literally called "Japoteurs" is all that need be said.

 

And at the time this series was made racist stereotypes were the zeitsmode of the times. Movies like "gone with the wind" were loaded with them.

 

So in today's world can we forgive old media for being racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc? Or do we have to condemn it?

 

Personally I say we should view things in terms if the world they were made in.  I mean I'm pretty fond of the U.S. constitution, and it had some pretty bad stuff in it like the 3/5ths decision. That doesn't mean I want to scrap it. It needs revision now and then and fortunately was made to be revised as necessary.

 

 

 

 

I have to quibble with you on something.  The 3/5 compromise was a good thing.  It was intended to limit the voting power of the southern states in the US Congress.  We have proportional representation according to population in the House of Representatives.  The 3/5 compromise was a move against slavery.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

The thing is in those old cartoons, most people are stereotypes.  Criminals are stereotyped criminals, cops are stereotyped cops, etc.  Its writing to tropes instead of distinct people, and that can end up being pretty offensive especially to modern eyes.

[massey]

On 11/25/2017 at 9:25 PM, Michael Hopcroft said:

Then maybe along those lines we may look at one of the hottest new video games of 2017 -- the action 2D shooter Cuphead.

 

Cuphead is a tribute to those awesomely trippy 1jazz shorts made by the Fleischer Brothers and their contemporaries in the 1930s. Now the context of those shorts was that all the really exciting things in 1930s American music were being done by African-American artists like Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and the artists of the Harlem Renaissance. But the bulk of the USA was trapped in an abyss of Jim Crow racism, with censors in just about every state looking to sniff out and ban just about any piece of celluloid that didn't fit their prejudices. The Fleischers loved their jazz and their trippy scenes, but had to disguise it and, when they did display the artists whose music they used, had to do it in a way that fit the disparaging stereotypes of their day (I don't know how the artists themselves felt about it, although Calloway at least participated enthusiastically) -- and that is how some of the greatest and most original American animation came down to us as a legacy of Jim Crow.

 

Which brings us to Cuphead. The makers of this game (which is renowned for its beauty -- and its extraordinary difficulty) were inspired by those cartoons, but claim to have made a deliberate effort to separate it from the times in which they were made and avoid offense. But can you ever separate any piece of art from its historical context without making its problems worse through denial?

 

I don't know anything about video games, but this raises an excellent point.  Historical context, and what people could put in movies and media at the time, matters a great deal.

 

Gone With the Wind portrays black people in a way that would likely be very offensive today (I haven't seen it in 25+ years, so I'm going from very faulty memory here).  But at the time it was made, the movie gave a lot of black actors an opportunity to work.  They were playing characters that were generally honest and honorable.  A lot of films we could call "racist" today were actually made by people who were very progressive and tolerant for their time.

 

Stepin Fetchit was the stage name of a black actor in the 1930s, who played the "lazy, stupid black guy" stereotype in all his films.  But he was also the first black actor to earn a million dollars and the first one to get screen credit.  He made huge progress for black people in Hollywood, even if the mechanism that he used would offend people today.  A lot of the racist cartoons of the 30s and 40s played to these same stereotypes.  So were they promoting racism, or were they just going with what was popular?

 

Or in a more modern sense, how do people look at Will and Grace?  The first show (to my knowledge) to have the 2 male leads be openly gay.  But... well... one of them was Jack.

 

[massey]

10 hours ago, Tech priest support said:

Yes. I know some people who burned their STTMP DVDs when Collins' crimes were exposed. I didn't. I would not watch anything with him made after it was revealed, but if the producers didn't know at the tie I won't condemn a good movie for it. 

 

 

Yes, but what about Star Trek: TMP?

[Cassandra]

31 minutes ago, massey said:

 

Yes, but what about Star Trek: TMP?

 

I burnt it but because it was awful.

[Michael Hopcroft]

2 hours ago, massey said:

 

My grandpa was in the Bataan Death March, and was a POW until the end of the war.  So I'm pretty forgiving as far as wartime propaganda goes.  These were political commentary as much as they were entertainment.  So while we can say that these depictions would generally not be acceptable today, we should also recognize that the people of the time had very legitimate reasons for showing things the way they did.

On the other side of the conflict, the anime distributor Funimation recently released a remastered DVD of the propaganda anime Momotaro, Sacred Sailors, cited as the first Japanese-produced anime feature. It's cute to watch all those cute funny animals playing at soldiers -- until the end of the film where they attack an American-held island and start killing people. (Of course, by the time the movie was released in 1945, the war was a hopelessly lost cause with only the atomic bombs in the future to bring it to a merciful close -- if you consider two cities perishing in nuclear fire merciful....)

[Christopher R Taylor]

I like Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  Sure, it needs editing, but it was really well written.

[Tech priest support]

10 hours ago, massey said:

 

I have to quibble with you on something.  The 3/5 compromise was a good thing.  It was intended to limit the voting power of the southern states in the US Congress.  We have proportional representation according to population in the House of Representatives.  The 3/5 compromise was a move against slavery.

 

 

Yes, it had some beneficial aspects to it at the time it was created.

[Badger]

16 hours ago, massey said:

 

Yes, but what about Star Trek: TMP?

 

Heh, I wouldn't call it an awful movie, but there are parts where you wont have to wait for a Commercial to go to the bathroom.  (could've cut about 30 minutes minimum of drifting through space, and starship porn)

[Tech priest support]

OT but I liked STTMP. BTW, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. By that metric icd say masamune shirow complimented STTMP by making the climax of the original "Ghost in the Shell" OAV pretty much the same as STTMP.

 

[BoloOfEarth]

By STTMP, do you mean Star Trek: The Motionless Picture?

[Tech priest support]

20 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

By STTMP, do you mean Star Trek: The Motionless Picture?

No.

[Ternaugh]

Say what you will about the movie, but the Blaster Beam was cool.

 

 

[Tech priest support]

Yes, sttmp tried to give us a sense of awesome scale and possibilities, of something truly vast and in many ways beyond easy comprehension. Something more than one battle scene and explosion after another interspaced with snappy one liners.

 

Too bad so many people wanted ”PYEW! PYEW! WHOOSH! CRASHBOOMBANG! DAKKADAKKA! SNAPPY ONELINER!”

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well the movie was sort of an homage to 2001, which moved at a stately pace and focused on interesting imagery and scenery.  The problem was it went too slowly at times.  The slow reveal of the Enterprise, I did not mind.  That was kind of a love note to fans and the ship.  But 5 minutes of space cloud or drifting slowly past odd technological structures, that really was not needed.

[Hermit]

If Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer and the Green Lantern movie have taught me anything, it's you should try not to have your main antagonist be a nebulous cloud thing from space

[Tech priest support]

If you looked closely at the end of Ffrotss you saw Galactus' head in the cloud.

[death tribble]

I have often wondered who was getting a rise out of the Silver Surfer ?

[Christopher R Taylor]

The space cloud didn't bother me much at first, because Galactus' first appearance was caught up with lots of weird cloud and stone effects, covering up everything.  Like the spaceships in Independence Day flying down out of the clouds.  But then everything was revealed, and it was still just... a cloud in the movie.