Movies you like that would be considered 'problematic' today

[Sebastian Cobb]

Ignoring the brown face due to "the times" (and, again, it's very sympathetic makeup as far as ethnic-ing up a white man goes), I think I'm right in saying that Fisher Stevens fooled Indian audiences in the same way that Bob Hoskins fooled American audiences in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  He studied for months on the accent alone with a coach, which IIRC is from a very specific part of India.  And, again, it's not just some "p**i half-wit" that is the butt of all the jokes.  He did make Johnny 5, after all.  Let's also not forget he is the main protagonist in the sequel...

Yeah, I get that it's not deliberately offensive but it's quite baffling. Why was it so important that Ben was Indian? Why did they go to such great lengths to train a white man to play a convincing Indian, when they could've just y'know got an Indian in.

[Shit Good Nose]

Yeah, I get that it's not deliberately offensive but it's quite baffling. Why was it so important that Ben was Indian? Why did they go to such great lengths to train a white man to play a convincing Indian, when they could've just y'know got an Indian in.

I think the character actually was originally written and intended as a white American, but after Bronson Pinchot left to do that sitcom and was replaced by Stevens (who had already been fired from the role once prior to Pinchot IIRC), something happened whereby someone thought it might be a bit progressive to have an ethnic non-American person as a main character.  As for why didn't they just get an Indian - that didn't really happen in mainstream Hollywood until relatively recently.

[CaledonianGonzo]

If you look at some of the golden age films they seemed like they were becoming progressive, especially in films about women like All About Eve, but then McCarthyism happened and everything seemed to go backwards.

Annie the maid being a stock cliche aside, there's not really anything in It's A Wonderful Life that doesn't pass muster today - and it's got a pretty left wing moral core.

[Danger Man]

At least the main Indian stereotype is that of the intelligent virgin.

Better set the CaB movie in Bollywood.

[Sin Agog]

There's this Errol Flynn movie called Sante Fe Trail.  I used to have the biggest man-crush on Flynn.  Read all his tawdry tales of affairs with young wastrels in his autobios and everything!  But this movie I'm not sure about. It's got all the workings of another great Flynn film, with Olivia De Havilland, Warner Bros, Michael Curtiz directing, but I dunno... The whole movie wants you to side with the Confederates, who are honourable men who just don't want to be hectored by the North: "All we want is to deal with our coloureds in our own time. Is that too much to ask?"  The abolitionist John Brown is portrayed as a wild-eyed Charles Manson sort, and the black people onscreen as an amorphous mass of human matter.  The thing is, everyone involved knew how to make a good movie, but I'm not sure I'll ever watch this again, and it definitely put a damper on my Errol love.


Incidentally, I can vaguely recall from his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, that Flynn got involved in some amateur slave-trading in Papa New Guinea himself during his errant youth as a ship-hand.  Not a nice man.  Very dashing, though.

[Shit Good Nose]

There's this Errol Flynn movie called Sante Fe Trail.  I used to have the biggest man-crush on Flynn.  Read all his tawdry tales of affairs with young wastrels in his autobios and everything!  But this movie I'm not sure about. It's got all the workings of another great Flynn film, with Olivia De Havilland, Warner Bros, Michael Curtiz directing, but I dunno... The whole movie wants you to side with the Confederates, who are honourable men who just don't want to be hectored by the North: "All we want is to deal with our coloureds in our own time. Is that too much to ask?"  The abolitionist John Brown is portrayed as a wild-eyed Charles Manson sort, and the black people onscreen as an amorphous mass of human matter.  The thing is, everyone involved knew how to make a good movie, but I'm not sure I'll ever watch this again, and it definitely put a damper on my Errol love.

...sooooooo you're saying that you're not nominating that for this thread then?

[Sin Agog]

I think it's more of a Birth of a Nation scenario.  I like the ingredients, but it tastes like shit.

[Shit Good Nose]

I think the point of this thread is that we're not quite sure of some of the ingredients but love the taste...

[Sin Agog]

Who says I don't enjoy the taste of shit?  Yes, I'm Divine.

(You're right, I did kind of jack my own thread).

[Shit Good Nose]

Well, I didn't want to say anything, so prodded gently just in case you were having a "senior moment".

[Sin Agog]

Let me think of a proper one off-hand.  Maybe one of those Stockholm Syndrome Romances there used to be so many of until recently.  Doesn't Woody Allen kidnap and tie up Diane Keaton in Sleeper until he eventually charms her with his adorably skittish ways?  Who'd have thought his movies would ever age ungracefully.

[Shit Good Nose]

Let me think of a proper one off-hand.  Maybe one of those Stockholm Syndrome Romances there used to be so many of until recently.

Well there's always Hoffman.  Not that I like it, and Peter Sellers absolutely hated it, but it's very very highly regarded. 

VERY creepy watched now with current goings on in Hollywood, and also fairly recent things like children and women being kept captive in basements and such.  Yet it doesn't go for the creepy angle.


Also you could say any of Woody's films...

[Sin Agog]

Good call!  I thought you were talking about Dustin Hoffman in general for a second there, but then I remembered I have actually seen that one.  There's such a ridiculous amount of forgotten gems awaiting you once you go down that Peter Sellers rabbit-hole.  May give Hoffman a rewatch with new eyes.  I seem to recall Sellers' character wasn't viewed in an entirely sympathetic light.  His lust went far beyond your usual Bondy misogynists into something a little more intense and creepy.  He reminded me a bit of Terence Stamp's character in The Collector.  It's certainly a problematic movie, but probably one of Sellers' better performances.

[itsfredtitmus]

Twisted Nerve and films of that nature *probably* wouldn't get done now

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Rooney's excruciating yellow-face performance in Breakfast at Tiffany's is such a blight on an otherwise lovely film. His character is completely irrelevant to the plot, which makes it even worse - he doesn't need to be in the film at all.

Tiffany's is a much-loved classic, but I can't recall the last time I spotted it in the TV listings. Is it no longer welcome on our screens due to Rooney's horribly offensive turn?

[Twed]

Seminal comedic masterpiece Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is quite difficult to revisit given the prominence of Jim Carrey's anti-vaccination views nowadays.

Also the fact that the plot is "haha, transgender".

There are a lot of 80s and 90s movies that we'll need to download digital copies of and squirrel away forever, because there will be a time when they're not welcome on streaming services. Netflix is going to rip anything off the air at the first sign of controversy.

Fuck, Kingpin. Glorious Kingpen. I think the last line is "goodbye, whore".

[Shit Good Nose]

Is it no longer welcome on our screens due to Rooney's horribly offensive turn?

It gets batted around between BBC2 and Film4.  Film4 showed it as recently as last year.  Pretty sure it came with the warning summat along the lines of "this film presents outdated views" etc.

To be perfectly honest, much as Rooney/the character is indeed both dreadful and pointless, I'd much prefer warnings like that, than heavy cuts or even outright no showings.  Cos that's basically whitewashing.

[Mr Banlon]

Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.

[Gulftastic]

Here's John Wayne showing how to treat a woman in 'McLintock!'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50_JqltsgPM

What a turd of a man he was.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Now featuring a rape.

See also Sixteen Candles.

[Shit Good Nose]

Now featuring a rape.

I was going to suggest that myself, BUT there's a very very good case that has been made that shows why it's not really a rape.  Only problem is fucked if I can remember what it is...

[Gulftastic]

Because she fackin' lavs it!

[mothman]

Seriously? I mean, I haven't seen it in 30 years, but isn't the point of the film that imitating a black man is reprehensible, esoecially for his ignorance of what black culture actually is like, and the fact he is stealing a scholarship from somebody more deserving? And he gets his comeuppance and learns his lesson at the end?

[Kelvin]

Han and Leia's first kiss on the Falcon stands out as a particularly unpleasant moment in the original trllogy: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMk0-pZfx5Q

Specifically the way he has her cornered and deeply uncomfortable, trembling even, but he still pushes on because he "knows" she really wants it.

Obviously the prequels are also full of awful racist stereotypes, but they were considered problematic even when the films came out, so it kind of goes without saying, really. 

[CaledonianGonzo]

Because she fackin' lavs it!

Well that doesn't make Straw Dogs any better.  Quite the opposite in fact.

[Kelvin]

And, you know, the horrific OTT transphobia

In fairness to Madhair60, I'm fairly confident he was using the widespread knowledge of that film's awful transphobia as the basis for his reversal.

[Shit Good Nose]

Well that doesn't make Straw Dogs any better.  Quite the opposite in fact.

Yeah, but in Straw Dogs she very quickly DOESN'T fackin' love it.

No, with Nerds I think it was something along the lines of she's basically the one that instigates the fucking (doesn't he just go in to try and get a kiss or a fondle or something?) and, whilst doing it, says something like "it's MUCH better than normal", and then when she eventually realises who it is she's been fucking it's not shock or disgust, more a feeling of she now knows what disappointments the jocks and the also-ran guy from Happy Days really are.

Summat like that, anyway.

[Kelvin]

She doesn't know it's him in Revenge of the Nerds, though. He's pretending to be her boyfriend. That's rape.

[Shit Good Nose]

She doesn't know it's him in Revenge of the Nerds, though, does she? He's pretending to be her boyfriend. That's rape.

That's correct, but I think it's still mostly her and not him, plus isn't there a scene earlier in the film where she says something like "I wonder what a nerd is like in bed?"

Admittedly I'm drawing from old memory here, so there might be more to it than that, or I'm getting it completely wrong.

It might be in the commentary where they go into it in a bit of detail.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Han and Leia's first kiss on the Falcon stands out as a particularly unpleasant moment in the original trllogy: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMk0-pZfx5Q

Specifically the way he has her cornered and deeply uncomfortable, trembling even, but he still pushes on because he "knows" she really wants it.

There's a similarly unpleasant scene in the first Rocky film. Rocky, the lovable simpleton, literally blocks a blatantly uncomfortable Adrian from leaving his apartment. She tells him she doesn't want to stay and explains that she's never been alone with a man before. She wants to go home, but Rocky won't let her. He tries to make a joke of it, but Adrian understandably doesn't see the funny side. She's scared.

When he comes in close, removes her glasses and kisses her, she has no say in the matter. Yes, we know that Rocky is a sweet soul who doesn't mean to cause her any distress, but she doesn't really know him at all. As far as she's concerned, he's a large, intimidating man who won't take no for an answer.

It's an incredibly jarring scene, entirely at odds with the otherwise charming depiction of their courtship in the film.

Now, I don't believe for a moment that Stallone intended the scene to come across as creepy, but nevertheless it's deeply dubious.