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Cuck (2019) and similar outsiders film messages that get misconstrued.

Started by Brundle-Fly, November 05, 2019, 08:06:55 PM

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Brundle-Fly





A mate of mine is an old 2nd gen skinhead who's still in that scene. He's of the aging ska/ soul/ semi-skimmed Oi punk variety. He commented that since This Is England (2006) there had been a resurgence of younger people getting into it all. However, a small minority of newcomers think they have to behave like certain characters from the film. ie Combo. He says they're not 'ultra Nazi', just really aggressive right-wing twats and "giving it all that". He added the same thing happened before with American History X (1998) and Romper Stomper (1992).  All these films' messages conclude with saying, "being like this is wrong You need to be heard but you also need serious help".   Quadrophenia had much the same thing going on but (along with The Jam) much to Pete Townshend's despair, the film just help kickstart the UK mod revival back in 1979.   

You might throw in Falling Down (1993) into the mix here, judging from this trailer for Cuck. It was released the same week as Joker.  Cracked dot com seem cautiously ambivalent but were ready to accept the lead character couldn't be perceived 'cool' like anybody from the aforementioned skinhead outings. I don't think this film will make much cultural impact but is this another backfire?  Don't know anything about the director, Robert Lambert. 

Anyone seen this? Noodle?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO3ud8McShc

https://www.cracked.com/article_26706_watch-trailer-cuck-alt-right-incel-horror-film.html

Noodle Lizard

My friend who goes to all the festivals saw it, but I can't remember if he said it was either "quite good" or "utter AIDS". One of the two, not in between. I'll ask.

Sebastian Cobb

I don't see why anyone should watch a film called Cuck. I certainly won't be.

imitationleather

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 05, 2019, 09:12:04 PM
I don't see why anyone should watch a film called Cuck. I certainly won't be.

It's a pretty good genre of films actually.

Famous Mortimer

Playing devil's advocate, if people seem to consistently misconstrue the message in a certain sort of cinema, is it not fair to wonder if there's a fault in the message, or the way it's delivered? Does cinema about this sort of thing need to be more heavy-handed?

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on November 05, 2019, 10:22:09 PM
Playing devil's advocate, if people seem to consistently misconstrue the message in a certain sort of cinema, is it not fair to wonder if the message might be at fault, not the people watching it?

In the case of Joker at least ... no. A lot of this stuff tends to be "hypothesised as if true" before anyone's even seen it. Same kind of mentality that the Whitehouse brigade had, and utterly useless as any form of criticism or analysis.

Granted, I just wrote a long post here about what I assume the quality of The Irishman to be. But I would never do that for any kind of publication, and it'll be easy enough for me to say "I was wrong, lads!" on this forum if it turns out I was, indeed, wrong. With Joker, a lot of the critics who made completely wrong guesses about its content and the types of people it would appeal to (basically "incels", "alt-right types" and "future mass shooters") had to discover other ways to justify their knee-jerk hatred of the (generally pretty left-wing) film - "it doesn't go far enough!" or "it has a Gary Glitter song in it!" It's all very silly. A lot of these younger critics especially aren't the kinds of people you'd trust if you heard their opinions in a pub, but they've got their platform.

Cuellar

There'd better be some good exposition - too often you just see two people going at it and they could actually be a couple for all you know.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 05, 2019, 09:12:04 PM
I don't see why anyone should watch a film called Cuck. I certainly won't be.

Cobb (2019) ?*



*winking emoji




Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on November 05, 2019, 10:31:58 PM
A lot of these younger critics especially aren't the kinds of people you'd trust if you heard their opinions in a pub, but they've got their platform.

Do they hold sway?

Blumf

I don't think any of these films have done as much damage as Animal House did reviving college fraternities. Any lone incel alt-righter pales in comparison with all those Silicon Valley tech bros, and pricks on and around Capitol Hill.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Blumf on November 06, 2019, 12:33:31 AM
I don't think any of these films have done as much damage as Animal House did reviving college fraternities. Any lone incel alt-righter pales in comparison with all those Silicon Valley tech bros, and pricks on and around Capitol Hill.

You have a point. These films were my staple diet..forty years ago.  I moved on.

Talking about now.

PlanktonSideburns

Judd apatow for making people think it's OK to like Rush and be a grownup

Captain Z

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 05, 2019, 09:12:04 PM
I don't see why anyone should watch a film called Cuck. I certainly won't be.

Maybe they are made to watch.

Phil_A

Something I've been curious about and actually looked into a little was whether A Clockwork Orange actually led to any copycat violence as been frequently claimed.

From the very basic research I did the most frequently cited examples of these incidents had only a tangential link to the film. The closest I could find was that lad who went out and kicked a tramp to death after hearing about the film from his mates but hadn't actually seen it himself. But the idea of mobs of wannabe Droogs roaming the streets looking for a bit of the old ultraviolence appears to've been an urban legend.

H-O-W-L

 I really don't understand how anyone could ever watch Falling Down and go "man, D-FENS seems like a swell bloke, better replicate him".

dissolute ocelot

Quote from: H-O-W-L on November 06, 2019, 01:52:00 PM
I really don't understand how anyone could ever watch Falling Down and go "man, D-FENS seems like a swell bloke, better replicate him".

I've known people who've expressed a regard for D-FENS, maybe not as a heroic role model but as someone who had a point (even if he took it a bit far). It also arguably normalises being rude to service industry workers (though you could say the same of Five Easy Pieces) and generally being a racist douche. He's the asshole but he's still the protagonist.

Part of the problem is, you don't really know as a filmmaker what people are going to latch onto or replicate.

Sebastian Cobb

Dfens was disgusted by the racist military s surplus guy

And it ends with him suiciding by cop after realising he's the bad guy. He literally asks 'am I the bad guy'?

Bit of an antihero imo.


Icehaven

Falling Down even pre-empts it with extremist gun shop owner insisting to D-Fens ''We're the same you and me'' and being royally assured he wasn't.

Quote from: dissolute ocelot on November 06, 2019, 04:19:46 PM
I've known people who've expressed a regard for D-FENS, maybe not as a heroic role model but as someone who had a point (even if he took it a bit far). It also arguably normalises being rude to service industry workers (though you could say the same of Five Easy Pieces) and generally being a racist douche. He's the asshole but he's still the protagonist.

Part of the problem is, you don't really know as a filmmaker what people are going to latch onto or replicate.


I think the fast food breakfast scene is the bit that sticks with people because it's the most relatable conflict he has and unlike virtually everything else that happens to him it's intended to be funny, having this ridiculously excessive response to such a petty annoyance of the kind everyone suffers all the time. The other people he attacks and/or is attacked by represent a whole raft of deeper societal issues and your own political leanings are going to affect your reaction to them but everyone can get on board with being irritated in a place like Whammy Burger without it having to say anything else about you.

Brundle-Fly

Falling Down (1993) is almost a bedfellow to Do The Right Thing (1989)

I'm thinking of the different types of racism speeches into camera sequence. An issue that is quietly disregarded these days.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: icehaven on November 06, 2019, 05:08:19 PM
I think the fast food breakfast scene is the bit that sticks with people because it's the most relatable conflict he has and unlike virtually everything else that happens to him it's intended to be funny, having this ridiculously excessive response to such a petty annoyance of the kind everyone suffers all the time. The other people he attacks and/or is attacked by represent a whole raft of deeper societal issues and your own political leanings are going to affect your reaction to them but everyone can get on board with being irritated in a place like Whammy Burger without it having to say anything else about you.

I think anyone who takes the Whammy Burger scene seriously as a scene where D-FENS is Rightly Striking Back at Silly Society is a fucking nutter, and I say this as a right wrong'un myself. The dude shoots the ceiling a shitload, terrifies people's kids to the point of tears, and has a whole fucking fast food restaurant full of people sobbing, screeching, and shuddering in his wake. He's so clearly a fucking mentalist doing the wrong thing I don't get why people think it's a scene where D-FENS is meant to be THUPER K00L.

PlanktonSideburns

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 06, 2019, 05:03:31 PM
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/7wigaz/michael_douglas_in_falling_down_was_the_hero_not/

Lol

Then there was a fast food restaurant where he pulled out a gun because they won't give him breakfast. Even though he's 3 minutes past cutoff time and the breakfast pictures are still displayed. That's just bad customer service.

The most American sentence in town there

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: H-O-W-L on November 06, 2019, 08:45:56 PM
I think anyone who takes the Whammy Burger scene seriously as a scene where D-FENS is Rightly Striking Back at Silly Society is a fucking nutter, and I say this as a right wrong'un myself. The dude shoots the ceiling a shitload, terrifies people's kids to the point of tears, and has a whole fucking fast food restaurant full of people sobbing, screeching, and shuddering in his wake. He's so clearly a fucking mentalist doing the wrong thing I don't get why people think it's a scene where D-FENS is meant to be THUPER K00L.

On its own it seems mad but the whole film is kind of taking him from a sympathetic loser who is an antihero to full on mentalist with no capacity to realise right from wrong. I think there's an intentional boiled frog thing the audience is meant to go through.

Rev+

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 06, 2019, 10:26:31 PM
I think there's an intentional boiled frog thing the audience is meant to go through.

There is, or at least I'm sure that there was in the original script.  The film was marketed as an average man snapping after too many of life's little annoyances.  Anyone who has worked in fast food could tell you that if you're 3 minutes late all the shit out back has been switched around and serving something from the breakfast menu is impossible.  Guy's a cunt.  Stuff's more expensive in a small corner store than a supermarket because they don't have the bulk buying power, oh how unfair.  Guy's a cunt.  He's a cunt from the off, which doesn't seem to be the original idea of the thing.  There must have been a lot of meddling in that one because the final film seems like such a weird thing to pitch.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before but I was on a jobcentre course with a neo-nazi whose favourite film was Romper Stomper, which he recommended to everyone, 'but only the first hour'.  He liked American History X too, but didn't recommend it as it ended badly.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Rev+ on November 07, 2019, 12:15:49 AM
There is, or at least I'm sure that there was in the original script.  The film was marketed as an average man snapping after too many of life's little annoyances.  Anyone who has worked in fast food could tell you that if you're 3 minutes late all the shit out back has been switched around and serving something from the breakfast menu is impossible.  Guy's a cunt.  Stuff's more expensive in a small corner store than a supermarket because they don't have the bulk buying power, oh how unfair.  Guy's a cunt.  He's a cunt from the off, which doesn't seem to be the original idea of the thing.  There must have been a lot of meddling in that one because the final film seems like such a weird thing to pitch.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before but I was on a jobcentre course with a neo-nazi whose favourite film was Romper Stomper, which he recommended to everyone, 'but only the first hour'.  He liked American History X too, but didn't recommend it as it ended badly.

2006. Me chatting with an old punk type Camden market trader. He loved This Is England but couldn't get his head around the conclusion.
"It was brilliant until that bit at the end wiv the little kid chucking the flag in the sea, What's that all abaht? "

Oh dear.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 06, 2019, 10:26:31 PM
On its own it seems mad but the whole film is kind of taking him from a sympathetic loser who is an antihero to full on mentalist with no capacity to realise right from wrong. I think there's an intentional boiled frog thing the audience is meant to go through.
Quote from: Rev+ on November 07, 2019, 12:15:49 AM
There is, or at least I'm sure that there was in the original script.  The film was marketed as an average man snapping after too many of life's little annoyances.  Anyone who has worked in fast food could tell you that if you're 3 minutes late all the shit out back has been switched around and serving something from the breakfast menu is impossible.  Guy's a cunt.  Stuff's more expensive in a small corner store than a supermarket because they don't have the bulk buying power, oh how unfair.  Guy's a cunt.  He's a cunt from the off, which doesn't seem to be the original idea of the thing.  There must have been a lot of meddling in that one because the final film seems like such a weird thing to pitch.

I think Falling Down is a movie that you are meant to look back on after watching, and possibly even see more than once (since it was made in the heyday of home video that seems likely to me) since once you've realized how much of an arsebag D-FENS is there isn't a single moment where he's clearly in the right, or even really remotely in the right.

Some of his complaints are legitimate, but they are complaints made by a very wrong person, therefore poisoning them. I don't know how to word it better, but I hope you guys get what I mean. It's like if Hitler complained about getting a parking fine at a supermarket because he parked a cattle-truck full of minorities for a minute longer than the 90 minutes he was given. Just because he has a legitimate reason to complain doesn't mean he's going about it anywhere near in the right, or is valid in complaining considering his current actions and stance.

Rev+

I get what you mean, and that is what I assume the intended impact is supposed to be for much of it - to get the audience nodding along up until the point they realise they're following him off a cliff.

It does feel to me like something that changed from its original form at some point, and that doesn't entirely click as a result.  I could see it being an early script from the writer that had sat in a drawer for 20 years before being picked up again.  Something that they wrote as entirely sincere and self-righteous originally, then came back to later in life, leafed through, and thought 'fuck me, I used to be a dick'.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I guess Fight Club is the classic example from the last twenty years. At first it was just blokes thumping each other, which is pretty stupid but fine if they're consenting adults, I suppose. I first saw it as a teenager, with no particular gap of film criticism, but I still never thought of Tyler Durden as any sort of hero.
More recently, a lot of people seemed to think that Thanos was in the right.