"Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" - rude shock

[leno...@yahoo.com]

I don't expect Leonard Maltin, in his guide, to include warnings of certain sick elements in ALL such movies.....there are far too many.

But this HAS to be an exception. What excuse would any author have for not doing so?

By that I mean: While it's not that surprising, sad to say, to see a racist musical number in a 1950s movie - in this case, a cannibal scene that conveniently includes a gorilla - what made it worse than unbelievable was when they started singing "Ain't Misbehavin."

(Thank goodness Fats Waller wasn't alive to witness that....)

Lenona.

[Gil Gamesh]

wrote in message news:dc43c9e5-8ed3-4617...@googlegroups.com...

There are many things that upset me - global warming, global hunger, war, etc -
but this film is not one of them, no matter how it upsets your delicate PC
sensibilities.
I've seen this one (albeit some time ago) and found it a mildly amusing spoof.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

You'd still want to know in advance that it's not just some benign 1950s musical that can be safely shown to, say, an elementary-school class, right?

I would. After all, while we presumably want to get kids interested in old movies, there are still many movies with elements that either have to be postponed or explained in advance - such as why, in most B&W musicals, you don't see ANY black dancers!

Lenona.

[Gil Gamesh]

>You'd still want to know in advance that it's not just some benign 1950s
>musical that can be safely shown to, say, an elementary-school class, right?

I doubt an elementary school age child would be interested in seeing an old
musical.
The film is so innocuous I have to wonder why you should be upset by it.

[notbob]

On 2013-05-14, Gil Gamesh <g...@gam.esh> wrote:
>
> I doubt an elementary school age child would be interested in seeing an old
> musical.
> The film is so innocuous I have to wonder why you should be upset by it.

No kidding. I've yet to see one critic raise protest about white male
husbands being portrayed as complete bumbling idiots for over half a
century of TV sitcoms. Portray a woman like that and you'd better
expect squals.

nb

[Bill Steele]

In article <2900637f-8f2b-4939...@googlegroups.com>,

leno...@yahoo.com wrote:

> I would. After all, while we presumably want to get kids interested in old
> movies, there are still many movies with elements that either have to be
> postponed or explained in advance - such as why, in most B&W musicals, you
> don't see ANY black dancers!

That would be an opportunity for a history lesson, explaining to kids
that scenes with Black performers (e.g., Lena Horne singing) were always
kept separate so that projectionists in the south could edit them out.

OTOH, not easy to explain to kids why we wanted to look at Jane Russell
dancing.

And if you want to get kids interested in old movies, don't start with
musicals. Back in the days when we all went to the theater, a common cry
was "Oh, no, he's going to *sing!*" followed by an exodus to the
refreshment stand. (I stayed, and went out of the theater humming the
songs, but I was a weird kid.)

[wlah...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 2:10:29 PM UTC-4, Bill Steele wrote:

> And if you want to get kids interested in old movies, don't start with
> musicals. Back in the days when we all went to the theater, a common cry
> was "Oh, no, he's going to *sing!*" followed by an exodus to the
> refreshment stand. (I stayed, and went out of the theater humming the
> songs, but I was a weird kid.)

And those "entertaining" moments ruined the Marx Brothers films. It may be why fast forward was invented.

[Gil Gamesh]

>And those "entertaining" moments ruined the Marx Brothers films. It may be why
>fast forward was invented.

That's why I prefer the earlier Paramount releases over the later MGM/RKO/UA
ones.
"A Night At The Opera" is an egregious example - lots of funny stuff interrupted
by interminable, boring musical sequences.
Even the musical numbers from Chico and Harpo are hard to take.

[notbob]

On 2013-05-14, Gil Gamesh <g...@gam.esh> wrote:

> Even the musical numbers from Chico and Harpo are hard to take.

So, poke yer eyes out and give the rest of us a break.

nb

[Gil Gamesh]

"notbob" wrote in message news:slrnkp5f98...@nbleet.hcc.net...

On 2013-05-14, Gil Gamesh <g...@gam.esh> wrote:

>> Even the musical numbers from Chico and Harpo are hard to take.

>So, poke yer eyes out and give the rest of us a break.

You, sir, are a meathead.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 12:17:05 PM UTC-4, Gil Gamesh wrote:
>
> I doubt an elementary school age child would be interested in seeing an old
>
> musical.

I was merely trying to give an example where the child audience was likely to be diverse. There's a reason you never hear of a teacher reading aloud "Little Black Sambo" to a class, these days. ("Sam & the Tigers," by Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney, yes, maybe.)

I wasn't that interested in watching "Walkabout" or Laurel & Hardy's "The Music Box" in fourth grade, but the school made us watch both anyway. Why? I don't know. (The latter had me pretty upset as a little kid - I didn't see anything funny about the misunderstandings, humiliations, and destruction of property. With comedies, it's better to start SOME kids with the less-humiliating Abbott & Costello, I say.)

Anyway, if you're showing old movies to a kid at HOME, you'd still want to know of any potential pitfalls beforehand, methinks. (Critic Ty Burr wrote a pretty darn good book on the subject in 2007 - it's "The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together.")

Excerpts:

"With any luck, my daughters will be able to go through life lacking that fear of old movies - and, much more to the point, old culture - that keeps so many children and their parents locked in an eternal, ahistorical Now. The only way to comprehend Now, of course, is to understand Then. More than almost any other art form, movies show the way back." (Page 12)

"I'm sympathetic to Eliza (his daughter), even as I recognize the dangers and seductions of a silvery world where everyone dresses beautifully and says exactly the right thing. When the virus hit during my adolescence - when I saw the late-night airing of "Duck Soup" and started haunting Boston's old-movie revival houses and buying up books with titles like "They Had Faces Then," and "The Parade's Gone By" - it was with a clear sense that this cave of Aristotelian shadows was different from the polyester early '70s I was living in. Better, too: easier, more direct. You cold understand it, and you knew when and most likely how it was going to end. The enjoyment was in the journey." (Page 359)

His latest is "Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame."

Lenona.

[Gil Gamesh]

>There's a reason you never hear of a teacher reading aloud "Little Black Sambo"
>to a class, these days.

Yes, there is a reason: the fascism of political correctness.
My generation grew up reading "LBS" and turned the tide of civil rights back in
the 60s.
"LBS" is not even about Negros, it's about a little Indian boy and is about as
innocuous as could be.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 12:15:43 PM UTC-4, Gil Gamesh wrote:

> and is about as
>
> innocuous as could be.

Once you take away the hideous ORIGINAL illustrations (not necessarily the ones in the 1950s edition, mind you) and the embarrassing names, yes. See Fred Marcellino's version, with Indian names.

Lenona.

[Gil Gamesh]

>> and is about as innocuous as could be.

>Once you take away the hideous ORIGINAL illustrations (not necessarily the ones
>in the 1950s edition, mind you) and the embarrassing names, yes. See Fred
>Marcellino's version, with Indian names.

The story hardly needs to be bowdlerized.
As for the names, well - what's in a name?
The illustrations I've seen (and I've seen quite a few) are not offensive in any
way. Merely showing a black child (who outsmarts the tigers BTW) is not in any
way racist.
Langston Hughes' opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, "LBS" is not a racist
story in any conceivable way.
The lengths to which politically correct would-be censors would go would be
comical except that they actually have an influence on what is disseminated to
the public.

[Gil Gamesh]

Here's a cartoon version of "LBS" that doesn't follow the story and is racially
insensitive to modern eyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSfGvptL_TY

[Gil Gamesh]

"Gil Gamesh" wrote in message news:adQkt.4112$Gg2...@newsfe28.iad...

>Here's a cartoon version of "LBS" that doesn't follow the story and is racially
>insensitive to modern eyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSfGvptL_TY

This one is really over the top: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BWhBkot244

[madar...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 2:11:18 PM UTC-4, Gil Gamesh wrote:
> Here's a cartoon version of "LBS" that doesn't follow the story and is racially
>
> insensitive to modern eyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSfGvptL_TY

Which begs the question: what's a tiger doing in the American South?

Or, conversely, what are American southern Negroes doing in India?

[Bill Anderson]

Some publishers have presented the story that way:

http://image.timepassagesnostalgia.com/watermarked/images62/6248blacksambo.jpg

Others have had a different take:
http://www.tmponline.org/wp-content/sambo_classic_book.jpg

Times have changed, and I don't lament the good old insensitive days.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

[wlah...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 3:56:24 PM UTC-4, Bill Anderson wrote:

> Times have changed, and I don't lament the good old insensitive days.
>

Not sure I'm reading that correctly. Do you mean that you don't "lament" their passing or you don't lament the content?

[Bill Anderson]

Oops. I don't lament the passing of the so-called "good" old

[Gil Gamesh]

"Bill Anderson" wrote in message
news:r7CdnYpvbrP0dQ7M...@giganews.com...

>Times have changed, and I don't lament the good old insensitive days.

I don't lament them either but I have no wish to bowdlerize them out of
existence.

[wlah...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 4:05:07 PM UTC-4, Gil Gamesh wrote:

> I don't lament them either but I have no wish to bowdlerize them out of
> existence.

Those cartoons are merely extreme examples of Hollywood's policies that are indefensible and embarrassing. If anything, the cartoons and the Hollywood films show exactly how racist Hollywood believed the US to be -- and not merely limited to the South. Even as late as 1941, Hollywood was still tying not to antagonize the Nazis so as to not lose money in Germany and the occupied countries. Un-effing-believable.

[Gil Gamesh]

>> I don't lament them either but I have no wish to bowdlerize them out of
>> existence.

>Those cartoons are merely extreme examples of Hollywood's policies that are
>indefensible and embarrassing. If anything, the cartoons and the Hollywood
>films show exactly how racist Hollywood believed the US to be -- and not merely
>limited to the South. Even as late as 1941, Hollywood was still tying not to
>antagonize the Nazis so as to not lose money in Germany and the occupied
>countries. Un-effing-believable.

Embarrassing, yes.
Indefensible, not so much.
Clearly there was a market for them back in the day.
They are a product of their time and should be viewed as such.
Definitely to be not censored out of existence, as the PC crowd would have it.
We've advanced from "coon" pictures in the last 70 odd years.
Wonder what people will say about current movies & cartoons 70 years hence?

[wlah...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 5:22:01 PM UTC-4, Gil Gamesh wrote:

> They are a product of their time and should be viewed as such.
>

Nonsense. Do you watch "Triumph of the Will" as a "product of its time"? You act as if those times are passed and we're all grown up and know better now. I don't think they should be censored although I don't think they should be shown on Saturday morning to children. You seem to be making excuses for this tripe and you use the canard of political correctness to hide your questionable race motives.

[wlah...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 5:22:01 PM UTC-4, Gil Gamesh wrote:

> Clearly there was a market for them back in the day.
>

Clearly there is a market now for child pornography so I guess that's just a sign-o-the-times. The "times" create nothing. Media is made by people and the notion that media reflects the masses is utter nonsense. These racist cartoons were as calculated as anything created by Leni Riefenstahl and they didn't just pop up as after-the-rain mushrooms. To dismiss criticism of this insidious junk by blaming it on the market or the times is to play right into the original intention.

[Gil Gamesh]

wrote in message news:d6dd7379-f48f-4d1d...@googlegroups.com...

Why yes, I view TOTW as a product of its time.
I won't dignify your race baiting however, other than to say Trotsky's analysis
of you is spot on.

[Gil Gamesh]

wrote in message news:339ac9ca-c897-4b9a...@googlegroups.com...

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 5:22:01 PM UTC-4, Gil Gamesh wrote:

>> Clearly there was a market for them back in the day.
>
>Clearly there is a market now for child pornography so I guess that's just a
>sign-o-the-times.

Clearly you are a jackass.

[wlah...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 6:32:02 PM UTC-4, Gil Gamesh wrote:

> Clearly you are a jackass.

Plonk. Go sniff trotsky's butt. You are of a type.

[Gil Gamesh]

>Plonk. Go sniff trotsky's butt. You are of a type.

You are a twisted old man whose only outlet for his irrational bile is venting
on Usenet.
Go plonk yourself, William, you are irrelevant and quite possibly unbalanced.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

Reminds me of what the late Peter McWilliams wrote in "Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society" (get the paperback edition if you can; there are significant improvements in it): Hollywood was anything but happy when, in the 1960s and 1970s, it was under pressure to stop using stereotypes (or at least the worst stereotypes) of black people, women, foreigners, etc. (I can't find the exact quotation right now - I think it was near the end, though.)

Lenona.

[Bill Steele]

In article <SJxkt.7914$bg4....@newsfe14.iad>,

Studios thought a movie should have "something for everyone." Reviews in
Variety often included a subheading like "song," meaning there was one
song somewhere in the picture (like when the detective goes into a
nightclub), because that was supposed to be a feature that made the
movie more saleable.

Same thing today when a cop show has to have men, women, old, young and
various ethnicities.

[Bill Steele]

In article <40cb3f8e-33bb-4db1...@googlegroups.com>,

leno...@yahoo.com wrote:

> I wasn't that interested in watching "Walkabout" or Laurel & Hardy's "The
> Music Box" in fourth grade, but the school made us watch both anyway. Why? I
> don't know. (The latter had me pretty upset as a little kid - I didn't see
> anything funny about the misunderstandings, humiliations, and destruction of
> property.

But perhaps you found Bugs, Daffy and Elmer hilarious.

[gtr]

On 2013-05-16 16:39:58 +0000, Bill Steele said:

> In article <40cb3f8e-33bb-4db1...@googlegroups.com>,
> leno...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> I wasn't that interested in watching "Walkabout" or Laurel & Hardy's "The
>> Music Box" in fourth grade, but the school made us watch both anyway. Why?

I don't know about Walkabout, but having 4th graders watch something
universally acknowledged as "funny" doesn't exactly seem questionable
in any way. Though it's true that across time what constitues humor
changes significantly.

>> I don't know. (The latter had me pretty upset as a little kid - I didn't see
>> anything funny about the misunderstandings, humiliations, and destruction of
>> property.

There are many things that I didn't find funny as a child, but they
didn't "upset me". But then I don't know wht you mean by "upset"; your
parents might have been called, you may have needed sedation, or you
might simply have been pouty. Tough to know.

Misunderstandings are a staple not only in comedy, but in many kinds of
narratives. Understanding that there are such things as
misunderstandings seems to be a good lesson to learn as a child.

The humiliation part I can't really address, but having already been
through discussion that mischaracterize L&H as mean-spirited, cruel,
hate-filled, and the like I'm generally distrustful of the fourth-grade
memories of someone who was upset by them.

"Destruction of property", seems like you need to fill a third element
of complaint. Honestly; young or old, hip or square, I've never heard
of "destruction of property" as some kind of controversial or
questionable component of anything. Action/Adventure would cease to
exist if blowing up cars was problematic.

> But perhaps you found Bugs, Daffy and Elmer hilarious.

These are filled with misunderstandings, destruction of property and
likely "humiliations" as the comedy-averse are likely to describe it.

[Gil Gamesh]

"gtr" wrote in message news:2013051610442132680-xxx@yyyzzz...

I don't know about you but I grew up watching Loony Tunes & Merry Melodies as
well as Heckle & Jeckle, other TerryToons and the like.
Granted that tastes may change but as a kid in the 1950s I thought they were
pretty funny.
As a matter of fact, I still enjoy them for their anarchic mayhem.
I never once got upset when Elmer blew Daffy's bill to the other side of his
head.

[madar...@gmail.com]

I suspect that 99.9% of us who grew up watching those cartoons enjoyed them and never found them "upsetting." Heck, I had my daughter watching them when she was growing up. She babysits and tutors sheltered kids who are not allowed to watch much TV and she's surprised sometimes by the things they don't know that they would have known if they watched TV and old cartoons.

[Mack A. Damia]

On Thu, 16 May 2013 14:19:23 -0700 (PDT), madar...@gmail.com wrote:


>I suspect that 99.9% of us who grew up watching those cartoons enjoyed them and never found them "upsetting." Heck, I had my daughter watching them when she was growing up. She babysits and tutors sheltered kids who are not allowed to watch much TV and she's surprised sometimes by the things they don't know that they would have known if they watched TV and old cartoons.

The problem was never with the "many" but the "few" who could not
separate fantasy from reality - not only in cartoons but slapstick
comedy such as The Three Stooges.

Es war immer das.

--

[leno...@yahoo.com]

On Thursday, May 16, 2013 12:39:58 PM UTC-4, Bill Steele wrote:

> But perhaps you found Bugs, Daffy and Elmer hilarious.

I only got to see them in very small doses - and NOT at my own house, mainly because I had a one-hour-a-day parental limit on my TV watching and I chose to watch certain well-known live-action 1970s kids' shows instead.

But what it comes down to is that people of almost any age can distance themselves from cartoons, whereas little kids find it harder to distance themselves from live-action comedians.

And, I'll admit it - coming from a family full of musicians, with a strong sense of how expensive instruments can be, I just couldn't stand to see such lack of respect for musical instruments, so I was almost in tears.

Lenona.

[Gil Gamesh]

"Mack A. Damia" wrote in message
news:3qjap8t154i2geufe...@4ax.com...

>The problem was never with the "many" but the "few" who could not separate
>fantasy from reality - not only in cartoons but slapstick comedy such as The
>Three Stooges.

Undoubtedly speaking from experience, eh douchebag.