And I was appalled at how poorly it stood the test of time. It was viciously homophobic to the point where we just turned it off. I always considered him one of my favorites and one of the greats but I'm guessing my judgement was clouded by nostalgia because it wasn't the least bit funny in the context of today. Not having seen it in twenty years and my reaction to it showed me just have much the country has grown but more importantly how much I myself have grown.

My kids were like "Dad, what the fuck is this? This dude is a total asshole, put on some more Carlin."

And I could not help but concur.

Times change.

underrated 80's movie with a great soundtrack.

I agree -- underrated movie.

A very few of those changes have been for the better, but most of it has been for the worse.

I remember catching the acts at Mitzi Shore's place one Friday in the late 80s when Sam dropped in after the acts. He just went off for 90 minutes for more and put the whole house on the floor. It was one of those nights when you are sore the next day. He was responding to the times he lived in with the topics that were relevant at the time.

If he was alive today, his material would be different and he would still be a headliner, it's still about the talent. If you were to view George Carlin with a critical eye, you would find that there are more than a few of his bits that are pretty offensive by today's standards, less about gays but a whole lot about women. And let me qualify this by stating that I revere George Carlin. I literally wore out my first FM AM lp and had to buy a new one. I can still recite the Weird Willie West show from memory.

Consider Bill Hicks, one of the most talented, and ripped off (Dennis Leary owes his entire career to Bill), American comedians we have ever had. How many of his routines would play today? Goat Boy?

How about Lenny Bruce?

ok, maybe not goat boy, but his rifts on war, gov't, love, feel as relavent today as they were then. He left us much to early.

After he got huge and was like a rock star. It was just an obnoxious, vicious routine. Almost like he wasn't sure how to follow up the things that made him that successful to begin with.

Now, his earlier stuff on Rodney Dangerfield's HBO show, his first special and anything he ever did on the Howard Stern show is still really good to excellent. Particularly the Stern appearances.

people cringe, gays and women in particular. Personally, I never cared for his set routines. He was always best live and improvising.

I was just saying that he was a true talent who had that spark where he could just riff and hold an audience seemingly forever. Nobody that was there that night has any memory of who any of the scheduled acts were, and nobody will ever forget Sam's set.

Oh, and not even God could help a heckler that was dumb enough to draw his attention.

as you about a Saturday Night Live skit I first saw in the late '80s/early '90s about gay soldiers in a Civil War campsite. When I saw it again 5-6 years ago -- not funny to me at all.

even way back then.

For whatever that's worth.

Good for him on that score.

Last edited Thu Dec 13, 2012, 10:46 PM - Edit history (2)

Ponytail, smock, obsequiousness. Those Cartwright boys were basically frat brothers. Didn't seem to rub off on my tiny brain though. Real life tends to contradict stereotypes pretty effectively.

Don't remember Scooby being racist -- more like crypto-stoner fare, looking back.

I secretly wished he would poison them

Tragically, he only seemed to get the poison in the dishes of the love-interest-of-the-week.

You had four guys living together and the father was about three years older than the oldest son. He claimed that each wife died by different means, but there were no women around at almost anytime. Serial killer and liar, if you ask me...

I recall when Little Joe had a fiancee who discovered that she had a severe heart condition and wouldn't live more than a few months.

I just ed at that. My grandmother watched that in reruns, and I remember some of the episodes. I'm calling her tomorrow about this.

I'm a little worried about the premise: that eliminating derogatory language toward gay people in media will translate into a diminution of homophobic attitudes and behavior in real life.


Attitudes are still untouched... near as I can tell ( as is homophobic lingo; it rages on unabated) --- amongst 'youts', anyway. I think straight adults generally don't talk about it anymore. It's hard for them to know what to do/say when it comes up in conversation so they don't do/say anything.

That could be an improvement, also. The downside is we don't know what they're really thinking.

Add books to that list of entertainment that was accepted then by ofensive now.

Mickey Rooney as an "Asian." wtf

I could not believe Rooney's character was ever considered funny.

in "teahouse of the august moon." i didn't like that movie much

In the TV series Kung -Fu.eww

I loved Nancy Drew as a child. I had all of them. My set was destroyed when our house burned down; I was in the eighth grade. So when my daughter was old enough for them, I bought her the complete set. Nostalgia got the better of me and I was reading them. And I noticed something funny. Nancy would help out Hannah by loading the dishwasher. In the books I read, Nancy did the dishes by hand. So I did some investigating, and found out that they "update" the books for new generations. Which made me wonder, what were the originals like?

So the great Nancy Drew used book/antique store hunt began. I have 15 that were published in the 20's and 30's. And there are a few things that are OMG shocking in there.

The first time Ned Nickerson (Ned!?! Clean-cut, unfailingly polite, all-American boy Ned!?!) used the word "darkey" I was so shocked I slammed the book shut. Like maybe I could stop the racism by closing the book.

Holy crap.

I wasn't expecting that.

Thankfully, later editions of these books that came out in the late 50s redacted and rewrote some of the more offensive bits.

Which sucks, because parts of that movie are very good and pointed.

I know there was a quickie scene w. andrew dice clay , but I don't remember him saying anything explicitly homophobic . And it was otherwise a pretty good film considering its genre and time.

Long Duk Dong. There are lots of good parts in the film, but it really fell down on that one really bad caricature.

But it gives me an excuse to watch it again.......

To kill a Mockingbird, Grapes of Wrath, Wizard of Oz, Ol' Yeller and Bambi.

Most people who are alive today aren't old enough to remember that.

http://www.aglp.org/gap/1_history/

It's no wonder there are so many people who are convinced homosexuality is aberrant and dangerous. You have this kind of stuff shown to impressionable teens (I presume) combined with a lot of religious prejudice.

different world

I watched Rudolph the other night. It's a paeon to bullying. But the snowman is cute.

so homophobic. I was ashamed America was exporting hatefilms like that.

only to find myself in a conversation about how horrible something happening in it is.

I guess the good side is that it opens the door for conversations about bigotry.

I can't stand watching it now because it seems to imply that it's OK to outcast "weird" people unless those "weird" people have some exceptional talent or ability.

thinks Santa is the biggest dickhead ever in that film.

I agree.

and thought he was mean and cranky. It always confused me because I thought Santa was supposed to be jolly and fun and generous to everyone.

the good leader in this case being Santa.

Rudolph saved his ass. Rudolph himself and his friends helped him find the best within himself.

So, it's an added layer to casting out members of a society that are misfits.

The island of misfit toys in the movie where all the defected toys go.Mean Santa exiled them there never tried to repair them. Their union sucked.But good ole Rudolph saved them.

I had a hard time believing as a kid I liked watching that show. A lot of older cartoons are violent, but Woody Wood Pecker is just a mean spirited *hole. Unlike Bugs bunny or Tom and Jerry there is rarely any attempt at sympathy so you root for Woody. I fact in watching a few episodes a few years back I was hoping Woody would lose and lose badly. The show is dreadful.

You have to remember what appears horribly racist today, might not seem horribly racist pre-1980. Prior to that just having an open gay, an Asian, a native American even be considered as a regularly occurring character was a breakthrough and was considered a big deal. It was considered progressive to just have a show that pointed out they actually existed on Earth. It was even longer until you had enough writers, actors and directors that could possibly portray and want to portray them with any since of realism or for non-comic effect. Hell read Lincoln or Darwin and by today's standards they seem like complete racist bastards. It isn't wrong to watch or read things and accept there historical context. Except Woody Wood Pecker which probably should be burned so as to not inflict future generations.

There's an old Foghorn Leghorn cartoon, where Foggie says, “He's so dumb, he thinks a Mexican boarder pays rent.”

And then there are the less than flattering portrayals of Native Americans...

Now I see why a number of the libraries in our system don't catalog these Looney Tunes DVDs in the children's section.

and i bet mexican was picked v. canada because it was closer to hollywood.

The Japanese stereotype of buckteeth, coke-bottle lens classes, slant eyes, etc., is way over the top. Of course, it's war propaganda, too. There are other examples I remember from Looney Tunes of racist caricatures, the main one I recall was Bugs behaving like a Steppin Fetchit-style slave begging Yosemite Sam (was a Confederate general, I think) not to whip him and then rushing off screen to re-appear as Lincoln scolding Sam: "What's this I hear about you whipping slaves?" At least Bugs as Lincoln then bops Sam on the head, if I remember correctly.

In terms of Mexican stereotypes, Speedy Gonzalez has quite a few. Speedy himself wasn't too bad (he always outsmarted as well as outran the cat and worked for the good of the other mice), but the other Mexican mice were shown as lazy and dull-witted.

Last edited Fri Dec 14, 2012, 12:21 PM - Edit history (1)

>>>There are other examples I remember from Looney Tunes of racist caricatures, the main one I recall was Bugs behaving like a Steppin Fetchit-style slave begging Yosemite Sam (was a Confederate general, I think) not to whip him and then rushing off screen to re-appear as Lincoln scolding Sam: "What's this I hear about you whipping slaves?">>>

... if a young mind can absorb the *meaning* of the narrative that you've just described, he/she/s already absorbed more understanding of what the Civil War was about than many current HS grads and adults who are walking around with the most *peculiar* notions about their own US history. (The most peculiar being that history matters at all.)

so is the notion of Lincoln reprimanding the South.

It's like Twain's Huckleberry Finn, in a way (and Chuck Jones was a big Twain fan). Some people today are really offended by his portrayal of Jim the runaway slave and the use of the "n" word. However, Twain was actually very progressive in terms of race relations, which is reflected in how he develops Jim's humanity and how it changes Huck's racial attitudes.

i find a lot of present-day TV way more racist and classist, for example shows like "Cops" & "Lockup" which present largely black or underclass populations as bestial violent beings exclusively.

I remember the one where Bugs matches wits with a tough white construction worker who wants to build a highway through Bugs's rabbit hole. Then there's the pompous opera singer, the muddle-headed Elmer Fudd, etc.

The artists were certainly playing around with common cultural stereotypes of different classes, races, and genders at the time. I don't know if they were trying to subvert these stereotypes, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

The only overtly racist LT cartoons I remember, ones that were openly derogatory, were the WWII ones about the Japanese, and, as I say, that was wartime propaganda. Not justifying it, but it's just what it was.

You haven't seen anything until you have seen "Babes In Arms" starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. When Rooney shows up in blackface, you have to pick your jaw off the floor. The clip appears to be Garland in blackface...but there are many Rooney clips as well.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=plpp&v=3tU4O94rYCY

Not offensive as such but an example of how much things have changed. Back when it came out it was hilarious. Now the idea of two men lovingly raising a son (who turns out to be quite straightlaced) and their "flamboyance" is not especially surprising. Rented the movie recently and although still funny was surprised how much it aged.

I find it has aged quite badly as well.

Where the movie's really aged, IMO, is that the young couple is so eager to keep the girl's parents in the dark. Granted, they're cardboard cutout Republicans, but it's still a little surprising that she just didn't tell her parents to deal with it and it's very painful to watch the son asking his parents to pretend they're straight.

Unfortunately, so is the book it's taken from.

expect it to line up perfectly with today's cultural climate. It just is. And, by the same token, it is equally ridiculous to expect books of other times to match the societal standards or beliefs of this moment in time. I watch old movies quite a bit. I've watched a few with my grandchildren. The offer a peek into another moment in history and how people thought. Rather than censoring, viewing should offer an opportunity for some discussion of then and now and what brought about such changes. Even small children can grasp the idea that people and ideas change and quite often for the better.

It's about how appalled we often are by how those older filmd or TV shows we loved are quite apallingly racist/phonic/sexist when we watch them now.

Just hiding things away isn't treating children with respect for their intelligence. I mean hell, do we throw away Seuss because of his WWII cartoons?

What's a very important lesson to teach is that it's not just bad people who think and do bad things, good people you respect can also have terrible ideas. And when they don't even know there's anything wrong with it in context, that's how it continues.

If I'm raised to call any black man a boy and older blacks aunt and uncle, how am I to know its wrong?

It also raises the question for the kids "what are you watching produced this very year that will seem just as backwards and wrong in the coming decades?"

Wigging out over a word can miss the point. Huck Finn gets thrown out and nobody realizes Jim is portrayed as a better man than most of the whites in the book.

When people got blown up in Looney Tunes, I thought the blackened faces and swollen lips were on account of trauma. So whenever I saw blackface in movies, I never realized they were supposed to be black, I thought someone had given them an exploding cigar. Made movies damned confusing for me as a kid.

No one is expecting it to "line up perfectly with today's cultural climate." That's the point--it doesn't.

No kid is going to enjoy anything if you pause to explain to them or need a lengthy discussion about every offhand remark that could be offensive.

Adventures in Babysitting is PG-13. If you believe your 13-year-old is traumatized by a boob or a swear word, then either you've sheltered them far too much or you're in complete denial (either they've seen worse at their friends' houses or your own and you just don't know it). Homo? Your son has heard much worse at school.

Stuff like this is similar to viruses. Kids shouldn't be overexposed, but some exposure is necessary to build up the immune system.

Last edited Fri Dec 14, 2012, 09:16 AM - Edit history (1)

Extremely misogynistic/sexist, homophobic, body shaming, mean spirited bullying, racist stereotypes . . . that's like the Stanley Cup of cringe-worthy items you found funny back then but are like "that's so wrong" today.

. . . . but I, like an idiot, watch it every time it comes on . . .

"Old movie" is Wizard of Oz, Great Expectations, Snow White, Cinderella, Dumbo, etc.

wonderful dancing, wonderful singing and also abduction, marriage under false pretenses, forced marriage ...

Khartoum, with Lawrence Olivier as the Mahdi (and Charlton Heston as General Gordon but that's another complaint)

I have to admit I love Tom & Jerry, but every time I see an episode with the Black maid, with broken English, overweight looking like aunt chimama I SMH

Scene 1: a house blows up next to them, Gibson's coat is on fire, and Glover goes to put it out. "What are you, a fag?" asks Gibson.

Scene 2: They're discussing the case at the firing range, Glover suggests the two women in question might have been in bed together. "OK," replies Gibson. "Disgusting but OK."

When they show the movie nowadays on regular TV, the edit the first one out. Not the second.

They did 2 movies called "Lover come back " and "Pillow talk".In both movies Hudson plays a playboy who tries to woo Doris Day with mistaken identity.But there was a lot of homophobic references in both movies.