You know how people say you couldn’t tell story x or y today, usually implying a story with some humorous or political component, and often meaning that political correctness has such a grip on our culture that we simply wouldn’t be allowed those forbidden thoughts.
But it’s more than that. It’s much more than that.
Recently Dan found out I had never watched White Christmas. Look, if we’re going to list off every movie, classic or modern I’ve never watched, we’re going to need a bigger blog.
However, having found out I had never watched White Christmas, he made time for me to watch it. And it was fun.
Look, in a way the plot is gossamer thin, because it’s a musical, which means there must be space for the song and dance numbers. (Though song and dance convey emotions that otherwise would take full, lengthy development.)
As it is I could write it as a short story.
It is ostensibly a romantic comedy, and I don’t think I’m spoilering when I say it’s two couples, falling in love.
In fact, this has a lot of spoilers ahead, but the funny thing is that I don’t think telling you the plot will diminish your enjoyment of the movie if you’ve never seen it.
But by the end of the movie, I realized it literally couldn’t be done today. Not the way it was. And not because the politics or wokeness, but because… well… our culture has been castrated and flattened by a constant barrage of very bad entertainment which has re-written what we can expect.
So, the story starts on the (unconvincing by the standards of current special effects) battle front, where an entertainer become soldier is entertaining his fellows on Christmas eve and just before a big battle. As part of it a Major General who is retiring comes to “inspect the troops” and the guy who will replace him is bristling at the unauthorized entertainment but the Major General gets rid of him, and has a talk with the men and encourages him… Just before bombardment, in which a fellow soldier saves the entertainer’s (of middling status in the US) life.
The whole leads to them performing together, back in the US. You’d think it would be about their struggle to become big, but no. That happens almost instantly.
Then through a series of reasonably unlikely (but not unbelievable) contrivances they end on break in an Inn in Vermont which is owned by, you guessed it, the Major General. The MG has sank everything into it and the Inn is going to fail through lack of snow to bring skiers in.
This means that the two not yet or sort of courting couples will bend everything and risk their courting and also spend a lot of money to get the MG a lot more guests and recognition for his status as a good soldier (ultimately “the grandest son of a soldier of them all” being the line in the song.)
That recognition and the response to the appeal to do this is the culmination of the movie, the romantic closure coming in a coda afterwards.
So, why couldn’t this movie be done today?
The reason the two guys, with the connivance of their love interests engage in recognizing the Major General under which they served is admiration of his qualities and leadership, and wishing to recognize those. Oh, friendship of a sort, but more sort of duty and honor.
Which brings us to it could never be done today: the closest it could get is one of the love interests is the daughter or granddaughter of the General, and the guy is doing it to gain her favor.
I mean, knowing current media, he’d probably have a crush on the General, but never mind that.
The point is that we’ve flattened the human motivations and motives. People mostly do things to get in someone else’s pants. There might be revenge also, or a search for power.
But doing something because you admire a man in a way that has nothing to do with sex, money or power? Impossible.
It could never be produced because no one would believe it.
Years of “revelatory” and “transgressing” stories that explode all such motive, in favor of showing they’re really about sex, power or money mean that people subconsciously no longer buy the other finer-grained or subtler motives at all. Which in turn means that you can’t make movies like this.
But see, I think that, in turn, coarsens the public discourse and feelings, and makes those motives less likely to exist, and grand old men who did their duty as best they could or, in fact, went above and beyond the call of duty, will go unrecognized, unless they can give someone power or money or even for that matter sex.
As storytellers we shouldn’t flatten and cheapen the reality we see but we can in fact tell people that not everyone is corrupt, not everyone is dirty, and not everyone is about the basest of motives.
It is in fact right now the most transgressive and startling thing you can do.
Go find such things that are now “forbidden” or “unthinkable” and go and write about them!
Mad Genius Club 
89 responses to “They Couldn’t Tell This Story Today”
I kind of want to see where this goes…
Excerpt from “King of the May”. The huntsman of the Wild Hunt (sponsored by the god Cernunnos) is being consoled after accumulated disasters by a teenaged friend who looks up to him.
—
He looked out into the orchard and fingered his growing beard. “I want my wife back, her baby well. I want peace and safety for my family. I want Gwyn’s domain to become the place of prosperity it should be.”
She thought he spoke half to himself now, as though repeating something he’d been concentrating on. “What keeps Gwyn in charge of Annwn is the great hunt. That’s been taken from him with the hounds. Even if he wins at Nos Galan Mai and we receive two whelps from Cernunnos, they can’t grow quickly enough to hunt six months later.”
“Madog and Creiddylad tried to stop the great hunt by killing the huntsman,” he continued, “but I stepped in. Lludd has been more ambitious—he killed the whole pack. There’s no quick fix for that. Those were Cernunnos’s own hounds.”
“So,” he reasoned out loud, “does that mean Gwyn is no longer Prince of Annwn? I don’t know. Nos Galan Gaeaf is six months away and it hasn’t failed yet. But it will.”
Rhian shuddered. “You think Cernunnos will remove Gwyn, like Lludd wants?”
“He hasn’t shared anything with me since… He’s preoccupied.”
For a moment, Rhian had a vivid sense of what the turmoil must be like inside George’s head.
“What can we do?” she said.
“Keep going, I suppose. What else can we do? I’ve got to get Angharad back. I want Gwyn to succeed but I don’t know how he can, now. I don’t know what’s going to happen, I have no idea how we can win. But there’s one thing I’m certain of—if we don’t try, then we will surely lose.”
He looked down at her, seated next to him. “Sometimes that’s all there is, the knowledge that you have to keep fighting. That you have to trust others to do their part. Even when there’s no hope of success. You might as well try, you couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t.”
Rhian knew she would remember this. It’s how men stood and fought in battle, wasn’t it, when they knew they couldn’t win. It seemed so simple when George said it. You fought anyway, because not fighting was worse.
He smiled at her unexpectedly. “Did I tell you? Angharad has attacked Lludd in her own special way. She’s painting a mural.”
She could hear his pride in her beneath the humor.
He told her the story, and she laughed out loud at the scenes he described from Gwyn’s letters.
When they were done chuckling together, he rubbed his face and looked at her seriously.
“Thank you, my dear.”
She could feel her face coloring. She stood up and stammered, “I was w…worried about you.”
“I know,” he said. “You’ve helped, more than you can possibly understand.”
Rhian felt better herself. Like the kitten that insisted on being petted, she realized. It knew it was comforting to give comfort. As she walked thoughtfully off, she turned and saw George pick the kitten up and hold it up in front of his face, small in his two broad hands.
“And just who are you?” he asked out loud, with mock menace.
It yawned in his face.
To the main point: Amen! In my characters, it mostly comes out as them being relatively polite, because I am that tired of books where the characters do nothing but jump down each others’ throats.
Also, have fond memories of White Christmas the movie – we saw a stage production at the local community theater a decade or so ago that turned Blue Skies (which is kind of a background number in the movie) into a big solo number for one of the male leads. In those days, last surviving grandparent was still well enough to travel and went to the theater with us. And Sibling and Sibling-in-Law and I went out and saw a theatrical rerelease on Thanksgiving Friday a couple years back, our first post-lockdown theater experience and that was very cool. Also we use “The Theah-tuh, the Thea-tuh, what’s happened to the Thea-tuh?” a lot to mock certain types of showbiz people. 🙂
It’s maddening that every story told today descends down to our groins as if nothing else existed.
Men can’t have deep friendships where they really will die for each other. Women can’t have deep friendships where they really will sacrifice for each other. Men won’t sacrifice for their wives and children anymore than women will sacrifice for their husbands.
Or their country! God Forbid! Or something larger than their next lay!
And if you don’t fit into your tiny little box and stay in your lane, you’re so transgressive as to be needing to be crushed.
This is very limited for story telling. Back to Dickens! Or Dorothy Sayers! Or Agatha Christie!
I used to joke to my wife about the scope of Captain America and Bucky in the Marvel movies from the previous decade. Only, it wasn’t really joking. I actually expected them to turn the two characters gay for each other and I suppose they deserve some credit for not doing that.
They deserve a -lot- of credit for not doing that, given the amount of pressure on them to do it. One of the mightiest acts of resistance against the Woke in the cinema of the last 40 years, IMHO.
That thought never crossed my mind but you’re right!
They deserve a LOT of credit for not turning them into gay lovers.
I recall an article outlining the number of reviews DEMANDING there be homoeroticism added to the movies, and decrying its absence. They were numerous and loud in the media and social media alike.
One of the things that made the Eternals movie so bad was that they bowed to that pressure. You could see it starting to creep in with Avengers Endgame (fat Thor, Captain America’s @ss jokes, etc.) but they went Full Ham with Eternals.
And it sucked!
And they lost money. So much money.
Fast-forward to now, and Marvel is box-office poison. They’re dying, and this is why.
I saw the two post-End Game Spider-Mans and they were decent. The last one even had some pretty good fan service. But none of the other Marvel stuff. No TV shows. No other movies. The Spider-Man movies were good enough epilogues to close off the whole story and it’s become pretty obvious they have nowhere else to go with it.
Good Lord. We really have gone insane.
The slash shippers are still bitter about to this day. I usually go for the C.S. Lewis quote “Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend.”
And here I was thinking I couldn’t love CS Lewis any more than I already do!
Altogether too many fans insist there is no other possible interpretation.
It’s the Frodo/Sam shippers that drive me bonkers. Sure, have that be your private headcanon, but to insist that they Must is to degrade the power of real male friendship.
The fact that our culture has reduced all of male emotion to Anger and Sex while insisting that men can’t have real friendship is what has caused the whole incel nonsense.
“The fact that our culture has reduced all of male emotion to Anger and Sex”
Which sounds odd when I remember how the people who believe that ‘men need only sex and violence in their entertainment’ also state that the problem with men is that all men are violent horny Neanderthals around whom no decent woman is safe.
I can still remember one silly relation from years ago who told me that while simultaneously demanding to know why I didn’t watch Spike TV when it was all jiggle shows and pro wrestling. Didn’t I know it was made for every man like me?!?
Didn’t I know it was made for every man like me?!?
And yet they probably didn’t re-examine their preconceptions on holding that up against you, did they? Surety is a grand virtue in Progressivism.
What was in it for them, in this re-examination?
Altogether too many people with too much time on their hands with access to Tumblr and Twitter (back in the day when both of these platforms were the place the Secret Transgressive Cult tested out their ideas on the public) were screaming the loudest that there had to be more homoerotic subtext and text and supertext.
I blame Tumblr and third-wave feminism and the shipping wars.
And don’t even get them started on the racial implications of the title . . .
Too late. This from Dec. 22, 2015:
“As reported yesterday, an enterprising fellow actually got college students to sign a petition to stop “White Christmas” from being played on the radio because — since it ignores Christmases of other colors — it is obviously racially insensitive.”
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/12/no-snow-for-christmas-thats-ok-snow-is-racist-anyway/
This something I commented on that I enjoy watching foreign films so much more. Or even anime. The other day I realized I was enjoying My Hero Academia so much because…. well like you said, there’s just much heart there. True there’s romance, but there’s also friendships and legacies and honor and ambition and hope and….
Well. There’s more humanity.
Humanity is a problematic concept, comrade. Did you know that all the worst people who ever lived were human?
I do notice a high correlation between problems on earth and humans per square mile.
Fortunately, earth has plenty of square miles for such a round planet 🙂
Reported problems, comrade, reported problems. The nefarious tendency of animals, plants, and especially minerals to hide problems must be rooted out!
Years ago, I realized that it is possible to tell a lot about the values of a culture by paying attention to the fiction from that culture. Anime tells a lot about the Japanese soul, both the good and the bad. On the other hand, modern American fiction show a lot more bad than good.
It tells you what the folks pushing the stories want that soul to be.
Which is why Japan is having a big boom in shows that actually involve kids as a good thing for main characters to have, and why anime is super popular in the US.
TBF, anime was super popular in the US even twenty years ago, when a good chunk of what was being imported to here was the ecchi comedies populated by psychopathic tsundere love interests. It’s nice that Americans are discovering the more wholesome side of the anime industry.
The “Kids are cute, try having some” subtext in certain European shows (like Don Matteo) always make me smile. The French series “Murder In” used to have pretty sympathetic depictions of intellectually disabled people and the caretaker relative, including those with Downs Syndrome, but we haven’t seen much of that in the seasons made post-Covid.
I freely admit that I pushed anime at my kids for the moral lessons no longer being taught in Western media.
Work hard, believe you can overcome obstacles, value your friendships, the value of competition—these ought not be uncommon.
Would I prefer my kids to read Twilight, or watch Toradora? To ask the question is to answer it.
Toradora is supercute; probably the best of those bickering high school couple animes that I’ve run across. (Love is War is also amusing but more hit and miss).
The latest Godzilla movie is really good too.
And you can genuinely like almost everyone, even if they’re annoying.
And the motivations are realistic, even if shown in a very funny way.
The other film that features “White Christmas” is the 1942 Holiday Inn, this time with Bing and Fred Astaire as rivals for Marjorie Reynolds. ‘Tis a piece of fluff, but Irving Berlin did some great songs, and yes, it couldn’t be made today. Even though the black cook gives Bing the important directive to succeed. (Remember, “Raaaaacist” must be spelled with 5 ‘a’s.)
If I remember correctly, there’s a blackface number in Holiday Inn, too. Like, an actual blackface number, not some guy dressing up as Terrible Terry Tate for Halloween. Still, it’s a relic of its time. Why be offended by it 80 years later?
I’d have to ask somebody who is/was offended by the movie. It hasn’t shown up on TV for many years; at a rough guess, I saw it that way in the early-mid 1980s.
We watched it on Amazon Prime a few years ago. I don’t know how often it stays on that service, though.
There wasn’t black face. they might have removed it with AI
That is correct, there is no blackface in White Christmas. There is an older movie with a different title which also uses the song White Christmas, which does also contain a blackface routine (link below), and I think that is what is being discussed here.
Holiday Inn. (In my opinion a much better movie.) I’m thinking this was the tail end of when that was respectable, so now everyone who even likes the movie is a horrible racist.
Holiday Inn had a fully realized black character (even if ‘just’ the maid, she is quite important).
White Christmas, IIRC, only showed a black pair of hands once.
The song “Abraham” was in blackface. I didn’t get the DVD application running correctly in my laptop (glares at desktop–it didn’t recognize the DVD at all), so didn’t watch the whole number, but it opened with Bing in blackface as a very old black gentleman.
I thought I had White Christmas, though it might be on tape. Any blackface would have been in the Minstral number.
And if it was they removed it digitally. The movie was also colorized.
“White Christmas” was originally in color. “Holiday Inn” was in black and white.
Ah.
The vibe I get from that scene and similar things around that vintage is that everyone knew it was in poor taste, but it was considered fart-joke levels of poor taste/shock value rather than…what it is now. The Holiday Inn scene is specifically the result of the protagonist being kind of underhanded: rather than let his interest/entertainment partner know about a potentially better job offer and make up her own mind, he disguises her (in blackface) so that his friends who only vaguely know her by sight can’t poach her for their own act. The filmmakers want us to be amused by his actions, but not necessarily approve of his motives. (Which is true of a lot of stuff that goes on in Holiday Inn, which is a much less idealistic film than White Christmas)
Well, having read Moe Howard’s autobiography wherein he states how he and brother Shemp appeared in blackface at the very start of their careers, it was viewed as the absolute bottom barrel of the vaudeville circuit. You did it because you were just starting out as a performer. Or because you were little more than a warm body being put on stage because another scheduled act hadn’t shown up. Very few performers would brag about doing it according to Mr. Howard.
Good to know! How’s the rest of the book? I always got the impression Moe was the responsible adult of the team IRL.
He was. Larry and Curly were both reckless with their money, but Moe made sure to hold back on part of their paychecks so they had something after they couldn’t perform any more. For that matter Moe himself lived rather modestly given how well-off he was — Larry supposedly once claimed that Moe ‘owned half of North Hollywood’. Moe died a millionaire.
I noticed that was how a lot of 30’s-40’s movie comedians did it. They either spent like there was no tomorrow or they lived very carefully.
Oh, and as for the book itself — it can be found both in an older edition titled MOE HOWARD & THE THREE STOOGES or as a newer and expanded edition titled I STOOGED TO CONQUER. It’s a good piece of work if you want insight into things as varied as Jewish like in 1910-20’s Brooklyn, life in vaudeville, and working as a comedian in Hollywood short films in the 30’s and 40’s.
Thank you!
You’re very welcome, and Merry Christmas!
And a very Merry Christmas to you too!
ah. Okay. I wuz confusal.
(Remember, “Raaaaacist” must be spelled with 5 ‘a’s.)
It’s raaaacys! to count those ‘a’s!
There are three movies that supposedly go together:
White Christmas
Holiday Inn
Christmas in Connecticut
And, yes, the blackface routine is in Holiday Inn. I’ve always found it uncomfortable because it was a bit … flat? But it makes sense entirely when you know the story is about Vaudeville performers. (It just fails somewhere for me.) But it’s part of a whole … 20 minute? song and dance routine that covers all the American holidays.
But, even in those movies, with somewhat trite plots, the essence of them is actual Christian virtue: faithfulness, giving the benefit of the doubt, courage, happiness, how not to be a butthead of a friend, etc.
As to finding them? I bought digital copies years ago from Amazon. As long as they don’t mess with my copies, I’m good to go. (And my copy has the blackface routine in it.)
To be honest, it never occurs to me to NOT have characters that act out of respect, honor, and love that is not “eros.” For example, when Arthur Saldovado came close to dying, the younger men (and older for that matter) did everything in their power to help him—not out of romance or a desire for gain but because they so deeply respected him and admired him. I suspect that at his death feast, a lot of stories will emerge about how he protected someone (Nikolai, Jude) or helped and encouraged younger Hunters (Florian, André, Ladislu) without anyone else knowing.
Ditto the respect Saxo Birdson has for Master Osgar, and the other Elect for Gregor.
My great grandfather had the glorious name Leroy Crockett Eberhard. His father (Gotthilf or Gottlieb, we’ve found both in the records) named him after his first commanding officer ( 72nd Ohio Voluntary Infantry) in the Civil War, because he had so much respect for the man.
As everyone says, you don’t see that sort of thing much today. Kids are named after relatives, or unpronouncable because it’s “unique!”. Heaven forbid the parent(s) choose to name a child because of the admiration/respect they hold for someone.
Ever seen what happens when you do tell someone that a kid was named to honor another?
You either get a lecture about how they suck, or otherwise “invite” commentary on the matter.
When they’re not scolding you for failing to honor someone else entirely.
We put in the rule no naming for living family, and don’t TELL random folks. It’s not worth the headache.
The gent who does my mom’s hair is named for the enemy soldier who protected his g-grandfather during WWI after the ancestor was badly injured and captured. G-Granddad swore that the next boy in the family would be named for the soldier. Guess who had a lot of girls before [redacted] was born?
“forbidden” or “unthinkable”
Yes ma’am. ~:D
In current WIP, I have included two unthinkable things and one forbidden one.
First, women choosing men based on their truthfulness and honor over all other traits. It develops that the Einherjar of Valhalla, those swaggering, buff bad-boys, are a pack of thieving, callous, drunken bastards, and the one thing the minor goddesses of the villages pine for is a man who won’t lie to them and steal their purse.
Second, what those women want a man for is children and family. Having one that won’t run off after the first skirt that swishes by and leave them and their children to starve is their heart’s desire. To the point where they are happy to share a good one. Sharing is better than poverty and starvation.
Third, the forbidden thing is how those goddesses treat their Chosen One. In their society, married men are Lord and Master. They decide who their women will be allowed to speak to. These goddesses insist this is the correct way to do things, and won’t have it any other way. “It simply isn’t done, you know.”
This makes for some amusing scenes where Main Character, not used to such notions, is prompted to get on with the introductions. Just because they wait for his permission doesn’t mean they won’t poke him in the ribs to hurry him along.
The reason for doing this is not merely to annoy Feminists (although I do admit that is an enjoyable side effect.) Nor is it because I find such an arrangement desirable or proper, because I don’t.
Introducing these notions is a way to emphasize that our Main Character ain’t in Kansas anymore, and just because the Goddess of Desire decides she’s going to have him for her own does not mean he’s in for a smooth and comfy ride. He’s going to have to get over himself. And having more than one goddess might not be the hot anime scenario one hopes for when thinking of such things. Now he’s got more than one person relying on him not to put a foot wrong.
For the pretentious lurkers out there screaming right now (hi, Bonnie!), obviously I picked the Goddess of Desire. If I wanted a Hugo-style story I’d have chosen the Goddess of Rusty Needles, or some other such appalling conception. I leave that to you.
A snippet:
“We were told there was to be no shouting,” chuckled Brigid and petted his back. “You broke that rule right at the start?”
“I roared and stamped like a mad woman,” confessed Brannha. “Terrified him and convinced him I would leave. Treated him roughly and all, as I am wont to do.”
“Hey, I forgave you for that already,” he reminded her. “I grabbed your tail, you yelled because I’m an idiot, and now it’s over.”
“I feel we may be the ones in peril here,” Brigid said to Fionne with amusement. “To pull the tail of a demoness is to invite a cataclysm, Sam.”
“We don’t have demon ladies in the mundane realm,” he sighed. “We only have humans. I’m still not clear what some of these people are. It isn’t my world, right? Even in my old world I don’t know that much, I’m a broke engineering student.”
“Perhaps we may sit and chat instead of all piling on Sam,” allowed Fionne thoughtfully. “A lighter touch than my usual might be advised.”
“I’m ready for whatever you want to do,” Sam told her firmly. “You wanted me, so I’m yours. We are all going to have an amazing life together, alright? It’s going to be so great that they’ll make songs about it! I’ll walk across Niflheim and kick the ass of every goblin I meet if I have to! You get me? Because you deserve it! That’s how it’s going to be!”
There was a pause while they all stopped to take that in.
“By your word so be it, my beloved,” said Brannha seriously and bowed to him.
“So be it,” said the other two together, and bowed to him as well.
“You don’t bow,” Fionne told him as he started to bend his neck. “We bow. You stand tall. You are lord and master. We declare ourselves your loyal subjects.”
“Get used to it,” Brigid told him sternly as he looked like he would argue. “That’s how it is.”
“We will not relent, my beloved,” said Brannha. “Proper families have rules, and this is one of them. Your word is law, by our declaration.”
“Don’t make any stupid laws or I’ll cuff your ears,” added Fionne seriously.
“Okay,” he grumbled. “No stupid laws. I’ll need some help with that.”
“Not so far,” Brannha told him. “Shall we go? I want to play ‘catch my tail’ with my new wives and my valiant husband.”
Very interesting snippet. And, while it might rub some fur the wrong way, I can definitely see where the virtue is made and how it works out – even without the surrounding story.
What’s going to be really fun when I get to that point in The Last Solist series where people learn that the main villain has spent the last 15,000-20,000 years doing everything possible to make humanity more “dramatic” and neurotic. From the perspective of a high-functioning sociopath that would be crowned the Queen of Tumblr on the sheer basis of just how flat out nuts she is.
The Alpha baseline that forms the core basis of magical augmentation? That’s how humans should be, in all of our nymphomaniac, xenophilic, hypomanic, mostly biologically immortal glory.
(Yes, we are the elves you can’t argue with…)
[…] IT’S NOT JUST POLITICS THAT MAKE SOME STORIES IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL TODAY: They Couldn’t Tell This Story Today. […]
It was a vehicle for Bing Crosby and Irving Berlin’s music but yes it unashamedly explored the themes of duty, loyalty, appreciation. I too, never saw this movie in my youth but I’ve been endly fascinated with it in my early middle age– something of a bridge to the culture of my grandparents.
This post mirrors what I have said for years about “White Christmas.” Oh, it could be remade today, but the changes to reflect our modern ‘culture’ –
1. Danny Kaye’s character would have a homosexual desire for either Bob Wallace or General Waverly (which explains why he doesn’t want anything to do with Judy Haynes).
2. The General’s housekeeper would be a fat, sassy black woman who is in every way smarter and more ‘grounded’ than the General.
3. General Waverly’s granddaughter would be a sullen emo / goth or even transexual who feels isolated and hates her grandfather. It will take the housekeeper (or even perhaps one of the Haynes sisters?) to show her that she needs to be ‘true to yourself’ and that ‘love is love, no matter what.’)
4. And, of course, Berlin’s songs would be either junked for the pop tart of the day, or desecrated by ‘rap’ adaptations as to be utter garbage.
Have I missed anything?
#2 sounds like a cartoonier version of Bing’s housekeeper in Holiday Inn, but apart from that, a pretty good representation of modern Hollywood’s approach to remakes
So, what you’re saying is, the world really was a better place in many ways in the olden days. I figured as much. I know I dislike people much more now than I used to. Except those who are not like the majority, I love and appreciate the exceptions now more than ever.
No. I’m saying that the fictional landscape was better, and that influenced people’s PERCEPTIONS of other people.
So, kindly check your PERCEPTIONS. You’re being gaslit.
My perception of people is that most of them are conformist, which is why I don’t like them. They are too easily manipulated by popular culture and its propagandistic tendencies. You’re absolutely correct that good stories can’t be told today, because people gave up everything good and true and right much too easily, like as if they were all a bunch of fromage eating surrender monkeys.
I try not to be angry about it, but, I can’t help being annoyed.
A way to rephrase it would be “Hollywood has been slowly decaying and they suck at writing real people.”
Also, younger people might be embarrassed of admitting noble ideals. THey’ll still have them. They just won’t admit them.
Yes. I’ve seen people online make the most abject apologies for displaying things like honor, decency, or the like, or even simply arguing for them. Senior Tempter Screwtape would be delighted.
Watch what videogame heroes they like playing.
Or what weird rituals they will go through to be nice to an NPC when the game doesn’t allow it, or to have some symbolic meaning.
It’s the size of the productions. No one goes to mid-size movies anymore, because the tickets are the same price and they are expensive. Here was a time when tickets were a nickel and lots of people went at least once a week to the movies. But if you need lots of revenue, you need a large audience. But that makes it hard to make culturally- contextual motives, because they aren’t universal enough. So you have to rely on the more universal, more animalistic ones, like fear, sex, and security.
Yeah, but no. That might be what Hollywood thinks, but they have shrunken moral lives.
The industry is changing. When 60″ 4K TVs are readily available, whats the point in going to a theatre? When crowdfunding is available for movies why use the traditional Hollywood model?
I’ve watched some crowdfunded movies. The Mythica series was kind of mediocre, but certainly better than the worst high budget movies from Hollywood. “Dudes and Dragons” was hilarious and better than the average movie out of Hollywood these days. I’ve watched a number of others funded via Kickstarter or Indygogo or other crowdfunding sites that show up on Amazon Prime Video. Great? Maybe not, but good and a lot of fun.
The world is changing. Sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better.
If you’ve ever seen The Phantom Empire serial with Gene Autry (reputed to be the first scifi serial film in Hollywood by some sources), Mythica kind of reminded me of that. It’s not good, but you can see where it contains the seed of greater things.
Heck, the Flintstones couldn’t be made today. People have packed homosexual overtones on all close male friendships, so all “buddies” are now closeted gay lovers.
I mean, they wear buffalo hats with horns. Do I need to draw you a picture? /sarc
So…. um…. there’s gay porn of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. Or there was twenty years ago, because one of the kids found it by accident and was…. Yeah. So. Sorry to ruin your year. I’m still reeling from that. And it’s been 20 years.
*shudders, offers hugs and brain bleach*
Thanks. It was awful.
If the men have horns, I thought that made them cuckolds and not gay?
That’s right. For such knowledge, and the vocab words “drasty” (worthless, like the “drast” or chaff from threshing) and “to swive” (the delightful deed which husbands do with their wives, and cuckolds’ wives do without them), I thank Jeff Chaucer.
The things we learn when we read books more than three or four years old. And Merry Christmas to you.
Yep.
So what you are saying is, polite good manners and a little empathy go a long way towards making a good society.
[…] Sarah Hoyt just watched White Christmas as did I, and she thinks the film could not be made today: They Couldn’t Tell This Story Today. Wait until she learns about the ungooder Holiday […]
Shoot, nowadays they couldn’t even handle the theme song of Petticoat Junction.