Classic Films
Related: About this forumWhat do these movies have in common?
Lady and the Tramp
Breakfast at Tiffanys
A Christmas Story
Sixteen Candles
Just wondering if this annoys anyone else, or if its just me. Feel free to add other movies, if you know what Im talking about.
(Cross posted from the General Board.)
dewsgirl
(14,964 posts)CBHagman
(17,139 posts)I was really put off by Breakfast at Tiffany's, and that was the worst part.
A Christmas Story (a movie I love) has the scene in the Chinese restaurant with the waiters who can't pronounce the L sound.
And Lady and the Tramp has the wicked Siamese cats.
I haven't seen Sixteen Candles but recall having read something about its offensive stereotypes.
Apollo Zeus
(251 posts)and in my early research I struggled with how to do a story set in that era that avoids or deals more properly with all the racism. The 2 films that always get overglorified in American discussions of that period are "Birth of a Nation" and "Jazz Singer."
My focus is on women behind the camera. Their history goes largely unmentioned even thought the highest paid writers in Hollywood in that decade were female including Frances Marion who was THE highest paid writer from 1915 to 1935.
The solution to my issue was simple -- women didn't write that crap so I can just leave it out of the story I am telling.
Many films from that era can never be widely shown again and they embody the rampant acceptance, even celebration, of racism.
Your post reminds me that even films of the more recent past have been accepting of, or promoting of, racism and stereotypes.