Are audiences so sensitive and offended by movie content now

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Oh okay I see your point in that example, but in Wedding Crashers, it wasn't a rape, but an attempted rape. The rape failed to be completed. Where as in Arsenic and Old Lace, the murders were successful.

So wouldn't an attempted failed rape, not be near as bad as a successful murder?

I am not saying that everything is fixed now, mostly that gay coding a villain to simply make them a villain is not as accepted, people would still get into a tiffy with complaining about a gay protagonist. A black super hero with Black Panther was treated like a big deal and still people complaining, or people complaining about Birds of Prey being too feminist because of its all female action protagonists.

I don't really know who Pam Grier is, so I can't say much for how she may have been sexualized. But Alien has scenes like Sigourney in her underwear, but I otherwise see Alien as mostly positive for its female protagonist, where she is actually very take control and demanding of the male characters in the movie. It is then interesting to hear that originally Sigourney's Ripley was not originally going to be the protagonist, but I think a more "feminine" female character. Thelma and Louise also acted as a trailblazer that brought more themes like women in control of themselves, regardless of other elements, but you can bet that it likely had a lot of people critiquing it at the time. But at the same time for all of these movies that would seem more in line now, you had many other movies that were not.

As I said earlier, there are currently pressures from the Chinese market that make gay protagonists difficult because it would get censored there. Mostly in big movies we can winks from certain people involved, like the actors, but nothing officially can be said by people like the director. Examples with super hero movies are that Deadpool is known as a pansexual, that I am pretty sure Ryan Reynolds has agreed with the interpretation. And Valkyrie Thor's Valkyrie is canonically a lesbian in the comics and the actress that plays her has agreed that the one she plays is too, but directors, writers or producers can't say too much out of fear of the movie being censored, although there are rumours the next sequel might be brave enough. But even this much would be unthinkable in the past, since all LGBT characters would be shown as predatory.

I thought it was cool how the recent season of Stranger Things had an LGBT character, which would not have been okay in the time it was set in. I can't remember the video that I saw quite a while now, but it was really interesting one how about a few decades ago lesbians were seen as frigid and stereotype of librarians, but then you saw protests in the public sphere where lesbians proclaimed that they were not just sexless and cold, but had their own interests. This followed a public change in understanding of lesbians, including in movies, but perhaps had its own problems where lesbians were sexualised for things like the male gaze (fetishized). But a point was that some public action changed public perception and movies spread that perception or idea of that group. The thing is that these ideas continue to evolve, and these stereotypes get seen as inaccurate and or actually harmful to that group.

Being expected to laugh at a failed attempted rape can come across as unsensitive as a successful one, and upset real victims who have been violated. And to put it straight, he may not have been raped by the man in Wedding Crashers but he was harassed, and his sister did rape Vince Vaughn's character, and the audience is meant to laugh at it.

I am not familiar with the movie Arsenic and Old Lace, but my assumption is that the theme was meant to be a black comedy surprise that a "weak" woman was able, something like an unthinkable idea of strong man being killed by them. Something seen as less as just for humour's sake in modern times. Probably by the same token you have Hot Fuzz, that has its humour in the idea that a Neighbourhood association would be killing people on mass.

A comedy has to mean something otherwise you are just punching down and bullying the disenfranchised for cheap laughs.

Last edited by Bradleigh on 18 Apr 2020, 9:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh okay thanks. I am having trouble remembering Wedding Crashers, it's been a long time. At what point in the movie did the woman rape Vince Vaughn?

Oh okay, I haven't seen Birds of Prey, but no one I know complained about Black Panther, unless it's a small population of moviegoers though? It seems that so many people loved it. I didn't like it as much and felt it had some flaws, but my critiques of it, have nothing to do with the main character being black though. So I thought that the complaints about the movie were not geared towards that by the general audiences probably. Or at least when I read criticisms of the movie, the hero's race doesn't seem to be one of them.

But when I say movies are not willing to take as big of risks now, I am not talking about whether a protagonist, is black, gay, or LGBT, etc. I mean the stories and plots just seem so safe now, compared to before. The stories just don't get under your emotional skin, like you would see in some older movies from other decades. Is it me, or am I wrong?

Like right before the guy starts to come onto him, the reason why he was tied to the bed. And the movie makes fun of the fact that he is unhappy the next day and really is not interested in her anymore.

Oh okay, I really don't remember Wedding Crashers. I just watched the scene again and you are right it was in considerably bad taste. It was much worse than the attempted failed rape in my opinion. I do not remember this scene at all, and found out there was a longer cut on video. So maybe this rape scene was not in the theatrical cut? But yes, after seeing it again, it was in bad taste.

However, Vince Vaughn likes the girl after and chooses her in the end. So I wonder, should we be taking scenes like this and Revenge of the Nerds seriously, if they are suppose to be silly? Are they suppose to be in bad taste, hence why they are raunchy comedies? However, if the characters do not care about the sexual assault and fall for the other person after, should we feel bad about the characters if they want the person after, and do not seem to care themselves?

If you have not seen the complaints, then good for you. you are not seeing some of the most toxic moviegoer base, and also the reason why these sorts of things can start to be made now because the criticism are less than people criticising things for being sexist, racist or LGBT phobic.

And of course you are not complaining about movies that can have a protagonist that is black, gay, or LGBT, I think it is safe to say these are not the sensitivities that concern you. To some people the sensitivities that have existed for a long time and still exist are things they have problems with. That people get offended from seeing to guys kiss over a movie being a bit racist.

I feel like the claim that movies "just don't get under your emotional skin" is a little bit vague of a statement without giving examples that take into account not just cherry picking examples of the past without taking into account the amount then compared to now, and the changes of what audiences are comfortable with. I am not saying that now there could be trends where there are pressures that might stop a high budget "R rated" movie being made, with Logan and Deadpool being examples of exceptions that show it can be done. But you might find equal examples of the opposite where more movies can be made that people would not be comfortable with then. To get definitive answers could be incredibly complicated with long conversations and even scientific studies required

Another element that I think could be relevant was a video I saw by the Wisecrack channel titled Is Comedy DEAD?



It put forward the idea that comedy movies did not just die, but actually integrate themselves into other subgenre, that movies are not just comedy anymore. Along with other things like the international market of movies. I think that you might enjoy the video, so I encourage to check it out.

Oh okay, I don't like the idea of comedy being just a subgenre though. I like a good full on comedy of it's good. However, one of the reasons why I feel audiences are too sensitive today, is because when I watch older movies, with friends, they will say things like "no one would dare put that in a movie today", and it's things that just seem so harmless though. Like here is a clip from Airplane II I thought was really funny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkXGE18z_bs

Now I thought this scene was really funny. But is true, they wouldn't allow this today? And if so, aren't audiences being too sensitive therefore? I mean it's on the same level as the rape from Wedding Crashers or Revenge of the Nerds, is it?

That is kind of what the problem people can have with these, that they make fun of and justify it in the end by having the person like their rapist. One could say that the idea is ridiculous and thus you should not take it seriously, but it treads awfully close to telling victims that they should have enjoyed being raped if society deems the person was attractive enough: good looking or good in bed. It is kind of a bad message to put out there where people could find themselves being pressured to marry their rapist, and not take a report of rape seriously that could lead to just not reporting.

Generally censorship is not cool, but there are reasons why authority used to arrest gay people for sodomy and accuse depiction of "queers" as harmful to society, but people are now applying similar things to rape apology. I think it can be a perfectly fine thing to try and fight back against government control of what should be allowed to be shown in film, but that is as long as those reasons might be archaic and not match the general feelings of the public. But also be aware that there can be the inverse that the general public is not so okay with minority groups being demonised. There are reasons why the general public fight back on things like blackface. But we still had movies like Tropic Thunder that pretty literally had Robert Downey Jr in blackface. Although that topic could be worth quite a bit of discussion since might not be sure if that could be done right now due to the many high profile scandals from people not understanding what the problem with blackface is, yet he was mostly respectful in his depiction of the character, and the majority of the movie was meant to lampoon Hollywood.

It is all complicated, and does not simply come down to saying that it is just a movie so you should not get so worked up, but a lot of cultural themes that can change over time. This topic is also very big in the video game community, where people complain both that video games are too censored that good games of the past could not be made now as they were, and also that creators are trying too hard to force down "social justice warrior" ideals down their throats by other inclusions. Sure you probably can find extremists who might find insult anything they perceive as a problem for their radical feminism, but you also find people that find that there can be improvements and push the community and society to a better place.

Picking examples of two recent really big games; Doom Eternal and Animal Cross New Horizons, released the same day but otherwise seeming like incredibly opposites to each other and yet oddly had some comradery between fanbases. I think that you could find it interesting that people who would normally be just into a cute life sim might not have any problem ultra violence that is in Doom, and also that those that like the ultra violence would not have a problem with the super cuteness that is Animal Crossing. But you do find mini controversies, like according to what I think is the more anti-SJW side they say that "SJWs" complain that demons put out propaganda to call themselves "mortally challenged" as if it makes fun of certain groups. And also that the reason that gender/sex be removed from Animal Crossing in just calling it style and so far no comment on gender locked clothes is mentioned was because of SJWs trying to censor the game makers, which I think of as more of strawman creation of complaints, rather than things that were not a big deal and likely exaggerated, or nothing that affects them

Pulling an example of a controversy in gaming that those of socially minded people complain as a problem, might be one made of Fire Emblem Three Houses. The complaint was that female characters got a choice of 5 same sex partners (bisexual characters), but the male character only got a choice of 3, one two of which I think are just called good friends being as old as your father, one even having a wife and kid. The extra offense people took was that among the possibly bisexual male characters that were all pretty unimportant to the plot, it left out a male character who was equally as important as one of the female choices, and seemed pretty easy to code as bisexual due to things like flirting with the player character regardless of gender, but just a choice for female player characters. This might seem removed from the discussion on movies not showing the sort of things it used to, but the point is that this had the audience to the game franchise trying to send a message to game makers over perceived depictions of men with men over woman and woman, which does have different aspects in Japan.

Back onto non interactive media, although not really a movie, there was this anime last year called Stars Align, that I thought was pretty fantastic for themes such as showing parental abuse and gender. And you can read interviews with the director that has him talking about how he wanted to make certain topics and kinds of entertainment be accepted in Japan, and was really surprised about how positively it was taken in the West for its positive depictions. It had a particular plot in an episode that had two of the "male" characters dress up as girls to infiltrate an area to get information, and while this sort of thing would normally be portrayed as full comedy at how silly the idea is of two boys dressing up as pretty girls, the whole thing was actually treated with respect that did not make fun of them, and actually had a bit of a serious discussion on things like transgenderism. It is an interesting insight of media attempting to change public discourse in a culture that is a little bit behind in certain things compared to others.

Oh okay, Stars Align, sounds very interesting, I will have to check it out.

Those video games sound kind of strange how you describe those things, about them, but I might have to play them to grasp the full feel of the outnumbering there. I see your point though.

What about the example from the movie Airplane II? Would audiences today, really be offended by it, and is that justified, or too sensitive?

Another movie I watched with friends was Junior (1994), and they said that they couldn't make a movie like that today, because today's audience would be offended by it. The movie is about Arnold Schwarzengger as a pregnant man, and I think it's really funny, because of how ridiculous it is. But would today's audience, really be offended by a premise that is that ridiculous, and not meant to be taken seriously?

Also, about Robert Downey Jr. I remember was on an interview about the blackface a few years ago, and he said that he felt it was a double standard, because a few years before Tropic Thunder, White Chicks came out. So does he have a point and it's a double standard then?

He also that black people keep coming up to him and telling him that his blackface performance was really funny. So if he is being truthful there, then who would be offended by blackface, black people keep coming up to him and congradulating him on it?

Hollywood itself is owned by smug elites.

They have a "social justice warrior" phase going on. Many of the recent movies come off as preachy in those ways.

Both extremes are bad though.

Oh, I love Airplane, I think it is one of the few examples of a comedy being able to stand the test of time, I have really only watched the first one. But I also think that it is important to remember a context of times, such as my thought of why that scene of the women being shaken and slapped was not simply the fact she is being assaulted, but as a joke on all those sort of movies that would have a woman overreact and then get shaken and slapped, as if any of that should help. The joke is on the shake and slap, not on the woman that she needs to be slapped, that you have people like a doctor and a nun doing it as if it would be a fitting resource. I would also read the whole jive translation as funny, similar to the first movie, that it is funny not because black people speak funny, but feeling like a joke against people that might see such a person speaking differently as being unintelligible or being without sophistication, while subtitles prove the opposite. The jokes would probably not work anymore in a new movie, because without the context it looks like you are just trying to say violence against women is funny, and black people talk strangely.

I do think that it is a tragedy where these sort of movies that pushed forward things like Leslie Nielsen's comedy career just became random kind of mean spirited jokes like Meet the Spartans and Love Bites, that just tried to be entertaining by being edgy, crass or gross. That the comedy should be against the tropes or clichés that we just accept, like a doctor being a logical authority figure, rather than just kind of being offensive. I laugh every time Leslie Nielsen plays it straight that he happens to be a doctor while wearing a stethoscope.

Oh okay but could you have black people talking jive in a comedy made today, but with context? As for violence against women, the slaps were done in such a fake way, that I didn't think it could taken really that seriously though. Plus the term violence against women implies that a man is committing the violence, but in this movie, both men and women are hitting the woman, so doesn't that make it seem less offensive in a way then?

For sure there is some Hollywood elitism, which is why I think some comedies can work when it could make fun of some of the self serious nature of those involved. I just started watching Bojack Horseman and that is an element of the comedy. But I do think that it can be a bit irresponsible to just ignore something as a social justice warrior phase, because you could look at history of people making the same type of accusations when it started to become socially unacceptable to call Native Americans as Indians, blackface stop being used, portraying Asian people as white people putting on funny accents, to not just laugh off men forcing themselves on women, not kill animals onscreen as effects, have rules about how long children can work for, and so on.

I understand that America is so large that it has become culturally diverse between its states that have different levels of acceptance and sensitivity. And not everything is going to be socially forward and such, especially since things like moral correct and harmless fun can be so subjective.



The difference is that cultures that existed then don't exist the same way that it does today. I imagine you probably could do it today, but would probably have to be done while understanding the current experiences, for such black people in the audience, in separating out "black" and "white" culture. And by rule of comedy you should punch down, not up. Without being black myself, I might like to look towards Jordan Peele's Get Out and Us, that I think does some good comedy along the lines.

Woman on woman violence can still be called violence against women, but that can be something very context related. The important part with Airplane is I think the joke is still not about her being a woman, but the specific trope that one could read some sexist undertones with, the nun does help equalise it, but it the trope you need to focus on. To do it now you would probably have to pick another similar tropes. Like to pick a comedy anime I enjoy, I really like Konosuba, which involves its female characters quite a lot in its physical comedy, a lot of which can be plays on tropes that are common in anime, a lot of which on how awful people the characters can be. It even has parts like the male character calling for gender equality that he would feel no shame doing things regardless of gender. I do feel like some viewers miss a point of the humour, and just think of it as an excuse to laugh at violence, rather than playing on tropes.

Oh okay, but it seems to me that as far as comedies go, there are not near as many coming out today, compared to before. Is that true? Is it because Hollywood is scared to make them?