Things just seem to go around in circles

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I was just thinking about this, watching some movies from the 1920s and early 1930s.

Back then, a lot of movies had fairly adult themes. But, no booze. Prohibition ended when Roosevelt was president. But, then the Hays Code came in force, and movies became very restricted in what they could show.

Restrictions in movies now are different than they were back then, but maybe not as extreme in certain areas.

We've largely come off of a long era of prohibition with respect to marijuana. And, gays are more respected now than 20 years ago. BUT, abortion is suddenly a hot topic, after we thought that the issue had been put to rest.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, we went through two Great Awakenings when lots of people got religion. Mormonism was invented during one of them. Now, religious people are about as nutty as ever.

And, the MAGA crowd is largely a reinvention of the Nazis.

Plus, we thought that Europeans had finally learned their lesson, that war wasn't a good idea.

Ah yes, us humans are a very stupid bunch.

twain said that "history doesn't exactly repeat itself, but it surely rhymes." human nature doesn't change, we're still essentially the same poo-flinging ultra-primates we always were, but nowadays we have hygiene and politics to war by other means.

what a lot of people don't know, is that the hays office had lots of holes in it, some of its own design. for example, a movie called "forever amber" released in 1947, was one of the few that had an "adults-only" certification meaning vertically integrated theatres [part of the studio system them] had to restrict admittance to 18 and over. there were several such films that flew under the radar of our collective recollection. movies such as "gone with the wind" and "miracle of morgan's creek" violated many general admittance hays office rules and were thereby restricted to adults-only viewing back in the day. coincidentally, these movies were given an adults-only with reservations [B] by the legion of decency [catholic movie censors] or condemned altogether. it was a different more straightlaced [and hypocritical] time but the new-fangled MPAA CARA rating system that debuted in september '66/november '68 was not so new after all, based on this history.

Interesting.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039391

Back in my adolescent years in the Seventies I remember Mom mentioning "Forever Amber" (it was a bestselling novel first...fav of servicemen in the war)before they made it into a movie. And the movie tones it down.

Mom said that when they wrote racy books in her day they were always set in "other centuries". You could have the king's mistress undressing in front of the king...but you wouldnt dare depict modern folks doing that stuff.

Same with cowboy movies from the 40s/50s.

There seemed to be more flexibility in the use of language in movies taking place in the 19th century than in movies taking place in the "present" (for the 40s/50s).

In a lot of the movies from that era, violence replaced sex as the main audience draw. There always had to be a gratuitous fist fight. In McClintock, not just a big fist fight, but two women getting spanked.

Enchanted Island (1958) was supposed to be an adaptation of Herman Melville's Typee. In the movie version, two sailors run away after a fist fight with the captain. In the book, the fist fight never happens.

I'm probably shooting from the hip here and I'll both underpromise and likely underdeliver as well, but my guess is you'll see in the case of repetitions of theme that there are symmetries in the environment.

Someone could correct me if this was wrong but the 'roaring 20's' in a lot of ways seem like they would have been Ponzinomics of the sort that we have now, particularly that the whole thing came crashing down in 1929, the Great Depression kicked off as a result of divorce from reality in terms of prices. I think there's claim now that prices are similarly overinflated although I think there are more watchful eyes on that issue (probably not a bubblegum snap) but some people are saying that we're going to be headed to a market in this decade where commodities will be more important than stocks, I'm not an econ expert but that doesn't sound like a high-production environment, maybe not a Great Depression but trying times for sure.