Are people hypocritical when it comes to older movies...?

Post Reply New Topic

A lot of times people will say an old movie is racist or sexist, if it's like 40 or more plus years old, because of different social things in the movie compared to now. Gone with the Wind, James Bond, The Sound of Music, Dumbo etc. Just older movies.

But I feel that people are hypocritical because all of the movies they like nowadays, will be thought of as sexist and racist, in 40 or more years to come from now. So why do people say this about older movies, when audiences in the future are just going to say the same thing about movies they like now, and I think we all know that really. Unless I am wrong?

Ooh that's an interesting one to think about. I would say it's not hypocritical because we're only working on what we know now and can't know what will happen in the future. But that means the old films aren't racist, etc because they were also just living in their time. Unless, of course, they did know and just didn't care.

What's wrong with "The Sound Of Music", I can't think?

IMO, times have obviously changed and so, the film industry is keeping up with it.

Some classics to this day are still thought of as socially insensitive and will be well into the future.

Basically this. You go by the morals, ethics, and ethos, you have in your time. Not by that of an unknown future.

But there is a grain of truth to what the OP is saying. That movies we may love today might well become not only dated, but become offensive to future generations.

Though it likely wouldnt be for sexism and racism but for other issues.


Do a thought experiment. Only a minority of Americans today are vegetarian today, and only a smaller minority are Vegan.

But imagine as history progresses. Maybe even GOPers will become convinced that Global warming is real. On top of that imagine that they make break throughs in science that enable us to grow steaks in labs. Instead of raising cows we just have big sheets of artificial beef come off factory assembly lines, that can be diced up into normal sized steaks, the way that fabric comes off of looms today- to be fashioned into clothes. And imagine that they can do this for less cost to the planet in energy and pollution than getting real meat from raising real live stock.

In such a world consumption of real meat would nose dive- with everyone either becoming vegetarian, or continuing to eat meat- but switching to factory made fake meat. Folks who insist on eating only real meat might well become marginalized. In world like that you could imagine even yourself changing attitude a becoming disqusted with eating real meat taken from real animals.

In this future world ...politicians would loose their careers because pictures would surface of them attending company bull roasts back in "the old days". "My children cried when they saw Mr. Naturalplastic laughing and mugging with his friends in front of that poor cow turning on that spit over that fire! He just lost MY vote!". And movies made today depicting characters eating real meat would become offensive.

Because like you said, society is constantly progressing unless it isn't and it's awful when it isn't. It should always be progressing anyway.

Personally I judge modern media and books harsher. I try to judge everything by its own era's standards but it's harder when it's either absolutely awful to our modern sensibilities or I only have other historical stuff to go based on (so, pre 1990s stuff).

For eg for the standards of the 1970s, The Turner Diaries was still a racist trash novel. We don't need modern sensibilities to see that.

Also in some cases things set the race relations stuff back. For eg Triumph of the Will and Birth of A Nation (original 1920s movie) had major impacts on anti-semitism & racism & I think we can talk about that.

There's also no actual obligation to watch certain stuff outside of for eg a media studies classroom (ie watch stuff for pleasure). I can understand why a 21st century Black person might not want to watch stuff that's racist by today's standards and that's their choice.

Was just talking about this with my husband yesterday. Saying how strange it would be if in the future he was the odd one for eating meat. It already feels so much different being vegan now compared to when I became veggie in the 80s.

I guess it comes down to if ethics are considered objective or subjective. I quite like the idea that there are objective morals that we discover more of over the years. So the movies were racist but we just didn't know it yet versus subjective morals where it wasn't racist then but it is now just because that is/was the majority view point.

How does something stop being offensive just because it was made in a different time. Would we not be allowed to say that a pro-rape movie is something offensive just because rape was not seen as bad at the time? What if it was children?

A part of analysing old media to recognise it as having offensive material is understanding what the general popular thoughts were at the time, to see how they might have gotten away with it back then, and understanding why it should not fly anymore and thus should not be glorified. They are learning moments, not chances to just cancel people for no good reason that they could not have understood at the time.

And an example of pro-rape movie would be things like

.

Oh well I thought that the problem is, is something is not realized to be offensive, or does it not become offensive until way later in the future. But I felt this is a problem because all the movies we love nowadays will likely be thought of as racist or sexist 50 to 100 years from now.

And if that's the case, I felt it was hypocritical to dislike it in older movies, in the sense that goes to the quote "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". So if people 100 years from now are going to think of the movies we like as sexist and racist, then why should be casting stones on older movies, for the same thing, or so I thought.

Just because something was made a long time ago doesn't mean victims of racism for eg should have to watch them and enjoy them.

White Victorian racists might have enjoyed minstrel shows.
Racist people in the 1970s might have enjoyed the black and white minstrel show on TV.
That doesn't mean black people in the 2020s should have to enjoy it.

Actually it's best that none of us enjoy that.

Now - studying it as an example of past racism and how long it lasted, in class, is a different thing entirely. If a teacher sets that as the assignments, students should watch it & discuss it. But that's in an academic context - not for fun.

A lot of shows are more mixed than that and have non racist, sexist etc reasons why they're still funny/interesting to this day despite their racism/sexism/etc. In that case, it can be a bit kill joy to bring up the racist/sexist aspects all the time. But it's best we don't get nostalgic for the racism and sexism in them.

And yes, before a certain time or with certain extremist scumbags, the racism/sexism was put into it on purpose. They wouldn't have used those words necessarily but 'blacks are inferior' or 'women belong in the home' might have been the actual message of what they were putting out. We're past the time when it's normal to do that but we're not past the time when certain extremists do it & it's worth criticising them when they do that.

How does it affect us if people in the future think movies from now are problematic? That is just how art analysis works. People can always talk about the nostalgia of a piece, and what it meant with regards of other things at that time. But it is kind of dumb to treat the past like it is some sacred text that cannot be criticised. That is how you get ridiculous elitism that treats things like classical music as amazing just because it is old, even if what that music was at that time was what the elites then thought was rubbish.

We don't push culture by just glorifying the past.

In 100 years we will be capable of downloading educational programs into our cortex that provide cognitive caveats that explain the cultural context of the movies relevant to the historic period.



One of the most popular movies in the history of the United States was D.W. Griffiths' "Birth of a Nation" which even had presidents praising the movie. The only problem was the movie was also the worst piece of racist propoganda ever put on film. Hollywood's Gone with the Wind and Disney's Song of the South have also been cancelled because of racism.

But even movies like these could have artistic merit and one could argue they should be available so that we can appreciate the art form. My feeling is that the best place to view this type of cinema (you can include racist Looney tunes cartoons) is in a museum. This is a safe space to view old racist Hollywood movies so that one can appreciate the artform but have proper educational tools to remedy the impact of the racism so that the movie is put into proper context in terms of history and time.

Oh okay. I didn't think Gone with the Wind was cancelled though, you can still watch the movie, or buy it last time I checked, can't you?

But I guess I just felt it seems kind of hypocritical when movies nowadays will just be thought of the same as Gone with the Wind for example, in the future.

Yes! That's what we usually do with artifacts, whose real world power we want to eliminate: we put them into a museum and explain them, to make them mundane, historical objects.
Like an Aztec statue which was used for human sacrifice - you don't destroy it, you make it banal.
For a company like Disney, that's highly problematic, since they, as a company, have a story and try to sell themselves as all-american family entertainment. That one of their works could become this banal thing that racist people created to make money - that harms their image. It also would allow their current output to be viewed as made by humans to make money - but they are trying to sell you a fairytale.

So for Disney, making Song if the South vanish is better than having it analyzed and banalized.

Isn't that fine?
It is not hypocritical if you accept that things might.

My understanding is that streaming services do not make this movie available to their new customers.

That's a valid point. The IP is still owned by Warner brothers or Disney etc so I doubt they want their "handiwork" displayed in a musuem section of racist artwork as that would't be great for their brand. So it makes sense they bury it.