ultimatefan
The Batman must come back
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One of the most disturbing aspects of watching old movies is to realize how unabashedly politically incorrect society was in decades past, regarding racism, sexism, etc. We can point out and discuss some of the most unbelievable - for current standards - examples here.
One obvious example is D W Griffith´s Birth of a Nation, that not only criminalizes black people (played by white actors in make-up), butalso glorifies Ku Klux Klan - in Griffith´s defense, he tried to make up for it with Intolerance. Other legendary filmmakers also didn´t treat minorities too kindly,such as the way native americans are usually portrayed in John Ford´s westerns.
One pretty disturbing one that was pretty strong in the sixties and seventies was, for lack of a better definition, "consented rape", where it starts as rape, then the woman starts enjoying it and it becomes consented sex. One particular movie drove me crazy when I was a kid - I was just starting puberty and had barely seen a single image of a naked woman, so keep that in mind before you judge me - was this old western, I believe it was a Spaghetti western, where this bum-looking guy stares at a dancer who said, "you can look, but can´t touch". Then there was this big brawl in the saloon, the bum guy was holding the chick and asked if he should stop, then no less than the protagonist of the movie said, "keep going, gentleman", and as the girl kept saying stop -without much conviction or effort to release herself, if memory serves me- the ecstatic bum jumped on her, kissed her boobs and cut at that. Wish I could remember the name of the movie.
One obvious example is D W Griffith´s Birth of a Nation, that not only criminalizes black people (played by white actors in make-up), butalso glorifies Ku Klux Klan - in Griffith´s defense, he tried to make up for it with Intolerance. Other legendary filmmakers also didn´t treat minorities too kindly,such as the way native americans are usually portrayed in John Ford´s westerns.
One pretty disturbing one that was pretty strong in the sixties and seventies was, for lack of a better definition, "consented rape", where it starts as rape, then the woman starts enjoying it and it becomes consented sex. One particular movie drove me crazy when I was a kid - I was just starting puberty and had barely seen a single image of a naked woman, so keep that in mind before you judge me - was this old western, I believe it was a Spaghetti western, where this bum-looking guy stares at a dancer who said, "you can look, but can´t touch". Then there was this big brawl in the saloon, the bum guy was holding the chick and asked if he should stop, then no less than the protagonist of the movie said, "keep going, gentleman", and as the girl kept saying stop -without much conviction or effort to release herself, if memory serves me- the ecstatic bum jumped on her, kissed her boobs and cut at that. Wish I could remember the name of the movie.
