Scenes that would never fly after #MeToo

Remake coming with the genders reversed. Rich guy, poor girl, played by Anna Faris.

 

I don't care what anyone says. I will still laugh at Mel Brooks movies without guilt.

 

I don't get what's wrong with the Moonlighting scene, besides that it was the moment that ruined the series. She slapped him and was an equal participant in what followed. And Maddie was his boss.

 

You almost wonder how our mass media has influenced our behavior. I imagine most movie and TV shows had to show a woman initially resisting before being "taken by passion" back in the day - for propriety sake. It became a cliche, a trope or whatever. Guys watch that stuff and figure, okay, no means try harder.

 

The entire premise of Moonlighting was: When will David and Maddie get it on. To prevent that from happening, the creators went to great lengths. Mostly they made the characters dislike each other. Seems like half the show was them arguing, followed Maddie slapping David after he says something rude. Yet he comes back for more. Of course, she goes back to being flirty and charming to lead him on.

But apparently he didn't get the message, because he kept pursuing her. And kept getting slapped. Then he finally got everything he wanted.

So the show presented a romance as two people being mean to each other for quite some time before they finally come together as one. Apparently America ate it up, as 60 million people tuned in for the will-they episode. It was certainly controversial for the time, moreso for it perhaps being too sexy for network TV, not for it being a #metoo harbinger.

Is this how most people view romance? Or is it bad for movies and TV to present love this way? Quite often romantic comedies make the couples not like each other before they finally see the error of their ways and realize they are perfect for each other. But how often are they as mean to each other as they are in Moonlighting?

 

I watched a video interview with Aaron Sorkin talking about writing fictional characters. He said "the properties of people and the properties of character have almost nothing to do with each other. I know it seems like they do, because we look alike, people and characters. But people don't speak in dialogue. Their lives don't unfold in a series of scenes that form a narrative arc. The rules of drama are very different from what we know of the complexities of life."

That kind of explains why so many of his characters talk the same way, but it raises the question of whether we should bother expecting fictional characters to act like real people, because they aren't. David and Maddie didn't talk to one another on Moonlighting. The writers used them as tools to communicate with the audience. Sure, the goal is to try to give them realistic character traits and motivations, but fictional stories don't play out like real live and they shouldn't.

But more to the direct point of the thread, I'm sure we can come up with a long list of scenes or stories in fiction that aren't acceptable by today's standards. Of course, we are still figuring out how exactly our society's standards are being changed by the current movement.

I'm actually struggling to come up with an example of a movie romance that has the man asking permission before kissing a woman or before sex.

 

Pretty much all of St. Elmo's Fire. Kirby stalked the shit out of Dale. Kevin displayed legit stalker tendencies with Leslie. And Billy seemed to want to fuck Wendy just to say he did. That's a movie that doesn't age well, but you're damn right I watch it every time it shows up on my screen.

 

That's my pie.

Poindexter. Do you wanna fuck, or not?

 

Not from a movie, but a 2008 Esquire piece titled, "60 Things Worth Shortening Your Life For."

Can you imagine this seeing the light of day today?

31. Getting a Road Job

Sometime before you die, and potentially right before, you must enjoy a blow job while driving a car in excess of eighty miles per hour. Everything about a blow job is better at high speed: the power, the thrill, the feeling you're about to lose control and leave a memorable obituary. A few caveats: The interior design of automobiles has changed since my road-job days, and it seems like it would be impractical in these newfangled models with their obstructive cupholders. It won't work in a Prius, for example, which is a damn shame, because imagine the self-satisfaction of zero-population-growth sex with low carbon emissions. It would probably work in a Hummer. Other considerations: It works best in the Great Plains, where the highways are long and straight; it's safer, and more fun, in broad daylight, particularly if you slow down as you pass a truck; and most important, drinking and driving and dunking don't mix. I can't recall exactly how you talk a woman into going down on you in a speeding car, though. I think it's mostly hand gestures.

 

Can a movie that stunk when it came out age well?

 

She wasn't 17, or 16, or 15. She was only 13.

 

In Father Goose, Leslie Caron tells Cary Grant about her former fiance and she says, "Every time he wanted to kiss me, he'd say, 'Permesso.' Then afterward he'd say, "Grazie.' "

It's meant to come across as a negative -- as in, why they are no longer engaged.