Author Topic: Top Favorite Films!  (Read 138620 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Top Favorite Films!
« Reply #140 on: August 01, 2018, 11:06:35 am »
 :laugh: :laugh:
Can you blame me for getting Sleeping Beauty and Snow White mixed up? The stories are so similar!!
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Top Favorite Films!
« Reply #141 on: August 01, 2018, 12:38:04 pm »
:laugh: :laugh:
Can you blame me for getting Sleeping Beauty and Snow White mixed up? The stories are so similar!!

Why is it fairy tale heroines are always falling asleep and need to be kissed to wake up?  ???

"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Top Favorite Films!
« Reply #142 on: August 01, 2018, 01:48:39 pm »
I was just watching the program where Nick sees Grace's healing scar from the knee surgery and falls down in a dead faint! He also botches making scrambled eggs. . .how ditzy is that?

Well, it's ditzy from our perspective as people who know basic culinary skills, but I took that to mean he was so rich he'd never had to scramble eggs before.

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I didn't notice the age difference, which is only 7 years at best, being a major issue. The most important thing about Nick, IMHO, is that he is a rich and successful entrepreneur who is learning that his business acumen doesn't necessarily translate into success with women, especially Grace.


It's not me who's making a big deal of it, it's Grace. Have you seen the one where she confronts him and whips off her hairpiece, false eyelashes, etc.? She wants him to recognize the age difference and make sure it doesn't matter to him. She hasn't taken him that seriously so far because she assumes their age difference will be a problem.

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As for movies where the woman was older, Harold and Maude leaps to mind, but there is also Cheri, The Beach, The Good Girl, Unfaithful, Anna Karenina, and about 65 others on this list: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls066983450/

That's what I'm saying, though -- in many of those movies the age difference is a plot point.

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I wouldn't think of The Graduate as the most important example of a December/May romance. I would think of Harold and Maude as that. Also, their relationship was not a romance; it was just lust. You listed 3 reasons why their relationship was icky, and I would argue that the age difference was the least icky reason. More icky to me was that Mrs. Robinson was bored and a cougar; also that she knew Benjamin loved Elaine, her daughter. She was a predator, but learned it because she had been preyed on (remember the part about why she and Mr. Robinson had to get married in the first place?) I think of Mrs. Robinson more like Sleeping Beauty's stepmom, in fear of being supplanted as the "fairest of them all" and ready to use diabolical means to feed her bruised ego.

First of all -- and this is really important -- I want to clarify that I'm not saying that I, serious crayons, think it's icky. I'm saying that movie executives and casting directors think it's icky. And IMO it's their attitude that's icky, not the concept of an older woman/younger man romance. And is it surprising that people like Harvey Weinstein and his ilk would have a preference for casting younger women?

So yeah, in The Graduate there were all kinds of problems with their relationship and her behavior. But you say you think it's icky that she was a cougar. According to Wikipedia, "Cougar is slang for a woman who seeks sexual activity with significantly younger men." That's the whole meaning of the word. What's the equivalent male slur? That's right, there's not one.

I had to skim the list you linked but can look more closely later. Of the ones I noticed, the age difference is often a plot point, as opposed to the age difference when the genders are reversed.

Would we even have heard of Harold and Maude if Maude were played by a woman the same age as Harold? The fact that she was (much) older was what made the movie stand out.

I'm sure there's a list out there of young women who starred in movies and then were never heard from again once they got a little older. I could name a bunch off the top of my head. It's why you see movie trailers and when they list the stars, the actor is a familiar A-list celebrity and the actress is someone you've never heard of. I think it was Rosanna Arquette (who disappeared herself) who made a whole movie about this phenomenon called Searching for Debra Winger. Its partly about why Debra Winger, a huge star, sort of disappeared from movies (though I've seen her a few times lately). And they interview a lot of older actresses who talk about how women suffer the sexist ageist problem in Hollywood.

To take another example, when was the last time you saw the actress who played Ferris Bueller's girlfriend? Now when was the last time you saw Matthew Broderick? I can tell you when the last time I saw his friend who was driving his dad's fancy car. It was a few nights ago, watching this new drama called Succession.

Whenever I think of this phenomenon I think of "As Good as it Gets," in which Helen Hunt (now 55) is romantically paired with Jack Nicholson (now 81). When was the last time you saw Helen Hunt? For me, it's been a few years. How about her TV husband Paul Reiser? For me it was last summer in the hit series Stranger Things (also starring Randall, BTW). And I'm pretty sure Jack could get a role if he wanted one.

But it's not just movie executives. It's people as a whole. I could go into much more detail about this, but again, couples where the man is older far exceed couples that are the other way around (as in my own marriage). I don't think this is fair or good, but it's part of human nature and I believe it has to do with evolution and fertility.





Offline serious crayons

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Re: Top Favorite Films!
« Reply #143 on: August 01, 2018, 02:29:34 pm »
Why is it fairy tale heroines are always falling asleep and need to be kissed to wake up?  ???

Ask Bruno Bettelheim, psychologist and author of The Uses of Enchantment, an analysis of the deeper (Freudian) meanings in fairy tales.

Well, you can't actually ask him because he's dead, so I'll just tell you. I'm pretty sure it symbolizes their losing virginity. A lot of things in fairy tales are about sex, apparently.




Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Top Favorite Films!
« Reply #144 on: August 01, 2018, 05:37:59 pm »
I will need to study your excellent reply more before replying to it, but before I forget, I wanted to answer your question:

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What's the equivalent male slur? That's right, there's not one.

It's called "robbing the cradle" or "jailbait".
« Last Edit: August 01, 2018, 07:07:50 pm by Front-Ranger »
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Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Top Favorite Films!
« Reply #145 on: August 01, 2018, 06:57:25 pm »
Katherine's post reminds me of the TV theme of heavy husbands with much thinner wives, which I never understood.

We had Ralph and Alice (Honeymooners)






Doug and Carrie (King of Queens)








Philip and Vivian (Fresh Prince of Bel Air)








Jay and Gloria (Modern Family)







Jim and Cheryl (According to Jim)









It's even evident in animation.



Fred and Wilma,  Barney and Betty (The Flintstones)









Homer and Marge (The Simpsons)








Peter and Lois (Family Guy)









Bob and Linda (Bob's Burgers)





Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Top Favorite Films!
« Reply #146 on: August 01, 2018, 09:31:45 pm »
You know, of course, that Fred and Wilma Flintstone were built that way because Ralph and Alice Kramden were built that way.

But that doesn't explain Ralph and Alice.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Top Favorite Films!
« Reply #147 on: August 02, 2018, 10:05:17 am »
I will need to study your excellent reply more before replying to it, but before I forget, I wanted to answer your question:

It's called "robbing the cradle" or "jailbait".

Though note that neither is quite the equivalent of "cougar."

Jailbait refers to the younger woman, not the older man. It's implicitly unflattering to both, I guess, but it focuses more on the woman in a scornful dismissive way. Same with robbing the cradle. It's the woman who's in the "cradle." And it's not even a name, it's a verb. Again, implicitly unflattering to both but not a slur per se.

Also, either of these terms could apply to either gender. A woman dating a younger man can be "robbing the cradle." It's not a gender-specific insult, unlike cougar.

I have a book called He's a Stud, She's a Slut about the double standards and misogyny built into language. Each of the 50 chapters is one of those comparisons, along with a brief analysis of the reasons for them.

I just skimmed through the titles, and there are several that apply to this conversation. One is "He's dating a younger woman, she's a cougar."  The author, Jessica Valenti, theorizes that older women-younger men pairings make people uncomfortable because it upsets the expected power dynamic. That makes sense, although I think it's more than that -- I think it also has to do with biology and evolution. (Valenti doesn't agree because sperm declines with age, too. But aging sperm is not the same as menopause.)

(I don't really mind cougar, myself. A friend and I were talking on Facebook and realized we had really different taste in hot men, and she said that's good because when we go out cougaring we won't have to fight each other.  :laugh:)

Another chapter, relevant to Chuck's comment, is "He can be a beast, she must be a beauty."



Offline serious crayons

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Re: Top Favorite Films!
« Reply #148 on: August 02, 2018, 10:16:11 am »
Katherine's post reminds me of the TV theme of heavy husbands with much thinner wives, which I never understood.

Wow, I've always wondered about this but you came up with many more examples than I'd even considered. But here's one more: Tony and Carmella Soprano.

Do you ever go to TV Tropes? It's a gigantic database of things like this. Each entry describes the trope, then readers contribute examples of it in all kinds of media (movies and TV, animated and non, but also comic books etc.).

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UglyGuyHotWife

Beware, though, it's a total rabbit hole! Each trope has a bunch of links to other tropes that also sound interesting.

The site says the phenomenon exists (they say ugly/hot as opposed to fat/thin) because actresses generally have to be attractive to get a role, whereas male actors do not. Of course there are exceptions (Roseanne), but that makes sense. And it also fits my point about age differences.

 


Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Top Favorite Films!
« Reply #149 on: August 02, 2018, 07:13:34 pm »
The site says the phenomenon exists (they say ugly/hot as opposed to fat/thin) because actresses generally have to be attractive to get a role, whereas male actors do not. Of course there are exceptions (Roseanne), but that makes sense. And it also fits my point about age differences.


Very true!   I seem to remember there was a bit of an uproar when Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond worked together in Sabrina,and everyone was talking about how much older he was.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!