This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s summer editorial intern Connor Hanrahan. Find him on Instagram at @hannerhansmh. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Generation by generation, movies become outdated. Whether it’s because the cinematography becomes uninteresting or the behavior in the movie becomes unacceptable, all our favorite classics will someday fade. This article isn’t about cinematography but rather those good old fashioned flicks that would make today’s generation go, “Wait… Really?”. Let’s take a gander at some movies that couldn’t be made today.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
This movie was a HONKER. There isn’t too much to say other than the entire premise of the movie is these seven brothers kidnap and hold hostage women from the local town until they fall in love with them. The movie should’ve been called Stockholm Syndrome because my oh my, that is all this movie is. This title should definitely come with a trigger warning, and upon watching it I can confirm that you will be extremely uncomfortable the entire time.
Animal House
40+ year old men are gonna be pissed about this one. This movie is chock full of questionable morals and blatant objectification of women. Albeit, not too different from its ‘college movie’ successors like ‘Van Wilder’ or American Pie, it still serves ick and is not for the faint of heart and here’s why.
The only black characters in the entire movie are portrayed as antagonists trying to steal the protagonists’ white dates. This was a concept echoed throughout comedies and dramas for decades before eventually people came to their senses.
The nicest protagonist at one point actively weighs the pros and cons of taking advantage of an unconscious 13 year old girl. He didn’t, and he also didn’t know she was thirteen, but like give me a fuckin’ break. At what point was this supposed to be relatable or funny. Yikes.
Then there’s also the light sprinkling of spying on sorority girls in the shower and other criminal stalking.
Any woman would rather stumble across a bear in the woods than these fellas. High key, this movie gave an agonizingly accurate look into the mind of the types of men who would take advantage of a woman.
And the single sprinkle on this 8 foot wedding cake? The jokes weren’t even funny and the humor was dated. This movie should go as a hard PASS for any zillennial.
Shallow Hal
Only God knows what this movie was aimed to do. The protagonist is a man who somehow cannot see physique and only sees what a person is like on the inside. Naturally, just like in a lot of mid-2000s movies, fat people were an easy target. Hal finds himself in a relationship with an overweight girl who he only sees as “skinny” because he can only see her inner beauty.
The movie is peppered with fat jokes and the protagonist makes most of them. This title is not plus size inclusive and should only be watched if you want to see Jack Black’s worst film or are conducting a case study on fatphobia in the 2000s.
The Blind Side
Sure, this was a movie about Michael Oher and his adopted parents, but the way this film is portrayed really puts an emphasis on the white savior narrative. It’s a pretty heart warming film if you go into it with absolutely zero knowledge about the outside world, but if you are aware of any black history at all, this movie is a spit in the face and perpetuates horrific black stereotypes built by white people to aid with oppression.
The movie is laced with adorable moments where Oher and the Tuohy’s (the white family that adopt him in the movie) connect but their efforts were futile in covering up the storyline of them ‘saving’ him from his adopted mother who struggled with alcohol and raised HELLA children all on her own.
Also, it later came out that Oher received nothing for the movie covering his life and every member of the Tuohy family received enormous royalties. I have no idea how they managed this while still being allowed to use his full name in the film. He also stated that the Tuohy’s never actually formally adopted him, and essentially functioned as his conservators. I will not be watching this movie again because the Tuohy’s and their royalties can bite me.
James Bond
We are finishing this list off with an absolute howler. Growing up, I loved watching the James Bond series with my Dad. It had the fun spy action that I enjoyed, mixed with the cynical comedy dynamic interactions and relationships that Bond is known for. As the series went on, the behavior became less and less taboo. The Daniel Craig movies definitely still hold up… But then I went back and watched the older Connery and Moore movies. I was appalled.
Let’s start with racism. Black characters speak with a “black accent” that is a direct perpetuation of extremely racist, vulgar cartoons and comics from pre-civil rights times. The Asians within the films operate under all the same stereotypes that they are today, but are heavily linked with communism. The Russians are portrayed within the same bounds they are today. So is the entire Arabic culture. However, all of this pales in comparison to the portrayal of women as weak, dependent objects who simply exist for the sexual pleasure of Bond or to nag him.
From an HR point of view, Bond was a nightmare. He frequently flirted with coworkers and sexually harassed and assaulted the secretary, Moneypenny, and any other attractive woman he came across. He would be fired and even probably jailed within the first hour of the pilot movie, ‘Dr. No’. Even decades and several star actors later, he maintained the same behavior until eventually in the late 1990’s the director made the choice to start toning down the sexual assault while still maintaining quite a bit of harassment.
This is just one instance of blatant misogyny through the films. The only females he interacted with until the Pierce Brosnan era were attractive and given no intellectual role, with exception to M whose role was essentially Bond’s adopted mother. But even then, M was cast as a man until 1995. The only respectable role actresses were given was the occasional female spy, who would always just end up getting seduced by Bond before typically dying. At the end of the only George Lazenby film, ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’, Bond even marries… And, you guessed it, she gets shot and dies after they leave the wedding.
Oh, and all of this is omitted several times throughout the early movies where Bond strikes his female compatriots. Typically, she returns the blow and then they kiss. This is a sign of a healthy and functional romantic relationship that everybody should aspire to have right? Right?
If you at all value your time, you won’t go back and rewatch the early Bond films. But if you do, prepare your jaw because it will hit the floor once every ten minutes when he does some seriously heinous stuff.
What do you think? If you have seen any of these, let me know what you think in the comments! Also, definitely let me know if I missed any juicy ones. Ace Ventura just BARELY missed out on this list because these ones were just so egregious.
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