The 3 Most Poisonous Movie Clichés of the 60s and 70s
#1 — Marriage is for suckers
This one needs a thousand words of its own, at least, but here goes:
The groom might have been a tad reluctant, but as far as female characters (and audiences, and studio heads were concerned) marriage was almost always the end game in movies. 1955′s The Tender Trap is the exception that proves the rule, and even it has a happy (that is, matrimonial) ending (while nevertheless leaving a bitter aftertaste.)
If marriages failed, like in Dodsworth, the couple was to blame, not the institution.
Cynical, fatalistic post-war films noir more or less invented the now-ubiquitious “dark underbelly of the American dream” trope, with its “who can say what’s right and wrong?” subtext.
So I can’t blame Boomers for that corrosive cliche, as much as I’d like to; no matter how worthy a number of them are, how many more “suburbia is crawling with horrible secrets” movies — The Ice Storm, Donny Darko, Blue Velvet, American Beauty — can we take?
(Especially when you consider that the characters of British “kitchen sink” cinema at the time, still “living” under rationing in a rundown nation in which widespread home, appliance or car ownership — and even in parts of London, indoor plumbing — was unheard of) would have gladly traded places with their whining gilded-cage U.S. counterparts on Revolutionary Road.)
It was just a simple step from bashing suburbia to denigrating its raison d’etre, matrimony.
Just like any old fashioned romance, The Graduate (1967) concludes with a wedding — sort of.
Our hero kidnaps the woman he loves just as she’s about to marry another.
We all cheer and they’re thrilled with themselves… for about 30 seconds:
Many other 60s and 70s films begin where The Graduate ends. Marriage is a “bummer.” Domesticity is boring. Divorce isn’t the end of the world. Heck, you don’t even have to “go to Reno” to do it anymore:
It’s really tough to hand a first-place ribbon to any particular movie in this category of films, which helped normalize and sanction attitudes and behaviors that poisoned untold millions of children, never mind adults.
Scenes from a Marriage (1973) played art houses, and despite its title, 1967′s Divorce American Style doesn’t quite live up to its title.
Did any man really want to end up like the guys in The Odd Couple (1968)?
That said, Neil Simon deserves some blame for popularizing the acceptance of marriage/divorce culture of the era, as a mere glance at his credits indicates.
While it pains me to do so, I’m obliged to cite An Unmarried Woman as one of the most (unintentionally) destructive movies in this category.
My respect for Jill Clayburgh is a matter of record. Her performance in this film in particular is one for the ages. What a contrast to the simpering Tina in Diary of a Mad Housewife, released six years earlier. American women sure had “come a long way” baby in a very short time.
Her face’s metamorphosis when she’s unceremoniously dumped by her husband in the middle of a busy morning rush hour street is the precise cinematic counterpoint to Garbo’s famously frozen, enigmatic visage at the conclusion of Queen Christina, but just as memorable, as her New York Times obituary noted in 2010:
In the most famous scene in Jill Clayburgh’s most influential movie, her character reacted to the news that her husband wanted to leave her. Ms. Clayburgh’s Erica responded with such naturalness, confusion and wounded pride that she captured the imagination of a generation.
“As Miss Clayburgh plays this scene,” Vincent Canby wrote about “An Unmarried Woman” in 1978, “one has a vision of all the immutable things that can be destroyed in less than a minute, from landscapes and ships and reputations to perfect marriages.” But she proved that a reputation could be made in less than a minute too.
Clayburgh’s character and her daughter endure great suffering and confusion. Her first forays into the singles scene are excruciating. This is not a pro-divorce movie.
But…
Can anyone deny that the iconic vision of Clayburgh at the very end of the film, draped in sexy, flowing white and maneuvering her new lover’s giant canvas along (another) busy street without a single misstep, isn’t downright aspirational?
How bad can divorce be if you end up looking this amazing?
I live in a medium-sized, Southern city, and most folks who hold the outdated notions of backwards and prejudiced Southerners would be unlikely to identify it as such, simply walking its streets.
People here have long-since advanced beyond the social modes still attributed to them by a lazy media. People in my state are generally well-educated (by any standard of public schooling), polite, friendly, and, most at odds with the enduring stereotype, not particularly concerned with race. Bi-racial couples walk hand-in-hand down the streets unpursued by frothing lynch-mobs.
If there is a reactionary undercurrent here, it is in response to the massive influx of Hispanics over the last decade or so, and is less racial than social in origin, as law-abiding folks here tend not to easily tolerate those whom they suspect of being scofflaws. Yet there is no harassment of Hispanics, or even Muslims, despite the unease with which they may be viewed, generally.
But, it’s just so easy and FUN to mock Southerners for things of which they are no longer guilty (if ever). =’[.]‘=
I would like to point out that although the stupid and evil movie cliche may be inaccurate where you live, here in Texas we are as stupid and evil as it is humanly possible to be. There may be jobs here but it would be foolish for anybody to move here to take them, especially if they are going to keep the attitudes that caused their home states (cough California cough Illinois cough) to sink into a pit of debt, taxes and excess regulation. Why there is not a week that goes by when traffic is not tied up because of a frothing lynch mob.
Aside from the fact that we are all stupid and evil, there are also the 110 degree weather, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, dust storms, wild fires, fire ants, all manner of flying and crawling venomous insects, west nile virus infected mosquitoes, areal spraying of poison for the west nile virus infected mosquitoes, poisonous snakes, poison belching petrochemical plants, wild pigs, leprous armadillos, widespread concealed firearms carrying, red meat eating and just in general it is a horrible place and you would never be happy here.
Heh. Much of that might explain this quote:
“If I owned Hell and Texas I would rent out Texas and live in Hell”
-Philip Henry Sheridan
=^[.]^=
Wise man, that Phil Sheridan. And he was talking about a time before the fire ants and killer bees had gotten established.
And just when you think you got a tex contained for a bit, he rares up and hits you between the eyes with a band you haven’t heard yet or a new trend you don’t know of. Then you just stand there in the kitchen, watching your hipster frying along with the chicken gizzards on the stove…..’>……..
Did I do right, btw, in separating “Texans” from “Southerners”? Because I heard you guys like that.
oh.my.stars. PERFECT.
you left out coral snakes- deadliest in the USA- and rattlesnakes.
and, yes, thank you, Kathy, Texans are a distinct breed apart from deep south southerners.
May I list out another cliche? courtesy of the baby boom? Therapeutic Adultery. It’s big in writing and on TV, too.
You forgot Glen Beck!
Althoguh he’s in Austin, the “San Fransisco” of Texas.
When I was much younger and very much less wise than I am now, I wish I had taken your approach to talking up my home state. But, no, I foolishly spoke the unvarnished truth about the beauty and the promise that was the State of Washington, and then every stinking libtard Californian who could moved there and turned it into the land of Microsoft.
Kathy,
You may have overlooked the most poisonous of all: the ruthless, callous, larcenous and often murderous Evil Business Executive. A couple of years ago, an interesting study found that over a certain time period US TV and film audiences had witnessed over 6,000 murders committed by or at the orders of corporate executives. Actual number in real life over that period: zero.
The smear campaign launched against Mitt Romney was long prepared by Hollywood, the guys who, operating in the most echt-capitalist of all industries, fed the public Noah Cross and Gordon Gecko and Louie the Liquidator and J R Ewing and hundreds more, all establishing the meme in the electoral consciousness that businessmen
a) are evil bastards, and
b) are possessed of wealth which is entirely ill-gotten, stolen or blood money, and which therefore can be confiscated ‘for the greater good’ without qualm.
Don’t forget that these evil businessmen and/or generals usually also have a Southern accent.
IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:
Toothless Racist Southerners
Crazy American Soldiers
Marriage Is For Suckers
Recently-Discovered Emotional Attraction Is The Only Prerequisite For Sex
Greedy Evil Businessmen
Stupid, Feckless Married Men
The Wise Non-Christian Clergyman
The Heroic-For-Being-Apostate (barely) Christian Clergyman
The Psychotic Christian Clergyman
The Sexually Immoral Snake-Oil Salesman Christian Clergyman
Airheaded, Gullible Christians
There was a movie called “the Hot Rock”, which was the first movie where the criminals were allowed to get away with it, to my knowledge.
In movies, all major corporations have hit teams.
If a kid is bullied, one day he throws one punch, and immediately knocks the bully out. In my world, the punch is entirely ineffective, the bully beats him up and then gets him in trouble.
In the old days, all of the wise clergymen where Catholic priests.
I’ve got to take issue with your description of Dustin Hoffman kidnapping Katherine Ross at the end of “The Graduate”. She decided to go of her own free will despite haven just, also of her own free will, taken the vows or marriage.
A better description of that scene comes from the movie “Barcelona”:
[i]
Fred: You think wedding vows are going to change everything? God, your naivete is astounding! Didn’t you see “The Graduate”?
Ted: You can remember “The Graduate”?
Fred: Yeah, I can remember a few things. Apparently you don’t. The end? Katharine Ross has just married this really cool guy – tall, blond, incredibly popular, the make-out king of his fraternity in Berkeley – when this obnoxious Dustin Hoffman character shows up at the back of the church, acting like a total asshole. “Elaine! Elaine!” Does Katharine Ross tell Dustin Hoffman, “Get lost, creep. I’m a married woman”? No. She runs off with him – on a bus. That is the reality. [/i]
You realize that quoting Whit Stillman on anything effectively ends the conversation on that subject, right?
The term for the Hoffman-Ross escape to unreality is
deus ex machina
I must admit that not every cliché you list is wholly unfounded. For my part, I lobby every year for my Southern town to officially institute the “Two Thousand Maniacs” celebration, but there’s always some transplanted buzzkill on the city council. One day.
Shortly after World War II, cartoonist and war correspondent Bill Mauldin protested against the “crazy violent veteran” image that had been bobbing up in the press at that time:
“During a period when veterans were big news, every time an ex-soldier got himself in a jam the fact that he was a vet was pointed out in the headline. An ordinary killing or assault seldom rated the front page, but if it involved a jealous veteran or battle-fatigue case, it could be sure of a prominent play. The newspapers that did this pointed out that it was good journalism; people were interested in veterans and everybody likes to know personality angles on people who do spectacular things. But the sad fact was that such headlines gave added impetus to the rumor that always appears in every country after a war–that the returning soldiers are trained in killing and assault and are potential menaces to society.
“Police records show that World War II veterans committed no more and no fewer crimes in proportion to their numbers than the rest of the citizenry, and after a while most reputable newspapers stopped headlining veterans every time they got into trouble. Of course, journals that have always been noted for morbid and spectacular reporting, and that keep more of an eye on quick circulation than accuracy and fairness, still continue the odious practice of saying “CRAZED VET RUNS AMOK” when some character with a load of gin under his belt breaks a bar mirror.”
– Bill Mauldin, Back Home, 1947
Wow, thanks for adding that!
I live in the Deep South and I think the liberals who write Southerners like they do either have never spent any time down here or they are projecting. We see a lot of Northern tourists here. Some of them are decent people but others, particularly ones from big cities, can range from thinly veiled conceit to openly stated superiority. By that I mean from a smug gleam in their eyes when talking to a farmer or small store owner to full on verbal “you’re all so primitive, I mean, it’s miles and miles of trees and fields. Ugh!” So the Yankees that head back home with bad feelings toward us should look at their own behavior first.
At the same time I’ve been up north and in the Midwest. Rural areas and small towns tend to have a lot nice people even the cities do, to a point. But there are plenty of jerks, too. It’s really amusing to slightly exaggerate the Southern accent and watch them start treating you like a rube. (No I don’t mean talking like Gomer Pyle, just making the normal accent a bit more pronounced.) As the saying goes, sometimes it is better to let people think you are less than you really are. On the other hand, there are liberal bastions down here where the people are so bigoted toward their rural fellows they could BE the people writing those movies and shows. Those people are especially amusing when they go for a “scenic drive” and complain about all the forests, fields and lack of chain restaurants and strip malls.
I am from just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, and have spent more than a little time living and working down south and out west. I find people there to be, if anything, more polite, dignified, and decent than the average person here.
I hope you’re not referring to Kansas Midwest because we get abused by the coast folks just as badly as southerners. We’re such yokels. /sarc
The way they treat us, you’d think we don’t even have that new-fangled thing called an Internet.
Yes, I must admit, it’s quite astounding how you manage to post to the ‘Net, using a tin can, string, and the engine block from a ’53 Chevy truck. ‘)
I’m in the semi rural “bucolic and historic” part of Bucks County PA,
less than an hour north of Philly.
There are only two things in Philly,
(or any city if you ask me):
Traffic Lights, and a**holes.
And I dont care much for either, thanks
“It’s really amusing to slightly exaggerate the Southern accent and watch them start treating you like a rube. (No I don’t mean talking like Gomer Pyle, just making the normal accent a bit more pronounced.) ”
Ah, memories! I’m from rural Kentucky, so I grew up around that accent. My husband says I didn’t have a southern accent until we were stationed in Connecticut, where apparently it got pretty strong – I claim cultural self-defense! Anyway, the most fun I had up there was when writers at Pfizer asked me for grammar and clarity help – sugar, let me tell you that there accent got mighty thick at such times. Bless their little Yankee hearts.
FTR, this article hits me on all counts: I’m a military wife (Navy) with a Marine son and an Army brother who earned a Bronze Star in action in Afghanistan; I’m from the banjo part of the South; and I’m married to a man who is stuck with me forever – and from a family in which divorce is nearly unheard-of. I guess there’s a reason I’m less than enthusiastic when the husband recommends we go out to see a movie. I’d rather walk and talk with him; much more interesting and far less insulting!
Not only is Suburbia perishing in story, it’s perishing in fact:
http://www.startribune.com/local/west/165822956.html?c=y&page=all&prepage=1
Now every issue of Post, Look, Life and Redbook magazine from 1970 and earlier will become incomprehensible to people younger than myself. I grew up near that neighbourhood. Sad when you think of it……..
“Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” is a great film. It actually makes fun of the whole Redneck killer horror genre, and is easily my favorite movie from last year. While it still uses those anti-Southern stereotypes, it is more about the college guys being morons than anything else.
There’s definitely an anti-Southern bias in Hollywood, but one thing people forget about “Deliverance” is the good Southerners who are portrayed, at least briefly. One of my favorite scenes is after the canoe trip, when Bobby and Ed are eating with some kindly locals. And the medical people are shown as caring and competent. And the Greiner brothers live up to their word. These characters all remind me of good, real people I knew well in rural, mountainous Pennsylvania–another center of Bible-and-gun-clingers.
I think that the villains and the inbred characters in “Deliverance” are so vivid, though, that the movie sometimes gets blamed for the stereotypes.
What about these other two:
The Psychotic Clergy and/or Molester Clergy/Christian. In a comedy can be subbed out for either homosexual or adulterous or beater Christian.
And of course:
The Imbecile Man, often in conjunction with the intelligent wife or girlfriend. Preferably with a woman winning the superbowl as quarterback, beating up a much larger man, or leading an elite squad of soldiers. Unless of course she’s clergy then . . . she’s a homosexual!
You are so right.
The crazy/hypocrite preacher (Elmer Gantry, Night of the Hunter) is highly toxic, and was on my list, as was the “Magic Negro” and “Angelic Wise Gay Man Who Dies At the End”.
But I’m only supposed to do about 1000 words and already hit 1500 when I finished the three segments above!
Ever check out this site? I have no personal connection with it and don’t post there, but I find it a useful source of examples.
TV Tropes Wiki
“What is this about? This wiki is a catalog of the tricks of the trade for writing fiction.
Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means “stereotyped and trite.” In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them.
The wiki is called “TV Tropes” because TV is where we started. Over the course of a few years, our scope has crept out to include other media. Tropes transcend television. They reflect life. Since a lot of art, especially the popular arts, does its best to reflect life, tropes are likely to show up everywhere.
We are not a stuffy encyclopedic wiki. We’re a buttload more informal. We encourage breezy language and original thought…”
TV Tropes is an awesome–& addictive–site!
How about cops being the bad guys. I never really thought much of it until my son started talking about those “bad cops” when we were watching “Elf”. The cops chase down Santa Clause on their ominous looking horses. Funny movie, but that part is kind of ridiculous.
I think it was during the 1970′s that the movie criminal became the sophisticate and the cop became the lowlife with a broken marriage.
Your remark regarding the last movie reminds me of Dicken’s statement that it didn’t matter whether or not they hanged tyhe criminal at the end; the play made it so glamorous that lots of boys would have been willing to follow the anti-hro to the gallows.
Dickens’
Taxi Driver and Rolling Thunder were ultimately about men, who just happened to be veterans, ending great evil.
Granted DeNiro was a bit nuts in Taxi Driver with his planned assassination of the politician but he ended up the good guy. I aways thought the idea was that he was driven by the corruption surrounding him in New York and not by what happened to him in war.
And Devane in Rolling Thunder was not crazed by his war experiences either but because some thugs killed his family and mangled his arm.
You may as well add Billy Jack in that category as well. A veteran not crazed by war but by social evil.
You missed the plot of Deliverance rather badly. James Dickey was about as Northern as north Georgia. The book and the movie are about suburban men from Atlanta. Where do you get the idea that it’s about northern tourists? Read the book, then watch the movie again.
When Joe Biden was talking about the squealing pigs, was he projecting himself into Deliverance, giving it to the Goper Ned Beatty? It was a tell pure and simple!
The super wise child and the idiot adults always irk me.
I am beginning to think the propaganda value of movies are over rated. Read any novel before the fifties, or earlier. How about the 1900s? 1800s? Divorce. Divorce. Divorce. Cheating. Cheating. Cheating. Murder. Murder. Murder. Even serial killers. Hitchcock was fascinated by killers. His movies had heroes, yes, but a lot of his killers were front and center. “While The City Sleeps”, by Fritz Lang in 1956, had a serial killer; a drugstore delivery boy. Actually, he looked like a mature man, not a boy. But he had a real cool leather jacket. There are vixens, harlots, backstabbers, hacks, drunks, and cheaters. Both men and women were cheaters. Oh, and an evil, though clueless, boss. But not all of these players, got their comeuppance. Today these things do seem to be wallowed in for their own sake. But I bet older books and movies, were bemoaned in their time, even though the tone was lighter a lot the time. Except for Shakespeare. When he wasn’t trying to be funny, well, he could be outright depressing. Still, like I said, I am beginning to think the propaganda value of movies are over rated.
“I’ve written before about the influence all those 1970s “Satanic children” flicks had on my decision not to have kids.”
Children are not Satanic….
Now Satanic teenagers(and 99% of them are at one point or another)…
That’s a reason!
TV’s version of the evil redneck Southerners was the Evil Small Town. it could be anywhere in the U.S., but for the purposes of TV production was usually not too far from “the only places that matter”, i.e. New York, L.A., Boston, etc.
Wherever it was, any Enlightened Big City Liberal (TM) who set foot in it was taking their life in their hands. Because;
1. The town had a Deadly Secret.
2. It was run by an Evil Rich Guy
3. Who had the Corrupt Judge in his pocket
4. Plus the Even More Corrupt Mayor
5. And the Local Cops were his Death Squad.
6. Oh yes, and everyone else was either the Evil Rich Guy’s minion, a homicidally-psychotic Religious Fanatic, or both.
In short, Smart, Sophisticated People were wise to avoid small towns, because everyone in them was just as stupid and vicious as those Smart, Sophisticated people imagined them to be. (“Well, if they were smart, they’d be here in the Big City with the rest of us!”)
The primary purpose of Hollywood’s products is not entertainment. It’s to confirm the reality of the creators’ worldview. And they are confident that such products will appeal to The Right People, i.e. people just like them, and in so doing Change the World for the Better while making them lots of money- which they deserve for being so wonderful.
How’s that working out for you, Hollywood?
clear ether
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