Comments on: Everything You Loved Was Always Horrible, featuring: Short Circuit

By: Alexander

Alexander — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:04:42 +0000

Great review. I remember watching this late childhood, thought it was pretty amusing and emotionally compelling at the time. I was called back to this fairly recently, the Nostalgia Critic brought up the blackface issue, as well as how horrible all the comedy shtick with him was. Yeah, that whole issue is pretty stunning. And I was born in 1986, when I watched the movie (and sequel, and yes Johnny getting smashed up was disturbing) it has to have been mid nineties at the latest. I think I need to have a word with the relative that thought this was good viewing recommended viewing…

Oh, and this comment: “Because, you know, shit was fucked up. It continues to be fucked-up now, in fact! With any luck, our descendants will look back on our movies and be like, “Jesus, people WATCHED that? And didn’t get how TERRIBLE it was?” Because things will be better for them than they are for us, and they will get to take more for granted, which means we will all seem stupid and somewhat loathsome, which is as it should be.”

Yes. Great sentiment, very well expressed.

By: belledame222

belledame222 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:33:16 +0000

@_@ at all of the Short Circuitry. um. damn. I missed those the first time around, thankfully.

By: Lynn

Lynn — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:17:09 +0000

Casting for the principals specified caucasian. The kid playing the Inuit boy intially talked about ‘getting a tan’ for the part. Actual cast shots i’ve seen have shown them not made up at least.

Casting calls for the extras have been looking exclusively for ‘ethnic’ looking people…the woman in charge of them indicated you get bonus points for coming to the audition also wearing something she considers ethnic looking.

(http://vejiicakes.livejournal.com/255699.html is a good post on the subj)

By: snobographer

snobographer — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:25:29 +0000

Also, check the liberal use of the word “faggot” in almost every 80s teen movie.

By: snobographer

snobographer — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:51:12 +0000

Poor Ally Sheedy. Has there ever been an actress more underrated?

In the 1990s, perhaps even the late 1990s, a guy I was hanging with was a big advocate that everyone should watch The Party starring Peter Sellers as an Indian guy. And he would quote from it and do the accent (bang howdy par-TEN-er).

By: Sady

Sady — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:32:09 +0000

@Lynn: I’m a long way from wanting to defend “Avatar,” because I’ve heard about the whole saga, and it’s depressing as hell. But I would argue that the whitewashed characters (a) probably will not be made up to “look” Tibetan or Inuit, and (b) probably will not be shown as fundamentally hilarious because they are (white people pretending to be) Asian or Inuit. They’ll just be white people who miraculously manage to come from cultures that are remarkably similar to Tibetan and Inuit cultures. (Will all the background players and extras be white, too? That’s something I’m kind of wondering about, actually; there are a lot of ways to go with that, none of which would mitigate the fuckedupness at hand). Whitewashing is still really, really, really offensive, but it doesn’t register for contemporary audiences as offensive in the same way that a brownface clown like Ben does.

By: Devonian

Devonian — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:04:57 +0000

“…this’d also be the same company that refused to make female action figures ‘because boys don’t buy them’”
Unless Viacom owns Mattel, they’re different companies.

Mattel’s got a long history of it, for that matter. The Teela and Evil-Lyn figures from the He-Man remake were rare even when the line was new, and nearly impossible to find now…

By: Cinnamon Girl

Cinnamon Girl — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:45:39 +0000

This is a great post! Thank you.

I live in a place where unfortunately this stuff isn’t a relic of the bad old eighties… brownface/blackface is still hilarious in my country. Nothing has changed.

By: mr_subjunctive

mr_subjunctive — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:55:13 +0000

Lynn:

Okay, so it’s not absolutely taboo across the board. It’s still progress. I mean, all the movies were cast that way sixty years ago or whatever. Can’t you just let me have this one dirty, tattered little shred of hope?

By: Lynn

Lynn — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:02:53 +0000

Mr Subjunctive: tell that to Viacom.

They are currently in the process of making the live action Avatar: the Last Airbender, and chose to cast the Tibetan hero as a white boy, the Inuit best friends as white girl & boy.

The Chinese villain was originally supposed to be white as well, but they decided in the interest of diversity to recast someone Indian.

…this’d also be the same company that refused to make female action figures ‘because boys don’t buy them’