It's probably always a good thing to investigate whether certain narrative tropes tend to favor straight white dudes.
― Night Jorts (Old Lunch), Tuesday, July 12, 2016 11:29 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i think it is NOT a revelation that things favor straight white dudes, unfortunatelybut why not use that as a given to EXPLORE other things NOT about themrather than insist other people prove things NOT about str8 white dudes exist
we can all explore new things i believe in us
― the lava-staring club (Abbott), Tuesday, July 12, 2016 10:46 PM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I think we might be saying similar things in different ways. It's pretty unquestionable that straight white dude tropes dominate the narrative landscape. It's examinations like this and largely unsuccessful attempts to jam round non-SWD character pegs into square SWD narrative holes that underscore, for me, how many other underexplored kinds of stories there are outside of the standard SWD dude experience.
― Night Jorts (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 04:55 (seven years ago) link
and expecting them to fit a shitty archetype where 'lol oops wrong place at the wrong time accidentally saved the day' is...insane? like that is a really dumb plot archetypeand if it only exists w/cis white het men that is probably because they are the only people privilieged enough for that dumbshit magic to happen to
Totally agree with this! IMO movies like Inside Out or Clueless are generally better and more interesting than the "loser miraculously rises to the occasion" stories, because most people aren't completely ineffectual losers, so it's easier to relate to stories where are a fairly competent person has to overcome a problem caused by some personal flaw in her, or by outside forces pigeonholing her, rather than ones where some utter slacker magically saves the day, so that even the laziest of straight white guys would feel they don't need to better themselves in any way.
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 12:10 (seven years ago) link
most people aren't completely ineffectual losers
Speak for yourself, Tuomas.
(Seriously the bit about how "utter slacker magically saves the day") is lazy straight white guy fantasy-fulfillment pr0n.
The relevant xkcd is http://xkcd.com/693/ ; you're welcome.
― rhymes with month (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 13:12 (seven years ago) link
Yeah, Narnia seems a bit of a template for these.
― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:01 (seven years ago) link
Maybe I'm just trying to steer us this way, but I sort of thought we had veered away from protagonists who entirely suck (or are "utter slackers"), which is kinda more a thing in comedy things that make fun of their heroes anyway (Bill & Ted, e.g.)... and towards people who are in some way special and don't luck into their success, but do start the story at kind of a low point, unappreciated, put-upon, just got fired, whatever. But at this point I should probably bow out of the thread since the subject matter is so elusive anyway.
― 'they pelted us with rocks and garbage' (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:21 (seven years ago) link
Abbott's list is good; Kristen Wiig's character in Bridesmaids, also. she doesn't suck at everything, but she experiences a spectacular confluence of failures/missteps over the course of the movie.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:26 (seven years ago) link
yeah the Narnia suggestion reminds me that this archetype is unsurprisingly Biblical (often fleshed out in the Middle Ages): several of the apostles, Mary, Joseph, Mary Magdalene, Jacob, and so on.
― droit au butt (Euler), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:28 (seven years ago) link
people who are in some way special and don't luck into their success, but do start the story at kind of a low point, unappreciated, put-upon, just got fired, whatever
Worthy point. Pursuit of Happyness protagonist is more like this than "utter loser who suddenly achieves miraculous levels of competence."
― rhymes with month (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:30 (seven years ago) link
adventures in babysitting has really fucked up 80s reaganite crypto-racist politics. i can feel what a drag i'm being because i loved it as a kid--vincent d'onofrio!--but i can't help it. it's true. i think i wrote a post about it like 11 years ago on this here ilx.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:30 (seven years ago) link
"(Seriously the bit about how "utter slacker magically saves the day") is lazy straight white guy fantasy-fulfillment pr0n."
the adam sandler formula is deathless. and it is mostly men who get to play the part. though with t.v. now you get to see women play the part. on all the awful people sitcoms. the daughters of AbFab.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:33 (seven years ago) link
Citizen Ruth?
― pleas to Nietzsche (WilliamC), Monday, July 11, 2016 10:31 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
this is a good one but obv prob not to show to a young daughter.
also 'young adult', charlize still def sucks at the end but there is a realization/maturation and its valid/important imo
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:34 (seven years ago) link
this is not exactly the same thing, but I realized a couple of years ago that the movie Adventures in Babysitting is a huge apologia for Reaganite politics. There are a bunch of different ways this manifests itself (including "scary" black people on the El and the fact that Elizabeth Shue=good guy because she's a virgin), but the scene that most fully drives it home is when the Elizabeth Shue character is on the phone with her friend, whose rescue is the whole impetus of the film. The friend is at a bus station which is portrayed as the deepest level of hell. The friend has commandeered a phone booth which is usually occupied by a homeless man. While friend is on the phone with ES, homeless man returns and knocks on the door of the phone booth, imploring, "that's my home!" ES's friend, with whom we're meant to sympathize, kicks the homeless man's personal effects out of the booth (I remember slippers) and shouts, "you just moved!" I used to love this movie, but it is some chilling shit to rewatch.― horsehoe (horseshoe), Sunday, February 12, 2006 4:42 AM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
lol "chilling" i was such a drama queen in 2006
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:35 (seven years ago) link
wait, does molly shannon win at the end of Superstar? i forget. i think she wins. i don't know if she saves the day. i guess comedy is different though.
but if mr. smith goes to washington is an example, there must be movies where women use their wits to save the farm. but someone already discounted legally blonde. which is the updated version. was mr. smith really a fuckup and a loser before he passed a bill? i thought he was just a greenhorn who didn't know how to play the game.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:37 (seven years ago) link
Hah Places In The Heart is totally a version of this.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:39 (seven years ago) link
Miss Firecracker is one of my favorite movies about a loser who doesn't win at the end. but who ends up feeling okay anyway. HollyHunter4ever
― scott seward, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:39 (seven years ago) link
Re: Adventures in Babysitting: I only remember the bit where she "sings" the "blues" assisted by appropriately sympathetic black musicians, to appropriately wild acclaim. Which totally happens all the time, in the clubs. You know, those blues clubs that I totally go to. All the time.
― rhymes with month (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:41 (seven years ago) link
xp Or Woody Allen. And then he was able to create again!
― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:41 (seven years ago) link
― horseshoe, Wednesday, July 13, 2016 9:35 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
haha amazing. I like your close reading, but I also think this was just kind of an 80s movie trope about NYC.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:43 (seven years ago) link
er, about cities, rather. I think it was Chicago.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:44 (seven years ago) link
it was chicago. you're probably right that it was all of those movies, but it feels particularly brazen in Adventures in Babysitting. particularly cold in its calculations about whose safety and well-being viewers are supposed to care about? i don't know. this is really not what this thread's about. good to discover i have had no new thoughts in 10 years.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:48 (seven years ago) link
"Fish out of water" is a hallowed comedy trope. In 80s movies it (at least sometimes) cut both ways, with the uptight whiteys being redemptively loosened by their surprise interactions with more-diverse influences. Cf. Beverly Hills Cop etc.
― rhymes with month (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:48 (seven years ago) link
if i were going to write a book of cultural criticism about the 80s and reagan's cultural legacy and white flight and representations of blackness and the city, i would devote at least half a chapter to adventures in babysitting
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:49 (seven years ago) link
i'd read it
― rhymes with month (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:51 (seven years ago) link
Yeah. Maybe the whole trope is sort of conservative -- barbarians (homeless/"crazy people"/knife-wielding thugs) breaching the gates of the city and such.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:52 (seven years ago) link
i guess i should watch AiB!
i thought he was just a greenhorn who didn't know how to play the game.
This is certainly the contemporary inside-politics def of "loser" -- even a non-neophyte like Bill deBlasio gets tarred with a version of it.
― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:52 (seven years ago) link
Dr. Morbs, I wish you would! I think it's sort of valuable in its crystal-clear articulation of a really fucked-up ideology. like hitchcock films are for laura mulvey's feminist criticism.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:55 (seven years ago) link
(i understand that hitchock films are better than adventures in babysitting.)
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:56 (seven years ago) link
However no Hitchcock film included a cameo from Albert Collins, so therefore your argument is invalid.
― rhymes with month (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:59 (seven years ago) link
prob not Topaz
― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:00 (seven years ago) link
omg that scene! so cringey. maybe another half-chapter about white people singing the blues in 80s movies. or maybe that's the same half-chapter.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:00 (seven years ago) link
yeah you could definitely get a lot of mileage out of "soul" in 80s movies
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:01 (seven years ago) link
"Soul Man" is a chapter in itself.
― rhymes with month (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:02 (seven years ago) link
weird science has a scene like that toowhy am i still following this thread
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:02 (seven years ago) link
there's one "good" black dude in the scene with the knife-wielding black people on the El. if i remember correctly, he sacrifices his own personal safety to save Shue and the kids she's babysitting.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:02 (seven years ago) link
"Blues Brothers" obv
― rhymes with month (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:03 (seven years ago) link
i promise i will stop posting about this soon, but there's a kind of bipolar philo/phobic interaction with blackness and black culture even within AiB. (i've actually never seen Blues Brothers; maybe its politics are different)
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:07 (seven years ago) link
i mean i guess it's philo toward black culture and phobic towards actual black people unless they value white lives over their own.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:08 (seven years ago) link
that makes it seem a lot older than the 80s...
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:09 (seven years ago) link
ugh, i'd forgotten all that stuff about Adventures in Babysitting - but horseshoe otm, it is all cringe-inducing.
― 'they pelted us with rocks and garbage' (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:12 (seven years ago) link
I feel like this could be its own thread but I don't know exactly how to define the parameters
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:13 (seven years ago) link
Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead seems like an (I think?) less problematic film that fits this thread's premise. She is basically the equivalent of the SWD slacker loser who "finds inner strength" when thrust into a situation.
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:14 (seven years ago) link
Even White Suburbanites Sing The Blues: Reaganite audience-identification in the "Adventures In Babysitting" narrative and corresponding lack of "a thread about this" in anything other than probably some old threads we can't find now
― 'they pelted us with rocks and garbage' (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:14 (seven years ago) link
and racism
lol
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:15 (seven years ago) link
i think Aykroyd is on record that he would've liked more than 30 seconds of John Lee Hooker in TBB, but the studio had other ideas (tho i'm sure John Landis wd've been fine with a 4-hour movie). Still that was undoubtedly a gateway for many teens to those artists, an argument could be made.
― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:17 (seven years ago) link
Swanky Modes 4evs
― rhymes with month (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:27 (seven years ago) link
i will start a thread bc i am responsible for the thread derail. sorry, everyone!
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:30 (seven years ago) link
hey here's a good thread connection:
•ILX, coach me up: the "White Straight Guy Who Sucks" Narrative and corresponding lack of "... Who Sucks" in anything other than indie snooze [Started by El Tomboto in July 2016, last updated 1 minute ago by horseshoe on I Love Everything] 142 new answers•Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy = new Ghostbusters [Started by Ned Raggett in January 2015, last updated 2 minutes ago by j.o. seasoning (how's life) on I Love Everything] 149 new answers
― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:32 (seven years ago) link
Well if nothing else this thread has given me a lot to chew on in terms of how I unconsciously expect my protagonists to behave and yeah, what they look like.
For one thing I'm now pretty sure I have a soft bigotry of low expectations thing with female characters vis-a-vis resourcefulness (and perhaps women IRL, ugh, OK better to be self-aware). ME Winstead assembling a makeshift hazmat suit MacGyver-style in 10 Cloverfield Lane, and later a molotov cocktail = wow she's a badass, therefore not an example of this trope, but on further examination, isn't that the trope?!? My brain
For another (to ME - this is my attempted exploration of my own bias and not a projection of how things are inside any other head(s)) anywhere outside of fantasy settings (Star Wars counts btw) non-StrWhiDude protagonists are pretty much always going to up against an additional level of adversity above and beyond what a StrWhiDude would be dealing with, so just by virtue of *being* the protagonist in a world where StrWhiDudes are "the norm" they can't really be schmuckatellis in the same way that a hapless StrWhiDude is. I feel like I could really use a whiteboard here to help me nail it down a little more precisely. Put another way - a hapless female or minority hero in a "real world" setting is automatically not sucking as much as a hapless StrWhiDude hero, because in order for the latter to be hapless and sucking in the first place, they have to be sucking pretty hard given that they live in the "real world" where they have maximum default privilege etc.
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:44 (seven years ago) link
Finn in Ep 8 is quickly becoming illustrative of how a black character can totally fit this poorly-defined trope I've made up, and I think the fact that he is from far-away long-ago galaxy is the reason why I don't saddle him with my "oh he's also up against racial prejudice therefore doesn't actually suck" bullshit
Most of the hobbits, though, still pretty much guys who suck
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 15:47 (seven years ago) link