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| Watching Any Good Serials? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 12 2006, 09:28 AM (88,289 Views) | |
| CliffClaven | Jul 7 2010, 10:45 AM Post #2026 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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A lot of it comes down to basic courtesy. The Asian Americans I know have a sense of humor and shrug off or ignore Charlie Chan. It becomes offensive when somebody pushes it in their faces and demands they prove they're OK by endorsing it. Or when the stereotypes are fed to kids too young to put them in context (Thanks to old cartoons, I thought we were still at war with the Nazis until grade school). It's like the boor who wisecracks about a woman's body, then mocks her as a "feminist" if she doesn't act flattered. Or asks a married couple to explain the absence or abundance of children, then becomes the offended party when said couple doesn't laugh at the seedy innuendoes and/or answer with clinical detail ("It was just an innocent question -- Jeez!"). It's frustrating that too many of the people who complain about the absence of a "Song of the South" release insinuate -- or declare outright -- that thin-skinned blacks and cowardly, politically-correct liberals are selfishly denying "normal" people this movie. These same people rarely if ever put in a word for "So Dear to My Heart", a very similar and arguably superior movie that was just as securely locked away in the vault (it finally became available only through Disney Movie Club). But then, that only had a poor farm family -- and they weren't even hillbillies. Whose face could you throw that in? I suspect that a share of the anti-"censorship" crowd is more about ticking people off than appreciating the movies. And I suspect they're doing more to keep "Song of the South" off the market than any real or imagined black protests by making its release an implicit endorsement of boorish contempt. |
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| JazzGuyy | Jul 7 2010, 01:29 PM Post #2027 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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I suspect that concerns about protests and offending people isn't the only reason Disney keeps "Song of the South" off the market. I think they also don't want modern audiences to see what a poor movie it is. The movie is certainly not as offensive to black people as many other movies that are widely available. The difference with "South" is that, with the Disney name on it, it would have a fairly large audience compared to something like the Will Rogers box sets with the deplorable Stepan Fetchit lazy, shiftless, inarticulate black character in almost every film. Other than being servile and somewhat childlike, the Uncle Remus character in the film, is nowhere near anything you would see from Fetchit or Willy Best or even the characterizations of massa-loving slaves in "Gone With the Wind". Disney did keep the movie in circulation into the early 1990s outside of North America. and anyone who really wants to see it can without too much effort (can you say "BitTorrent"?). I think the release of "South" would be more an embarrassment than a scandal but, then, Disney doesn't like to be embarrassed. |
| TANSTAAFL! | |
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| Sgt Saturn | Jul 7 2010, 01:51 PM Post #2028 |
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Charter Member
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I remember liking the cartoon portions of SotS as a kid and not caring for the live action parts -- except the "Zippity Do Dah" song number. I suspect that you are right. But also that there would be knee-jerk reactions pro and con if Disney ever released the film. |
| The Ol' Sarge | |
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| AndyFish | Jul 7 2010, 02:47 PM Post #2029 |
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Movie Watcha Foist Class
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Red Barry showed up-- watched Chapter One and it's a vast improvement over the copy I had before. Looks like it's from 35mm elements. Very happy with this VCI Copy. |
| www.andytfish.com | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Jul 7 2010, 06:48 PM Post #2030 |
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Mouth Breather
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Oh, Lord God; now I'm a boor for saying things I never said and doing things I never did, and we are back to Song of the South yet again. (Jazzy obviously HAS seen it and knows how racist a film it isn't.) Anybody who knows the picture knows that the crisis comes when the child's city-born mother wants to send Uncle Remus away, exactly what the P.C bunch wants, and the multiple ironies in this phony debate start right there. But what's the use? Being better than country folks is so rewarding. Nobody's about to give it up just to make sense. What this thread shows is a society that values symbols over realities. Burning a flag is worse than attacking the American Constitution, etc, etc. Can't we put all this posturing to one side, agree on how to behave, and then behave that way? It worked for our parents. How do you like the serial, Andy? |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| AndyFish | Jul 8 2010, 07:08 AM Post #2031 |
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Movie Watcha Foist Class
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The first Chapter was pretty good. I'm a sucker for Chinatown mysteries though, and Buster Crabbe is one of my favorite B-Actors. The cliffhanger ending was pretty original. Overall I'd put it on par with Dick Tracy-- and actually Crabbe would have been a good Tracy--he's got the profile for it. I'm going to try to stay to two chapters a week, Tuesdays and Saturdays. |
| www.andytfish.com | |
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| CliffClaven | Jul 8 2010, 03:14 PM Post #2032 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Panzer: As the shoe does not fit, please don't stick your foot in it. I didn't intend to label anyone present a boor; I was recalling some specific real-life instances a little too emphatically. Your initial observations were legitimate and your posts historically show a high level of intelligence and decency. Point is, a lot of stuff that shouldn't be offensive IS because symbols, like it or not, carry weight. Many in this thread are quite logically upset that symbols often overshadow substance in public and private discourse. But unfortunately many symbols are the harbingers of substance, whether it's a jerk gauging how crudely he can proposition the waitress or a politician modulating his level of pandering (always seeking that "I'm sorry you were stupid enough to misunderstand me" sweet spot of maximum impact and minimum responsibility/apology). "Jap" is offensive because it was the slur of choice for all of Japanese descent during WWII, and its use equated Japenese-Americans with a foreign enemy and all the wartime stereotypes that went with it. People who still use it tend to be intentionally offensive. The anti-Charlie Chan fanatics seem to be as fictional as the America-hating liberals some public figures love to rail against. Chan was long the poster boy for all negative Asian portrayals, but while I've seen very occasional slams to Chan as a concept, I haven't heard a peep against the films or DVDs. (Would be grateful if anybody could point me to some) Finally, the rap against "Song of the South" is not its portrayal of blacks per se, but of an old south where slaves were happy and content in their slavery (Yes, the movie is set after the Civil War. But the only real indicator is when Uncle Remus is fired and banished -- not being bound to the plantation is presented as a bad thing). Yes, it's not an explicitly racist movie. But it casually embraces what is still a noxious mythology for many, black and white: the old south as a paradise of belles and beaus, where slaves (and poor whites, for that matter) existed to provide labor or comedy relief for their betters, and whose demise at the hands of uncouth and unworthy Yankees marked the end of a great civilization. "Song of the South" is mercifully not in a class with "Gone With the Wind" and other feverish nonsense, but Disney historically recoils from even slightly offending anybody. And they're probably not going to release SOTS unless they're sure they won't end up with fringe "allies" they don't want (which could easily cancel out any major black supporters they line up). |
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| CliffClaven | Jul 11 2010, 11:46 PM Post #2033 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Just finished Green Hornet Strikes Again (VCI version). Pretty good, but here and there they seemed to be carefully setting up stuff and forgetting about it later. This serial opened with a debutante companion for Britt Reid, and she even figures in the cliffhanger. Later a beautiful aluminum heiress figures in two different "rackets". A bit unusual, as most serials have exactly one pretty girl hanging around the office. While neither of these bonus girls was a romantic or even a flirting interest, they met all the standards for most serial heroines: show up, be decorative, need rescuing. And they seemed to have more interesting dialogue with Reid than Miss Case, the official pretty girl hanging around the office. Miss Case, by the way, was almost one of the boys. Not so much as a "Be Careful, Mr. Reid"; and worse, didn't get kidnapped until near the end (and had to share that with the "comical" Irish sidekick). Also, they gave a couple of the top henchmen interesting stories that were abandoned: One survived the opening ocean liner fire with a changed face and a thirst for revenge. Another was a crooked security guard who became a public hero for defeating the Hornet (when in fact the Hornet blocked his sabotage plot). In the end both were business-as-usual thugs, never referencing the histories that were carefully set up. Speaking of business as usual, the ending was a bit of a letdown. I was fully expecting the chief villain to make a last big attempt to shut down Reid and his newspaper. Instead, he concedes defeat (!) and tries to decamp with the ready cash, leaving you to just sort of wait out most of the final episode. On the plus side, stuff blows up or falls down, and the parade of "rackets" to be busted is more interesting than the usual "I have a new plan to eliminate the hero". (although it did recall Dick Tracy). And to these coke-bottled eyes the print looked just fine. |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Jul 12 2010, 05:18 AM Post #2034 |
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Mouth Breather
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That foot's not in a shoe, it's in my mouth. I overreacted. Sorry. But I still take issue with the notion that Disney's withholding SOS for reasons of sensitivity. My best guess is, they withhold both that pic and So Dear to My Heart because a.) Stix (and townies too) Nix Hix Pix, and b.) kids hate part-cartoon movies: in other words, because neither picture would make big bucks. If they had a financial reason, the Disney behemoth would roar into action and release them, and a little thing like offending what they see as a few professors and other kooks would never get in their way. They tried releasing SOS in the Seventies, and the box office was disappointing, partly, I suppose, because the suits mostly chose small Southern venues, which reflected their own prejudices. Give it a Broadway re-opening and there would have been a lot of free publicity and a reasonable box office. They just didn't have the balls to do that. You correctly state that SOS isn't a big myth-seller along the lines of Gone With the Wind, so let's leave it at that, OK? As jazzy pointed out, there are worse pictures, and nobody gets het up about them. And, about Uncle Remus being sad to leave the only home he knew, well, he was too old to go work in a munitions plant. I grew up in the South, though, and the idea that black folks were still on the plantation in the Nineteen-forties seems a trifle far-fetched. What I do remember is people who were obviously not under anybody's wing, who lived without shoes in unpainted houses that lacked indoor plumbing, which you don't see today, not with people who speak English anyway. Now the thing is urban poverty, and if you're hungry in today's Harlem, you can't go out and shoot a squirrel. If you're cold, you can't go cut some firewood. All you can do is go down to the Welfare Office and enrage conservatives. I'm not big on Green Hornet Strikes Again because it's not even nominally sequential: just short tales woven together none too skilfully. In other words, more a series than a serial -- still have my VHS copy and don't feel the need to replace it. Some cool stock footage, but no script to speak of. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| CliffClaven | Jul 12 2010, 12:35 PM Post #2035 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Doing a coherent story over 12 to 15 weeks is a tough proposition, especially when your audience is a theaterful of restless preteens and you have to compete with a Technicolor Woody Woodpecker and a feature involving Frankenstein or giant insects. Many serials collapse into a cat-and-mouse game of people capturing each other and getting away, usually bouncing between two or three main sets. I appreciate when they have sub-stories that run a few episodes and break up the pattern -- GHSA felt like they intended to do a bit more, but never got beyond reminding us that certain characters had histories. And yes, those recurring newspaper headlines, "_____ RACKET BUSTED" did feel like the tags from a TV series ("How DID you get that story, Clark?"). Here and there somebody does break the mold. The characters in The Phantom spent several episodes running back and forth between "the jungle" and the town as per usual; then all the action up and moved to a desert sheik's stronghold and it was almost a shock for anyone used to the formula. Tim Tyler's Luck actually killed off Tim's father midway through -- usually that sort of thing happens in chapter one, and it's forgotten until near the end when the villain gets punished for it. And the first Tailspin Tommy was almost a pack of shorter freestanding serials, including a brief encounter with a mad scientist and a stint in Hollywood. |
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| Laughing Gravy | Jul 12 2010, 01:48 PM Post #2036 |
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Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
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"12 Super Chapters Packed with Wild Thrills!" arrived today, courtesy of Trev: "Gordon of Ghost City". Thanks, Trev! I will duly report back on it. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| Pa Stark | Jul 20 2010, 08:52 PM Post #2037 |
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Charter Member
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I'm halfway through WOLF DOG, which is the rarest sound Mascot serial. It is not bad, and George J. Lewis gives a very enthusiastic performance as the hero. Unfortunatly is a very choppy print. Does anyone know of a good print floating around. |
| Honest and Lovable Pa Stark | |
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| Don Diego | Jul 21 2010, 07:12 AM Post #2038 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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I too am watching Trevor's great print of Gordon of Ghost City |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Jul 26 2010, 10:02 AM Post #2039 |
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Mouth Breather
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It's much better than anything I've seen before on this title. Something better might may turn up someday, but at my age someday may not show up in time. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| toddgault | Sep 1 2010, 08:20 AM Post #2040 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Young Eagles came in the mail today from NetFlix. I was surprised, as I was expecting Disc 2 of the second season of the Sarah Jane Adventures. Have it sitting on my desk, but haven't actually taken it out of it's sleeve and started watching it yet. Think I might finish watching The Vanishing Shadow on Archive.org this weekend first. |
| Todd Gault..........Serial Buff | |
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6:52 AM Jul 11