Mary Poppins film age rating raised

Cranky

fretmeister said:

Pjon said:

Philly_Q said:

But that's not what they're doing in re-certifying or giving audience warnings on older films.  It's not rewriting history, it's reappraising historical attitudes and norms from a modern perspective.  Everyone else in the world does not have to conform to your perspective.  These changes are not an attack on you.  Young people have grown up with "modern PC standards" and "the latest PC ideology".  For them, the language and social norms of 50 or 60 years ago may require some prior explanation... or warning.

Hasn't every generation grown up with different attitudes and social mores to their parents, and these change through their lifetimes anyway? What doesn't seem to have happened previously is the hand-wringing about how terrible things were before and that we might need warnings that older people thought/think differently.

It does make me laugh when I spot a warning before some terrible 70s sit-com that it contains language and attitudes of the time. No shit Sherlock!  Can't say I get enraged about it though.

Of course, in a few decades current attitudes will have changed. I often wonder what things are currently acceptable that will be verboten by the time I die?

Yeah - but you are not 20 & not been exposed to quite vile levels of bigoty being passed off as entertainment. Instead you are older and you've seen the progress first hand.

Now think like a kid who has never seen someone being treated differently because of skin colour / sexuality etc as comedy (well crafted drama is obviously different). That generates a massive WTF moment.

I see it in my kids generation (18-21). Person A points and says "That's the person I went on a date with"... Person B says "The guy or the girl?"...

They just find it inconceivable that someone might actually be beaten and murdered for their sexuality.
I'm thrilled they are outraged by what happened before. It gives me hope.

I don't think warnings are a bad thing in any way. It is a warning of something outside of personal experience that might be frightening / disgusting / / upsetting / whatever... when I did Inquest Work do you think I wouldn't give a warning before showing someone photos from a fatal accident? To label all the possibilities as a warning about being "offensive" is nonsense. Upsetting is a better description. Those warnings have been on crime programs for decades, why not on others that can cause similar reactions? Swearing warnings have been on TV for some films for even longer. When "Primary Colours" was first shown on C4 they gave a "This contains the worst swear words in English, starting from the first minute in the film...." then they had an advert, and then repeated the warning again! People still wrote in and complained about the language!

Having a warning does nothing for or against those who don't need the warning, and just might be really important for those that need a warning. A little empathy goes a long way.

Overall though - I find it amazing that some people are more enraged by a warning than about the film / tv show itself. They've got it backwards.

Huge wiz, friend.  So well said.

I think Timcito might need to get out of Florida

Vintage65

Kill Your Television!

Timcito

darthed1981 said:

There is a mildly racist portrayal of the Egyptian boat manager in Death on the Nile if I remember correctly.

Nothing in Ustinovs performance as Poirot plays as racist to me, he is simply eccentric.

The recent Poirot movies with Ken Branagh dial back the eccentricity a bit, but that's more down to their darker tone.

Albert Finney goes all in as Poirot of course, but again that could just as easily be an eccentric English man with a different accent.

One of our dinosaurs... which has White actors made up as Chinese people in Chinese outfits, very bad Chinese accents, and the Chinese being endlessly two-faced, another racist stereotype, isn't in the same ball park.  They also all do kung-fu and Ustinov makes an odd noise like a cat all the time.

Fair enough. I was just wondering how far the 'damaging stereotype' thing would extend. We all get the pitchforks out if it's something obviously Asian or African, but the same syndrome does seem to play out in perhaps less noticed forms. I think there is an undeniable 'weird frog' element in Poirot, all the way down to the 'greasy European' moustache that certainly Albert Finney wore. Wasn't part of Poirot's unlikely hero thing in part due to his eccentric foreignness, just as part of Columbo's unlikeliness was in his bumbling, scruffy, and innocent-sounding demeanour? But for some reason, many of us shrug off a character like Poirot yet bristle with outrage at Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu.

Philly_Q

^^ If you really want to get into the case of Poirot specifically, he himself is largely putting on an act as an "eccentric foreigner".  I believe it's mentioned in the books that he plays up his Belgian accent and poor English to disarm people, and in one of the later books it is, I think, confirmed that he wears a hairpiece and false moustache, at least in old age.  So the Poirot actors are playing a character, playing a character, which I think gives licence to ham it up as much as they wish.

VimFuego

Timcito said:

darthed1981 said:

There is a mildly racist portrayal of the Egyptian boat manager in Death on the Nile if I remember correctly.

Nothing in Ustinovs performance as Poirot plays as racist to me, he is simply eccentric.

The recent Poirot movies with Ken Branagh dial back the eccentricity a bit, but that's more down to their darker tone.

Albert Finney goes all in as Poirot of course, but again that could just as easily be an eccentric English man with a different accent.

One of our dinosaurs... which has White actors made up as Chinese people in Chinese outfits, very bad Chinese accents, and the Chinese being endlessly two-faced, another racist stereotype, isn't in the same ball park.  They also all do kung-fu and Ustinov makes an odd noise like a cat all the time.

Fair enough. I was just wondering how far the 'damaging stereotype' thing would extend. We all get the pitchforks out if it's something obviously Asian or African, but the same syndrome does seem to play out in perhaps less noticed forms. I think there is an undeniable 'weird frog' element in Poirot, all the way down to the 'greasy European' moustache that certainly Albert Finney wore. Wasn't part of Poirot's unlikely hero thing in part due to his eccentric foreignness, just as part of Columbo's unlikeliness was in his bumbling, scruffy, and innocent-sounding demeanour? But for some reason, many of us shrug off a character like Poirot yet bristle with outrage at Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu.

and now we have whataboutery. Keep up the good work there fella.

BillDL

I am outraged when I watch the ridiculous and insulting sterotyping by the cartoon character Speedy Gonzalez.  As for Pepé Le Pew's exaggerated "Frenchness", well that just goes beyond what is acceptable in 2024.  The ridiculing of people with speech impediments by Sylvester the cat, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Buggs Bunny, Tweety Bird (lisp, stutter/stammer, lisp, rhotacism, dysfluece, rhotacism respectively), is inexcusable.  In fact, "Looney Tunes" is very insulting to people with mental health issues ...... hold up, maybe it's actually "inclusive" and acceptable?  Hmmm.  I need to stop thinking so deeply about this and just enjoy watching characters like a red-bearded angry man from Yosemite shooting at rabbits and robbing trains.

Sporky

And mischaracterisation. Is anyone in the thread (apart from Florida Man) actually "bristling with outrage"? 

darthed1981

Timcito said:

darthed1981 said:

There is a mildly racist portrayal of the Egyptian boat manager in Death on the Nile if I remember correctly.

Nothing in Ustinovs performance as Poirot plays as racist to me, he is simply eccentric.

The recent Poirot movies with Ken Branagh dial back the eccentricity a bit, but that's more down to their darker tone.

Albert Finney goes all in as Poirot of course, but again that could just as easily be an eccentric English man with a different accent.

One of our dinosaurs... which has White actors made up as Chinese people in Chinese outfits, very bad Chinese accents, and the Chinese being endlessly two-faced, another racist stereotype, isn't in the same ball park.  They also all do kung-fu and Ustinov makes an odd noise like a cat all the time.

Fair enough. I was just wondering how far the 'damaging stereotype' thing would extend. We all get the pitchforks out if it's something obviously Asian or African, but the same syndrome does seem to play out in perhaps less noticed forms. I think there is an undeniable 'weird frog' element in Poirot, all the way down to the 'greasy European' moustache that certainly Albert Finney wore. Wasn't part of Poirot's unlikely hero thing in part due to his eccentric foreignness, just as part of Columbo's unlikeliness was in his bumbling, scruffy, and innocent-sounding demeanour? But for some reason, many of us shrug off a character like Poirot yet bristle with outrage at Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu.

As I said, Finney went all in on the eccentricity - but nothing about him says "stereotypical Belgian" - what is a Belgian stereotype anyway?

Albert Finney's choice to chew the scenery is in line with the film he is in - it's full of HUGE performances from genuinely legendary actors - his performance is to stand out when opposite Lauren Bacall, nothing to do with race or nationality.

The thing to remember is that Poirot uses his eccentricity to get the best of the stuffy English aristocracy and nouveau-riche whom he tends to mix with.  Essentially, he uses their xenophobia against them.  The nicer or more honourable characters simply recognise him as a brilliant man in pursuit of justice.

In that way of course, he's a lot like Miss Marple - people underestimate her because she is an old lady, to their detriment, it's just one of Agatha Christie's tricks.

Incidentally, as far as I recall, Poirot in the books is much more like David Suchet's portrayal in the TV show than Finney's or indeed Ustinov's.

Of course - going back to the OP - the Poirot films are all about murder, so should be at least PG anyway, and we are simply talking about a classification here.

Kurtis

ALL lives matter!!


Belgium?! Africa, China?! 


Sheesh...i say, SHAHEEEESH!!

bertie

and what about all the free advertising Acme  got

Timcito

Philly_Q said:

^^ If you really want to get into the case of Poirot specifically, he himself is largely putting on an act as an "eccentric foreigner".  I believe it's mentioned in the books that he plays up his Belgian accent and poor English to disarm people, and in one of the later books it is, I think, confirmed that he wears a hairpiece and false moustache, at least in old age.  So the Poirot actors are playing a character, playing a character, which I think gives licence to ham it up as much as they wish.

I don't 'really want to get into' anything. I'm just suggesting an idea which may be interesting, that's all.

Sporky

darthed1981 said:

Incidentally, as far as I recall, Poirot in the books is much more like David Suchet's portrayal in the TV show than Finney's or indeed Ustinov's.

Only Branagh got the moustache right though - it's meant to be huge and bushy. In that regard, Suchet looks like a slug-balancer.

darthed1981

Sporky said:

darthed1981 said:

Incidentally, as far as I recall, Poirot in the books is much more like David Suchet's portrayal in the TV show than Finney's or indeed Ustinov's.

Only Branagh got the moustache right though - it's meant to be huge and bushy. In that regard, Suchet looks like a slug-balancer.

Yes - shame he messed up the end of Orient Express so bad!  Nile and Venice were both excellent films.

Of course, that's an actually interesting comparison... spoilers for an 80yr old story...

In the Finney classic, at the end, all the conspirators drink champagne and celebrate getting away with the murder of the child killing asshole... fine with me... but not really a modern sensibility.

In the remake, they all have agonising moral qualms, and although Michelle Pfeiffer does a great job of trying to sell it - but it doesn't work.

Also... how sure were they there were no other trains coming when they put a table across a tunnel mouth and put their backs to the tunnel? 

Sporky

I still really enjoyed his version of Orient Express. I've not seen the others yet, but will.

BillDL

Sporky said:

........ slug-balancer.

LOL! I've never heard that one.

Sporky

BillDL said:

Sporky said:

........ slug-balancer.

LOL! I've never heard that one.

I think I stole it from Blackadder Goes Forth.

VimFuego

Bob, take a telegram. "To Mr. C. Chaplin, Sennet Studios, Hollywood, California. Congrats stop. Have found only person in world less funny than you stop. Name: Baldrick stop. Signed, E. Blackadder stop". Oh, and put a P.S.: "Please, please, please... stop."

darthed1981

Sporky said:

I still really enjoyed his version of Orient Express. I've not seen the others yet, but will.

Me too - my brother who is a hardcore mystery novel fan - hated it - but I enjoyed it, as with the original the cast were excellent.

My favourite of the three was definitely the newest, Nile is a fine movie though as well.

Enjoy

darthed1981

Things are so much nicer in here now that it's turned into a Poirot thread!!

Philly_Q

darthed1981 said:

Things are so much nicer in here now that it's turned into a Poirot thread!!

Well, let's get it heated up again... I think the three Branagh Poirot films are absolute shite.



(But perfectly watchable shite, they're not the kind of shite which makes me turn them off before the end.)