#269: Geek Nostalgia, Part 2

[Mindcrime]

I’m sorry…I wholeheartedly disagree with the three of you in re: to Smokey and the Bandit/Cannonball Run and the racism/sexist undertones.

First of all…I think the racial tones of the Smokey and the Bandit movies were played more as a ‘don’t be this’ type of thing. It was played in such an ‘Archie Bunker’ sort of way that shone SERIOUS light on just how ‘off’ the character is. He was the 1970’s stereotypical small town sheriff…and he ate the role up. That isn’t to say that the n-bomb, or calling Sheriff Branford ‘Boy’ was ok…but look at the way that S&B handled the role of the black sheriff (Branford). He had probably the most eloquent vocabulary (“we’re apprised of the situation”, the fact that you are a sheriff isn’t germaine to the situation (Setting up the classic line “The God D*mned Germans got nothin to do with it”. )) of anyone else in the movie. In fact it could be said if anything the film was more racist toward white people than minorities as most of the characters (with the exception of Reynolds, Field, and Reed) were played 1-dimensional and in the case of law enforcement flat out stupid.

As to the greater conversation of misogyny that you spoke of during the cast. I am sorry but I find a lot of that unfounded too. While it’s apparent that there is misogyny in films and series…(with the idea that ‘sex sells’…) I think it’s a problem today when used in an exploitive manner…but (as in the case of Mad Men) when it’s used to accurately potray a period or TYPE of personality that if it wasn’t there would render the performance inaccurate…then that is something that we should aspire to hopefully to show that it’s a foreign concept and not something we should be looking to copy/emulate or aspire to.

Racism and Misogyny are wrong…but so are the reverse of those treated at men or other races as some sort of ‘recompense’ for those wrongs…if we start potraying all Southerners as racists, and all men as ‘wife beaters’…we’re the same as those who did the opposite in times past. Just my opinion.

[Pike]

Racism and Misogyny are wrong…but so are the reverse of those treated at men or other races as some sort of ‘recompense’ for those wrongs…if we start potraying all Southerners as racists, and all men as ‘wife beaters’…we’re the same as those who did the opposite in times past. Just my opinion.

It’s a tricky situation, because there is a layer of ‘your entire kind has been held back,’ which demands recompense. But the flipside is that the people in the majority population who aren’t part of the oligarchy are going to be the ones paying the price for that recompense. The senator’s daughter is getting into Harvard, regardless.

[Tom]

I’m sorry…I wholeheartedly disagree with the three of you in re: to Smokey and the Bandit/Cannonball Run and the racism/sexist undertones.

I couldn’t agree more. I don’t remember much about Cannonball run (except that it had Jackie Chan in it) but Smokey and the Bandit was not racist.
Yes it had racial under tones, but so does the world we live in. In fact I remember as a kid seeing the scene where Jerry Reed get’s his ass kicked by white bikers after which his black friend brings him his food and some words of comfort. I remember thinking “Wow the Snowman is cool bcause he’s not a racist”.
All the truckers (including women and minorities) joined together to “stick it to the man”. (whitey)

[WV_Lou]

First of all…I think the racial tones of the Smokey and the Bandit movies were played more as a ‘don’t be this’ type of thing. It was played in such an ‘Archie Bunker’ sort of way that shone SERIOUS light on just how ‘off’ the character is…[snipped]…Racism and Misogyny are wrong…but so are the reverse of those treated at men or other races as some sort of ‘recompense’ for those wrongs…if we start potraying all Southerners as racists, and all men as ‘wife beaters’…we’re the same as those who did the opposite in times past. Just my opinion.

I couldn’t agree more. I don’t remember much about Cannonball run (except that it had Jackie Chan in it) but Smokey and the Bandit was not racist.
Yes it had racial under tones, but so does the world we live in. In fact I remember as a kid seeing the scene where Jerry Reed get’s his ass kicked by white bikers after which his black friend brings him his food and some words of comfort. I remember thinking “Wow the Snowman is cool bcause he’s not a racist”.
All the truckers (including women and minorities) joined together to “stick it to the man”. (whitey)

I agree that in historical portraits, it is wrong to try to “fix” the past. For me a case in point is the Mel Gibson movie “The Patriot,” which portrays slave owners and slaves as becoming pals by the end of the war. There might have been a few cases of that, but the history of the south after the Revolutionary War went in a very different direction than the movie suggests.

And I agree with the basic point that Cannonball and Smokey did not celebrate racism. Smokey, Snowman, and JJ dislike racists and are friends with African Americans. The movies portrayed racists like Sheriff Buford as ignorant. But I also think they were playing both sides just like Archie Bunker, who drew a lot of viewers who agreed with him. Having the lovable but curmudgeonly Jackie Gleason play Buford seems to make the racism more “acceptable” and light hearted.

Likewise, I would say that Jackie Chan and his partner are unfortunate Asian stereotypes. Chan being the martial arts guy and his partner being the science wiz. And they’re not terribly flattering portraits (then again neither are most of the characters in the movie but there is the question of who is the dominant group in society).

I am able to watch and enjoy these movies through a sort of “filter,” but I probably would not show them to children whose notions of difference are still forming.