Thursday, August 11, 2011

That Guy in the Seat Behind You Who Won't Shut the Fuck Up

Walrus Todd Huston:
Remember back in the early 1960s when blacks could get any job they wanted in the American airline industry? Oh, and remember back then how no one smoked cuz it was really, really bad for you and stuff? Yeah. No one else does, either. Well, maybe not no one. Big Three Network ABC seems to remember it because that is how they are envisaging how the world worked back in 1963 for its new TV series about airline stewardesses entitled “Pan Am.”

In yet another example of Hollywood PCism run amok, producers, we are told, “admitted” that studio execs at ABC-Disney nixed any chance that the show’s characters or extras would be smoking during the series even though the historical fact is that the bulk of the adult population of 1960s America smoked.
EVEN WORSE!
That isn’t the only whitewashing going on either — literally. There is a worse disconnection from our history that is happening on this show. The series also intends to feature black employees as stewardesses (at least if not in other positions as the series goes forward) and that is also an historical fantasy.
IT IS AN HISTORICAL FANTASY!
Now, we all wish that history was different in many instances. I am sure that Jews everywhere would love it if the Holocaust had never occurred. So would the rest of us. But the fact is that it did. Pretending that the vexing things from history did not happen is a childish game of avoiding truth.
And when has Hollywood ever been about pretending?

21 comments:

Smut Clyde said...

the historical fact is that the bulk of the adult population of 1960s America smoked.

For values of "the bulk" that include "40%".

Brando said...

I agree with the walrus. We need a return to realistic shows about the 60s like Leave It to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, Father Knows Best, etc.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

I have historical fantasies about stewardesses.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

That's flight attendant, you pig!


More coffee, sir?

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

You're in luck, Brando.
~

Substance McGravitas said...

The Munsters ignored reality because nobody was as stupid-looking as Fred Gwynne.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

Leave it to Beaver was a lie. Everyone knows you can't be too hard on the Beav.

Smut Clyde said...

AN HISTORICAL FANTASY!

I do so hate that 'an' misuse. It's a classic hypercorrection. Did Church write "AN History of the English-Speaking Peoples"? I THINK NOT.

Substance McGravitas said...

I do so hate that 'an' misuse.

That was just for you. Forgot the blink tag.

tigris said...

The Munsters ignored reality because nobody was as stupid-looking as Fred Gwynne.

Oh c'mon, that guy in "Car 54, Where Are You?" looked at least as dumb.

Substance McGravitas said...

Nobody was as stupid-looking as Joe E. Ross either. Ernest Borgnine? Latex on chicken-wire.

Smut Clyde said...

YOU ARE JUST BEING CLASSIST

Just saying, Mr Walrus has forfeited his invitation to join the dons at the High Table.

Ernest Borgnine? Latex on chicken-wire.
I liked him in RED.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

The Munsters ignored reality because nobody was as stupid-looking as Fred Gwynne.

The Addams Family was realistic because Uncle Fester had teh sexxay bald head.

mikey said...

Billy Mumy weeps....

M. Bouffant said...

Sez the Walrus: nixed any chance that the show’s characters or extras would be smoking during the series

Sez whence he copped his outrage, which I had already perused (Don't for a moment think I would have clicked to the Walrus, but I remembered this.): “It’s understandable,” Executive Producer Tommy Schlamme told EW. “It’s an enormous impressionable element. It’s the one revisionist cheat.” Some background actors will be seen holding cigarettes on and off the planes, Schlamme said, but not the stars when the drama debuts Sept. 25.

I s'pose "holding" doesn't quite count as smoking, but really, Walrus?

And Car 54 is on the air here. They are all ugly fucking pigs.

Hamish Mack said...

Well, I have to admit, I cannot watch Madmen because of all the damn smoking. Weird, I grew up surrounded by smokers but now I can't even watch it.

Kia Ora capcha 'hareake'

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

Sorry for the OT McGravitas, but I think you might enjoy this observation.

duck-billed placelot said...

Won't having black stewardesses/other airline employees be ok or not ok depending on how they're scripted? I mean, if they're cast so as to erase an historical racism which is never addressed in the show, then...that's a problem, isn't it? Like we need anymore idealization of the Golden (Racist/Misogynist) Era of America.

tigris said...

Apparently the first black stewardess was hired in 1957, and a women who'd not been hired because of her race won a discrimination court case in 1960, raising the odds that such discrimination could become expensive, so it's not totally ahistorical fantasy. Still, since when have people expected DISNEY to remain true to either reality or source material?

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

In yet another example of Hollywood PCism run amok,

I thought most Hollywood Liberal types used Macs?

Smut Clyde said...

whitewashing [...] literally.

It must be a tradition, or an old charter, or something. "Literally" must always be used to show that the author is particularly proud of a metaphor.