The culture shift is stark sometimes when you watch old stuff.
On the other hand, don’t let them turn that into an excuse. You know what dealt with trans rights in a pretty honest, raw, and understanding way, in the mid 1980s? Fucking Hill Street Blues. One of the cops gets together with a woman, he’s happy to be with her, and then the other cops start giving him hell for it because she used to be a man. He gets disgusted and angry, goes over to her place, and she lectures him about it and sets him straight, tells him to figure out if he wants to be with her, but don’t try to turn who I am into some kind of thing I did to you, or make me feel bad about it. He sort of accepts it, because she clearly has a point, and that’s the end of the episode.
Night Court did the same thing. The assistant D.A., Dan, has an old buddy who visits after many years and turns out they transitioned and have a boyfriend. Dan is stunned because they used to party and womanize together, but his friend said he was never actually into it. At one point Dan argues with the new boyfriend and says, “He used to be a guy!” Boyfriend says it doesn’t matter. He loves her. That episode really stuck with me, watching it as a kid.
I was going to mention this. I started watching the old night court when the new one started airing and was blown away at how well they handled that episode given the time period.
Watched Ace Ventura a few years ago for the first time since I was a kid. I remembered the whole trans reveal thing. Never put together as a kid they were implying that it was part of that character being mentally ill and completely forgot about Ace and the cops freaking out after finding out.
In the 60s, if you were a man in a movie, you could hit women if they were getting crazy, to set them straight.
In the 80s, the heroes of movies could commit rape (Revenge of the Nerds) or child molestation (Indiana Jones) and still be the heroes of the movies.
In the 90s, the simple fact of a character being gay, or God forbid trans, was its own comedic element, without anything additional needing to be added.
I like retrospective threads like this. Puts things in perspective. Growing up under conditions like that, it would have been weird if I hadn’t repressed my gender identity. Pity things couldn’t have changed earlier, and let me realize sooner.
Yeah, I had a pretty sheltered childhood because I remember lots of good shows with a lot less of those issues. I watched a lot of sci-fi though, which IME tends to be a bit more forward-thinking. Not super surprising if you think about it
Doctor who had every type of queer back in the mid-late 2000s. From a trans “last human” to lesbian aliens
There’s enough examples of positive trans or otherwise characters in Doctor Who that it should be fine. You should be able to use queer characters as villains so long as them being queer isn’t part of their motivation.
I just dislike/am suspicious of a trans character whose main traits are that she is duplicitous and obsessed with unnecessary cosmetic surgeries. I’m not anti queer villains, but I bristle at stereotypes about queer individuals being used as their villainous traits.
The culture shift is stark sometimes when you watch old stuff.
On the other hand, don’t let them turn that into an excuse. You know what dealt with trans rights in a pretty honest, raw, and understanding way, in the mid 1980s? Fucking Hill Street Blues. One of the cops gets together with a woman, he’s happy to be with her, and then the other cops start giving him hell for it because she used to be a man. He gets disgusted and angry, goes over to her place, and she lectures him about it and sets him straight, tells him to figure out if he wants to be with her, but don’t try to turn who I am into some kind of thing I did to you, or make me feel bad about it. He sort of accepts it, because she clearly has a point, and that’s the end of the episode.
Hill Street Blues, man.
Night Court did the same thing. The assistant D.A., Dan, has an old buddy who visits after many years and turns out they transitioned and have a boyfriend. Dan is stunned because they used to party and womanize together, but his friend said he was never actually into it. At one point Dan argues with the new boyfriend and says, “He used to be a guy!” Boyfriend says it doesn’t matter. He loves her. That episode really stuck with me, watching it as a kid.
I was going to mention this. I started watching the old night court when the new one started airing and was blown away at how well they handled that episode given the time period.
Watched Ace Ventura a few years ago for the first time since I was a kid. I remembered the whole trans reveal thing. Never put together as a kid they were implying that it was part of that character being mentally ill and completely forgot about Ace and the cops freaking out after finding out.
Yeah. It’s absolutely nuts.
In the 60s, if you were a man in a movie, you could hit women if they were getting crazy, to set them straight.
In the 80s, the heroes of movies could commit rape (Revenge of the Nerds) or child molestation (Indiana Jones) and still be the heroes of the movies.
In the 90s, the simple fact of a character being gay, or God forbid trans, was its own comedic element, without anything additional needing to be added.
Things have changed. Like changed a lot.
I like retrospective threads like this. Puts things in perspective. Growing up under conditions like that, it would have been weird if I hadn’t repressed my gender identity. Pity things couldn’t have changed earlier, and let me realize sooner.
God damn those nerds were rapey
In Pinto’s defense he did, after some soul searching, decide not to fuck the passed-out girl. Congrats, Pinto.
There’s a reason that most people consider the squeal to be the better movie.
Yeah, I had a pretty sheltered childhood because I remember lots of good shows with a lot less of those issues. I watched a lot of sci-fi though, which IME tends to be a bit more forward-thinking. Not super surprising if you think about it
Doctor who had every type of queer back in the mid-late 2000s. From a trans “last human” to lesbian aliens
Wait, that “bitchy trampoline” was trans? How is that even possible with so few body parts left?
In her introduction episode she makes reference to “when I was a little boy”
She’s also a conwoman, which is kinda unfortunate and ties into upsetting stereotypes and tropes.
There’s enough examples of positive trans or otherwise characters in Doctor Who that it should be fine. You should be able to use queer characters as villains so long as them being queer isn’t part of their motivation.
I just dislike/am suspicious of a trans character whose main traits are that she is duplicitous and obsessed with unnecessary cosmetic surgeries. I’m not anti queer villains, but I bristle at stereotypes about queer individuals being used as their villainous traits.
There’s still weird shit on tv. For obvious reasons, I haven’t seen much Big Bang Theory, but that show has some weird, casual sexism.
One of Al Pacino’s best movies, Dog Day Afternoon, is still a very relevant movie to this day and was released in 1975.
David Milch the creator of the Deadwood series wrote and produced several episodes of Hill Street Blues.