Which parts of past pop culture are kinda cringeworthy when viewed today?
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There have been long debates in the past over whether a work of art can be separated from its artist if that artist is a terrible person. There have been many popular movies, songs, books, and other assorted pieces of culture which have been created by peoplWhich parts of past pop culture are kinda cringeworthy when viewed today?
There have been long debates in the past over whether a work of art can be separated from its artist if that artist is a terrible person. There have been many popular movies, songs, books, and other assorted pieces of culture which have been created by people who have done and believed awful things. Does it shade the work and taint it? This dynamic has long been at the heart of any film made by Roman Polanski post 1977. Polanski has directed some of the greatest films ever made. But he also plead guilty to raping a 13-year-old girl and then fled the United States. This has been the basis to all sorts of moral arguments over whether the man’s actions can be separated from films like The Pianist, and if the actors working with Polanski, the industry which bankrolls his productions, and the audiences who still watch his films are condoning horrible behavior. However, what if the issue is not the artist? What if it’s the art itself? And to this end, maybe the reverse of the above is possible. Can a culture’s faults taint a “classic” piece of art for future generations? Time marches on. And so does a culture’s viewpoints on myriad issues. There are many examples of popular works which when viewed today have aspects which would never be tolerated by current standards. These might be movies or books people enjoyed as children, and then as an adult there might be one line or scene where it’s like: “Hey, I can’t believe that’s actually in there.” Or maybe the characters and their characterizations are depicted in ways which may or may not have seemed sexist or racist at the time, but have rather unfortunate implications when analyzed today. These works can be viewed as a window into the time period in which they were created, and the norms and attitudes which dominated at the time of production. So I thought it might be interesting to ask which films, TV shows, pieces of literature, etc., have elements which are cringeworthy? Read more