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Post by profh0011 on Sept 21, 2021 18:35:56 GMT -5
I think we got out first push-button phone sometime in the 70s. EVEN that far back, I was THRILLED to no longer have to use a freakin' DIAL!!
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Post by profh0011 on Sept 21, 2021 18:43:43 GMT -5
"Why do you need pictures at all to read, if you need pictures you must be illiterate!" I had this complaint hurled at me so many times when I was younger and people found out I read comics or enjoyed illustrated prose. It's not an objective criticism at all but a matter of preference and bias, as is your dismissal of complaints about the wordiness of earlier comics by contemporary readers. And since bias can affect the experience of anything, it can hinder one's enjoyment of comics form an earlier era quite easily. "If you do nothing but watch TV or movies, YOU MUST BE ILLITERATE!"
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Post by Batflunkie on Sept 21, 2021 19:12:46 GMT -5
I think its a matter of some having a generational bias and a closed mind, like moviegoers I recall from the 80s saying they could not get into or even appreciate films of the 1930s or earlier. Personally,I never had an issue with thoroughly enjoying work created several decades before I was born--including comics. I'm with you there. There are young(er) people who simply will not watch a black and white movie, for instance. To them it's simply unwatchable, unthinkable even, that anyone could or would film a movie in black and white. I was lucky to have grown up without color TV and in an era when much of the programming on weekends conssited of the movies of the 30s and 40s; I wound up loving black and white movies. I always showed David Lean's "Great Expectations" and Hitchcock's "Rebecca" to ninth graders after they'd read the novels; I'm not going to say that they all became b&w aficionados, but as with any other art form, once they'd been introduced to them and realized the strengths of filming in b&w, they realized that they were not something to be feared and loathed. The only films that I have trouble with are Silent era ones and most of that has to do with the delayed speech and the subtitle card. I'm fine with English dubbed movies however It's not illiteracy if someone doesn't want to read pages and pages of clunky exposition and bombastic cheesy dialogue squeezed into every blank space on the page. I personally want comics to be comics, not prose with illustration. Obviously, there is a lot of room for variation there, and some were better than others, but you are saying you accept there are different sensibilities and then dismissing them in the next breath. I can't speak to all comics, so I will just go with what I know. It's not just the style of comics that has changed, but the cultural context, too, in a lot of cases. Early Marvel stuff has a lot of misogyny and whizz bam POP Zap Pow dialogue that just feels very campy in 2021. Doesn't mean there weren't some great stories, but it can be hard for a modern reader used to more contemporary and realistic dialogue and modern cultural awareness to go back and read that stuff. To say nothing of how different society is from before the huge technology boom in the 80s to now. Again, not that it's not possible to get into it, but it can be a lot to get past. As for the wordy thing, I came up on 80s and 90s X-MEN, so written by Claremont. Calling that stuff wordy was underselling it. It was so, so much exposition, thought bubbles, dialogue, and a lot of it repetitive and clunky. I understand the thinking of "every issue is somebody's first" so having some explanations can be convenient, but it got exhausting reading every character describe their own powers to themselves or anyone who is listening every single issue, not mention the clunky dialogue that he never quite updated with the times. That said, while he was very verbose, often needlessly so, he was also pretty good at prose when he was in his prime, and some of his long setups were pretty good. He was definitely the best at his style that I've read, so when he was removed from the X-Books and other people copied his style but weren't as good at it, it was excruciating to read. I know not all classic writers are Chris Claremont, and not even all Claremont is equal, but comics from that era can be a damn chore to get through, and when it's more a tedious slog than a fun escapist adventure, they tend to lose my interest. I think this phenomenon is more apparent in video games, too, with how fast technology advances. There is stuff in the early 3D era that was revolutionary at its time that I enjoyed, but coming from modern advances and expectations, trying to play it now is painful. It's funny, I don't like excessively wordy stuff, but then again I love Howard The Duck #16 to death as well as #8
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Post by tonebone on Sept 22, 2021 7:48:46 GMT -5
It doesn't make them inherently bad, but they're not relatable to the generation that grew up with all digital everything. I did not have to grow up in the Old West to find the era-specific struggles relatable. Life and the continuing threads of creation are not sectioned off by generation, and if they are, its due to the conscious, myopic beliefs of the creators (e.g., like some behind many 1990s comics, who were all about what they thought were trendy hairstyles, slang and expressions, often at the expense of other types of people...and that crap got old in the same decade).
By no means was I around during the Mafia wars of the 1920s and 30s, did not exist at the time of Prohibition or speakeasies, yet films about those subjects and produced in that era are still entertaining and the character situations understandable. Art would have died centuries ago, if every new generation completely cut off art of/from the former as being "archaic", "old" or "not relatable."
Now, you're touching on something interesting. I feel like that is exactly what is happening with younger people, my own (now adult) kids, included. As a young person, I would have no problem watching a Marx Brothers movie (50 + years old) and enjoying it. My kids (and their generation) will RARELY find enjoyment in entertainment produced before their lifetime. It is a shortsightedness that is a byproduct of the instant and constantly evolving entertainment that the internet provides. A video that goes viral is instantly enjoyed, and a week later is "old" and "outdated". That's what fuels the movie REBOOT phenomena. Now, a movie is too old to market when it's 7 years old or so. The Marvel phase 1 movies are now 11 years old. I guarantee there are kids out there that see those as OLD.
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Post by tonebone on Sept 22, 2021 7:50:41 GMT -5
A few weeks back, one of my home care clients asked me, "Don't you watch anything NEW?"
I've been buying (and ENJOYING THE HELL OUT OF) a number of SILENT films, several of which are from other countries.
I've also just gotten 3 films from the 1930s that also came from other countries, so, like the silents, I had to READ the subtitles on those, too.
One of them was one of the FUNNIEST films I've seen all year.
Likewise, I was laughing my ass off at a reprint of the original Mad comics stories. I was cracking up at a 70 year old comic, as fresh as the day it was created.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2021 7:52:46 GMT -5
An article posted by Robert Beerbohm recently from '68 showing how the "reading comics means your stupid and illiterate" barbs got out of hand... -M
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Post by tonebone on Sept 22, 2021 8:22:53 GMT -5
I grew up watching movies made decades before I was born. Yeah, I think most people in their 50s or so and older had that experience and I'm really grateful we did. But I think this changed in ther 1980s when videotapes and VCR machines became widespread. From then on, people could see new movies pretty much when they wanted, so there was less incentive for them to watch old ones on tv like our generation used to do when we were growing up. So I think after a certain point, young people didn't have that same exposure and thus didn't develop the same kind of open-mindedness towards older movies and tv shows. I'm sorry, but kids today have access to anything ever created. The have to just type it in a search bar, use an app on the tv, etc. Lack of access/exposure is not the issue.
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Post by tonebone on Sept 22, 2021 8:24:58 GMT -5
An article posted by Robert Beerbohm recently from '68 showing how the "reading comics means your stupid and illiterate" barbs got out of hand... -M I would imagine it was one of these situations.....
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Post by badwolf on Sept 22, 2021 9:11:18 GMT -5
I did not have to grow up in the Old West to find the era-specific struggles relatable. Life and the continuing threads of creation are not sectioned off by generation, and if they are, its due to the conscious, myopic beliefs of the creators (e.g., like some behind many 1990s comics, who were all about what they thought were trendy hairstyles, slang and expressions, often at the expense of other types of people...and that crap got old in the same decade).
By no means was I around during the Mafia wars of the 1920s and 30s, did not exist at the time of Prohibition or speakeasies, yet films about those subjects and produced in that era are still entertaining and the character situations understandable. Art would have died centuries ago, if every new generation completely cut off art of/from the former as being "archaic", "old" or "not relatable."
Now, you're touching on something interesting. I feel like that is exactly what is happening with younger people, my own (now adult) kids, included. As a young person, I would have no problem watching a Marx Brothers movie (50 + years old) and enjoying it. My kids (and their generation) will RARELY find enjoyment in entertainment produced before their lifetime. It is a shortsightedness that is a byproduct of the instant and constantly evolving entertainment that the internet provides. A video that goes viral is instantly enjoyed, and a week later is "old" and "outdated". That's what fuels the movie REBOOT phenomena. Now, a movie is too old to market when it's 7 years old or so. The Marvel phase 1 movies are now 11 years old. I guarantee there are kids out there that see those as OLD. There's even a running joke in the movies with Peter Parker calling various movies "old" and one of the other characters making a face.
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Post by impulse on Sept 22, 2021 9:15:06 GMT -5
Now, you're touching on something interesting. I feel like that is exactly what is happening with younger people, my own (now adult) kids, included. As a young person, I would have no problem watching a Marx Brothers movie (50 + years old) and enjoying it. My kids (and their generation) will RARELY find enjoyment in entertainment produced before their lifetime. It is a shortsightedness that is a byproduct of the instant and constantly evolving entertainment that the internet provides. A video that goes viral is instantly enjoyed, and a week later is "old" and "outdated". That's what fuels the movie REBOOT phenomena. Now, a movie is too old to market when it's 7 years old or so. The Marvel phase 1 movies are now 11 years old. I guarantee there are kids out there that see those as OLD. Why do so many folks see younger people not being interested in old entertainment made about old subjects with old technology as a character flaw? Other things are left to bygone eras once a newer version comes out. Why is it okay with other technology, but somehow not being interested in older movies means the youth have lost their way? I don't think that is accurate or fair. I am not going to track down an old wax record player you have to crank by hand to listen to barely comprehensible recordings of music in a style I don't like. Is it a character flaw that I just pull up what I want on Spotify and move on? Of course not. And many young people do track down older things. Old vinyl records have had a massive comeback. The original Star Wars movies remain beloved to this day. The 40s and 50s classical musicals are still hilarious and entertaining as hell. It's not as if everyone born after 1978 just collectively got together and agreed to ban anything from before they were born. I'm sorry, but kids today have access to anything ever created. The have to just type it in a search bar, use an app on the tv, etc. Lack of access/exposure is not the issue. But why would they even know to do that? What are they going to search for? If it's not presented to them or something they would be familiar with, they would not know what to search for. I think if there were some classes on history and evolution of film and special effects, though, a lot of people would find it very interesting, but I think it's wrong to say it's a character flaw that a twenty year old won't randomly search for old black and white silent films on Youtube of their own volition.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 22, 2021 9:23:40 GMT -5
Yeah, I think most people in their 50s or so and older had that experience and I'm really grateful we did. But I think this changed in ther 1980s when videotapes and VCR machines became widespread. From then on, people could see new movies pretty much when they wanted, so there was less incentive for them to watch old ones on tv like our generation used to do when we were growing up. So I think after a certain point, young people didn't have that same exposure and thus didn't develop the same kind of open-mindedness towards older movies and tv shows. I'm sorry, but kids today have access to anything ever created. The have to just type it in a search bar, use an app on the tv, etc. Lack of access/exposure is not the issue. I'd argue that it is, because since older generations did not have access to everything, they were exposed to what little was available... which was often older material. It was a rare thing indeed that the weekly movie shown on TV was of recent vintage (usually it went back a few years) and when a kid could stay up late and watch a late-night movie, it was often more than a decade old. More if the late night show had a cinema-club vibe focusing on classics. Nowadays, even though it is quite feasible to watch 1921's L'Atlantide on Youtube (highly recommended!!!), kids can watch any number of flashier, trendier and more exciting films and series often tailored to fit current tastes. It's like trying to get teenagers to try a restaurant famous for its delicious mashed celery root plate when the neighbourhood is filled with McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts. Availability is not the issue; competition and visibility is.
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 22, 2021 9:37:22 GMT -5
A few weeks back, one of my home care clients asked me, "Don't you watch anything NEW?"
I've been buying (and ENJOYING THE HELL OUT OF) a number of SILENT films, several of which are from other countries.
I've also just gotten 3 films from the 1930s that also came from other countries, so, like the silents, I had to READ the subtitles on those, too.
One of them was one of the FUNNIEST films I've seen all year.
I was watching silent films on YouTube a few months ago. I saw J’Accuse Stella Maris Last of the Mohicans The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Underworld I especially liked Judith of Bethuliah, Tol’able David and My Best Girl.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 22, 2021 9:56:55 GMT -5
I did not have to grow up in the Old West to find the era-specific struggles relatable. Life and the continuing threads of creation are not sectioned off by generation, and if they are, its due to the conscious, myopic beliefs of the creators (e.g., like some behind many 1990s comics, who were all about what they thought were trendy hairstyles, slang and expressions, often at the expense of other types of people...and that crap got old in the same decade).
By no means was I around during the Mafia wars of the 1920s and 30s, did not exist at the time of Prohibition or speakeasies, yet films about those subjects and produced in that era are still entertaining and the character situations understandable. Art would have died centuries ago, if every new generation completely cut off art of/from the former as being "archaic", "old" or "not relatable."
Now, you're touching on something interesting. I feel like that is exactly what is happening with younger people, my own (now adult) kids, included. As a young person, I would have no problem watching a Marx Brothers movie (50 + years old) and enjoying it. My kids (and their generation) will RARELY find enjoyment in entertainment produced before their lifetime. It is a shortsightedness that is a byproduct of the instant and constantly evolving entertainment that the internet provides. A video that goes viral is instantly enjoyed, and a week later is "old" and "outdated". That's what fuels the movie REBOOT phenomena. Now, a movie is too old to market when it's 7 years old or so. The Marvel phase 1 movies are now 11 years old. I guarantee there are kids out there that see those as OLD. It's also important to keep in mind that tastes in entertainment change. My two younger boys are both movie buffs and love films from a large cross-section of time. My youngest dressed up as Groucho Marx and sang the "Whatever it is, I'm against it" song from Horse Feathers when he was in grade school for his accelerated class. However, neither of them have any interest in television from before about 1999 (I've had some limited success with the youngest with Twilight Zone and Star Trek). They grew up with narrative TV of the type that (largely) started with the likes of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. So season-long story arcs. They largely despise the type of episodic television we grew up with where each weekly episode is largely divorced from the one that came before and the one next week. It doesn't make them right or wrong. It's what they're used to watching. They're also used to binge watching TV shows on streaming services, so the idea of waiting a week to watch the next episode is anathema to them. Oddly, they're pretty fine with episodic nature in cartoons (Simpsons, Futurama, etc.) but not live shows. I love the Marx Brothers (so do both of my boys), but even I'll admit that a lot of their humor is incredibly dated and doesn't necessarily translate that well to 2021. But they also happened to be geniuses. Looking at contemporaries, nobody in their right mind still wants to watch The Ritz Brothers. And I've never understood why Edgar Bergen (for example) was supposed to be funny.
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Post by tartanphantom on Sept 22, 2021 10:31:09 GMT -5
A few weeks back, one of my home care clients asked me, "Don't you watch anything NEW?"
I've been buying (and ENJOYING THE HELL OUT OF) a number of SILENT films, several of which are from other countries.
I've also just gotten 3 films from the 1930s that also came from other countries, so, like the silents, I had to READ the subtitles on those, too.
One of them was one of the FUNNIEST films I've seen all year.
I was watching silent films on YouTube a few months ago. I saw J’Accuse Stella Maris Last of the Mohicans The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Underworld I especially liked Judith of Bethuliah, Tol’able David and My Best Girl. The fact that a film may be silent has never deterred me. And I've sat through quite a few silent epics, including the 4-hour version of "Greed".
Some of my Favorites include:
The Passion of Joan of Arc (cinematography is absolutely stunning) The Iron Horse Metropolis (restored) Speedy Lost World Dr. Mabuse the Gambler Spies (another Fritz Lang film-- highly recommended) Go West
and a host of Keaton and Arbuckle silent shorts
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Post by MDG on Sept 22, 2021 10:33:16 GMT -5
I love the Marx Brothers (so do both of my boys), but even I'll admit that a lot of their humor is incredibly dated and doesn't necessarily translate that well to 2021. But they also happened to be geniuses. Looking at contemporaries, nobody in their right mind still wants to watch The Ritz Brothers. And I've never understood why Edgar Bergen (for example) was supposed to be funny. I don't think Edgar Bergen is hilarious, but he is funny--or rather, Charlie is, and that's the key. The difference in their personalities is so complete, you could never imagine Edgar saying what Charlie says.
Humor is probably the most ephemeral type of entertainment, and the one that is most rooted in the now, whether because of topical references or breaking with conventions. The Marx Bros, Olsen and Johnson, Laugh-In, All in the Family, SNL (the original) have lost a lot of their punch because when they first appeared, they were different from the current landscape and everything about them seemed funny. Now, it's probably the most universal/timeless jokes in them that still work.
I've been following this thread w/ interest, though. Over the past years, I've lost any interest in current movies and TV, at a time when they seem to loom larger in public consciousness than ever. It feels like they both try too hard and don't try hard enough. That is, everything is megahyped and "important," but doesn;t connect with me at all.
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