It's said movies are the mirror of a society. OK, but lets add the theatres in which they are shown. Think about it. Post-WWII American movies and movie houses reflected a way of life and a set of values that have -- like the classic film back then -- gone with the wind.
That's not to say it wasn't a good wind. The different generations can debate that. But what it is to say is the remarkably different movie-night experiences are like a one-stop history lesson!
First, there's how we dress for the movies. Then it was an event that usually called for shirt & tie and hat & gloves by the patrons in order to match the smartly uniformed ticket-takers and ushers. Today, anything you woke up with will do!.And talking about tickets, since then inflation has generally risen by about 15%, but somehow movie tickets have zoomed from about 15 cents to about seven dollars.
Then there's sex and violence, Hollywood's stock-in-trade since the early days of D.W. Griffith. However, by post-war America, certain codes were still in play. Limiting how much sex the cameras could show, and how much blood the closeups could allow. However, inevitably requiring the good and the do-gooders in the plot prevail at the end.
Beauty is another variable in the different Americas. Back then, beautiful men were usually defined as tall, dark- eyed, with chiseled features. Today's rules have adjusted to allow for short, rugged, even a little ugly. Women, on the other hand, still seem stuck with the same classic requirements. Radiant hair, high cheekbones, full lips, and of course the usual assets geometrically distributed below.
Priests back in that America were traditionally portrayed as good, compassionate, golf-playing clergy in the Bing Crosby model which any faith in the audience could relate to. Today -- well the sex scandals of the few have besmirched the image of the many. Today's plotlines are more about deviant priests in the local parishes, and international scandals in high places.
Presidents too are getting a bad rap. There really was a time when kids talked to mom about "someday growing up to be president." Today...? Gotta be kidding...! Today, presidents are just the tip of the evil iceberg of international cabals and murderous intrigues spun by covert Oval Office operations. What mother wants her child to become Richard Nixon? Or, come to think of it, any other occupant ever since? No, today's Hollywood has pretty much plunged the silver stake into the heart of the West Wing!
Small sidebar here...
Hollywood's biggest presidential conspiracy-teller, director Oliver Stone, did shoot a scene that haunts. He has Nixon secretly meeting with the young anti-Vietnam war protesters one night at the Lincoln Memorial. When the shouting dissenters demand, "Why don't you stop the war...??" the camera pulls into a closeup of Nixon's face freezing into a fearful silence. As the young protester watched him, it suddenly dawns: "Oh my god...you can't!!"
That scene in that movie may have both truth and purpose in the America of ANY generation...
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I come from a generation which only knows these things because people from your generation are still around to tell us.
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