Unfortunate Implications/Film: Difference between revisions

{{quote| "The message of Rules of Engagement is the necessity to kill all those who actively oppose the United States and that the murder of women and children is acceptable in such cases."}}

** This example counts as something of a [[Shocking Swerve]]. Throughout the movie, the Marines' attack on the protesting crowd was presented as abhorrent as it was believed that only a few people in the crowd were actually armed and that the Colonel (played by [[Samuel L Jackson]]) overreacted by ordering his men to [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|open fire on the entire crowd, armed or not]]. It was only after finding the security videotape that the audience finds out that 90+% of the crowd was in on the attack and that Jackson was justified (legally if not morally) in opening fire on a crowd of civilians.

** Rules of Engagement doesn't have [[Unfortunate Implications]]- it's simply straight up racist. Shortly after a time when thousands of Iraqi civilians were being killed or crippled by American troops every week- a movie where we are shown how even a five year old Arab girl is pointing (sort of, the extra can't properly lift the prop) a desert eagle at American troops, so gunning her down is a-okay. Saying "but the crowd was armed!" would be like making a movie where every black person is a drug dealer- and saying it's not racist because "they were all dealing drugs!"

* ''[[Transformers (Film)|Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]'' caught a lot of flak for the twin Autobots Skids and Mudflap. The pair talk about busting caps in people's asses, swear constantly, have buck teeth and googly eyes, and have very <s>"ghetto"</s> "urban" accents. One even has a gold tooth. Oh, and they're illiterate. [[Tom Kenny]], who voiced one of them, said that he thought they were supposed to be wiggers (which, strictly speaking, they totally would be since they're crassly imitating the black people they see on TV)

* In [[North]] the character North stays with ridiculously stereotyped versions of several cultures (including African people ''[[Darkest Africa|living in grass huts and swinging on vines]]'') over the course of the film; the only foster family he feels comfortable with (and leaves for plot reasons instead for the sake of a joke) is nuclear, upper-middle-class, and white. Of course, this ''also'' adds an undercurrent of "you can never be happy with anyone who isn't your blood family", which pretty much spits in the faces of any adopted/foster parent viewers out there.

* ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark (Film)|Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'': White guy sneaks into a South American rain forest and steals a religious artifact from an ancient temple despite the obvious displeasure of the natives. This is not only okay but is actually portrayed as cool and heroic, but when another white (French) guy in turn steals it from him, this is deeply unfair. Real archaeologists are not happy that the franchise portrays their field as treasure-hunting and grave-robbing. The Lost Ark itself gets a pass because it's a weapon of mass destruction.

** Not to mention the real, "[[Hollywood Homely|ugly]]" appearance of some of the girls Hal falls for under hypnosis; apparently, those actresses were cast expressly because they ''don't look attractive''.

*** Remember, kids, [[Beauty Is Bad|pretty people are nasty, conniving bitches deep down]]. The uglier a person is, the nicer they will be!

* In the ''[[Babysitters Club]]'' movie, the one black girl is given no subplot or depth to her personality unlike all the other girls, most of whom are white. (In the books, this isn't true - Jessi is a very talented ballerina.)

* Aside from the more obvious controversy regarding ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'' (see the page image if you've been living in a cave), there was also a lesser one centered around the "Simple Jack" subplot. Said plot involved [[Ben Stiller]]'s character playing an extremely mentally retarded character in one of his past films, which ended up being a complete flop. The intent was to mock the use of [[Inspirationally Disadvantaged]] characters as [[Oscar Bait]] by presenting one who was not at all inspirational, and more clearly impaired.

** Of course, the BTTF universe doesn't work like that. In the original universe, with wimpy dad, Chuck Berry did singlehandedly write the song, but in the universe changed by Marty through time-travel, he was inspired by the sounds he heard over the phone. We know that, since Marty from the original universe knows the song, Berry would have written it, just a little bit later.

* ''Paranormal Entity'', the low budget ripoff of ''[[Paranormal Activity]]'', depicts a family besieged by a demon. The son films the entire sequence of events, including his sister being attacked multiple times. The director plays the brother and doubles as the camera man. The director was sure to have several shots of the sister's body as tantalization for the audience. Considering this guy is supposed to be her brother in the movie...

** Then there's the cannibalistic Pelegosto savages who worship Jack as a god and want to free him from his mortal body by eating him. The chief of the Carib Indian community had some very nasty things to say to Disney over it. (Ironically, if the Carib people ever did practice cannibalism, it was more or less the ritual kind of the film -- or so says [[That Other Wiki]].)

** And then there's the overall theme, especially in the sequels, that piracy is synonymous with liberty. Liberty meaning I can rape, kill, pillage and nobody should stop me at all!

** Not helped by the fact that he did in fact prepare to relocate a group of Native Americans in "Journey's End."

* Used in-universe with the [[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]] Genesis Arc: The Genesis Device is intended as a quick and easy way to make a planet habitable, but David Marcus and Dr. McCoy realize it could just as easily wipe out an inhabited planet.

* The premise of ''[[The Toy (Film)|The Toy]]'' falls into this. The concept is Bates, a wealthy white man purchasing Jack Brown, a black man, as a "toy" for his bratty son. Given that Jack is played by Richard Pryor, though, the premise gets the hell [[Lampshaded]] out of it.

* In ''[[The Lost Weekend]]'', the main character tries to hock his typewriter for booze money, but finds that every pawnshop in the city is closed for Yom Kippur. Not that every pawnshop is [[Greedy Jew|owned by the Jews]], mind you. Some are owned by the Irish, who close for Yom Kippur so that the Jews will close for St. Patrick's Day.

{{quote| It's not that Boll didn't put competent female characters in the movie. He just didn't make Rayne one of them.}}

* [[Million Dollar Baby]] Implies that disability means that life is not worth living, or worthy to live.

** Beyond the idealisation of hardcore eugenics and other fascist ideals, practically all of [[Three Hundred|the Persians]] with major speaking roles, most infamously the messenger, are played by actors of Sub-Saharan African descent, and Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro's skin color was darkened when he played Xerxes. This introduces a racial element to the otherwise cultural and political struggle. In real life, Persians tend to be much lighter skinned.

** The real Ephialtes wasn't Spartan or deformed, and only wanted a reward, but [[Frank Miller]] strongly changed this aspect of the story. The physically deformed, "defective" Ephialtes now "lives down to his physical unfitness" by betraying the athletic - and correspondingly morally upstanding - heroes to the Persians. This element was added to give Ephialtes a more interesting motive than simple greed, but also seems to suggest that their systematic eugenic cleansing practice (directly inspiring similar practices by the Nazis) was fully justified, and the problem was simply that one of them got away; along with [[Beauty Equals Goodness]]. The [[Unreliable Narrator]] justification doesn't work for this one.

** Hell, the whole movie is teeming with such implications. Just for starters, there's the contemptuous description of Athenians as [[Paedo Hunt|"boy-lovers."]] That becomes hypocritical (not to mention hilarious) when you remember how prevalent homosexuality was among the Spartans themselves. ([[They Just Didn't Care|Not that Miller cares]], though, making them all heterosexual.)

* In the 2010 remake of "[[Clash of the Titans]]", almost everyone in the hero's party was a character or creature from Greek mythology. However one of the party members was a [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink|Djinn,]] [[All Myths Are True|a creature from Islamic mythology]] which appears in neither the original myth the movie is based on nor the original 1981 version of the film. During the confrontation with Medusa, the Djinn gets close to Medusa and [[Action Bomb|"uses black magic to explode his core" as a means of attacking her]], [[Suicide Attack|killing himself in the process]]. [[Fridge Horror|In short]], he was a [[Religious Stereotype|Muslim]] [[Unacceptable Targets|suicide bomber]]. Not may people I know [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|picked up on this.]]

** Keep in mind that the Djinn was a good guy blowing up an evil monster, which raises a whole new set of Unfortunate Implications.

** Say what? Scrooge in the novel is named Ebeneezer (and is clearly called that in almost every non-modern-dress adaptation) and it's pretty clear from page one that he is a commodities trader and moneylender and landlord, which, again, turns up in almost every single film version. If anything the 1951 version starring Alastair Sim goes farther in making Scrooge look like a complete [[Jerkass]], showing how he and [[Affably Evil]] Marley stab old Fezziwig metaphorically in the back and then acquire their business by taking advantage of another investor being an embezzler (none of which is in the book.) ''That'' version does add the unfortunate implication that it's better to stick to your principles even if it means your outdated business model fails, and your employees all end up out of work. Also, [[Did Not Do the Research|Scrooge is not a Puritan.]] The Puritans were a seventeenth-century sect that got run out of England. About the only thing that [[The Muppets]] added were songs and puppets and singing vegetables.

* ''[[Forrest Gump]]'' has a truly huge one: Forrest is, to be blunt, retarded. His IQ is so low that he barely qualifies as "educable." But throughout the movie, he's shown to be the only person (except, perhaps, his friend from Vietnam(?)) who actually enjoys his life. ''Every other person'' of normal or above intellectual ability seems to spend most of film being sad, disheartened, or otherwise in some profoundly negative mental or emotional state, leaving the viewer with the distinct impression that the scriptwriter is saying that normal mental capacity is incompatible with happiness.

* The movie ''Christmas With The Kranks'' has the protagonists decide not to celebrate Christmas. The reaction this gets is pretty insane to say the least, with the neighbors harassing the Kranks endlessly to celebrate it and put up decorations like the rest of the neighborhood. They finally give in when their young adult daughter decides to come home to visit. The very fact that not celebrating Christmas is seen to be some kind of unforgivable sin is bad enough, but then the film hammers home the idea that fighting against the established conformity--no matter how much you disagree with it--will get you nowhere and you should do never do otherwise. [[Roger Ebert]] [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041123/REVIEWS/41116002/1023 noticed].

* ''[[Labyrinth (Film)|Labyrinth]]'': Did Jareth kidnap Toby so he could blackmail his underage sister into having sex with him? No wonder [[David Bowie (Music)|David Bowie]] and [[Jennifer Connelly]] [[Old Shame|are uncomfortable talking about the movie today.]]

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[[Category:Unfortunate Implications]]