[ SECRET POST #4311 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4311 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 23 secrets from Secret Submission Post #617.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: It does take place in, like, 1962.

[(Anonymous)]

Do they also feature other historically-realistic attitudes and realities from the period, or just the ones about sexism?

Re: It does take place in, like, 1962.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Sort of. I mean, the 60s had a mixture of progressive and regressive attitudes that sometimes sat side-by-side with each other and the movie kind of has that too.

Re: It does take place in, like, 1962.

[(Anonymous)]

How, exactly, do you mean that they sat next to each other in the movie?

Do they have any characters who call MLK a rabble-rouser inventing problems and complaining about desegregation?

Re: It does take place in, like, 1962.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

No, they don't mention any real people that I can recall. They don't say anything about Helen Gurley Brown or Betty Friedan. Not every US school had to desegregate as many were integrated well before the 60s, so that wouldn't necessarily be a thing (there's no reference to where Metroville is, but it doesn't seem to be set in the South).

The have Elastigirl out front, the face of the superhero movement with Bob staying home with kids and struggling with it.
There's no comment on Frozone's race, but he does seem to be second string and his wife could be seen as something of a stereotype.
Evelyn Deavor is very obviously smart and inventive, but there seems to be no suggestion of her being in charge of the company instead of her brother.

Re: It does take place in, like, 1962.

[(Anonymous)]

OK. So then, if it's not committed to historical realism across the board, to historical realism for the sake of historical realism, then you can ask why the creators choose to use historical mores in this instance and not in others, and what those themes amount to. It's not something that they had to do for the sake of historical realism - it's something that they chose to do for creative reasons, and we can question and critique why, the same as we can for any other creative decision.

Re: It does take place in, like, 1962.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I was just speaking for myself, in that in the context of the era, that Bob having to learn to be a stay-at-home parent worked, for me. It made sense to me.

And yes, you can pick an choose what you want from the setting you put it in because not everybody across the entire US agreed on social mores at any time. Sexism in the 60s was casual and widespread, both in subtle and obvious ways and a lot of people thought it was just the way things were. Just because someone was sexist doesn't automatically mean they were also racist. Was racism more prevalent and more acceptable, then? Yes. Did every white person think that schools should be segregated? Obviously not.

So, was the movie less racist than it could have been? Yes. Was it less sexist than it could have been? Also, yes.

Re: It does take place in, like, 1962.

[(Anonymous)]

I was just speaking for myself, in that in the context of the era, that Bob having to learn to be a stay-at-home parent worked, for me. It made sense to me.

Well, horses for courses then. But it's a pretty common argument for people to make.

And yes, you can pick an choose what you want from the setting you put it in because not everybody across the entire US agreed on social mores at any time.

Sure. My argument is not that a lack of racism is necessarily totally unrealistic. My point is that the lack of racism is not motivated by concerns of historical realism in the first place. It's not that they took a careful look at a specific slice of America and decided how much racism and sexism would be historically realistic for that time and place. It's that they more or less decided what story they wanted to tell, and told it.

And this is fine, in itself, and it's also totally fine for that to matter to you, in terms of how plausibly you enjoy the movie itself. I have no problems with that. The problem comes when historical realism gets held up as the reason, in and of itself, why a work of fiction has to be a certain way.

Which - I apologize again if I misinterpreted the totality of your argument - is a way that people often use the argument. And which I think is a really bad argument, because historical realism is almost never truly something that people are committed to, it's not the reason that people make their creative decisions, they almost always make them for creative reasons.

Re: It does take place in, like, 1962.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Thanks. I really was just trying to explain how I could accept certain things in this context. I know everybody has different tolerances and different perspectives to attitudes and behavior in media.

And I agree that when something fictional is set and how rigorous they are in adherence to the reality of that time is a creative decision. To say they couldn't have done something different when they've already included elements that didn't exist is disingenuous.