A continuation of last week's story. This week, filmmaker Rob Montague talks about the toxic elements of 80s and 90s movies and television.
Here's a supplemental video clip from the movie "Sixteen Candles" to give more context to Rob's take in this episode.
Rob Montague
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Episode Direction by: Aaron Calafato & Rob Montague
Special Guest: Rob Montague
Audio Production: Ken Wendt
Orginal Music: thomas j. duke
Additional Vocals: Cori Birce
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I've always considered myself a romantic, but am I just embodying the male stereotype of the 80s and 90s romcoms I grew up watching? In last week's episode, I told you a story about one of my grand romantic gestures, and I let you be the judge. If you haven't listened to that yet, go back and listen so that this episode makes sense. Today I'm going to talk with my friend Rob Montague, and I'm going to get his take on this whole thing. Rob is a filmmaker and one of my favorite people to talk with. He's very passionate, and during this episode, Rob does use some strong language when giving his perspective on the topic so if you have little kids around, or if by chance we have really young listeners, you may want to sit this one out.
Also, make sure and tune in next week for the female perspective of this whole thing from someone you've become very familiar with on the podcast, Cori Birce. Lastly, and most importantly, after reading the feedback and the emails I've gotten from all of you who've emailed in at 7msfeedback@gmail.com, Rob and I were talking and agreed that this topic warrants a much larger, dedicated conversation so next season we're going to be getting a group of diverse women together for like a long form panel discussion. We're going to hand them the microphones and let them take over the conversation of how 80s and 90s rom coms impacted their lives.
I think this is just a great example of how a 7 Minute Story can blossom into a larger conversation that can't be contained within seven minutes. So I look forward to featuring this bonus episode in season three. For now, here's my chat with Rob.
You heard the story, and I appreciate that you said that you liked it, but straight up after hearing it, I wasn't a creep, was I?
At the end of the day, I think it really comes down to consent. It's like she gave consent that she was interested, so she gave you the signal that you're cute or whatever. So yeah, that's good. But I think it crosses a line and gets creepy when someone is not into it.
This has been happening for a long time, pursuit of the other. Would you say that to be true?
Yeah. It's been in literature for a long time, and I believe that it's been embedded in culture, not just pop culture, but forever. Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, but it's a romantic story, and he pursues her and creeps around her window at night and stuff like that. But she's into it. It really comes down to in the something happened.
Were the movies and television harmful in how they portrayed the pursuit of love that we're talking about?
I personally think they were. I don't think they all were, but I think that they were. I think that there was a lot of storytelling done without responsibility. I think that's not censorship or self censorship. That's just what kind of world do you want to live in by putting this art out? Because art influences the environment.
So give me an example of that. Like when you say there was a lot of movies that did it.
16 Candles is probably the most talked about and the worst as far as sending bad messages. There's the scene where Anthony Michael Hall's character and the love interest of Molly Ringwald, her objective affection, are having a conversation at the party late at night after everybody's gone. He makes a suggestion because he wants to know who Molly Ringwald is, he's trading information, first of all. There's an objectifying thing. It's treating women like a thing. Like you notice in movies where a man professes his love to a woman and they say, you're the best thing that ever happened to me. The best thing, like they're a MacGuffin. Like they're the fucking Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade and not a freaking human being.
That's I think the biggest problem is, they're bartering for Molly Ringwald. That's number one and the second part of that, and I know that these people are going to be listening if I don't mention it. They're going to be like, why did he mention that? The number two is his current girlfriend, he offers to Anthony McCaul's character. She's upstairs passed out in the bedroom. Have your way with her in 16 cables. Not to mention there's a whole lot of other racist stuff in that movie and everything that's problematic for now. But that is a message that no matter what time that's told in that's fucking horrible. I have to use strong words like that, that's fucking horrible.
These are movies that we looked up to, and we're supposedly the voice of a generation in the 1980s and in the 90s, these movies. Cameron Crowe was there in the 90s, say anything with the Boombox and Lloyd Dobbler -
You've been critical of that movie?
Well, I mean, I have personal reasons for being critical of that movie because I was that guy. Like, I was this person. That's the thing and then as I've grown up and read things and read books and talk to people and gotten different perspectives and being a filmmaker opens up a lot of intellectual conversations with people, it opens that door. It's like that door got open for me a few years ago when I was having a conversation with one of my friends, and I was just like, Man, I love John writing and I loved his movies. But I got problems with the way he deals with women in those movies. He's not kind to them.
If you think about all the movies that the intake of that as latchkey kids, particularly you and me how we started the whole -
Yeah, we don't have parents around to explain to us or teachers. That's the other thing, entertainment has changed and I think it reached hypercritical mass in the 1980s. I think, as this generation of, like you said, latchkey kids, that we were left home alone and the babysitter was the TV. It was the thing that told us about the world. I think there's a clear distinction between the pop culture of the 1980s and 90s and everything else, and that is literally capitalism. No joke. If you think about books, like we were talking about Romeo Juliet or any old literature or even like, TV shows and stuff, it was an aspect of it because you had a thing that you had to sell. Even when they were selling books.
But this is seriously like, they're marketing a life to us.. In the 1980s, it became everything was in commercials. There were beer commercials that showed, if you drink Budweiser, you're going to get girls and wear sunglasses to be on the beach. That's all that really was in those romcoms. It's just an extension of that. It's just marketing. A lot of the heroes in the stories weren't really heroes. They didn't go through anything. They just pined after a woman, went through some mild discomfort and then got her. It taught dudes that like, hey, if I like this girl and I'm sad about it, if I do some grand gesture or something, I deserve her. She is supposed to bow to me and become mine. Then there's a statement right there, become mine. No one owns anyone.
This happily ever after mentality is like such ownership. A good example of a modern film that's like this and it's being talked about a lot right now is Licorice Pizza. There's like a wonderkinned character. He can do no wrong, he makes no mistakes, he always gets what he wants. I think that's, like, a lot of the characters that we grew up on where Ferris Bueller is a good example of that. Smarmy white kid who can get whatever the hell he wants. Just because you want somebody does not mean you deserve them. I speak from personal experience. This shit was toxic. It was toxic to a lot of us. I think that had we had adults around that had time because nothing against our parents, like, they did not have the time.
The 1980s were culture up, go, go, go, bye, bye, bye. Just outdo the neighbor. They're keeping up with the Jones's or whatever. That was the 1980s. All of us kids that were left at home had to figure out this shit for ourselves. We didn't have an adult to explain what was wrong about that or why a joke was funny that was like off color, which even now I'm like, this stuff shouldn't have been funny then. I don't think it deserves defending. Listen, this is not a new idea but in the 1980s and the 90s we became a product. Humans became a product more than ever.
The oil barons did what? They raped the land for oil and continued to do it. The second they found it they knew what it was worth. They knew what it was capable of. They still to this day creating technologies like fracking and things. They will poison the Earth for that money. In the 1980s and 90s, humans became the oil, we did and now we're being decimated just like the land and we don't even realize it.
7 minute stories is created and performed by Aaron Calafato. Audio production by Ken Went. You can connect with Ken or inquire about his audio production services@kenwent.com that's K-E-N-W-E-N-D-T.com. Original artwork by Pete Whitehead. Find out more about Pete's work @petewhitehead.com. Special thanks to our partners at Evergreen podcast and lastly I'm Cory Burst make sure to tune in next week for another story.
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