My things have changed
Monday, March 7th, 2011 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsaikoSo one of the things I've been watching on Netflix is the A-Team. Watching it is something of a cultural shock. I mean, I knew things had changed in the nearly 30 years since it came out (1983 was the first season), but you don't realize just how much until you watch it.
One thing is the amount of smoking. It's not as bad as when I watched Casablanca where I spent the whole movie just gaping in shock over the fact that any time anybody walked into a room, they lit up a cigarette, but it is noticeable. No one blinks when Hannibal has a cigar while driving bus, working in a hospital, at the police station, etc. I can't even begin to imagine this going over well today.
When a doctor did a blood transfusion between B.A. Baracus (Mr. T) and Murdock in the small clinic she had set up in a room in her house. All I could think was "AIDS! No doctor would do this." But of course, this was towards the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, so it probably hadn't even crossed the writers/producers minds. I'm not sure if today any doctor could afford to give treatment like blood transfusions out of their home in the US. Hell, I'm not sure they could even do it back in 1983.
The fashion. Oh god, the fashion. You can definitely tell that everything is still heavily influenced by the 70's. Leisure suits in pastel colors. Seventies colors schemes in clothes. Bell bottoms. You can also see the 80's coming into play as well. Things haven't quite hit the giant hair and linebacker shoulder pad stage yet, but Amy (the female lead) does sport some really limp bows on her shirts. Glad that went out of fashion.
Every single car, Except for B.A.'s van, looks like a first generation Lincoln Town Car. . It's kind of scary.
The sexism is kind of... wow. I think the one that rubs me the wrong way the most is that the men in the series regularly refer to Amy as "the skirt." And it's always in this dismissive, derogatory tone of voice. Not just the bad guys either. Hannibal, Face, one of Amy's coworkers: all of them do it at some point. It just is really noticeable. I can't imagine them getting away with that today. Although I do have to say it is nice to see women actors that are not perfect in this series. They are all pretty, but some of them have flaws that keep them from looking unrealistic.
My favorite, though, is the airport scenes. Keep in mind this was when security was not nearly the three ring circus it is now. People could and did go through security even without a ticket and the only thing you did was walk through a metal detector. B.A. walks through the metal detector, 100lbs of gold still on, sets it off, and security decides to just let him go on his way. Total disbelief. I was telling![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
miome this and she made this point, "They'd have to give the TSA agent a medal for having the guts to grope Mr. T's balls." They'd probably also have to give them hazard pay. :D And of course, Murdock can fly to and from whatever airport he wants on, in whatever plane he just happens to have lying around, with totally made up numbers. Somehow I don't think that would go over quite as well nowadays.
No one ever gets hit with a bullet unless it's for "dramatic effect." I swear sometimes it's like watching a live action G.I. Joe. They are spraying bullets left and right while the bad guys stand less than 20 feet from them, and no one gets hurt. It really is almost to the point of parody, but the show doesn't ever go over the line.
Finally, you can tell geography (and reality) were not the writer's strong points. Here is the scenario: the A-Team is in Guatemala. They are flying back to Los Angeles. Only their plane is having trouble and they wind up crashing. In South Carolina. For those of you who need a visual aid as to the ridiculousness of this, here is a map. Seriously, that is some detour those boys were taking.
Overall, I am enjoying the series. It is entertaining and better than a lot of thing on TV. Still times, they have a changed.
One thing is the amount of smoking. It's not as bad as when I watched Casablanca where I spent the whole movie just gaping in shock over the fact that any time anybody walked into a room, they lit up a cigarette, but it is noticeable. No one blinks when Hannibal has a cigar while driving bus, working in a hospital, at the police station, etc. I can't even begin to imagine this going over well today.
When a doctor did a blood transfusion between B.A. Baracus (Mr. T) and Murdock in the small clinic she had set up in a room in her house. All I could think was "AIDS! No doctor would do this." But of course, this was towards the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, so it probably hadn't even crossed the writers/producers minds. I'm not sure if today any doctor could afford to give treatment like blood transfusions out of their home in the US. Hell, I'm not sure they could even do it back in 1983.
The fashion. Oh god, the fashion. You can definitely tell that everything is still heavily influenced by the 70's. Leisure suits in pastel colors. Seventies colors schemes in clothes. Bell bottoms. You can also see the 80's coming into play as well. Things haven't quite hit the giant hair and linebacker shoulder pad stage yet, but Amy (the female lead) does sport some really limp bows on her shirts. Glad that went out of fashion.
Every single car, Except for B.A.'s van, looks like a first generation Lincoln Town Car. . It's kind of scary.
The sexism is kind of... wow. I think the one that rubs me the wrong way the most is that the men in the series regularly refer to Amy as "the skirt." And it's always in this dismissive, derogatory tone of voice. Not just the bad guys either. Hannibal, Face, one of Amy's coworkers: all of them do it at some point. It just is really noticeable. I can't imagine them getting away with that today. Although I do have to say it is nice to see women actors that are not perfect in this series. They are all pretty, but some of them have flaws that keep them from looking unrealistic.
My favorite, though, is the airport scenes. Keep in mind this was when security was not nearly the three ring circus it is now. People could and did go through security even without a ticket and the only thing you did was walk through a metal detector. B.A. walks through the metal detector, 100lbs of gold still on, sets it off, and security decides to just let him go on his way. Total disbelief. I was telling
miome this and she made this point, "They'd have to give the TSA agent a medal for having the guts to grope Mr. T's balls." They'd probably also have to give them hazard pay. :D And of course, Murdock can fly to and from whatever airport he wants on, in whatever plane he just happens to have lying around, with totally made up numbers. Somehow I don't think that would go over quite as well nowadays.No one ever gets hit with a bullet unless it's for "dramatic effect." I swear sometimes it's like watching a live action G.I. Joe. They are spraying bullets left and right while the bad guys stand less than 20 feet from them, and no one gets hurt. It really is almost to the point of parody, but the show doesn't ever go over the line.
Finally, you can tell geography (and reality) were not the writer's strong points. Here is the scenario: the A-Team is in Guatemala. They are flying back to Los Angeles. Only their plane is having trouble and they wind up crashing. In South Carolina. For those of you who need a visual aid as to the ridiculousness of this, here is a map. Seriously, that is some detour those boys were taking.
Overall, I am enjoying the series. It is entertaining and better than a lot of thing on TV. Still times, they have a changed.
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/11 01:27 am (UTC)Hm, perhaps I'll have to cue that up next at my mom's. I've watched the first two eps of Torchwood with her, but the language and sex is a bit awkward.
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/11 01:41 am (UTC)Also, I had forgotten how funny this series was.
(no subject)
Date: 3/8/11 01:15 pm (UTC)The smoking I have a pretty easy time overlooking, but yeah, the blood transfusion thing was amazing. They did a similar thing in M*A*S*H (which, granted, was at a hospital), but they got a drunk guy brought in from leave and just hooked him up to the guy who needed the transfusion. Whaaaaaaat.
I think Stephen J. Cannell created/wrote the A-Team series, and his stuff all has that same weird sexism to it. I think I remember seeing an interview with him in which he talks about what a huge film noir fan he was, which kind of explains why all his shows have a bad faux Bogart vibe. If you want weird Cannell, check out Wiseguy. It's like macho mafia slash fanfic. Much more intricately written, but still kind of ham-fisted.
The only cop show I can recall from that era in which people got shot semi-realistically was Miami Vice, believe it or not. Not often, but enough to be remarkable. I guess they just figured out how awesome fake blood looked on crumpled linen. :)
(no subject)
Date: 3/9/11 11:04 pm (UTC)It was Cannell who wrote it. The film noir fan fact makes a lot of sense given some of the things in the script.
Miami Vice has people getting shot? Huh. Now I want to go watch that show again. It's been so long since I've seen it.
Since I posted I watched a few more episodes. Including one where a plane gets hijacked. There's a plot line that would no longer be acceptable.
(no subject)
Date: 3/11/11 05:11 am (UTC)Off the top of my head, in Miami Vice, Rico gets shot in the pilot and Viking Bikers From Hell, Calderone's Return Pt.1/The Hit List has the original boss getting shot, Gina gets shot in in Prodigal Son, A Bullet For Crockett is exactly what it sounds like, and Castillo gets shot in Miami Squeeze, all of which result in the character spending the rest of the episode in the hospital (or in a sling in the pilot). And if we're not talking the main cast, people get shot and die in practically every episode, frequently more or less onscreen
in Sonny's arms. And the show favored designer pistols over machine guns, so you don't get quite so many bullets spraying everywhere without hitting anything scenes unless it's a disposable badguy mowing down other disposable badguys. (So, on the whole, it's still totally unrealistic but more or less on par with what's on tv now rather than A-Team type shows.)/crazy MV fangirl