Overt, Covert, and Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?

[onyxlynx]

As I mentioned a day or two or possibly six ago, there was a post by laughingrat , mostly about a movie about LARPers. I think I have in fact seen the trailer. Eh. Anyway, toward the end of the post, Rat mused:

"You know, the thing about movies from 1900ish to 1950 is that they're full of sexism and racism. But somehow, with only a few exceptions, they didn't manage to be nearly as full of shit as the movies full of sexism and racism being put out today."

I noticed this because with a few exceptions there are no "screwball" comedies after the late '40s, and I've long suspected there is a connection.

Mind you, I don't necessarily know where or what that connection is.

(The least likely reason is that Cary Grant took roles more befitting his age and acting chops, and there was only one Cary Grant.)

Comedy is a deeply conservative art (damnit, I need footnotes!); some of the things that trigger laughter are perceived incongruity (something not as it should be), sudden misfortunes of others, and people digging themselves more deeply into trouble.  Comedy is a safe way of upending the universe because it dictates that the universe be restored at end.  In "proper" order.  Remember all those happy ending marriages in Shakespearean comedy?  

I do not believe there is a conscious massive conspiracy to reinforce and strengthen what would be considered hierarchic social structure.  Most of the action on that front is unconscious, subconscious, and "the way we've always done things."  The way this kind of social structure perpetuates itself is through constant repetition.  Media--literature, music, performance art, radio, TV, newspapers--do the job of repetition.

Aaaaannnnnddd...  this will require plagiarism research.  I am pretty sure World War II had an effect on visible and invisible racism and sexism.  Also, the process of recycling and remaking had already begun back in the silent era.  The late '40s saw (middle and upper-class, and in some cases working class) women being forced into domesticity strongly discouraged from working outside the home.  One of the possibilities, paradoxically, is that naming behavior patterns as sexism and racism makes them more visible and more obvious,  I'm going to hope that that's not it.  But my brain is shutting down at intervals, including during the noisy game I was playing to distract myself.  Oooops.